WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 238 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:03.080 Also media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.400 you know this is a compilation episode, So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.720 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.520 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.279 Welcome to it could happen here on Garrison Davis. This 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.720 show originally focused on the potentiality of a second American 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.200 Civil War and the conditions or events that might set 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.199 one into motion, and we will return to that topic 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.839 later this episode, but first let me introduce my guest 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.240 friend of the pod, artist and noted live streamer, Bailey 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:51.920 new Poster. 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.800 I don't like that that's what we're attributing to me nowadays, 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.120 but that's you know, that's fine, that's fair. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.200 Hello, everybody, Thank you for coming back on the show. 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:09.320 Let's start our main topic. Last summer, President Trump announced 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.760 a UFC championship fight at the White House in twenty 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.080 twenty six as a part of the festivities for America's 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.560 two hundred and fiftieth birthday. The event was initially planned 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.840 to take place on July fourth, but last October Trump 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.920 announced it was rescheduled to take place on Flag Day, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:34.680 June fourteenth, which coincides with his eightieth birthday. Come Memorial Day, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.920 a giant claw like canopy was being erected on the 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.800 South lawn right in front of the White House. The event, 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.720 officially titled UFC Freedom two point fifty, had a lower 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.400 capacity than originally envisioned, just four thousand attendees, far from 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.840 the twenty five thousand spectators on the White House grounds 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.960 that Trump pitched last summer. The four thousand seats in 0:01:56.000 --> 0:02:00.360 the miniature stadium arena were invite only. Most tickets went 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.880 to members of the military, while Trump had one thousand 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.360 tickets to give out at his discretion, though there were 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.760 eighty five thousand free tickets to watch the fights on 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.560 big screens from the Ellipse Park near the Washington Monument. 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.799 UC freem To fifty was streamed on Paramount Plus and 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:22.239 began with Trump and UFC CEO Dana White walking together 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.560 from the Oval office to the octagon. Zach Brown sung 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:31.359 the national anthem, featuring a military flyover. This was a 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.639 sixty million dollar production with fireworks, dirt bike tricks, and 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.160 music by the US Marine Band, which played Trump's favorite 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.720 song YMCA. Billionaires like David Allison and Mark Zuckerberg were 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.720 in attendance, along with members of Trump's cabinet and politicians. 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.920 Before the first fight, UFC announcer Bruce Boffer kick things 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.400 off in a way that really encapsulated the entire event. 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.080 And I'll show you this clip here and I'll have 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.680 the audience listen to the audio from. 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:12.040 The shot form Love the Wide, Posh and Washrington for 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:17.600 you say Freedom, two crypt for such Abye rab Trucks, 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.160 Nothing Stop ram and by Crypto dot com, the world's 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.200 leading cryptocurrency platform. 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.240 Yes, sponsorships on the White House lawn. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.880 Let's go dude, Crypto shoutouts literally within thirty seconds of 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.440 like the actual event, like starting after the anthem, like 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.960 when once the fight starts, within thirty seconds we get 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.040 cryptocurrency ads. And I mean the stage was covered in 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:46.280 logos for Red, White and Blue, Monster Energy, Meta Rumble, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.760 the far right video streaming platform Crypto dot Com, as mentioned, 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:59.200 Steak Gambling, and of course polymarket. UFC fighters were actually 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.080 paid in the form of a crypto coin called USD 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:08.280 one issued by the Trump family's own crypto company, World 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.040 Liberty Financial. Awesome crypto all the way in this event, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.160 but UFC Freedom to Fifty went off largely without a hitch, 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.880 save for a stunt pulled by UFC heel Josh Hokit 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.080 after winning his heavyweight match where he called Michelle Obama 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:27.440 a man while being interviewed by Joe Rogan. 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.880 Oh, that's that's probably one of my favorite conspiracy theories. 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:36.440 The Michelle Obama is a man. 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.240 See, it's pretty old. People have been people have been 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.840 writing that for like over a decade. 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.320 That's a that's a classic. I like the ones that 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.600 mix it with Michelle Obama as a man and Obama 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:49.760 used to be a woman. Those are the ones that 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:50.719 I really respect. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.680 A solid, straight tea for tea relationship there. 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:55.279 Yeah. 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:57.839 Joe Rogan never addressed this comment for the rest of 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.360 the night in the UFC cut out this comment from 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.640 Hokit from the YouTube upload and has been issuing takedown 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.880 requests across social media. UFC CEO DN and White full 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.719 Time Magazine that he's quote completely against saying nasty and 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.039 false things about people's families. Everyone knows my position on 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.160 free speech, but I hate that kind of nonsense unquote. 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.640 But according to the FBI, this event could have gone 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.440 very differently. On the morning of Tuesday, June sixteenth, the 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.760 DOJ announced that the FBI and law enforcement had prevented 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.480 a mass casualty attack attempting to kill government officials, with 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:40.680 five arrests in multiple states over that weekend. Early reports 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.520 framed the alleged plot as a sophisticated, multi step plan 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.760 involving explosives, drones, and snipers. Vice President Jade Vance addressed 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.920 the alleged terror plot on Fox and Friends Tuesday morning, saying, quote, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.040 so much of the far left rhetoric is driving itself 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:02.560 towards violence. Let's take a list. This is very, very 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:03.279 dark stuff. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.600 This is what happens when people turn the rhetoric up 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.680 so loud that disagree with somebody is a cause for violence. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.159 That's the place that we've come to. Unfortunately, I think 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.480 a lot of my Democratic colleagues in Washington have got 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.360 to look themselves in the mirror and say, why is 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.520 so much of this political violence coming from our side 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:20.159 of the spectrum. 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:21.440 Maybe they can do something different. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.799 His eyes are getting like deeper set, Like he looks 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.400 waxier and waxier as the days go on. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.120 Maybe it's just he doesn't get thicker eyelighter, or maybe 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:33.240 he's moved to eyeshadow. 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.680 That's possible, that is. 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.000 Which is the sensible move. And yeah, you start off 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.720 with eyeliner, doesn't look good. Then you realize what I 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.080 should really be doing is eyeshadow. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.479 Imagine tears streaking down his face and his eye. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.000 Oh Midwest evo, Oh Midwest Evo. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.400 Shiver ran up my spine. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.400 So, according to the Vice President, this alleged are plot 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.880 was coming from the Democrat side of politics and simply 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:03.040 the result of them turning up political rhetoric. Fox News 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.760 reported that upwards of twenty three people were involved in 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.240 this plot, five of whom are currently in custody, with 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.000 the details of the plan being uncovered on the encrypted 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.800 messaging app Signal. Fox News claimed the thwarted attack was 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:21.520 targeting capitalism, billionaires, and apac. Jd Vance also mentioned how 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.960 the administration is going after the terrorist funding networks facilitating 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:28.600 this kind of violence. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.640 We're trying to look at the underground networks that drive 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.640 towards this violence. Twenty three people do not get to 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.720 the point where they're going to commit a mass terror 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.800 incident in Washington, DC without some serious funding, without some 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.600 serious coordination. And we've actually been trying to go with 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.600 those networks of coordination because this is this is a 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.640 terrorist plot. That's not a few guys doing crazy stuff. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:51.280 That is a. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.120 Coordinated plan terrorist plot. 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.280 Thank god we thwarded it, but we've got to do 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:56.000 more of that stuff. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.080 According to the charges announced by the DOJ, Tyson Proper 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:06.120 nineteen years old of Ohio, Brian Row twenty four of California, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:11.000 Michael Thomas thirty two of California, Daniel Eskridge thirty two 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.440 of Missouri, and Abraham Alverrez thirty one of Nebraska all 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.440 conspired to plan and execute a mass casualty events targeting 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.320 politicians and other quote unquote high value targets at the 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.320 UFC Freedom to Fifty event. The co conspirators allegedly planned 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:32.120 to use drones to drop unspecified explosives on the north 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:37.080 side of the UFC arena, forcing event attendees to evacuate south, 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.880 where other co conspirators would be set up with sniper 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.800 rifles to fire on the fleeing crowd. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.520 It's sort of a real shame that the io interactive 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:50.360 guys aren't making another hit Man game. 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.800 For a minute, A lot of this is like very Hitman, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:59.520 very yeah, very Agent forty seven's type stuff. And as 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.800 we get more or into the plan, it's gonna get 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.960 an increasingly video gamey yeah yeah. Acting Atorney General Todd 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.440 Blanche said, quote the FBI, our law enforcement partners, and 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:12.559 our use attorneys that did what they do every day 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.439 to make America safe through quick response and vigilance in investigating, disrupting, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.160 and dismantling this alleged plan before it could be carried out. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.000 FBI Director Caspitel said, quote, Thanks to the rapid action 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.400 of this FBI, our partners, and the DOJ in a 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.840 multi state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.760 allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold. While the result represented 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.800 the best of investigative work, it was also nothing under 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.320 the ordinary for this law enforcement team. We are built 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.480 to detect, respond to, and bring to justice those who 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.120 threatened the lives of American citizens unquote. 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.160 And he said all that without blinking those big wet 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:49.680 eyes of his. 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:52.880 I think this was mostly in the form of a tweet. 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.440 So it sounds like the FBI did a darn fine 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.760 job preventing this terrorist attack. Except what what happened here 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.800 was not the result of the FBI's excellent investigative prowess. 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.760 They did not just stumble across this attack because of their, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.120 you know, diligent, diligent efforts to disrupt terrorist planning. Law 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.359 enforcement only learned about this potential attack because on June tenth, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.680 the mother of one of the co conspirators called local 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.200 law enforcement in Ohio, concerned about her son's recent firearm 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.720 purchases and contact with individuals online. Officers went to their 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.439 family home and spoke with nineteen year old Tyson Proper 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.800 and his family. According to the criminal complaint, a family 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.960 member told officers that Proper had quote recently met random 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.680 people online and quit his job in preparation to conduct 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:52.680 quote unquote missions and quote unquote recons with these individuals 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.560 as soon as that upcoming weekend. Proper allegedly spent about 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.040 three thousand dollars of his graduation money to buy quote, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.040 camping gear, food, ballistic plates, a new shotgun, a rifle, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:10.160 lots of ammunition, extra magazines, and plate carriers. Unquote, the 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.280 family turned all this equipment over to the police voluntarily. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.880 After local law enforcement interviewed Proper and his family. Tyson 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.520 Proper was transported to Dublin Springs Mental Health Center. And 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.800 I think this is quite notable is that they did 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.080 not take him into custody, but was transferred to a 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:32.240 mental hospital. In the DOJ announcement, they refer to this 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.920 as a medical facility, but in court documents they specify 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.400 its mental health facility, and the criminal complaint says, quote 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.200 law enforcement submitted an application for an emergency admission based 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.199 on his homicidal ideations, detailing that Proper had been thinking 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.360 about joining the military or police force with the goal 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.079 of being able to kill people unquote. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.079 I like that. It's always like these guys, no matter 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.240 what political ideology they have, at at one point they're like, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.920 maybe I should just fucking join the military, Maybe I 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.120 should just join the police. I just really want to 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.080 fucking shoot people. It's like I want to cause, I 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:10.040 want like a duty. 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.880 Yeah, that that's sort of kind of more like floaty mindset. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:15.680 I think there's more of a factor here than like 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.520 any specific political ideology in a sense. And we'll get 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.680 into that once we once we talk about the way 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.360 that this group envisioned itself, like the role that it 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.280 had on starting a second American Revolution. But there's very 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:33.800 little like defined ideology happening with these individuals, and for 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.080 someone like Proper, there's a large degree of delusional thinking 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:37.880 at play here. 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.640 Yeah, it's it's guys who want to do missions. Yeah, exactly, 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:44.880 it's it like missions and recon. 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.720 It's very it's it's it's very it's like aesthetically based 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.160 on like the military and this idea of like tactics 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.280 and what. We'll get into this sort of like you know, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.800 military fetishism later on as well, but but yeah, it's 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.680 it's it's it's very much like very very video gaming, 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:00.280 very much like I want I want to plan like 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.360 a mission to do in real life, like what we 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.439 play in video games. That is that that that's the 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.800 sort of feeling across reading about their plan because their 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.840 plan is relatively complicated, and there's no way that they 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.480 could have pulled a plan like this off like this, 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.240 This type of plan would be hard for a nation 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.960 state to be able to do successfully. There's there's no 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.760 way that like five guys from like across the United 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.480 States with like a you know, nerdy focus and like 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.120 tactical kit would be able to like do. 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.960 This about like halfway through planning, they would have given 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:35.040 up and all gone. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.680 Gay probably what do you mean gone gay? 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.800 When it turned it, I was just thinking, like, you know, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.920 really quitting your job. This guy quits his job to 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.840 meet his online friends, you know, go hang out with 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:48.640 them in the woods. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.320 That's more positive out the fifty to. 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.840 Fifty, Like they either try to play in a mass 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.680 terror attack or they like all end up like kissing 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:57.240 and stuff. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:57.440 You know. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.640 I mean, yeah, camp having a gay camp out in 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.800 the wood is the more positive path for people like 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.840 this because that's really all they need. It's just a 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.680 group of friends to go camping with. Well I do. 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.880 I do like how Vance and them are talking about it. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.920 They're like, fuck, we got these guys who were definitely 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.560 gonna try and shoot up our UFC event and they 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.040 were going to successfully do it if we didn't stop them. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.080 And it's like if you look at the kid as 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.760 like a mentally ill teenager. 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.960 Yes, and as we will also get into you know, 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:33.200 far from this like left wing anti capitalist motivation which 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.320 JD Van's and Fox News are promoting that is not 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.720 at all what was going on here. So, the day 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.479 after Tyson Propper was admitted to the mental health facility, 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.040 the Sheriff's office contact at the FBI. After searching Proper's phone, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.840 investigators found signal chats detailing a planned attack with maps 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.920 highlighting potential sniper locations and drone launch points. According to 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:01.080 the criminal complaint, Tyson Propper's family saw him researching and 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.160 mapping locations around Washington, d C, and when asked what 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.840 he was doing, he said that he intended to conduct 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.640 quote unquote recon and quote unquote hit and run missions. 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:19.720 Run missions. Awesome, dude, that's fantastic. I gonna do GTA 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:24.920 five online like heist, like prerequisite missions before we go 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.600 blow up this this UFC event. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.160 So on June eleventh, the FBI searched Proper's home and 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.320 found a journal that the criminal complaints has contained a 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.960 list of approximately forty six names, including celebrities and politicians, 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.880 as well as pages quote in which Proper wrote that 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.760 the government sought to control people and to sacrifice children 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.720 and others to a demonic figure unquote awsome. 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.800 We're going it's getting better. It's it's getting better. 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.560 So yes, this is obviously evidence of like delusional thinking. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.320 This is not this is not someone who's doing well. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.320 And this is also not your typical rhetoric from a 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.480 democratic politician. Considering the claims made by J. D. Vance, 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.520 this is not This is not regular democratic politician rhetoric. 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.240 The Proper's family told the FBI that he recently began 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.240 interacting with a group of people online who quote represented 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.560 themselves as ex military and that may share some Christian 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:30.520 based ideology unquote. The family believed that these people online 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.560 were using religion to manipulate Proper, and that they quote 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.000 expressed ultra religious and anti government sentiments, specifically cite a 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.200 grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.320 data centers, taking up all the watering communities, and other 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:50.600 government actions unquote. So rather than a sort of general 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.720 like left wing anti capitalist or rhetoric from democratic politicians 0:16:55.040 --> 0:17:00.280 motivating this attack, this is very general kind of liberty 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.280 esque anti government sentiments. And this, as we will discuss, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.080 the script do not consider itself on the right or 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.840 the left, but saw themselves as American patriots more than 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.040 anything else, and they were upset about government corruption and 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.480 had this anti establishment kind of leaning that was pushing 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:23.360 them to plan very complicated and far fetched attacks against 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.680 the establishment and corrupt politicians. 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.200 This is very average guy who sells cars ideology. 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.560 Yes, oftentimes when people like read through these sorts of 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.359 core documents, they'll be like they had an incoherent ideology, 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.280 and it's not not really incoherent, right, They're responding to 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.439 real things in the world, Like everyone knows we're all 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.439 being fucked over government did mishandle the Epstein files. There 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.040 is a lot of corruption, right, and it does exist 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.399 on both sides of the political spectrum. So, like they 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.119 are responding to real things, but there's not an avenue 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.520 that it's being channeled in a helpful or useful direction. 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:01.280 So it gets dispersed through these very larpy like idealistic 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.720 violent avenues where you get a group of people who 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.560 don't really know what to do but are seeing these 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.000 problems in the world, and then what they end up 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:12.639 doing is LARPing themselves into federal custody by typing on 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.639 signal about their dreams to shoot politicians. 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:17.880 Spending their college money on guns. 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.399 Yeah, Now, the criminal complaint in Ohio for Tyson. Proper 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:27.920 also specifies that family members highlighted concerning statements he'd made 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.320 in recent months on social media, quote, such as making 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.360 sympathetic comments about Adolf Hitler and posting anti Semitic comments 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:36.760 on Facebook unquote. 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.040 Wow left wing. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.320 Well there they are national socialists after all. 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:45.520 True. True. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:50.119 We will return to discuss Tyson Proper and the alleged 0:18:50.359 --> 0:19:04.359 attack on UFC two hundred after this at brick. Okay, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.880 we are back. On June eleventh, the FBI interviewed Proper 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.680 at the mental hospital, where he admitted to planning an 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.440 attack on the Freedom to fifty event at the White House. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.320 The FBI ran their own search of Proper's phone, and 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.760 on the encrypted messaging app simple x, found messages identifying 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.720 possible targets. The criminal complaint alleges that in mid May, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.760 Proper identified a senator from Tennessee and wrote quote, she's 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.560 taken money from the pro Israel lobby and supports them unquote. 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.240 A few weeks later, Proper sent pictures of four members 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.840 of Congress, apparently taken from the track APAC website, writing quote, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:46.960 these are the people we're going to focus on. Proper 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.400 allegedly told police that members of this group that were 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:56.000 planning the attack were primarily recruited through TikTok, where members 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.880 shared photos and videos of tactical kits and physical training 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.879 via TikTok direct messages. Once the recruit had proven himself 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.800 on TikTok, they were then let into a quote unquote 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:09.760 vetted signal chat. 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.400 I'm so glad this isn't happening on my video app 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.440 of choice Instagram reels. I really don't want to start 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:17.240 restricting that. 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.359 The TikTok aspect is super interesting because there's elements of 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.119 this that's similar to the accelerationists, like Nazi terrorism of 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.040 you know, twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. These people are 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.480 not explicitly Nazis, even if there's an aspect of anti 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.480 Semitism kind of directing this violence, but this is anti 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:41.040 Semitism is largely focused on the role that Israel has 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.800 in influencing the US government and the Israel lobby and 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.399 politicians taking money from Israel. That's where most of the 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.320 anti Semitic aspect comes from. And then in Proper's case, 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.520 he is posting about Hitler on Facebook. But this is 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:59.280 not driven by like neo Nazi style anti Semitic ideology. 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.720 These these guys aren't posting about son and Rads or 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:07.080 Germany or race science, at least that's not what's outlined 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.720 in the court documents. So some of this does feel 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:13.040 downstream from the accelerationius Nazis like the Base and Adam 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.440 Waffen and their target selection that we'll get into in 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.919 a sect kind of also is similar to this, but 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.439 they're not primarily organizing this on like telegram, right. This 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.760 is this is guys posting like shooting videos and tactical 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.120 kit on TikTok, and that's how they meet each other 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.720 is through TikTok sharing videos of their you know, plate 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.840 carrier and doing shooting drills. And then they start you 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.879 know talking, and they start planning these sorts of operations 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.360 as they call them, and then they move to signal 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.080 to plan these things more in depth. Proper's phone contained 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.359 a large signal chat with approximately nineteen individuals, along with 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.440 smaller chats consisting of four to five people that were 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:58.159 divided based on role assignments and locations. In these chats, 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.480 the group discussed to exit a scape and evasion resources 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.080 for the Freedom to fifty attack, including the location of 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.800 potential safehouses. One of the signal chats was titled Hunters, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:14.280 which the complaint says, quote contained detailed instructions for carrying 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.720 with the attack and plans to safely escape. Proper showed 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:23.280 the FBI the TikTok profiles of other co conspirators, and 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.639 based on this, investigators were able to identify someone in 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:31.520 California and someone in Missouri. The guy in Missouri, Daniel Eskridge, 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:37.119 had the username fulcrum Resist on TikTok, and they were 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:41.240 able to identify him because he followed himself from another 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.760 account with his legal name, and the account with his 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.720 legal name largely just reposted the tactical videos from at 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:51.159 fulcrum Resist. 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.280 Like reposting your own videos would be like, I don't know. 0:22:56.359 --> 0:23:00.399 This guy looks pretty sick, pretty in dope. Have you 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:02.440 guys seen this guy shooting? Oh my god, I bet 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:04.040 he's gonna do something crazy one day. 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.000 This guy has a wife and five kids. 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:07.359 Oh my god. 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:09.600 He's like, I think it's like thirty two years old. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:11.800 He lives in a rural property about an hour north 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.600 of Kansas City, and he's he's kind of the most 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:19.080 interesting guy in this whole deal for me. The FBI 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.680 was also able to identify co conspirators based on information 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:27.600 in the simple X messages given to them by proper Now. 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:32.000 One of these simple X group chats was called Vanguard 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:37.560 of the Old Republic. Gods. Yes, this was the main 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:40.639 name that this group used to refer to themselves, was 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.320 Vanguard of the Old Republic. And there was another simple 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:45.880 X chat that was called Vanguard of the Old Republic 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:52.080 Parenthesis OPS Stage one, which was like a which was 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:54.520 like an you know, an OP planning chat. 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.560 Awesome, that's so dope. 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:03.400 I'm gonna read some messages from Fulkrum, that is Daniel 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:07.320 Eskridge of Missouri. He wrote that the Vanguard of the 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:11.439 Old Republic should intend to quote, recruit operators into this 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:15.160 group and start making teams to complete tasks and objectives 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:21.440 to push our lines forward. So good quote. The definition 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.520 of a vanguard is the leading group in an advancing 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:28.680 army or the foremost pioneers in any field, movement, or industry. 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:32.640 That is what we strive to be. This chat here 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:35.440 will be insulated for the most part from each team's 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.800 detailed plan, so we won't post exact details in this chat. 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.200 This will be the main chat for everyone as we grow, 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:46.560 and we will have specific ops chats. Our goal is 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:49.840 in a general sense to quote, restore the old republic. 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:54.000 Our constitutional republic has been stolen by corporations, politicians, and 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.879 foreign actors. They have usurved power from the people and 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:00.919 concentrated it at the top to the point that we 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:04.959 now live in late stage quote unquote democracy. When I 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:07.879 say restore the old Republic, I'm not talking about all 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:10.159 the flaws that we had in the past times, but 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:13.160 merely talking about the fact that in a constitutional republic, 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:15.920 the people truly hold the power, and that's what we 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:19.560 intend to restore. To get there, this country needs more 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:22.199 fuel on the fire to show our fellow Americans at 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:24.639 the time has come to stand up and reclaim that power. 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:28.000 Twenty six Oh my god. 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:32.159 People who are on like the the Star Wars wiki forum, 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:37.800 like way too much, like I'm on the what is 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:40.680 it wookie pdia woki wookie pedia mod. 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:48.360 Another co conspirator named Michael Thomas of California wrote, quote, 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:51.439 to be clear, I intend to escalate this group, and 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:54.199 I don't want to take six business years to do 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:56.919 it unquote six business years. 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:58.520 He's making it sound more professional. 0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:01.560 That's this is like larpie, right. They're using all these 0:26:01.640 --> 0:26:04.080 like you know, the sort of like tier one operator 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:05.840 terms which we'll get into in a sack, and like 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:09.960 you know, missions. They wanted to have professional six business years. 0:26:10.400 --> 0:26:12.480 This is serious, the same as a regular year. It's 0:26:12.520 --> 0:26:16.480 not it. But Thomas also wrote that everyone in the 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:19.440 group should quote consider yourselves an enemy of the state, 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:24.520 and discussed imagining executions. Another Coken spirit named Brian Row 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:28.000 of California wrote about the need for quote unquote gorilla 0:26:28.160 --> 0:26:32.920 style warfare and quote unquote raid attacks with quote skilled 0:26:33.000 --> 0:26:39.200 operators to work like ghosts to conduct infiltration missions unquote Yes, 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:41.560 very hit man, very agent for seven right. 0:26:41.920 --> 0:26:42.080 Right. 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:46.119 These are frankly just like the totally totally delusional. The 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.080 criminal complaint says that Thomas and Raw met at least 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:51.679 once in the last month in southern California to quote 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:57.919 practice marksmanship and tactics. Michael Thomas of California described different 0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:02.159 tiers of operators within the Vanguard of the Old Republic, 0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:04.919 and this is largely taking from military terms. 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:05.840 Quote. 0:27:06.240 --> 0:27:09.080 Tier one operators may be asked to put themselves in 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:11.880 harm's way, break the law, and potentially go into hiding. 0:27:12.440 --> 0:27:15.600 Tier two would consist of getaway drivers, drone operators, and 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:18.880 direct support. May still be asked to seriously break the law. 0:27:19.520 --> 0:27:21.720 Tier three may be a runner or part of the 0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:28.119 underground railroad indirect support, recruitment, supply, logistics tech still actually contributing, 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:32.680 but most likely safe from legal issues. Tier four social 0:27:32.720 --> 0:27:38.639 media influencers, protesters, funders, press followers. Nobody is being asked 0:27:38.840 --> 0:27:43.080 too much or taking any risks. Tier one status is 0:27:43.119 --> 0:27:46.199 not something to take lightly. You will be sacrificing for 0:27:46.320 --> 0:27:49.919 your country and carrying a brunt of the weight. We 0:27:50.000 --> 0:27:52.360 will try to break them out of jail if we 0:27:52.480 --> 0:27:52.840 need to. 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:57.960 Unquote, oh my god, dude, Oh. 0:27:58.160 --> 0:28:00.240 This is kind of them at their larpist is like 0:28:00.280 --> 0:28:04.040 when they're talking about like four different tiers of operators, 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:07.080 and it's like you and like at you know, at 0:28:07.119 --> 0:28:09.840 the most, like nineteen of your Internet buddies. Yeah, and 0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:11.640 kind of at the least kind of you and your 0:28:11.680 --> 0:28:13.960 five closest friends talking about how you want to like 0:28:14.000 --> 0:28:16.200 wage insurgent warfare against the government. 0:28:16.280 --> 0:28:17.920 They're structuring their discord server. 0:28:18.359 --> 0:28:21.320 Yes, you know, yes, that is that's what's happening, just 0:28:21.359 --> 0:28:24.040 not on discord but on simple X and signal. But 0:28:24.119 --> 0:28:26.719 like a lot of people like know guys like this, right, 0:28:26.760 --> 0:28:29.800 These are guys in their twenties to thirties who played 0:28:29.800 --> 0:28:32.480 a lot of like tactical military video games, who have 0:28:32.520 --> 0:28:36.200 this sort of like military tactical fetishism, and they're looking 0:28:36.240 --> 0:28:39.800 for like an outlet for this, combined with this anti 0:28:39.880 --> 0:28:42.680 establishment sentiment that is based on very real things happening 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:45.120 out in the world, but it has nowhere to be directed. 0:28:45.400 --> 0:28:48.240 So they just do this larp and eventually wind up 0:28:48.280 --> 0:28:51.280 in federal custody and get charged with conspiracy to commit 0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:55.520 murder on the White House grounds. Fulcrum Daniel Skritche of 0:28:55.560 --> 0:29:00.000 Missouri wrote, quote so right now in the historical timeline, 0:29:00.400 --> 0:29:04.800 I believe we are at the trigger event point, meaning 0:29:04.880 --> 0:29:07.440 to set this off, we need an event or events 0:29:07.760 --> 0:29:12.640 that cause people to realize the revolution has officially begun. Quote, 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:15.000 So this is what the group intended to do. They 0:29:15.000 --> 0:29:19.760 intended to execute attacks that served as trigger events to 0:29:19.800 --> 0:29:23.720 cause this sort of mass like upswell of support for 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:27.480 a second American Revolution. They didn't call it a civil war. 0:29:27.520 --> 0:29:30.680 They called it a Second American Revolution. And that is 0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:33.640 how they envisioned themselves as being the operators that will 0:29:34.160 --> 0:29:37.960 do trigger events to put this all into motion. It's 0:29:38.040 --> 0:29:40.760 kind of similar to like the Boogloo boy type stuff 0:29:40.840 --> 0:29:45.360 from you know, five six years ago. This group allegedly 0:29:45.600 --> 0:29:48.440 talked about attacking power grids with a fleet of drones 0:29:48.520 --> 0:29:53.480 to hit specific transformers, and discussed assassinating several US senators, 0:29:53.480 --> 0:29:57.240 House representatives, and prominent business executives. So this sort of 0:29:57.280 --> 0:30:00.240 target selection very similar to the Base and Adamoffen and like, 0:30:00.680 --> 0:30:03.760 you know, neo Nazi accelerationist terrorism from around like the 0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:06.920 you know, twenty sixteen to twenty twenty two type era. 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:12.000 The group did debate how they should choose assassination targets, 0:30:12.240 --> 0:30:14.800 with Fulcrum writing quote, we need to make sure it's 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:18.600 someone that can't be easily turned into a right versus 0:30:18.680 --> 0:30:22.920 left thing. We want someone both sides would celebrate, would 0:30:23.000 --> 0:30:25.400 cheer and support us for taking out. 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:29.400 Both sides would celebrate us shooting up this one guy, 0:30:29.520 --> 0:30:33.520 like this one guy's weird America birthday events, like what do? 0:30:33.680 --> 0:30:34.760 What did I mean? 0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:36.440 I think what they're pulling on from here is stuff 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:39.680 like the Luigi Mangioni incidents, right, and they're trying to 0:30:39.720 --> 0:30:42.520 identify like and I find this prepared to be very 0:30:42.520 --> 0:30:44.600 interesting because a lot of these guys do have this 0:30:44.680 --> 0:30:48.960 sort of like like Christian nationalists or like Christian like libertarians. 0:30:49.040 --> 0:30:51.880 It's kind of unclear, but they did definitely have this 0:30:51.960 --> 0:30:54.920 like Christian element to their motivation. They see them themselves 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:58.400 as patriots, but they do not explicitly associate themselves with 0:30:58.440 --> 0:30:59.960 like the right or the left. Right they see themselves 0:31:00.040 --> 0:31:03.360 is kind of like outside politics. But I find this 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:06.000 aspect to be rather interesting. When they're trying to specifically 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:09.880 find targets that will allow for both people on the 0:31:09.960 --> 0:31:11.760 right and left to like cheer them on or like 0:31:11.880 --> 0:31:15.480 join in on like a second American revolution. This does 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:18.400 push them towards a talking a lot about like APAC 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:25.480 backed politicians and unnamed prominent business executives. Their names are 0:31:25.520 --> 0:31:28.920 redacted in their criminal complaint, but I'm sure it's you know. 0:31:28.920 --> 0:31:30.480 It's it's black rockets. 0:31:30.560 --> 0:31:33.920 Well, it could be people like Jeff Bezos, like Elonnasket. 0:31:34.520 --> 0:31:37.960 It doesn't It's not totally clear, but I'm assuming that's 0:31:38.000 --> 0:31:42.160 the sort of range in which they're discussing folkrum texted quote. 0:31:42.520 --> 0:31:44.520 So the goal here is to get at least three 0:31:44.720 --> 0:31:48.800 trigger event ops fully planned and manned, and to the 0:31:48.840 --> 0:31:50.800 best of our ability, to have them executed on the 0:31:50.880 --> 0:31:54.440 same day or in rapid succession, so that our message 0:31:54.520 --> 0:31:57.680 is undeniably clear to our illegitimate government and our fellow 0:31:57.720 --> 0:32:00.880 Americans that we are waging war. We don't need to 0:32:00.920 --> 0:32:04.120 wait for resistance, infrastructure, supply lines and all these other things. 0:32:04.480 --> 0:32:06.840 That's what every other group in this movement is working on, 0:32:07.000 --> 0:32:08.719 and I'm sure one of them will be able to 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:13.200 get it right, but they can't do that without mass support, 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:15.440 and they won't get mass support as long as people 0:32:15.480 --> 0:32:18.240 think all anyone is doing is holding signs and chanting. 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:20.920 All we need is three small groups of fully committed 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:24.680 operators with a fully fleshed out and perfectly formulated plaid 0:32:25.240 --> 0:32:28.760 and all real world on the ground intel they will 0:32:28.800 --> 0:32:32.080 need for each op to be successful. Once we've decided 0:32:32.080 --> 0:32:34.680 on what three events would provide the most impact and 0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:37.080 bring in the most support, we will create special chats 0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:40.560 for those ops specifically so that only the people on 0:32:40.760 --> 0:32:43.880 those ops know the details unquote, all of. 0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:48.400 This planning just for one nineteen year old. I gotta 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.640 invite my mentally ill nineteen year old buddy into this 0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:56.520 group chat so his mom can get really worried. 0:32:58.560 --> 0:33:00.680 That's how a lot of this stuff goes. And like, 0:33:00.760 --> 0:33:04.240 I don't want to I don't want to diminish the 0:33:04.320 --> 0:33:06.080 possible harm that a group like this could cause. I 0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:08.800 think something that Robert pointed out last week when discussing 0:33:08.800 --> 0:33:11.320 this on executive disorders, Like this group could have easily 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:13.040 spawned like one or two like mass shooters. 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:13.200 Right. 0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:15.840 Or they could have acted on a plan that was 0:33:16.200 --> 0:33:18.880 way too difficult to pull off that caused a lot 0:33:18.880 --> 0:33:22.160 of clateral damage. Right, this group could have done something 0:33:22.280 --> 0:33:25.520 very bad. This group could have set a plan into 0:33:25.560 --> 0:33:28.880 motion that ended up killing or wounding a bunch of people, 0:33:29.320 --> 0:33:31.880 or driven people towards other sorts of violent acts. Right 0:33:31.920 --> 0:33:34.440 because they're encouraging each other to buy weapons by kit, 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:37.840 you know, do all these things. Right, So there was 0:33:37.880 --> 0:33:41.640 a potential for real harm. Here was the UFC freem 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:44.400 two fifty event ever in serious harm from these people. 0:33:44.480 --> 0:33:46.480 Absolutely not. There was no way they were able to 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:50.480 pull off their plan, as we will soon discuss. But 0:33:50.600 --> 0:34:04.600 first let's go on another ad break. Okay, we are back. 0:34:05.680 --> 0:34:09.520 I have one more encrypted message from from fulcrum or 0:34:10.160 --> 0:34:15.280 Daniel Escritch of Missouri. Quote I can't speak for everyone 0:34:15.320 --> 0:34:18.040 in saying we're tired of not making shit happen and 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:22.160 tired of being ruled over by treasonous, pedophilic, criminal politicians 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:26.680 and foreign agents unquote. The fulcrum wrote that what they're 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:30.640 doing is not only our birthright, but also our duty 0:34:30.680 --> 0:34:34.400 as Americans. It's about time the elites and the government 0:34:34.400 --> 0:34:37.680 are reminded of why they should fear the people, especially 0:34:37.760 --> 0:34:44.640 the American people. So Eskridge wrote that the American people 0:34:44.680 --> 0:34:48.759 is the largest standing army in the world, with one 0:34:48.840 --> 0:34:53.200 hundred and seven million gun owners. He also believed that 0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:57.200 half of the military would join their cause and not 0:34:57.400 --> 0:35:01.600 follow quote unquote unlawful orders after the Second American Revolution 0:35:01.680 --> 0:35:05.600 kicks off, and that following a successful trigger event operation, 0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:10.160 potentially three percent of the US population would stand with 0:35:10.280 --> 0:35:14.520 their group, writing that just like America's forefathers, quote, what 0:35:14.640 --> 0:35:17.840 we do here will reverberate around the world and echo 0:35:17.960 --> 0:35:23.200 throughout history. Long Live the Republic unquote. Oh god, So 0:35:23.280 --> 0:35:25.719 that's the most we know about the group formation and 0:35:25.760 --> 0:35:29.600 the sort of drivers that they themselves are discussing. Let's 0:35:29.640 --> 0:35:33.840 close by getting back into the UFC Freedom to fifty 0:35:33.880 --> 0:35:37.879 attack plan, because the more that I learned about this plan, 0:35:37.960 --> 0:35:40.040 the more it became clear that this would just simply 0:35:40.080 --> 0:35:43.799 never happen. This is not a feasible operation. It would 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:46.319 be hard for a special ops military team to pull 0:35:46.400 --> 0:35:49.839 us off at this location, let alone five of your 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:54.919 TikTok friends to pull this off. And like the plan 0:35:55.040 --> 0:35:58.440 to target Freedom to fifty really only kicked off a 0:35:58.560 --> 0:36:00.799 week before the event would schedule. 0:36:00.480 --> 0:36:04.440 To take place, Well there's your issue, guys. If you 0:36:04.480 --> 0:36:07.440 add a little maybe a month's heads up, you know, 0:36:07.680 --> 0:36:09.920 maybe you could have gotten something going on. 0:36:10.080 --> 0:36:15.320 June seventh, Fulkrum messaged the Vanguard of the Old Republic 0:36:15.719 --> 0:36:18.960 about using the White House UFC event to take out 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:23.360 quote unquote high value targets. In his message, he mentioned 0:36:23.360 --> 0:36:27.040 communication with quote unquote other groups and said that the 0:36:27.200 --> 0:36:30.440 UFC attack would require cooperation from everyone and that they 0:36:30.480 --> 0:36:33.279 would need to quote put a hold on the other 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:38.200 ops that we're currently being planned quote. We need five 0:36:38.280 --> 0:36:41.680 teams of three, each team consisting of one sniper, one 0:36:41.760 --> 0:36:45.240 Tier one operator as support slash lookout, and one drone 0:36:45.280 --> 0:36:49.160 operator unquote. As a part of the planning, they needed 0:36:49.160 --> 0:36:53.680 to pick five locations ideal for quote precise sniper shots 0:36:53.760 --> 0:36:58.200 and for the drone pilot to operate from. Fulkrum wrote, quote, 0:36:58.840 --> 0:37:02.239 once each team is mission ready, the green light will 0:37:02.280 --> 0:37:05.520 be given and the drone rigged with explosives will fly 0:37:06.040 --> 0:37:10.440 and they will initiate the attack unquote. So after the 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:15.719 explosives detonate, the attention will be quote on the skies 0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:21.279 and not the rooftop snipers, who will then eliminate quote 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:23.120 unquote high value targets. 0:37:23.719 --> 0:37:27.719 Also, I feel like the skies and rooftop targets are 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:34.680 remarkably blacket. I'm feel like, if you're looking up, you 0:37:34.880 --> 0:37:36.200 might see on the roof. 0:37:36.400 --> 0:37:39.279 I don't know. No, even the idea that you can 0:37:39.320 --> 0:37:42.440 get a sniper on a rooftop anywhere close to the 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:45.799 White House without getting your head blown off is like insane, right, 0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:47.960 There's there's just no way that's gonna happen. You're not 0:37:48.000 --> 0:37:50.280 gonna be able to get a sniper on a roof 0:37:50.520 --> 0:37:52.360 within a sightline of the White House. 0:37:52.440 --> 0:37:52.680 I mean. 0:37:52.719 --> 0:37:56.520 Following the attempted assassination on Donald Trump in Butler, I 0:37:56.560 --> 0:37:59.319 can see why people might think it's easier to set 0:37:59.400 --> 0:38:02.160 up a sniper than one might expect. The White House 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:04.440 is like the most defended place in the country like, 0:38:04.520 --> 0:38:07.600 especially at an event like this where there's even more security. 0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:10.080 I just don't see how this is in any way 0:38:10.120 --> 0:38:13.400 feasible now. The group believed that there would be a 0:38:13.440 --> 0:38:16.400 protest outside of the event and that this would help 0:38:16.680 --> 0:38:20.960 allow quote unquote extraction teams to evacuate the quote unquote 0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:25.520 operators to a location out of state after successful completion 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:31.640 of mission objectives. H Fulkram wrote, quote, if we're successful, 0:38:31.640 --> 0:38:34.760 this could be the first battle of the Second American Revolution. 0:38:35.440 --> 0:38:37.040 Who is willing to be able to drop everything and 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:39.680 be one of these ten operators? And who is confident 0:38:39.680 --> 0:38:44.440 and capable of flying drones? June seventh, ten, twenty eight pm. 0:38:44.040 --> 0:38:45.880 Nineteen year old, raise your aunt. 0:38:46.160 --> 0:38:47.359 They please come to bed. 0:38:47.719 --> 0:38:53.320 No, no, honey, I've been activated. I gotta go. I 0:38:53.360 --> 0:38:55.040 got you know those friends have been hanging out in 0:38:55.040 --> 0:38:57.000 the Woodsworth. I gotta go. They need me. 0:38:57.840 --> 0:39:01.640 So even if this group god enough quote unquote operators 0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:04.319 to pull out this mission, which is highly questionable, if 0:39:04.360 --> 0:39:08.200 not impossible, they simply did not have the funds, the materials, 0:39:08.280 --> 0:39:11.120 or the resources to carry out an attack like this, 0:39:11.600 --> 0:39:14.719 let alone the skill or logistical capacity. Folkrum text of 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:16.759 the group quote, we also need to come up with 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:19.279 one thousand and three hundred dollars as ap. 0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:20.960 We need to. 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:24.000 Come up with one thousand, three hundred dollars. You can't 0:39:24.080 --> 0:39:27.400 just pull it. What this guy has three kids and 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:30.000 a wife and he can't pull five kids and he 0:39:30.040 --> 0:39:30.879 can't pull like. 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:32.799 We have. 0:39:33.000 --> 0:39:36.640 Oh, true, true, Yeah, but you're gonna you're gonna die, 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:39.359 Like he's gonna he knows he's going to die. He's 0:39:39.440 --> 0:39:41.719 LARPing like he's gonna get out, but he knows he's 0:39:41.719 --> 0:39:43.799 gonna die, and he can't be like I will go 0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:47.960 and I'll sell some bullshit and I'll get like one thousand, 0:39:48.000 --> 0:39:48.799 three hundred dollars. 0:39:48.840 --> 0:39:52.400 We got a fund, a credit card, Yeah, anyone have 0:39:52.440 --> 0:39:56.680 a credit card? Quote, thirteen hundred dollars gets us the 0:39:56.760 --> 0:40:00.040 drones and the charges. We should all pitch in and 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:01.200 we need it to a sap. 0:40:01.600 --> 0:40:05.360 What kind of drones are they getting? Like is this Amazon? 0:40:05.960 --> 0:40:09.160 Like you look up drone on there. What I'm just 0:40:09.440 --> 0:40:12.760 picturing like the drones that you see getting flown around 0:40:12.840 --> 0:40:15.480 like at the park by a family that just want it, 0:40:15.640 --> 0:40:20.600 just carrying a grenade exactly. Yeah. 0:40:20.840 --> 0:40:25.440 Thomas of California replied, quote, I'm flat broke I can 0:40:25.640 --> 0:40:28.680 pay in manpower, though, I bet you could come up 0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:31.560 with one hundred dollars in a week somehow. Maybe just 0:40:31.600 --> 0:40:35.040 hold a sign by the freeway saying, quote fund the 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:36.680 freedom fighters. 0:40:36.680 --> 0:40:40.600 Oh my god, that's awesome. 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:48.360 Dude, so unable to pay for bombs. The group talked 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:51.839 about trying to build drones and discussed breaking into military 0:40:51.880 --> 0:40:56.640 facilities to steal the explosives needed for their attack plan. 0:40:58.840 --> 0:41:02.400 Does an'ty of us know how to build this? Oh shit, 0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:06.080 we might have to redo the whole up. Oh or 0:41:06.640 --> 0:41:09.360 or we can break into some of the most protected 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:12.160 facilities in America. I think that might be the that 0:41:12.239 --> 0:41:13.120 might be the better choice. 0:41:13.400 --> 0:41:15.000 To be fair, some of those military facilities are not 0:41:15.040 --> 0:41:16.359 as protected than what you might think. 0:41:16.480 --> 0:41:16.959 That's fair. 0:41:17.280 --> 0:41:21.120 The criminal complaints reads quote. A number of the group 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:24.560 stated he knew how to build drones connected via fiber 0:41:24.640 --> 0:41:28.920 optic cable and capable of carrying explosive charges, but did 0:41:28.920 --> 0:41:32.080 not have access to the materials needed for explosive charges. 0:41:32.680 --> 0:41:35.640 That number suggested that they quote may need to hit 0:41:35.760 --> 0:41:40.880 a military industrial complex facility for the things we need unquote. 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:45.440 Fulcrum or s Gridge responded ten four. I'm lucky to 0:41:45.480 --> 0:41:45.920 sound to this. 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:50.960 Awesome. What you're texting people ten to four? What are 0:41:51.000 --> 0:41:52.920 you doing? What are we doing? 0:41:53.400 --> 0:41:56.200 The complaint alleges that the group continue to discuss the 0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:59.960 quote benefits and the detriments of obtaining a quote unquote 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:05.480 cook for explosive charges versus stealing military ordinance from a 0:42:05.600 --> 0:42:09.640 manufacturing plant unquote. They were looking at a few locations 0:42:09.680 --> 0:42:14.280 in Kansas and zeroed in on the Kansas Army Ammunition plant, 0:42:15.040 --> 0:42:19.880 though they never actually stole exclusives from this plant, but 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:23.000 they sure to talk about it and their conversations are 0:42:23.000 --> 0:42:24.080 in the charging documents. 0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:24.960 Awesome. 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:28.720 So again, this is all happening days before this attack 0:42:28.760 --> 0:42:30.840 is supposed to kick off, and a part of the 0:42:30.880 --> 0:42:35.120 plan is for a day or two before UFC freedom 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:38.440 to fifty, the group was to meet up in Fredericksburg, 0:42:38.560 --> 0:42:41.200 Virginia to like go over plans again in person and 0:42:41.239 --> 0:42:44.440 like practice and prepare. So they needed to get guys 0:42:44.560 --> 0:42:48.480 in Fredericksburg around the twelfth or the thirteenth. One of 0:42:48.520 --> 0:42:52.399 the members who was interviewed by the FBI confirmed that 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:55.520 the group was communicating online but attacking the event, but 0:42:55.680 --> 0:42:59.680 claimed that the attack plan was canceled on June twelfth, 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:02.399 and of course Tyson Proper was placed in the mental 0:43:02.440 --> 0:43:06.960 health facility on June tenth, so somewhere between June tenth 0:43:07.040 --> 0:43:11.359 and June twelfth the group called off their plans. It 0:43:11.560 --> 0:43:15.680 is notable, however, that at least one of the co 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:20.439 conspirators did attempt to drive to Washington, d C. When 0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:23.879 Brian Raw was interviewed by the FBI, he admitted that 0:43:23.920 --> 0:43:27.440 he'd tried to drive to Washington, d C. To protest 0:43:28.040 --> 0:43:32.560 UFC Freedom two fifty, but denied any involvement in this conspiracy, 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:36.279 and he told the FBI that his vehicle malfunctioned and 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:40.719 had to return home. One of the most interesting parts 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.600 in the criminal complaint is this FBI agent writing about 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:48.800 how when he was interviewing Raw, Rao discussed how someone 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:53.120 could hypothetically use drone's arm with explosives to bomb buildings 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:55.600 near the White House, which would cause them ass panic 0:43:56.239 --> 0:44:00.000 with limited debts at UFC Freedom tow fifty, and mentioned 0:44:00.200 --> 0:44:01.960 this as an example of how to use drones to 0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:05.680 enact political change in a more targeted way rather than 0:44:05.719 --> 0:44:10.480 indiscriminate killing. The FBI agent wrote quote, based on this exchange, 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:13.279 I believe Rao was privy to the operational details of 0:44:13.400 --> 0:44:16.960 the plan. Unquote, So Brian Rawb just like talked about 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:20.640 the plan just like as a hypothetical to an FBI 0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:25.000 agent while the FBI was searching his vehicle after admitting 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:27.320 he tried to drive to DC to protest the event 0:44:27.560 --> 0:44:29.719 but was not involved in any criminal conspiracy. 0:44:29.800 --> 0:44:32.640 It's like being you know, you just got caught. Your 0:44:32.680 --> 0:44:35.640 spouse has found all of your your secret messages or 0:44:35.640 --> 0:44:39.000 whatever to your your grinder lover, and while they're going 0:44:39.040 --> 0:44:41.320 through your phone, you're like, I mean, what if somebody 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:44.160 was hypothetically gonna do that, Like if I you know, 0:44:44.200 --> 0:44:46.319 it wouldn't be that bad because with a it's with 0:44:46.400 --> 0:44:48.400 a man and not a woman. So it's like we 0:44:48.880 --> 0:44:52.000 love each other completely different ways. But that's just like me, 0:44:53.040 --> 0:44:55.239 you know, that's not real. That's not like, it's not 0:44:55.280 --> 0:44:58.279 it wouldn't be anything real. Just like hypothetically, you'd be 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:00.560 cool with that, right, you'd. 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:00.920 Be cool with that. 0:45:01.400 --> 0:45:05.319 The FBI was not cool with that, especially considering that 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:08.840 when executing a federal search warrant of Row's vehicle and home, 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:13.280 they seized an Air fifteen style rifle, a Glock nineteen handgun, 0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:16.040 a tactical belt, an ammocan full of bullets, a two 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:20.360 way radio, an infrared laser target pointer, and a rifle magazine. 0:45:20.719 --> 0:45:24.000 Brian Row's family members told law enforcement that Rau had 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:27.160 alluded to traveling to d C, and, according to the 0:45:27.200 --> 0:45:31.000 California Criminal Complaint, Rao told his family that quote, one 0:45:31.080 --> 0:45:33.080 day they would wake up and he would be gone, 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:35.920 and that he intended to travel to Washington, d C. 0:45:36.239 --> 0:45:43.360 Where quote unquote something big would happen. Similar to Proper's family, 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:47.040 Brian Row's family suspected that he may be intending to 0:45:47.040 --> 0:45:50.400 commit an act of violence based on a quote increased 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:54.040 time spent shooting weapons, and a noticeable change in behavior, 0:45:54.320 --> 0:45:59.480 including increased anxiety, irritation, and seclusion unquote dad. 0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:01.120 Spreading a lot of time in the shed with a 0:46:01.160 --> 0:46:01.960 gun in his mouth. 0:46:06.120 --> 0:46:09.240 Family also told law enforcement that Rao had been spending 0:46:09.400 --> 0:46:11.880 a lot of time online with a new group of friends, 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:16.960 with his family also telling law enforcement that they considered 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:20.120 reporting him to the police after he left on his 0:46:20.160 --> 0:46:24.080 way to DC, but did not because he returned home 0:46:24.160 --> 0:46:26.960 so quickly. Rao told the FBI he had vehicle trouble. 0:46:27.440 --> 0:46:31.080 On June thirteenth, law enforcement officials executed a federal search 0:46:31.080 --> 0:46:37.000 warrant of Daniel Eskridge or Fulkrum's residents, and agents seized rifles, 0:46:37.000 --> 0:46:41.400 a shotgun, pistol, and other tactical gear that matched Photoseskridge 0:46:41.440 --> 0:46:45.399 posted online. That same day, FBI searched the home of 0:46:45.440 --> 0:46:49.040 Michael Thomas in California, where they seized a hunting rifle 0:46:49.080 --> 0:46:53.080 and air fifteen style rifle, thirty round extended magazines with 0:46:53.120 --> 0:46:56.480 approximately one hundred and eighty rounds of ammunition, as well 0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:59.840 as a pistol. While Michael Thomas was being interviewed to 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:02.799 quote the criminal complaint quote, he stated that he saw 0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:05.680 himself as the planner and adviser for the group, and 0:47:05.719 --> 0:47:08.560 while he was not willing to take action himself, wanted 0:47:08.600 --> 0:47:10.920 to guide and instruct to others on how to carry 0:47:10.920 --> 0:47:14.120 out attacks. Thomas expressed frustration that some members of the 0:47:14.160 --> 0:47:17.680 group seemed noncommittal and these excuses as to why they 0:47:17.680 --> 0:47:20.759 could not take action. Thomas said that the aim of 0:47:20.800 --> 0:47:22.920 this and subsequent attacks was to create enough chaos to 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:25.400 bring about the overthrow of the US government, which he 0:47:25.480 --> 0:47:28.560 believed was being quote run by an elite group of 0:47:28.560 --> 0:47:33.000 individuals who sacrifice and consume infants who are also deeply 0:47:33.040 --> 0:47:35.600 involved with Jeffrey Epstein and are now protected by President 0:47:35.600 --> 0:47:38.360 Donald Trump. Thomas places some of the responsibility of his 0:47:38.440 --> 0:47:41.920 corruption of the US government with Jewish people and blames 0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:47.080 them and Israel for the current war with Iran unquote. So, yeah, 0:47:47.160 --> 0:47:51.520 that is what did not happen at UFC Freedom two fifty. 0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:54.919 Nothing will ever happen now. 0:47:55.040 --> 0:47:58.520 Jd Vance did go back on Fox News Tuesday night 0:47:58.840 --> 0:48:02.440 on Fox News as the five and said, quote, it 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:06.200 turns out the plot was like not that advanced. They 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:09.399 weren't in town, They had not really done that much 0:48:09.440 --> 0:48:15.160 planning unquote, So slightly backtracking his previous assertions. 0:48:15.160 --> 0:48:18.399 We've gotta find who's funding these guys, these guys who 0:48:18.440 --> 0:48:22.279 can't pull out one thousand, three hundred bucks from like 0:48:22.480 --> 0:48:27.319 between the between five people. Yeah, like what is going on? Like, No, 0:48:27.600 --> 0:48:29.759 I didn't. Wasn't it like nineteen or something? In this 0:48:29.800 --> 0:48:31.120 signal nineteen. 0:48:30.880 --> 0:48:33.520 In the biggest signal chat related to the group, there's 0:48:33.560 --> 0:48:36.360 there was nineteen people. So far only high have been arrested. 0:48:36.680 --> 0:48:39.400 More have been interviewed, right, because the FBI mentioned interviewing 0:48:39.480 --> 0:48:41.239 someone in West Virginia who said who said that the 0:48:41.280 --> 0:48:44.360 attack plan was canceled as of recording. This guy's not 0:48:44.400 --> 0:48:46.359 been arrested in charge. We don't know his name, so 0:48:46.360 --> 0:48:48.600 that they definitely, they definitely are talking with other people 0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:50.880 related to this, like network. 0:48:51.000 --> 0:48:53.200 Well they know he was a Tier four operator. He 0:48:53.360 --> 0:48:56.200 wasn't the wall can't touch him, you know. 0:48:56.600 --> 0:49:00.799 Yeah, famously how conspiracy charges were Yeah. Yeah. The last 0:49:00.840 --> 0:49:02.799 thing I want to mention is the fifth guy that 0:49:02.880 --> 0:49:05.440 was arrested, right, because there was five people arrested initially, 0:49:06.000 --> 0:49:09.160 and that is Abraham Alverrez. He was known as quote 0:49:09.200 --> 0:49:10.360 unquote Shepherd. 0:49:10.239 --> 0:49:13.759 Online Call of Duty of Course Classic. 0:49:13.360 --> 0:49:16.400 And the DOJ claims that he was responsible for planning, organizing, 0:49:16.440 --> 0:49:20.719 and directing the planned attack. Alveraz allegedly picked out the 0:49:20.840 --> 0:49:24.480 drone launch points and sniper locations and claimed to have 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.919 one drone and was trying to get others. He also 0:49:28.040 --> 0:49:31.480 selected a safe zone meet up location in Nebraska for 0:49:31.680 --> 0:49:36.040 after the attack. Alverraz also claimed to be quote unquote 0:49:36.080 --> 0:49:40.360 cooking explosives, but court documents never specify that drones or 0:49:40.440 --> 0:49:44.600 explosives were seized during any of the searches, so we 0:49:44.680 --> 0:49:47.800 don't know if he actually had a drone or actually 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:51.120 had explosives. It seems unlikely because of the whole plan 0:49:51.160 --> 0:49:55.200 if needing to steal explosives from this military facility in Kansas, 0:49:55.840 --> 0:49:58.640 But he may have been trying to make explosives, but 0:49:58.760 --> 0:50:00.000 at this point it's kind of unclear. 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:01.200 Now. 0:50:01.280 --> 0:50:04.000 Before any of the details of any of the alleged 0:50:04.040 --> 0:50:07.960 attackers was released, a Fox News contributor said that considering 0:50:08.040 --> 0:50:11.440 President Biden let in quote unquote millions of unvetted people 0:50:11.440 --> 0:50:14.640 into the country, quote, it would be a very dangerous 0:50:14.640 --> 0:50:18.560 delusion to believe that these terrorist organizations and countries did 0:50:18.560 --> 0:50:23.200 not use that open border to bring people inside unquote. 0:50:23.280 --> 0:50:25.800 And as we've already discussed, this was not the operation 0:50:25.960 --> 0:50:29.720 of a foreign terrorist organization or people that were brought 0:50:29.760 --> 0:50:33.640 into the country. These are Americans. These are American patriots 0:50:33.800 --> 0:50:39.000 self ascribed. But on Thursday, June eighteenth, the DHS announced 0:50:39.080 --> 0:50:43.840 quote alleged ringleader of UFC terrorist plot is a Mexican 0:50:43.960 --> 0:50:48.960 illegal alien unquote, with Acting Assistant Secretary of Lauren Biss writing, 0:50:49.520 --> 0:50:51.960 this illegal alien from Mexico should have never been allowed 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:54.800 in our country. He was the ringleader of a failed 0:50:54.880 --> 0:50:58.200 terror attack targeting UFC Freedom to fifty at the White House. 0:50:59.200 --> 0:51:03.640 The current league status of Abraham Alverez is kind of unclear, 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:07.880 but he was not brought into the country under Biden's 0:51:07.880 --> 0:51:11.560 open borders. He entered the country as a child on 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:15.360 a B two visitor visa that expired in December of 0:51:15.400 --> 0:51:18.719 twenty twenty one. He's been in this country nearly his 0:51:18.760 --> 0:51:22.320 whole life, and under Obama, he was granted Deferred Action 0:51:22.440 --> 0:51:27.879 for Childhood Arrivals or DACA in twenty fourteen, suspending possible deportation. 0:51:28.560 --> 0:51:30.200 So while it looks like he currently may not have 0:51:30.320 --> 0:51:34.440 legal status, this was not an illegal alien who snuck 0:51:34.440 --> 0:51:37.120 across the border from Mexico. This guy was brought to 0:51:37.120 --> 0:51:39.840 the United States as a child and has lived here 0:51:40.000 --> 0:51:44.000 for over twenty five years, over twenty seven years, so 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:46.920 I do think that is worth noting. But I'm sure 0:51:47.320 --> 0:51:50.480 going forward the Trump administration will be running with this 0:51:50.560 --> 0:51:54.720 idea that this illegal alien from Mexico planned the UFC 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.640 Freedom to fifty terrorist attack, and the actual context of 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:02.400 how Alvarez entered the country is important, not that it 0:52:02.440 --> 0:52:05.920 will matter to Fox News or the Trump administration, but 0:52:06.000 --> 0:52:08.200 I do think it is worth specifying. And of course, 0:52:08.200 --> 0:52:10.279 there was upwards of nineteen other people involved in this 0:52:10.960 --> 0:52:12.799 and the four others that I've spent most of the 0:52:12.800 --> 0:52:18.239 episode talking about. Are all US born citizens anyway? Yeah, 0:52:18.280 --> 0:52:20.400 that's what That's what did not happen at USC Freedom 0:52:20.400 --> 0:52:21.160 to fifty. 0:52:21.120 --> 0:52:24.520 And let things I suppose continue to. 0:52:24.680 --> 0:52:28.239 Continue open it could. It could not happen here. 0:52:29.600 --> 0:52:31.320 It will continue not happening. 0:52:31.800 --> 0:52:34.640 So Bailey, new poster. Where can people find you online? 0:52:34.800 --> 0:52:39.239 Oh god, I'm on a Blue Sky as new poster two. 0:52:39.560 --> 0:52:40.440 Very smart pick. 0:52:40.560 --> 0:52:45.080 Yes, I'm also on the other app x as new 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:46.320 poster two, but I'm. 0:52:46.320 --> 0:52:48.799 Not very much very woke of you. 0:52:49.640 --> 0:52:54.480 I'm also on Instagram as postolytical blaying because that account 0:52:54.560 --> 0:52:58.000 has not been a suspended three different times. And then 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:01.680 on Twitch as I think on Twitch's new poster two 0:53:01.680 --> 0:53:02.000 as well. 0:53:02.040 --> 0:53:02.720 So excellent. 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:05.000 There's four little options for you. 0:53:05.360 --> 0:53:09.200 Yes, good luck in your streaming endeavors. Oh god, all right, 0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:11.759 that doesn't cross here. What could happen here? See you 0:53:11.800 --> 0:53:12.399 on the other side? 0:53:12.480 --> 0:53:27.160 All right, hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and this is 0:53:27.200 --> 0:53:30.040 it could happen here. I wanted to talk today a 0:53:30.040 --> 0:53:33.360 little bit about Belfast and about what happened there earlier 0:53:33.400 --> 0:53:37.440 this month, the racist riots, in which mobs of bigots 0:53:37.600 --> 0:53:40.440 ran through the city, forcing people out of their homes 0:53:40.719 --> 0:53:45.120 for not being white, destroying businesses, terrorizing people. It was 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:48.480 horrific and if you spent any time watching live streams 0:53:48.600 --> 0:53:51.160 or videos or just the coverage, I'm sure you felt 0:53:51.239 --> 0:53:54.400 as frightened, both for those people directly and just for 0:53:54.560 --> 0:53:57.359 the future. As many of us, and in the week 0:53:57.400 --> 0:53:58.960 of something like that, it can often be hard to 0:53:58.960 --> 0:54:02.560 know what to do and what would I do if 0:54:02.600 --> 0:54:04.920 this was happening in my community, right, like, what is 0:54:05.160 --> 0:54:08.440 the proper response, especially if there isn't you know, an 0:54:08.480 --> 0:54:11.320 immediate response in the moment that meets, you know, the 0:54:11.440 --> 0:54:13.919 rage of one of these nights and actually is able 0:54:13.960 --> 0:54:16.839 to stop it. You know, if these bigots are able 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:20.360 to go through and attack and harm people, how do 0:54:20.440 --> 0:54:24.239 you both respond to that and help the people who 0:54:24.320 --> 0:54:26.719 have been hurt? And how do you deal with the 0:54:26.760 --> 0:54:29.120 fact that that could be a very dangerous situation, you know, 0:54:29.200 --> 0:54:31.359 especially if you've still got these mobs of people out 0:54:31.360 --> 0:54:33.600 there who are willing to hurt the folks that you're 0:54:33.640 --> 0:54:37.239 trying to protect and anyone potentially trying to protect them. Well, 0:54:37.600 --> 0:54:40.080 obviously the people who live in Belfast are dealing with 0:54:40.120 --> 0:54:42.560 that problem immediately, and so The best place to go 0:54:42.600 --> 0:54:44.880 if I've wanted to know what that was like was 0:54:44.920 --> 0:54:47.480 to someone who's been living through it, And fortunately I 0:54:47.520 --> 0:54:50.080 found the posts on Blue Sky of Lee Hurley. He's 0:54:50.120 --> 0:54:53.640 a Belfast based writer. He's the owner of Daily Canon 0:54:53.680 --> 0:54:57.440 dot com. Lee also runs the Transagenda, which records and 0:54:57.480 --> 0:55:00.680 documents anti trans media coverage in UK papers. You can 0:55:00.719 --> 0:55:04.239 subscribe at Transagenda dot info. I reached out to Lee 0:55:04.360 --> 0:55:07.480 after seeing some posts that Lee had made about what 0:55:07.560 --> 0:55:10.239 he had witnessed in terms of the local response to 0:55:10.280 --> 0:55:13.160 people trying to organize to help folks who had been 0:55:13.640 --> 0:55:16.919 attacked and brutalized. And Lee wrote an essay for us 0:55:16.960 --> 0:55:19.160 and read it and thankful it was good enough to 0:55:19.160 --> 0:55:21.280 do both of those things. So this is some direct, 0:55:21.320 --> 0:55:23.319 firsthand reporting both on what it was like to live 0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:26.239 in Belfast while that was going on and what it's 0:55:26.280 --> 0:55:29.480 been like to watch the community spring into action to 0:55:29.640 --> 0:55:34.000 try and make right some of the wrongs that were done. So, 0:55:34.360 --> 0:55:37.600 without further ado, here's Lee. 0:55:39.600 --> 0:55:44.160 Last week Belfast hit the headlines worldwide and usual Belfast fashion, 0:55:44.239 --> 0:55:47.719 it wasn't for anything good On Monday. It's a June 0:55:47.719 --> 0:55:49.960 twenty twenty six. A man was attacked and styled in 0:55:50.000 --> 0:55:53.160 North Belfast by a refugee. It was a vicious attack 0:55:53.239 --> 0:55:55.719 caught on camera that resulted in the victim losing an 0:55:55.719 --> 0:55:59.520 eye and being placed in gematically induced coma. At the 0:55:59.560 --> 0:56:02.719 time of recording, the victim remains in hospital. The next 0:56:02.800 --> 0:56:06.600 day the city exploded, rats took place across Belfast, fires 0:56:06.719 --> 0:56:10.600 raged and people were forced to flee from their homes. Today, 0:56:10.640 --> 0:56:12.520 I want to talk to you about what happened, what 0:56:12.680 --> 0:56:15.880 really happened, Not the attack and not the rats themselves, 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:17.680 but what went on in the ours and the days 0:56:17.719 --> 0:56:21.160 after that, beyond the brick throwing and the burning and 0:56:21.160 --> 0:56:24.480 the fear. Because something good did happen, and I think 0:56:24.480 --> 0:56:27.160 it's important that the word knows about that. You need 0:56:27.200 --> 0:56:29.600 to know that Belfast isn't all bad. It isn't what 0:56:29.640 --> 0:56:32.320 you saw on the TV. But while the horror happened 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:35.320 on the streets, the rest of the city said enough, 0:56:36.040 --> 0:56:39.480 we mobilized. This is the story of the real community 0:56:39.480 --> 0:56:43.920 of Belfast. Belfast is a beautiful city, rich in culture, history, 0:56:44.200 --> 0:56:47.160 world renowned for its food and if you would believe it, 0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:51.040 it's welcome in nature. Ask anyone who's visited for recommendations 0:56:51.080 --> 0:56:53.120 about what to do in the city, and you'd like 0:56:53.200 --> 0:56:56.040 to hear them real about the Titanic Museum, a Game 0:56:56.080 --> 0:56:59.920 of Thrones tour, or the stunning architecture. They'll tell you 0:57:00.160 --> 0:57:03.160 hang nice, everybody they met was. You'll be told about 0:57:03.160 --> 0:57:05.839 some wonderful restaurant they visited in the amazing trad music 0:57:05.920 --> 0:57:09.439 session they stumbled upon its quin Backstreet pub. They'll tell 0:57:09.480 --> 0:57:12.000 you they want to go back. One of our most 0:57:12.000 --> 0:57:14.920 popular tourist activities is a tour of the key sites 0:57:15.239 --> 0:57:18.360 that plad Key rules in our Civil war. Taxi drivers 0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:20.160 will take you to the places where blood was shed, 0:57:20.240 --> 0:57:23.600 bombs exploded, and those left behind still visit the morning. 0:57:24.040 --> 0:57:27.480 The tours aren't even that expensive. Here in Belfast. We've 0:57:27.480 --> 0:57:29.360 made a small industry out of the darkest parts of 0:57:29.360 --> 0:57:33.600 our country's history, the Troubles. Although the days of bombs 0:57:33.600 --> 0:57:35.840 and murders and army controlled streets are spoken off in 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:39.440 past tense by those tour guides, the beliefs, culture, and 0:57:39.480 --> 0:57:42.600 division that fueled the fighting are still just as strongly 0:57:42.640 --> 0:57:45.320 held in many communities throughout the city as they were 0:57:45.360 --> 0:57:47.560 on the day that peace agreement was signed nearly thirty 0:57:47.680 --> 0:57:51.400 years ago. Bilfast is a beautiful city, but it's a 0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:54.960 city that requires context to be fully understood and somewhere 0:57:55.040 --> 0:57:59.840 argued fully appreciated. Like almost all wars, the troubles centered 0:57:59.840 --> 0:58:03.720 our identity and access to resources on one side, the 0:58:03.840 --> 0:58:06.720 niceness or Catholics who identify with in which the country 0:58:06.720 --> 0:58:10.280 to be united Ireland on the other Royalists or Protestants 0:58:10.280 --> 0:58:12.360 who want no n Iron to remain part of the UK. 0:58:13.400 --> 0:58:16.000 Division goes deeper than that, and it is much more complicated, 0:58:16.400 --> 0:58:18.640 but it's a bit like the left right divide of 0:58:18.640 --> 0:58:22.160 Democrats and Republicans in the US. Knowing what side someone 0:58:22.240 --> 0:58:24.920 falls on can usually tell you a lot about their 0:58:24.960 --> 0:58:30.240 other beliefs and morals. Even international politics gets devavid up 0:58:30.280 --> 0:58:32.920 here to one side of the other loyal support Israel 0:58:33.080 --> 0:58:36.400 nicely support Palestine. Of course, it's not that simple. Not 0:58:36.480 --> 0:58:38.800 all Protestants and Catholics hold the same viewpoints. But for 0:58:38.880 --> 0:58:42.040 the safe of brevity, I'm generalizing, and this is of 0:58:42.040 --> 0:58:44.800 course a very short and brief explanation of what is 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:47.800 actually a very complex history that spans hundreds of years. 0:58:48.360 --> 0:58:50.040 We simply don't have the time to when they are 0:58:50.080 --> 0:58:52.200 all with any more depth than that. It's not the 0:58:52.200 --> 0:58:56.040 focus of this podcast anyway, but even that oversimplified summary 0:58:56.120 --> 0:58:58.880 should help you see the contextual ends through its Belfast 0:58:59.200 --> 0:59:02.560 and what happened must be viewed. And it is within 0:59:02.640 --> 0:59:06.200 this context where tribalism and nationality and identity are so 0:59:06.240 --> 0:59:09.960 important that whole houseness states advertised theirs by painting their 0:59:10.000 --> 0:59:12.440 curbstones in the colors of the British or Irish flag 0:59:13.280 --> 0:59:16.240 John mural celebrating both murderers and the murder that alike 0:59:16.280 --> 0:59:18.760 are painted on the sides of houses or hered for 0:59:18.880 --> 0:59:22.320 the other continues and were resources are fiercely protected and 0:59:22.360 --> 0:59:26.240 fought over that this story takes place. Tension has been 0:59:26.280 --> 0:59:28.680 bubbling up about migration for the last several years in 0:59:28.720 --> 0:59:32.000 Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Just last summer we saw rats 0:59:32.000 --> 0:59:34.800 in nearby Ballomina and in Belfast after an a led 0:59:34.840 --> 0:59:38.160 sexual assault took place, with the accused perpetrators being two 0:59:38.200 --> 0:59:41.800 teenage boys from Romania. Houses and businesses were smashed up 0:59:41.840 --> 0:59:44.960 and burnt. If the riters believed with any connection whatsoever 0:59:45.040 --> 0:59:47.680 to an immigrant, no matter where in the world they 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:51.440 hails from. I remember driving through Botanic, a vibrant multicultural 0:59:51.480 --> 0:59:53.800 area of Belfast. We give a few minutes away from 0:59:54.000 --> 0:59:57.000 and seeing business after business destroyed the Hooker bar the 0:59:57.040 --> 1:00:01.520 International supermarket cafes. Several months later, the charges against those 1:00:01.520 --> 1:00:06.000 two teenage bones were quietly dropped due to significant evidential developments. 1:00:07.360 --> 1:00:09.920 Like everything else here, attitudes to immigration and race in 1:00:09.960 --> 1:00:13.160 general has a pretty clear split between our two main communities. 1:00:14.040 --> 1:00:16.680 Throughout loyalist areas, you will find graffiti and science stable. 1:00:16.680 --> 1:00:20.840 Don't the lamp posts. Foreigners not welcome here, no Muslims allowed, 1:00:21.360 --> 1:00:24.560 Stop the boats. A lot of the time these vitriolic 1:00:24.600 --> 1:00:28.120 messages aren't even spelled correctly. Education is just one of 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:30.760 the many areas neglected here that nobody have our riots over. 1:00:31.600 --> 1:00:33.120 That's not to say there's no such thing as a 1:00:33.200 --> 1:00:36.600 racist nationalist. There are assholes everywhere. Belfout is of course 1:00:36.680 --> 1:00:40.280 no different on that front. When this most recent horrific 1:00:40.280 --> 1:00:44.120 attactic place in a city where immigrants legal refugee asylum 1:00:44.680 --> 1:00:47.200 doesn't actually matter in fact, because you don't have to 1:00:47.240 --> 1:00:49.880 be a migrant to be targeted. You just have to 1:00:50.040 --> 1:00:54.200 be non white, whether already treated escape boats for every 1:00:54.240 --> 1:00:57.280 problem where racist riots have become something of a summer tradition. 1:00:57.640 --> 1:01:00.720 Everyone knew what was coming with their and Our social 1:01:00.720 --> 1:01:03.280 media was full of AI generated the posters telling people 1:01:03.320 --> 1:01:06.800 to take to the streets to protest immigrants. When they 1:01:06.800 --> 1:01:10.520 said protest, we all knew they meant riot, and so 1:01:10.600 --> 1:01:14.240 the city shut dying for three days. Shops, schools, community centers, 1:01:14.280 --> 1:01:17.800 swimming pools, public transport and businesses were held hostage duraicism. 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:20.640 Some places opened for a few hours in the mornings 1:01:20.640 --> 1:01:23.680 before having to close again. The buses were running, the 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:26.919 buses were off. Half the city worked from home. Fake 1:01:27.000 --> 1:01:30.120 protest posters popped up on social media. Everyday life and 1:01:30.200 --> 1:01:33.280 routine was thrown into disarranged chaos. But it was when 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:36.360 the sun went dying that the actual horror happened. From 1:01:36.360 --> 1:01:39.040 the comfort of our homes. With the blinds dying, many 1:01:39.040 --> 1:01:42.040 of us sat scarred, scrolling social media trying to find 1:01:42.040 --> 1:01:46.480 out what was happening via helicopter footed streamed live on YouTube. 1:01:46.520 --> 1:01:49.280 We watched our city get destroyed. We texted each other 1:01:49.360 --> 1:01:51.640 and made phone calls, and even shit posted online trying 1:01:51.680 --> 1:01:56.120 to find some revity or light in the situation. For others, 1:01:56.160 --> 1:01:59.040 those days changed their lives forever. They watched the cars 1:01:59.040 --> 1:02:01.760 get burnt out along with the metal and the tarres tomorrow, 1:02:01.840 --> 1:02:05.040 school on and transport went up in smoke, sam from 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:06.760 the last time they tripped to the beach, still in 1:02:06.760 --> 1:02:10.680 the foot wells, a favorite cardigan left in the passenger seat, gone, 1:02:11.240 --> 1:02:15.680 all of it gone. Whole homes gone, whether physically said 1:02:15.720 --> 1:02:18.240 on fire or threatened through the letter boxes, or driven 1:02:18.240 --> 1:02:20.040 out by a fear. Many of us will never have 1:02:20.160 --> 1:02:22.560 to know the true number of people who fled their 1:02:22.560 --> 1:02:24.920 homes since the Eighth of Durne. It is hard to gauge. 1:02:25.520 --> 1:02:27.800 Some have gone to stay with relatives or friends across 1:02:27.800 --> 1:02:30.920 the city. Some have moved to completely new places, wearing 1:02:30.920 --> 1:02:33.960 the thing safe enough to try again. Many have left 1:02:33.960 --> 1:02:36.640 the country altogether. And who can blame them? That is 1:02:36.720 --> 1:02:40.320 our loss? They say. In times of trouble, look for 1:02:40.360 --> 1:02:42.919 the helpers. But here in Belfast you wouldn't have seen 1:02:42.920 --> 1:02:45.520 too many at first glance. That's for the same reason 1:02:45.560 --> 1:02:47.240 you didn't see people rise up and take on the 1:02:47.320 --> 1:02:51.400 raiders face to face. Fear, fear of personal reprisal from 1:02:51.400 --> 1:02:54.960 the loyalist para military organizations, fear of alerting the riders 1:02:54.960 --> 1:02:57.200 and making the situation even worse for those you're trying 1:02:57.240 --> 1:03:01.880 to help. Fear is endemic here, but there were helpers, 1:03:02.320 --> 1:03:05.640 hundreds in fact, but our helpers moved quietly and in 1:03:05.680 --> 1:03:09.280 the shadows, without fuss. File fire people across spellfasts began 1:03:09.400 --> 1:03:13.120 taking action almost immediately, as everyday life began. They return 1:03:13.160 --> 1:03:16.640 to normal, and schools and shops cautiously reopened. Strangers became 1:03:16.680 --> 1:03:20.080 small heroes, Families removed from their homes and their darkness, 1:03:20.080 --> 1:03:23.240 and children taken to and from school. The elderly and 1:03:23.320 --> 1:03:26.840 second pregnant accompanied the hospital and doctor appointments in church 1:03:26.840 --> 1:03:30.920 halls and community centers. Supermarket sized foodbanks sprung up from nothing. 1:03:31.480 --> 1:03:34.200 Money was raised from all over the world. Where there 1:03:34.200 --> 1:03:37.439 was need, somebody met it. Then they returned and asked 1:03:37.440 --> 1:03:40.120 who they could help next. In those moments, the real 1:03:40.200 --> 1:03:54.520 Belfast was seen. On Thursday afternoon, forty eight hours after 1:03:54.560 --> 1:03:57.880 they all started. My fiance arrived home from work. Let's 1:03:57.880 --> 1:04:00.640 call her l I couldn't sit and do a thing anymore. 1:04:00.680 --> 1:04:03.720 So here's what this happening. And she said she'd already 1:04:03.720 --> 1:04:06.280 contacted the church and arranged use of their hall. She 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:08.720 contacted people she knew through her community work to get 1:04:08.720 --> 1:04:11.360 word out. I posted about it on Blue Sky, not 1:04:11.440 --> 1:04:14.040 mentioning anything about where it would be located out affairs 1:04:14.080 --> 1:04:17.120 would be targeted, and someone asked if there was a fundraiser. 1:04:17.280 --> 1:04:21.480 There wasn't. There hadn't been anything just a few hours ago. 1:04:21.760 --> 1:04:23.840 Not thinking it would get much attention, I threw up 1:04:23.840 --> 1:04:25.640 a link to my PayPal and said I'd passed the 1:04:25.640 --> 1:04:28.720 money on if anyone wanted to do it. Thousands came 1:04:28.720 --> 1:04:31.960 flooding in from all over the world, particularly from Minnesota. 1:04:32.680 --> 1:04:34.320 Salary came when we were up at six am. They 1:04:34.360 --> 1:04:36.680 hit the wholesalers. Havn't wrokeed in another friend to help 1:04:36.680 --> 1:04:38.800 with her car. By nine am we were at the 1:04:38.880 --> 1:04:41.360 church with two car, rules of food and essentials, not 1:04:41.480 --> 1:04:43.040 knowing if it would just been the three of us 1:04:43.040 --> 1:04:45.560 standing there all day with a lot of food. None 1:04:45.600 --> 1:04:47.960 of us had ever done this before, although well has 1:04:48.000 --> 1:04:50.920 experienced working with immigrants and asylum seekers in other areas. 1:04:51.640 --> 1:04:54.120 We couldn't have been more wrong. Through the networks l 1:04:54.160 --> 1:04:57.040 had formed over the previous forty eight hours, an organization 1:04:57.120 --> 1:05:00.560 started sending as addresses of people who needed food. Volunteers 1:05:00.600 --> 1:05:03.800 kept arriving, people flewed in with donations of food and 1:05:03.880 --> 1:05:07.160 money and essentials. By the afternoon, people were dropping stuff in, 1:05:07.440 --> 1:05:10.000 taking photos of our board that showed items we were 1:05:10.080 --> 1:05:13.040 lowing and then going shopping to get those items. Specifically, 1:05:13.920 --> 1:05:16.440 hundreds of food parcels were packed up. Need one for 1:05:16.480 --> 1:05:18.439 a family of five went to call across the hall 1:05:18.520 --> 1:05:20.640 as he Elk coordinated everything that needed to go out. 1:05:21.000 --> 1:05:23.280 What ages of the children do they need nappies? Came 1:05:23.360 --> 1:05:26.480 or reply? Without fail, everybody just pitched in with whatever 1:05:26.560 --> 1:05:29.440 was needed to be done. Others dealt with people who 1:05:29.440 --> 1:05:31.960 came in themselves and needed help. Drivers sent from other 1:05:31.960 --> 1:05:35.000 small charities arrived to collect parcels for people they were helping. 1:05:35.560 --> 1:05:38.040 I found myself managing the stock run into the shop 1:05:38.040 --> 1:05:40.600 and the wholesaler's time and time again to fill up 1:05:40.600 --> 1:05:43.240 the items we couldn't keep up with basics like all 1:05:43.400 --> 1:05:47.600 the sugar floor or rice, pasta, soap, sanitary products, nappies. 1:05:48.160 --> 1:05:50.960 The list was endless, as was the number of people 1:05:51.280 --> 1:05:54.520 we were trying to help. For three days, people who 1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:57.520 had never met before stood side by side sorting food parcels. 1:05:58.160 --> 1:06:01.400 Strangers took strangers into their car into their homes. Is 1:06:01.400 --> 1:06:03.920 this definitely lal was definitely googled by a lot of 1:06:03.920 --> 1:06:06.840 white people. I've lost kind of the amount of people 1:06:06.920 --> 1:06:08.880 I've met over the last week, but I know it's 1:06:08.920 --> 1:06:10.960 more than I would usually meet in the year. To 1:06:11.000 --> 1:06:13.480 be fur I'm not actually that social, but it was 1:06:13.480 --> 1:06:15.640 still a lot of people. I don't think I got 1:06:15.720 --> 1:06:18.000 the names of half of the ones I worked alongside 1:06:18.000 --> 1:06:20.320 in that pop up food bank that my partner seemed 1:06:20.320 --> 1:06:22.959 a magic goredath thin r using the relationships she'd built 1:06:23.000 --> 1:06:25.919 up through her job. But it didn't matter. There wasn't 1:06:25.920 --> 1:06:28.480 time for small talk. It was more hello, thank you 1:06:28.520 --> 1:06:30.680 for helping past me some kicking OI plays or we 1:06:30.680 --> 1:06:33.320 added the odor one Again. That's not to say there 1:06:33.360 --> 1:06:36.080 was new bonding. When you sure an intense experience like that, 1:06:36.160 --> 1:06:38.720 under the way of emotions we were working with, there's 1:06:38.720 --> 1:06:41.360 a connection built. There was a sense of community that 1:06:41.400 --> 1:06:45.680 I've never experienced before, and given the circumstances, I sincerely 1:06:45.680 --> 1:06:49.920 hoped to never experience again. But that seems unlikely. In 1:06:49.960 --> 1:06:52.560 that church hall where we ran the food bank, nobody 1:06:52.600 --> 1:06:54.400 needed to be told what to do. There was no 1:06:54.440 --> 1:06:57.840 induction or even delegation of rules. For three days. People 1:06:57.880 --> 1:07:00.440 turned up when they found themselves something to do. And 1:07:00.480 --> 1:07:03.080 I don't know if it will surprise you, because it shouldn't, 1:07:03.480 --> 1:07:05.800 but There were many migrants and refugees who turned up 1:07:05.800 --> 1:07:09.040 to help themselves. One woman came because she was in 1:07:09.120 --> 1:07:11.680 need of food for herself, but she asked if she 1:07:11.680 --> 1:07:14.400 could take some extra to make meals for others. Within 1:07:14.440 --> 1:07:17.280 two hours we had thirty contents of home. Halal crey 1:07:17.280 --> 1:07:20.560 to deliver the homes thanks to her work. I'm not 1:07:20.600 --> 1:07:22.880 sure I've ever been able to truly define what love 1:07:22.960 --> 1:07:26.800 or selflessness or solidarity mean, but I'm pretty sure that's 1:07:26.800 --> 1:07:29.760 what it looks like. This was not work being done 1:07:29.760 --> 1:07:32.880 by professional charities or organizations. That's not to say they 1:07:32.880 --> 1:07:35.440 weren't doing anything, far from it, But I want to 1:07:35.480 --> 1:07:37.560 take a moment to press upon music. This was everyday 1:07:37.560 --> 1:07:40.600 people figuring it out together, many of whom we had 1:07:40.640 --> 1:07:44.200 never done anything like this before. What'sapp group were created, 1:07:44.280 --> 1:07:47.000 phone numbers, sure and Google doc data bases thrown together 1:07:47.480 --> 1:07:50.880 across the city. Volunteers together and a part Does anyone 1:07:50.920 --> 1:07:53.240 held close for a baby? Did someone drive a lady 1:07:53.240 --> 1:07:56.360 to an appointment tomorrow? At ten am? Resources were sued 1:07:56.400 --> 1:07:59.880 across mesif donation centers if one centered one might have 1:07:59.920 --> 1:08:04.400 don another were sharing their supply. Volunteers drove from centers 1:08:04.400 --> 1:08:07.120 to shops to homes, trying to find what was required. 1:08:07.480 --> 1:08:11.640 It was beautiful chaos and it worked. Nobody had to 1:08:11.680 --> 1:08:14.760 be there. Almost all the volunteers had arrived through word 1:08:14.760 --> 1:08:16.920 of mouthe. I don't think I saw one single social 1:08:16.920 --> 1:08:19.640 media poster advert calling out for help a person. The 1:08:19.680 --> 1:08:22.639 one I posted on our last day helped just cam. 1:08:23.520 --> 1:08:26.360 Like me, many of the volunteers still compelled to do something. 1:08:26.840 --> 1:08:29.000 Sitting at home beyond the locked door and watching he 1:08:29.000 --> 1:08:32.240 had filled the city Vihile livestream just wasn't cutting it anymore. 1:08:33.080 --> 1:08:35.400 One volunteer told me that when the violence erupted, they 1:08:35.400 --> 1:08:37.639 simply couldn't get the affected people out of her head. 1:08:38.439 --> 1:08:40.800 They took Friday afternoon off work to deliver food and 1:08:40.880 --> 1:08:43.160 essential supplies the families who were too fraid to leave 1:08:43.200 --> 1:08:46.439 their homes. More than anything, she said, she wanted to 1:08:46.479 --> 1:08:49.360 show that people of Belfast Ker and the newcomers to 1:08:49.400 --> 1:08:51.880 our city are welcome. At a time when fear and 1:08:51.960 --> 1:08:55.560 uncertainly was affecting so many families, it felt important to 1:08:55.600 --> 1:08:58.599 her to offer practical support and remind people that they 1:08:58.640 --> 1:09:01.600 were not alone. The work people have been doing and 1:09:01.680 --> 1:09:04.559 are still doing is not without risk. I smoke earlier 1:09:04.600 --> 1:09:07.240 of fear. There's a dark rumor that Northern Land has 1:09:07.240 --> 1:09:09.280 the best knee surgeons in the world due to the 1:09:09.280 --> 1:09:12.120 Power military's favorite publishment style of knee cabin or the 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:13.760 place of gone to the back of your knee and 1:09:13.760 --> 1:09:16.760 pull the trigger blown out the front. If you live 1:09:16.760 --> 1:09:18.639 in the community run by the parers and you piss 1:09:18.720 --> 1:09:21.360 them off, you're going to know about it. It might 1:09:21.400 --> 1:09:23.639 be a brick through your window, graffiti on your door, 1:09:23.800 --> 1:09:25.640 or a visit from the local police to tell you 1:09:25.720 --> 1:09:27.920 they would strongly advise you leave the premises and find 1:09:27.920 --> 1:09:31.439 somewhere else to live. For many community volunteers, this was 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:34.040 a case of heart over mind. They were driving in 1:09:34.080 --> 1:09:36.400 the loyal of strongholds that had been ratting just hours 1:09:36.439 --> 1:09:39.080 before to deliver food to the very people that had 1:09:39.120 --> 1:09:42.479 been targeted. But their compassion for those sitting hungry, tired, 1:09:42.520 --> 1:09:45.479 and scared outwigged the fear they felt for their own safety. 1:09:46.040 --> 1:09:48.479 Many of the volunteers who helped will never tell their 1:09:48.520 --> 1:09:51.559 neighbors what they did. They may never tell anyone about it. 1:09:52.400 --> 1:09:55.120 Drivers arrived back to the hall, stories of families sitting 1:09:55.160 --> 1:09:57.120 in the dark with no electric in the mirror of 1:09:57.280 --> 1:09:59.160 mothers hiding in the back room by the door with 1:09:59.200 --> 1:10:01.400 their babies in their own I'm ready to run should 1:10:01.400 --> 1:10:04.160 a framing bottle come through the window. If you've wondered 1:10:04.200 --> 1:10:06.960 for a moment, what kept us motivated? No, you know, 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:10.519 some volunteers sprung into action from the first moment, and 1:10:10.560 --> 1:10:13.160 some are still going. There are still people from ethnic 1:10:13.200 --> 1:10:16.760 minority community in great need. I cannot imagine the fear 1:10:16.800 --> 1:10:19.640 they're still living in. But why was it left of 1:10:19.720 --> 1:10:22.360 the people to take action? I've heard that question asked 1:10:22.400 --> 1:10:25.200 several times during the last week. It's hard to know. 1:10:25.840 --> 1:10:28.400 Many people are rightly wondering where the government Wasn't all 1:10:28.439 --> 1:10:31.720 this were our politicians, Yes, some that are on their 1:10:31.760 --> 1:10:34.439 podiums from time to time to condemned the valance. But 1:10:34.479 --> 1:10:36.160 if it wasn't for the community on the ground and 1:10:36.200 --> 1:10:39.200 the wonderful, generous people who do needed money, all of 1:10:39.240 --> 1:10:42.799 those people that we helped would still be sitting there, hungry, tired, 1:10:42.840 --> 1:10:46.200 and scoured even more than they are. And I I 1:10:46.240 --> 1:10:48.479 know that here on the ground, we're putting together a 1:10:48.479 --> 1:10:50.640 contingency plan so that we're ready to spring in the 1:10:50.720 --> 1:10:53.559 action should this happen once more. And we've done that 1:10:53.600 --> 1:10:56.679 without any of the resources at the disposal of the government, 1:10:57.240 --> 1:11:00.639 albeit in our own small way. So after so many 1:11:00.640 --> 1:11:02.760 summers of this happening, do we know nothing of any 1:11:02.800 --> 1:11:06.320 government plan. If there was any sort of plan, surely 1:11:06.360 --> 1:11:08.880 we would be seeing it in action by nine. The 1:11:08.920 --> 1:11:11.599 sad reality is this is likely going to happen again, 1:11:11.800 --> 1:11:14.559 probably this very summer. We have a lot of problems 1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:17.920 with very little solution. How do we guarantee housing that's 1:11:17.920 --> 1:11:20.400 safe in a city that's litered with you? How do 1:11:20.479 --> 1:11:22.479 we say to people, we've given you a food parcel 1:11:22.520 --> 1:11:24.559 with the week's worth of food, but next week you're 1:11:24.560 --> 1:11:26.880 going to have to sort of out yourself and go 1:11:26.920 --> 1:11:29.080 to the shop. Next week you're going to have to 1:11:29.120 --> 1:11:32.120 walk past your neighbors smashed windows and the graffiti saying 1:11:32.200 --> 1:11:35.120 Muslims out. Next week you're going to have to walk 1:11:35.160 --> 1:11:37.840 past the house of that loyalist the insists on calling 1:11:37.840 --> 1:11:41.000 you slurs every time he sees you. Even as I'm 1:11:41.000 --> 1:11:43.320 recording this, there are new calls for so called protests 1:11:43.320 --> 1:11:45.719 over the next few days. There's a rumor a norm 1:11:45.720 --> 1:11:47.639 white man who was arrested for trying to break into 1:11:47.680 --> 1:11:50.799 someone's house. I'm not being called by saying Nor'm white. 1:11:50.840 --> 1:11:53.559 That's the bagst level of racism we're currently operating with here, 1:11:54.280 --> 1:11:56.120 and an incident like that is enough to set this 1:11:56.200 --> 1:11:58.840 all off again for the rest of the summer. Eyes 1:11:58.880 --> 1:12:01.439 on both sides of the immigran argument will skim over 1:12:01.760 --> 1:12:04.800 these artic goals, searching for a race or nationality to 1:12:04.800 --> 1:12:07.519 be mentioned. I cannot imagine how it feels to be 1:12:07.560 --> 1:12:10.719 a member of an ethnic minority. And beyond tender hooks 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:13.960 hoping and praying someone of color does not commit a crime, 1:12:15.120 --> 1:12:17.120 you may be forgiven for thinking that we have absolutely 1:12:17.120 --> 1:12:20.200 no other crimes occurring on a daily basis, especially non 1:12:20.240 --> 1:12:24.080 committed by white people. Of course we do, They're the majority. 1:12:24.800 --> 1:12:26.719 We have one of the highest rates of violence against 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:29.280 women and girls in the whole of Europe. Since twenty 1:12:29.360 --> 1:12:32.240 twenty thirty women have been violently killed by a man, 1:12:32.640 --> 1:12:36.240 a local man. Did they right? Then, I'll give you 1:12:36.240 --> 1:12:40.080 two guesses. Our community action was not enough. That's the 1:12:40.160 --> 1:12:43.200 sad reality. What does some toilet rule and a few 1:12:43.280 --> 1:12:46.080 vegetables matter when someone's car has been burned out? How 1:12:46.080 --> 1:12:48.200 does a bag of rice compensated for having to leave 1:12:48.200 --> 1:12:50.880 your home? It just doesn't. But maybe it will bring 1:12:50.880 --> 1:12:53.880 a small bit of hope. When we decided we were 1:12:53.920 --> 1:12:56.639 going to do something to help, that's all we started with, hope. 1:12:56.920 --> 1:12:59.680 And now a week later, after thousands of pounds worth 1:12:59.680 --> 1:13:02.960 of food, electric vergers, phones, sim cards, blankets and pajamas 1:13:02.960 --> 1:13:05.000 have passed in and out of our doors into the 1:13:05.040 --> 1:13:08.920 homes and emergency accommodation across Belfast, it's all we're left 1:13:08.960 --> 1:13:11.960 with hope that we helped, Hope that we won't ever 1:13:12.040 --> 1:13:15.559 have to do it again. As one recipient the financial 1:13:15.600 --> 1:13:18.240 help put it, the real value is not in the amount, 1:13:18.720 --> 1:13:22.320 it's the kindness, humanity and compassion behind it. At the 1:13:22.400 --> 1:13:24.640 very start of this podcast, I told you Belfast is 1:13:24.640 --> 1:13:27.920 a beautiful city, rich in culture and history. But to 1:13:28.000 --> 1:13:30.599 borrow of the wonderful words of that recipient, I think 1:13:30.640 --> 1:13:33.400 it's also a city rich in kindness, humanity and compassion. 1:13:33.960 --> 1:13:35.880 It is a city that has shown it can I 1:13:36.080 --> 1:13:39.200 will come together when it really matters, even if you 1:13:39.200 --> 1:13:42.360 can't always see it. That's the real face of Belfast. 1:13:43.160 --> 1:13:45.920 I want to say thank you, thank you to everyone 1:13:46.000 --> 1:13:48.320 who I met but never got the names off the 1:13:48.400 --> 1:13:50.719 people I'd never have met, and I hope I don't 1:13:50.720 --> 1:13:53.519 have to meet again. Thank you to everyone who donated 1:13:53.600 --> 1:13:56.479 from across the world. That support meant everything to us 1:13:56.479 --> 1:13:58.639 and allowed us to help those who needed the most. 1:13:59.280 --> 1:14:00.800 And I also want to say thank you to the 1:14:00.800 --> 1:14:03.040 people here on Belfast and the norther line. They have been 1:14:03.080 --> 1:14:06.360 the most affected by these rats. So the immigrants, the 1:14:06.439 --> 1:14:10.679 refugees and the asylum seekers, thank you for coming here, 1:14:11.760 --> 1:14:16.000 for having to our community, and for becoming our community. 1:14:16.680 --> 1:14:19.760 We are the real community of Belfast only are nothing 1:14:19.840 --> 1:14:20.560 with aya. 1:14:33.560 --> 1:14:36.160 Welcome to it could happen here. A podcast that is 1:14:36.240 --> 1:14:40.960 often about being trans in America and living under a 1:14:41.040 --> 1:14:47.000 regime that is actively hostile to our mere existence. I'm 1:14:47.040 --> 1:14:51.400 your host, Mia Wong, and today we're going to take 1:14:51.760 --> 1:14:57.080 a somewhat broad view and look at what it means 1:14:57.120 --> 1:15:02.320 to be trans in America from a class standpoint. Now, 1:15:02.520 --> 1:15:07.519 I think if you are trans, you are, at least 1:15:07.560 --> 1:15:10.840 broadly speaking, not a capitalist in the sense of you 1:15:10.880 --> 1:15:12.840 do not own the means of production. You are not 1:15:12.880 --> 1:15:16.920 the bourgeoisie. There are so few of us at all 1:15:17.520 --> 1:15:20.639 who can be said to own the means of production. 1:15:20.800 --> 1:15:25.320 We are all almost entirely as a class, like some 1:15:25.520 --> 1:15:29.400 kind of worker or another. But there is a lot 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:35.200 of specificity to the specific trans experience of class and 1:15:35.400 --> 1:15:38.400 where we fit into the broader American class structure that 1:15:38.479 --> 1:15:41.599 I want to talk about today, and I want to 1:15:41.640 --> 1:15:46.559 simultaneously get people an actual understanding in one place of 1:15:47.720 --> 1:15:52.760 just kind of the outskirts of how bad it is, 1:15:52.840 --> 1:15:56.160 but then also talk about how. 1:15:55.960 --> 1:15:56.599 Good it is. 1:15:56.840 --> 1:16:00.000 Isn't maybe the right term, but want to give people 1:16:00.360 --> 1:16:06.360 a sense of what this class position means for our 1:16:06.439 --> 1:16:10.200 place and ability to fight back, because that is also 1:16:10.280 --> 1:16:13.720 a critically important part of not just being trans, but 1:16:13.840 --> 1:16:18.280 a critically important part of every leftist and liberation movements 1:16:18.360 --> 1:16:24.320 in the US for the past decade has been longer 1:16:24.360 --> 1:16:28.479 than a decade, like two decades has been US, And 1:16:28.560 --> 1:16:31.160 obviously there have been a lot of trans people who 1:16:31.200 --> 1:16:32.800 are involved in a bunch of shit before then. But 1:16:33.520 --> 1:16:36.200 the extent to which trans people have been involved and 1:16:36.200 --> 1:16:39.599 have been central to every social movement you've ever heard 1:16:39.640 --> 1:16:43.200 of in the modern era is exceptional, and I want 1:16:43.240 --> 1:16:46.479 to talk about why that is. I want to start 1:16:46.560 --> 1:16:50.599 talking about why that is by looking at some of 1:16:50.720 --> 1:16:55.040 the data that we have on what it's like to 1:16:55.240 --> 1:16:59.680 be trans in the US. And this is one of 1:16:59.680 --> 1:17:04.320 the things is very difficult when you're writing about trans people, 1:17:04.400 --> 1:17:09.440 because you know, we all have our experience of transness. 1:17:09.920 --> 1:17:12.360 And when he's trying to get trans healthcare, I think 1:17:12.520 --> 1:17:16.360 is aware that there is so much research that has 1:17:16.439 --> 1:17:20.120 just not been done about us. This is medical research 1:17:20.160 --> 1:17:23.280 on the effects of specific like hormone regimens, and like 1:17:23.360 --> 1:17:25.760 what kinds of medicines do and don't help, and what 1:17:25.800 --> 1:17:29.000 the effects are. A lot of the information that you 1:17:29.040 --> 1:17:32.200 do get from doctors is based on really really old 1:17:32.200 --> 1:17:35.559 studies that aren't applicable to what actually exists. And this 1:17:35.680 --> 1:17:38.200 is also true when you're trying to look at economic data, 1:17:38.400 --> 1:17:43.559 where there just aren't that many studies of what it's 1:17:43.680 --> 1:17:47.000 like for trans people in the US, and the ones 1:17:47.040 --> 1:17:49.760 that do exist, and there are people who have done some, 1:17:50.840 --> 1:17:56.240 they're very reliant on data sets that are not specifically 1:17:56.840 --> 1:18:00.959 designed to be of trans people. And that's a problem 1:18:01.280 --> 1:18:03.960 because a lot of what you end up with and 1:18:03.960 --> 1:18:06.080 the reason why, like there are some things that I've 1:18:06.080 --> 1:18:07.759 read that are just not going to be in this episode, 1:18:08.400 --> 1:18:11.559 is that they are very reliant on things like, Okay, 1:18:11.600 --> 1:18:14.320 we know this person as gender markers have changed or 1:18:14.840 --> 1:18:18.760 their names have changed, and that's fine, kind of if 1:18:18.840 --> 1:18:20.439 you want to sort of get a sense of what's 1:18:20.439 --> 1:18:23.240 going on. But like the percentage of transpeople, the sort 1:18:23.240 --> 1:18:27.519 of demographics of trans people who have officially changed their 1:18:27.560 --> 1:18:31.479 gender markers is not reflective of trans people in general. 1:18:32.760 --> 1:18:36.439 So we're going to be using a lot of data 1:18:37.000 --> 1:18:42.560 in this from what's called the US Trans Survey USTs. 1:18:42.720 --> 1:18:46.080 Its run by advocates for trans equality, and God fucking 1:18:46.160 --> 1:18:49.200 blessed them. These people are doing the transgender's work. It's 1:18:49.200 --> 1:18:53.960 an invaluable resource. I don't know of a better sort 1:18:53.960 --> 1:18:58.040 of repository of information about trans people that has been collected. 1:18:58.520 --> 1:19:01.040 So these surveys are runfairly and frequently. There was one 1:19:01.040 --> 1:19:04.120 in twenty fifteen and one in twenty twenty two. But 1:19:04.280 --> 1:19:06.599 in the twenty twenty two one they got ninety two 1:19:06.600 --> 1:19:11.360 thousand trans and non bineary respondents, which is unbelievable. That 1:19:11.520 --> 1:19:15.760 is a staggering sample size. But the information they got 1:19:15.760 --> 1:19:18.519 from it is in a lot of ways extremely bleak. 1:19:18.560 --> 1:19:20.080 I mean, you know, you can look at the positive stuff, 1:19:20.080 --> 1:19:23.400 which is that yeah, people who transition to say that, yeah, 1:19:23.439 --> 1:19:27.920 their lives are happier now. They transitions like they like transitioning. 1:19:27.960 --> 1:19:30.360 It's it's good it's I don't know, do the thing. 1:19:30.400 --> 1:19:34.200 It will make you happier. However, comma the economic numbers. 1:19:35.040 --> 1:19:40.400 Jesus Christ, Oh boy, oh boy. Now, as I've said, right, 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:42.920 the people who work on the US Transerve A they 1:19:42.920 --> 1:19:46.639 do astonishing work. But as with all trans people, they're 1:19:46.640 --> 1:19:49.320 doing astonishing work with not that many resources, and it 1:19:49.360 --> 1:19:51.120 takes them a long time to put their studies together. 1:19:51.280 --> 1:19:54.840 So again, the information that we're using is from twenty 1:19:54.880 --> 1:19:56.559 twenty two. So this means a. 1:19:56.479 --> 1:19:57.200 Couple of things. 1:19:57.479 --> 1:20:01.479 One, this is dreen the Biden administry, right, a regime 1:20:01.479 --> 1:20:04.000 that is significantly less hostile to trans people than this 1:20:04.160 --> 1:20:06.400 current one, even though there was a bunch of bad 1:20:06.439 --> 1:20:08.200 shit going on then, some of it done by the 1:20:08.200 --> 1:20:14.160 Biden administration. Dear God, is Tromp administration significantly significantly more 1:20:14.160 --> 1:20:16.759 hostile trans people. So the conditions that we're seeing now 1:20:17.080 --> 1:20:20.160 are going to be worse than the ones that we 1:20:20.240 --> 1:20:23.799 have data for. So all of the numbers I'm about 1:20:23.840 --> 1:20:26.680 to tell you about poverty rates and unemployment and homelessness, 1:20:26.760 --> 1:20:29.599 it's gotten worse. The second thing is when the US 1:20:29.640 --> 1:20:33.360 transerveyor writes reports, I mean they released recently, Yeah, they're 1:20:33.360 --> 1:20:36.240 released in June Health and Wellbeing a report of the 1:20:36.280 --> 1:20:39.559 twenty twenty two US Transgender Survey. It is one hundred 1:20:39.560 --> 1:20:43.000 and ten pages long, so they do very very good 1:20:43.040 --> 1:20:45.559 and detailed work. However, what that means is that we still, 1:20:45.600 --> 1:20:48.559 for example, don't have like a granular economic report, and 1:20:48.600 --> 1:20:52.040 we don't have just the full report that they write. 1:20:51.800 --> 1:20:52.439 On this stuff. 1:20:52.760 --> 1:20:57.120 And we also don't have really the sort of granular 1:20:57.200 --> 1:20:59.400 reports that they had from the twenty fifteen numbers on 1:20:59.560 --> 1:21:03.160 the XPUS to trans people of different races. So those 1:21:03.160 --> 1:21:05.200 are sort of what I would say are the limits 1:21:05.200 --> 1:21:07.360 going into this that we have. However, what we do 1:21:07.439 --> 1:21:13.360 have from the early inside report is just horrifying. So 1:21:13.560 --> 1:21:17.160 one of the sort of defining conditions of being trans 1:21:17.520 --> 1:21:21.880 is dispossession, and you can look at dispossession in a 1:21:21.960 --> 1:21:25.679 whole bunch of different ways. You can look at, for example, 1:21:25.720 --> 1:21:28.599 the poverty rate. The poverty rate from the US trans 1:21:28.600 --> 1:21:32.080 Survey among trans people is thirty four percent. The American 1:21:32.120 --> 1:21:36.519 poverty rate is twelve percent, so that's almost three times 1:21:36.600 --> 1:21:41.240 higher than the general population's poverty rate, and thirty four 1:21:41.280 --> 1:21:44.720 percent is really bad, right, even looking at other demographics 1:21:44.720 --> 1:21:50.479 and other poverty rates, that's really really really bad. The 1:21:50.560 --> 1:21:54.839 trans unemployment rate is I think, in some ways even worse. 1:21:55.439 --> 1:21:58.360 The US trans unemployment rate is eighteen percent. The US 1:21:58.439 --> 1:22:00.920 unemployment rate in general and twenty twenty two is three 1:22:00.960 --> 1:22:04.800 point six percent. So let's try to get an understanding 1:22:04.840 --> 1:22:08.240 of what it means. Unemployment rate is a weird number. 1:22:08.439 --> 1:22:11.000 There are so there's people. It doesn't count in terms 1:22:11.040 --> 1:22:14.200 of people who have stopped looking for work, right, But 1:22:14.760 --> 1:22:17.760 to put this into perspective, during the peak of the 1:22:17.800 --> 1:22:20.639 lockdowns in twenty twenty the unemployment rate in the US 1:22:20.720 --> 1:22:22.760 was fourteen percent, and that was the highest it's been 1:22:22.800 --> 1:22:27.639 in ages. For trans people it's eighteen percent. So if 1:22:27.680 --> 1:22:31.400 your trans in America right trying to find a job, 1:22:31.800 --> 1:22:35.160 it is worse than it was for everyone during the lockdowns. 1:22:36.000 --> 1:22:41.400 Eighteen percent unemployment is like nineteen thirty seven, early nineteen 1:22:41.520 --> 1:22:44.760 thirty eight, great depression levels of unemployment. 1:22:45.680 --> 1:22:49.719 It's almost one in five people. And again these. 1:22:49.520 --> 1:22:52.360 Are the numbers from twenty twenty two, between the Biden 1:22:52.360 --> 1:22:55.920 administration when the situation was better for trans people. We 1:22:56.000 --> 1:23:00.439 don't have more recent numbers for the US of any 1:23:00.520 --> 1:23:04.080 kind of scale. And even back then four years ago, 1:23:04.160 --> 1:23:07.760 when things were better for US and the economy in 1:23:07.800 --> 1:23:11.960 general was running a little bit better. It was again 1:23:12.320 --> 1:23:18.200 nineteen thirty eight Great Depression levels for just a regular transperson. Right, 1:23:19.439 --> 1:23:22.800 this has a breathly really broad array of effects, right 1:23:22.840 --> 1:23:26.120 in terms of, you know, just the experience of the 1:23:26.160 --> 1:23:29.120 world that you have if you are trans because you 1:23:29.160 --> 1:23:32.479 are fundamentally living in a different world than an economic 1:23:32.520 --> 1:23:35.439 world than SIS people do. Like again, the CIS people's 1:23:35.520 --> 1:23:38.599 unemployment rate twenty twenty two was like three point six 1:23:38.640 --> 1:23:42.080 percent and yours is eighteen. You are living through the 1:23:42.080 --> 1:23:44.720 Great Depression and they are living through a normal economy. 1:23:45.280 --> 1:23:49.519 And that means that just fundamentally, from a class position, 1:23:49.640 --> 1:23:51.960 you have a different experience of reality than they do. 1:23:52.040 --> 1:23:55.599 You are living in something that is not the same 1:23:55.720 --> 1:24:00.960 as theirs. I also want to talk about home homelessless numbers, 1:24:01.000 --> 1:24:04.839 because you know, queer homelessness has always been really really 1:24:04.880 --> 1:24:09.160 bad for reasons that kind of obvious reasons that we'll 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:11.200 get into here, but it's also related to, for example, 1:24:11.200 --> 1:24:13.920 the unemployment rate and the poverty rate, because you know, 1:24:14.120 --> 1:24:17.440 having an apartment or just any place to stay is expensive. 1:24:18.000 --> 1:24:20.519 We got to report recently that was a joint effort 1:24:20.600 --> 1:24:23.040 between advocates for trans Equality and the National Alliance to 1:24:23.120 --> 1:24:26.679 End Homelessness who did a report using the USTs data, 1:24:27.400 --> 1:24:32.320 and they talked about how thirty percent of trans people 1:24:32.840 --> 1:24:37.400 have experienced homelessness in their lifetime. For Americans, it's about 1:24:37.439 --> 1:24:41.000 four percent for Americans at large, right this, you know, 1:24:41.120 --> 1:24:43.439 just like SIS Americans in general, it's about four percent. 1:24:44.120 --> 1:24:46.600 So that is a homelessness rate of eight times the 1:24:46.680 --> 1:24:50.680 rate of the general population. And again that is the 1:24:50.760 --> 1:24:55.200 twenty twenty two numbers, which are now worse. And this 1:24:55.280 --> 1:24:57.800 is something that I think is borne out by if 1:24:57.880 --> 1:25:03.320 you're around any like I mean, not even working class 1:25:03.320 --> 1:25:06.200 trans people, if you're just around trans people in general, 1:25:07.479 --> 1:25:12.320 you have met people who have been homeless, right Like, 1:25:12.680 --> 1:25:15.519 you're just constantly around people who have been homeless. And 1:25:16.240 --> 1:25:20.280 this is one of I think the defining elements of 1:25:20.800 --> 1:25:24.080 what being a trans worker is is that the level 1:25:24.120 --> 1:25:28.040 of pricarity is so great and the odds that through 1:25:28.040 --> 1:25:30.880 some kind of employment discrimination or just some bullshit happening 1:25:30.960 --> 1:25:33.240 with your employer or just like I don't know, the 1:25:33.280 --> 1:25:37.599 employers doing layoffs. It is so so easy to move 1:25:37.720 --> 1:25:42.240 back and forth between having an apartment and being on 1:25:42.280 --> 1:25:45.600 the street in a way that to some extent the 1:25:45.680 --> 1:25:51.320 general American population has. But again, the rate for the 1:25:51.360 --> 1:25:54.040 general population if they've been homeless in their lifetime is 1:25:54.080 --> 1:25:57.240 four percent, and for trans people it's thirty percent. And 1:25:57.640 --> 1:26:01.160 this rate, this thirty percent rate of trans people who've 1:26:01.160 --> 1:26:03.000 experienced homelessness. And also, by the way, a lot of 1:26:03.040 --> 1:26:06.479 the people who've experienced this have experienced in more than once. 1:26:07.000 --> 1:26:09.160 And you know, there's a lot of just people who 1:26:09.200 --> 1:26:12.040 are transfer homeless. Write the fuck now. This is why 1:26:12.080 --> 1:26:13.880 I say, like, put a transgirl on your couch at 1:26:13.880 --> 1:26:17.080 the end of every executive disorder, because there aren't like 1:26:17.200 --> 1:26:21.080 widespread solutions to this right now. It's something that we 1:26:21.160 --> 1:26:23.880 have to figure out for ourselves, and we just don't 1:26:23.920 --> 1:26:27.439 have the resources to do it now. This discrimination is 1:26:28.000 --> 1:26:32.400 intensified both in the housing market right by just general 1:26:32.479 --> 1:26:35.880 anti transcrimination, by poverty, and this is this is also 1:26:35.960 --> 1:26:37.880 sort of a cyclical process, right Like part of what's 1:26:37.920 --> 1:26:40.080 difficult about me writing this is that I haven't been 1:26:40.120 --> 1:26:41.840 homeless and I haven't been a sex worker, which means 1:26:41.880 --> 1:26:44.559 that I'm missing experiences that a lot of trans workers have. 1:26:45.360 --> 1:26:48.599 What I can say about it is like, obviously, being 1:26:49.040 --> 1:26:54.200 homeless makes it harder to get even just an apartment afterwards, 1:26:54.280 --> 1:26:57.080 because it has a whole bunch of negative effects on 1:26:58.160 --> 1:27:00.519 a whole bunch of shit, including, for example, like it 1:27:00.640 --> 1:27:03.360 like you know, obviously it's like fucks with your credit score, 1:27:03.439 --> 1:27:06.240 it fucks with just like oh, do you have like 1:27:06.360 --> 1:27:10.080 previous landlord references that you can use the There's a 1:27:10.120 --> 1:27:12.439 whole bunch of different sort of spiraling effects of this. 1:27:12.479 --> 1:27:16.400 There's obviously there's health effects, there's safety effects. So what 1:27:16.400 --> 1:27:19.520 you're facing is on the one hand, you are squeezed 1:27:19.520 --> 1:27:22.719 out through discrimination of the workplace, through the fact that also, 1:27:22.840 --> 1:27:26.120 and this is another fairly common thing, trans people make 1:27:26.120 --> 1:27:30.639 significantly less money than SIS people do. Just on the dollar, 1:27:30.920 --> 1:27:34.479 it's way way worse. So you have lower income when 1:27:34.560 --> 1:27:37.280 you get a job, you have less access to jobs, 1:27:38.000 --> 1:27:41.559 and you also just have housing market discrimination. And also 1:27:41.720 --> 1:27:44.640 trans people have weaker access to family support networks that 1:27:44.680 --> 1:27:47.479 function in a way to subsidize social reproduction for SIST people. 1:27:48.280 --> 1:27:52.759 A lot of trans people's families and parents don't accept them, 1:27:53.000 --> 1:27:55.720 and they just get kicked out or if they are 1:27:55.760 --> 1:27:58.120 able to access resources from them, it's under conditions of 1:27:58.160 --> 1:28:03.640 extreme violence, and that has a massive effect on homelessness. Right, like, 1:28:03.680 --> 1:28:05.840 a whole bunch of homelessness is caused by queer youth 1:28:06.320 --> 1:28:09.960 getting kicked out of their houses. And because you also 1:28:10.080 --> 1:28:14.559 don't have places you can go back to, right, you 1:28:14.600 --> 1:28:17.639 don't have the kind of like family like familial safety 1:28:17.680 --> 1:28:20.360 net that a lot of SIS people have access to, 1:28:20.400 --> 1:28:22.559 and you're less likely to have access to it. This 1:28:22.640 --> 1:28:27.360 intensifies the rate of homelessness, and it intensifies the consequences 1:28:27.400 --> 1:28:29.400 of it and how difficult it is to get out. 1:28:30.479 --> 1:28:32.240 All right, we are going to go to ads and 1:28:32.280 --> 1:28:34.839 then we are going to come back and talk about 1:28:34.920 --> 1:28:38.200 some more bleak shit. But also this is not just 1:28:38.520 --> 1:28:41.840 the Things Fall Apart podcast. This is also the put 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:44.520 It Back Together but in a better way podcast. 1:28:55.439 --> 1:28:59.240 We are back Now. 1:28:59.400 --> 1:29:03.360 There's another factor, something that's becoming increasingly a factor of 1:29:03.400 --> 1:29:07.439 trans life that has existed obviously for a long time, 1:29:07.479 --> 1:29:11.519 but has been enormously exacerbated by the current regime, and 1:29:11.640 --> 1:29:16.040 that is the trans refugee population. There is in the 1:29:16.240 --> 1:29:20.360 US a massive trans refugee population. These are you know, 1:29:20.400 --> 1:29:23.479 what you would call, I guess, internally displaced people. The 1:29:23.520 --> 1:29:26.240 Movement Advancement Project or MAP, did a study in twenty 1:29:26.280 --> 1:29:29.880 twenty four to twenty twenty five looking at trans people 1:29:29.920 --> 1:29:34.360 who moved from one state to another because of anti 1:29:34.360 --> 1:29:38.160 trans legislation, right, and they found and this is just 1:29:38.680 --> 1:29:43.479 between November and June of twenty twenty five, they found 1:29:43.720 --> 1:29:49.040 that nine percent of all trans people had moved in 1:29:49.920 --> 1:29:53.960 just an eight month span. Right, that's nine percent of 1:29:54.000 --> 1:29:57.719 trans people had just just in this span between November 1:29:57.840 --> 1:30:01.439 twenty twenty four and June twenty twenty five. Right, just 1:30:01.520 --> 1:30:06.000 in that span, nine percent of the transpopulation moved. That's 1:30:06.200 --> 1:30:10.679 over one percent of the total transpopulation moving per month 1:30:10.880 --> 1:30:15.320 to a different state, specifically because of anti trans legislation. Right, 1:30:15.720 --> 1:30:18.560 that's really bad. If you look at sort of the 1:30:18.880 --> 1:30:22.360 general population of transit in the US, that's four hundred 1:30:22.520 --> 1:30:27.240 thousand people in just that eight month span. That's the 1:30:27.439 --> 1:30:32.280 entire population of Cleveland, Ohio, and then thirty five thousand 1:30:32.520 --> 1:30:35.880 more people, Right, I mean that's like obviously it's not 1:30:35.960 --> 1:30:38.080 like the complete metropolitan it's like the ashual just like 1:30:38.160 --> 1:30:40.840 city of Cleveland. Right, But like, again, that's in the 1:30:40.840 --> 1:30:43.599 span of eight months, we moved the entire city of Cleveland. 1:30:44.600 --> 1:30:48.160 And it's definitely gotten almost certainly has like there have 1:30:48.200 --> 1:30:51.200 been more people who have moved, you know, since June 1:30:51.280 --> 1:30:54.800 twenty twenty five, because the anti transiscrimination, anti transcrackdowns from 1:30:54.800 --> 1:30:59.439 the state have only gotten worse. This is a refugee crisis, right, 1:30:59.800 --> 1:31:02.000 and the things that they're fleeing from are also things 1:31:02.000 --> 1:31:04.479 that are just you know, conditions of what of what 1:31:04.640 --> 1:31:08.679 being trands is in the US, right, which they're fleeing, 1:31:08.720 --> 1:31:12.640 restrictions on healthcare access from the national level, from the 1:31:12.680 --> 1:31:16.280 state level, also as we talked about, like from religious 1:31:16.320 --> 1:31:19.639 hospitals who can also just like even if even if 1:31:19.640 --> 1:31:21.240 you're in a so called bluestate can just be like 1:31:21.280 --> 1:31:22.840 fuck you eat shit, We're not going to give you 1:31:22.880 --> 1:31:26.280 health care. They're fleeing, bathroom bills, they're fleeing, don't say 1:31:26.280 --> 1:31:31.080 gay bands, they're fleeing. Also just an increase in social violence, 1:31:31.200 --> 1:31:34.720 right because the thing that this that this all legitimizes, right, 1:31:34.800 --> 1:31:38.400 that anti trans rhetoric legitimizes, the anti trans state action legitimizes, 1:31:39.120 --> 1:31:42.360 is just getting assaulted for being trans, a thing that 1:31:42.400 --> 1:31:46.320 has always happened, but it's now happening more than it 1:31:46.360 --> 1:31:51.560 did before. And yeah, that not being you know, assaulted, 1:31:51.640 --> 1:31:54.160 and this happens at work, This happens like coming back 1:31:54.160 --> 1:31:57.400 from work. This happens in other places too. Is also 1:31:57.479 --> 1:31:59.479 you know, a part of the condition of your labor 1:32:00.080 --> 1:32:02.840 when you combine the fact that trans people were already 1:32:02.880 --> 1:32:06.599 and I want to point this out right, the homelessness rates, 1:32:06.640 --> 1:32:10.479 you know, the eighteen percent rate of unemployment, the thirty 1:32:10.520 --> 1:32:14.439 percent rate of experiencing homelessness in their lifetime, right, that 1:32:14.680 --> 1:32:19.679 was before the refugee crisis, like really really intensified into 1:32:19.680 --> 1:32:23.519 what we're seeing now. Right, It was not as bad 1:32:23.560 --> 1:32:27.000 in twenty twenty two as it is right now, when again, 1:32:27.280 --> 1:32:30.120 like we were seeing for for a period of eight months, 1:32:30.120 --> 1:32:32.439 we were seeing over a percent of the population per month, 1:32:32.880 --> 1:32:36.160 the transpopulation per month, moving all all of the the 1:32:36.280 --> 1:32:41.120 unemployment numbers and the poverty numbers and the homeless numbers 1:32:41.439 --> 1:32:46.240 were those were all pre the sort of real intensification 1:32:46.439 --> 1:32:49.880 after the election of the mass migration and refugee sort 1:32:49.920 --> 1:32:53.240 of status or trans people, and this has had an 1:32:53.240 --> 1:32:57.519 effect on trans people's class position. Right, what this has 1:32:57.600 --> 1:33:00.280 created in the places that trans people are flat to, 1:33:00.360 --> 1:33:02.880 and this is places like Portland, this is places like 1:33:02.920 --> 1:33:05.400 New York, like LA There's a lot of sort of 1:33:05.439 --> 1:33:08.679 like regional centers too. Obviously, Chicago's at the other sort 1:33:08.720 --> 1:33:10.880 of big one, but you know, they're like places like Missoula, 1:33:11.560 --> 1:33:15.200 right for people who don't know what Missoum was, a 1:33:15.240 --> 1:33:17.519 city with you know, like a pretty large university of 1:33:17.520 --> 1:33:21.639 population in Montana that has a fairly large transpopulation because 1:33:21.640 --> 1:33:24.760 it collects trans people from a whole bunch of the 1:33:24.840 --> 1:33:26.479 region around it. And there's also a bunch of people 1:33:26.479 --> 1:33:28.559 who go to there for college and realize that they're trans. 1:33:29.240 --> 1:33:31.840 But what this has done, right is it's forced a 1:33:31.840 --> 1:33:35.840 bunch of people to move leave their homes, which is expensive, right, 1:33:36.280 --> 1:33:41.320 And then you have to find jobs in these new places, 1:33:42.120 --> 1:33:45.400 and it's already really difficult to find jobs in the 1:33:45.400 --> 1:33:48.679 places that you were. And so you know what you're 1:33:48.680 --> 1:33:52.360 facing just in general, right, is you're facing this trade 1:33:52.400 --> 1:33:56.240 off between can you survive in the place that you 1:33:56.400 --> 1:34:00.639 are with the life that you have, or you need 1:34:01.000 --> 1:34:05.280 to pick up and go to another place where it's 1:34:06.000 --> 1:34:09.120 less illegal for you to be yourself. And what this 1:34:09.160 --> 1:34:13.400 has created is this sort of mass underclass of trans 1:34:13.439 --> 1:34:17.680 workers that is especially large in places with large refugee populations. 1:34:18.400 --> 1:34:22.040 These workers are of any subgroup that, like trans people 1:34:22.040 --> 1:34:24.559 are in the trans people in that group are the 1:34:24.560 --> 1:34:29.040 most marginalized and the most just absolutely fucked of everyone 1:34:29.080 --> 1:34:29.639 in that group. 1:34:29.840 --> 1:34:30.040 Right. 1:34:30.800 --> 1:34:32.599 You know, you can look at like the violence rates 1:34:32.640 --> 1:34:37.880 for black trans women particularly is appalling. Right, there's a 1:34:37.880 --> 1:34:40.439 lot of disabled trans people, and among disabled people who 1:34:40.439 --> 1:34:43.640 already have it really really bad in the US, right, Like, 1:34:43.680 --> 1:34:47.200 you look at disabled trans people and it's even fucking harder. 1:34:47.280 --> 1:34:50.040 That's especially an issue with you know, something that's been 1:34:50.080 --> 1:34:52.519 affecting a whole bunch of people, which is the Medicaid 1:34:52.600 --> 1:34:56.600 work requirements, which have been just unbelievably harmful to a 1:34:56.640 --> 1:34:59.160 whole bunch of disabled trans people who suddenly are being 1:34:59.439 --> 1:35:04.479 like worse to work, who just can't. Right, And what 1:35:05.240 --> 1:35:10.320 this has created is this incredibly incredibly precarious class of workers. 1:35:10.880 --> 1:35:13.240 All over the spectrum of the working class, right, there 1:35:13.240 --> 1:35:15.920 are a lot of trans people, an unbelievable number of 1:35:15.920 --> 1:35:19.439 trans people working service jobs. And like the lower end 1:35:19.479 --> 1:35:21.640 and shittier the service job, the more likely you are 1:35:21.680 --> 1:35:25.080 to find trans people there. There's always been a lot 1:35:25.080 --> 1:35:27.559 of trans sex work because a lot of times that's 1:35:27.560 --> 1:35:29.240 the thing you can do, right, And this is sex 1:35:29.280 --> 1:35:32.559 work across the entire spectrum of what sex work is 1:35:33.320 --> 1:35:35.800 of sort of like greater and lesser degrees of risk. 1:35:36.439 --> 1:35:40.080 This also is the thing that contributes to the criminalization 1:35:40.120 --> 1:35:42.400 of trans people, because there's a bunch of criminalization of 1:35:42.400 --> 1:35:45.680 sex workers in ways that gets trans people targeted by 1:35:45.720 --> 1:35:48.160 the police and subject even more police violence than they 1:35:48.160 --> 1:35:51.000 are already which they are also subject to extraordinary amounts 1:35:51.000 --> 1:35:54.439 of police violence. I don't know, every trans person has 1:35:54.640 --> 1:36:07.920 seen some shit, but I'm not just saying this to 1:36:08.000 --> 1:36:11.040 be like the trans class position is bad. But what 1:36:11.080 --> 1:36:16.240 this has done is create this class of trans workers 1:36:16.280 --> 1:36:20.599 that moves between parts of the class that don't have 1:36:20.720 --> 1:36:23.599 contact with each other very much. There's a whole bunch 1:36:23.600 --> 1:36:26.680 of movement between being housed and being unhoused in a 1:36:26.720 --> 1:36:30.920 way that is at a significantly broader scale than it 1:36:31.000 --> 1:36:33.280 is for the rest of like the rest of the population, 1:36:33.560 --> 1:36:35.599 there are a whole bunch of different kinds of trans 1:36:35.600 --> 1:36:38.960 workers who are able to unify around being trans and 1:36:39.080 --> 1:36:41.080 have contact with each other and do organize with each other, 1:36:41.080 --> 1:36:44.360 and who fight, you know, alongside each other, right from 1:36:44.439 --> 1:36:47.840 different parts of the working class that don't often particularly 1:36:47.920 --> 1:36:50.680 get along, and in particular in terms of like you know, 1:36:50.800 --> 1:36:53.519 service workers and on house people, there is a really 1:36:53.560 --> 1:36:56.760 systemic effort by the States and by the rights and 1:36:56.880 --> 1:36:58.840 even need to buy that by the Democratic Party too, 1:36:59.360 --> 1:37:03.719 to pit these against each other. But also with trans people, 1:37:03.760 --> 1:37:06.280 it's like, well, I don't know, like there's also an 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:08.120 extent to which yeah, like if you're a transparson, you 1:37:08.160 --> 1:37:11.639 are you know, X number of days away from being 1:37:11.680 --> 1:37:14.639 that person on the street. And so this has created 1:37:14.680 --> 1:37:21.000 a fairly unique class position right of unbelievable precarity, you know, 1:37:21.040 --> 1:37:24.000 state and forced pricarity. It's it's it's obviously not the 1:37:24.040 --> 1:37:27.960 only right class position in the US of like legally 1:37:28.040 --> 1:37:31.439 mandated percarity. You can look at undocumented workers who have 1:37:31.720 --> 1:37:35.320 even more genocidal shit happening against them right now in 1:37:35.400 --> 1:37:38.679 terms of just like yeah, no, yeah, there's just ice 1:37:38.880 --> 1:37:42.559 rounding people up. But what has been produced here is 1:37:42.640 --> 1:37:46.400 this incredibly precarious class like down the remobile workers. And 1:37:46.520 --> 1:37:49.120 it's also worth noting that like to some extent, this 1:37:49.160 --> 1:37:53.679 is a deliberate strategy of the right, Like this is this. 1:37:53.560 --> 1:37:56.320 Is what the right wants. 1:37:56.840 --> 1:38:00.000 You know, if you look at like the rise of neoliberalists, 1:37:59.880 --> 1:38:03.280 and you look at Reagan, you look at Thatcher, right, 1:38:03.640 --> 1:38:05.960 one of the big things that they are about in 1:38:06.040 --> 1:38:09.640 this era is control over gender and control over social reproduction. 1:38:10.800 --> 1:38:12.280 This is one of the things, you know, if you 1:38:12.320 --> 1:38:14.519 look at how these people come to power, they come 1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:18.240 to power on the back of very very right wing 1:38:18.320 --> 1:38:21.400 social movements, right that are you know, in the US, 1:38:21.520 --> 1:38:23.320 it's like the you know, the sort of like the 1:38:23.360 --> 1:38:28.320 rise of the evangelicals, who one of their big things, right, 1:38:28.320 --> 1:38:30.360 one of the things that they're interested in is suppressing 1:38:30.439 --> 1:38:32.759 queer people specifically, right. 1:38:33.520 --> 1:38:35.439 But you can you can look at this in other. 1:38:35.280 --> 1:38:38.679 Context too, where you know, you can look at China 1:38:38.720 --> 1:38:40.960 in the nineteen eighties as the beginning of sort of 1:38:41.000 --> 1:38:43.080 the reform period of starting when you start to see 1:38:43.080 --> 1:38:46.320 the return of capitalists in the China in nineteen eighty 1:38:46.439 --> 1:38:49.080 you get the one child policy occurring on a little 1:38:49.080 --> 1:38:51.160 bit of a tangent here. But something I don't think 1:38:51.240 --> 1:38:55.200 is really acknowledged in the way that people think and 1:38:55.240 --> 1:38:57.439 talk about China, which is that the one child policy 1:38:57.560 --> 1:38:59.560 was not a thing from the Maoist period. This was 1:38:59.560 --> 1:39:02.880 the reform, right, Dan Jhahping is in power when this 1:39:02.920 --> 1:39:05.280 goes into effect, right, and when it's like written into 1:39:05.320 --> 1:39:08.320 the constitution, like this is dang Zhahping, This is this is, 1:39:08.520 --> 1:39:11.840 you know, the sort of pro capitalist reform movements that 1:39:11.960 --> 1:39:15.920 is imposing the one child policy on people in the US. 1:39:15.960 --> 1:39:18.639 You also have like restrictions on abortion that are sort 1:39:18.640 --> 1:39:21.639 of part and parcel of the rights attempt to expand 1:39:21.680 --> 1:39:25.640 capitalism because control over the family, control over you know, 1:39:25.920 --> 1:39:29.240 social reproduction, the production of new workers and the ability 1:39:29.760 --> 1:39:33.080 for people to continue to be workers for the capitalist system, 1:39:33.600 --> 1:39:37.080 that's something that is important to them, right, And the 1:39:37.240 --> 1:39:39.880 maintenance of right wing gender roles is something that is 1:39:39.920 --> 1:39:43.320 important for them to be able to reproduce their ideology 1:39:43.320 --> 1:39:46.519 and also reproduce capital in general. And so they came 1:39:46.560 --> 1:39:50.080 after us. But on the other hand, right, you know, 1:39:50.240 --> 1:39:52.760 as much as we have been targeted by the right, 1:39:53.600 --> 1:39:56.439 trans people have also, as I sort of talked about 1:39:56.520 --> 1:39:59.680 a bit at the beginning of this episode, been overrepresented 1:39:59.760 --> 1:40:03.439 in just every left of social movement for the past 1:40:03.479 --> 1:40:08.000 like two decades, right, everything from like union organizing to 1:40:08.160 --> 1:40:11.320 mutual aid to like who shows up in the street 1:40:11.360 --> 1:40:16.200 to protest to like blocks, from like occupy to the Uprising. Right, 1:40:16.880 --> 1:40:19.960 there are trans people in all of these social movements 1:40:20.000 --> 1:40:22.720 in extremely key roles. And the only real way for 1:40:22.760 --> 1:40:25.080 this not to happen is to when trans people are 1:40:25.120 --> 1:40:27.880 specifically driven out of these movements, and that happens a lot, right, 1:40:27.960 --> 1:40:30.040 Like That's that's also like one of the things that 1:40:30.080 --> 1:40:33.840 you experience being being a trends like worker is that, 1:40:33.920 --> 1:40:37.360 you know, people who are transphobic in the left will 1:40:37.439 --> 1:40:40.799 run you out of the shit that you're doing. Usually, 1:40:41.040 --> 1:40:43.080 I say usually because some ofttimes. 1:40:42.640 --> 1:40:43.000 They are x. 1:40:43.080 --> 1:40:45.800 You are explicitly pushed after being trans. Usually there's like 1:40:45.840 --> 1:40:48.559 some other excuse that's that's found to do this. But 1:40:49.000 --> 1:40:51.879 you know, even with how much you know, like persecution 1:40:51.920 --> 1:40:54.000 to trans people there have been in the social movements, 1:40:54.439 --> 1:40:58.160 trans people still show up for right, you know, they 1:40:58.200 --> 1:41:00.720 take just sort of a random example, right, friend of 1:41:00.760 --> 1:41:04.479 the show, Vicky Ostroweil was the facilitator of the first 1:41:04.520 --> 1:41:05.840 occupy meeting in New York. 1:41:06.000 --> 1:41:07.759 Right, We're just always there. 1:41:08.320 --> 1:41:11.800 We have always been there, We've been there everywhere, and 1:41:11.840 --> 1:41:14.639 we will continue to be there in all of these movements, 1:41:14.640 --> 1:41:18.080 in the anti ice movements. In I say movements because 1:41:18.120 --> 1:41:21.200 like this is true in like the twenty eighteen anti 1:41:21.240 --> 1:41:23.559 Ice movement is true in the current anti ice movement. 1:41:23.640 --> 1:41:26.120 It is true in the student encampments of twenty twenty 1:41:26.120 --> 1:41:29.599 four and there's a reason for this, and the reason 1:41:29.640 --> 1:41:33.479 for this, to a large extent is that very precarity, right, 1:41:33.520 --> 1:41:37.320 if you were going to be trans, especially now, you 1:41:37.479 --> 1:41:41.639 have no choice but to fight, if you want to exist, 1:41:41.680 --> 1:41:44.200 if you want to have access to your healthcare, if 1:41:44.240 --> 1:41:47.960 you want to be upgraded to the status of mere proletarians, 1:41:48.640 --> 1:41:53.640 if you want your life to just merely merely be 1:41:54.439 --> 1:41:58.160 the life of a CIS worker, which is significantly less 1:41:58.200 --> 1:42:01.880 fucked than your life is, you have to fight. And 1:42:01.920 --> 1:42:04.679 this is something that is also spread to some extent 1:42:04.760 --> 1:42:08.599 by sort of transculture, I would say broadly, but also 1:42:08.680 --> 1:42:11.040 just like the kind of social groups that form, and 1:42:11.200 --> 1:42:13.360 also it's spread and this is particularly something you see 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:15.040 in unions a lot, right. We've talked a lot in 1:42:15.080 --> 1:42:18.559 the show about trans people being overrepresented in unions. It's like, well, 1:42:18.560 --> 1:42:23.640 we're overrepresented in unions because we're workers, right, And this 1:42:23.720 --> 1:42:26.599 is in some sense the potential of what the Right 1:42:26.680 --> 1:42:30.360 has wrought, right, which is that they have created this 1:42:30.960 --> 1:42:36.200 extremely large population of trans service workers and trans refugees 1:42:36.760 --> 1:42:39.720 who have nothing to lose but their chains and a 1:42:39.760 --> 1:42:44.599 world to win. Slightly elsewhere in the manifesto, like Marx Rights, 1:42:44.920 --> 1:42:49.640 what the bourgeoisie produce above all are its own grave diggers. 1:42:49.720 --> 1:42:53.920 And if you look out at the world in twenty 1:42:54.000 --> 1:42:57.599 twenty six, right, you can see the graves being dug 1:42:58.840 --> 1:43:01.880 The question is who is going to be buried there? 1:43:02.720 --> 1:43:06.240 The capitalist class would very much like it to be us. I, 1:43:06.320 --> 1:43:09.040 for one thing, don't want to fucking be buried in 1:43:09.080 --> 1:43:11.840 a mass grave. And if we're going to put something 1:43:11.920 --> 1:43:15.439 in that grave, better it be the class system itself. 1:43:16.360 --> 1:43:19.799 And that's a world worth fighting for. The world where 1:43:19.840 --> 1:43:22.599 there are no grave diggers, where there are no mass graves, 1:43:22.880 --> 1:43:25.280 where the state and the landlord don't throw you on 1:43:25.320 --> 1:43:29.120 the street in the night, where you can live in 1:43:29.160 --> 1:43:32.720 your community and not be run out, where you have 1:43:32.840 --> 1:43:35.120 your healthcare, and you are able to be the person 1:43:35.360 --> 1:43:38.759 that you want to be. And that world is winnable. 1:43:39.760 --> 1:43:41.960 All that is left is to fight for it. 1:43:54.960 --> 1:43:57.479 Welcome to it. Could happen here. I show about things 1:43:57.640 --> 1:44:01.839 falling apart and putting them back together. I'm Garrison Davis. 1:44:02.080 --> 1:44:05.759 This episode is on probably the most controversial mid term 1:44:05.800 --> 1:44:10.360 election happening this year, the US Senate race in Maine, 1:44:11.040 --> 1:44:14.280 where the new Democratic nominee Graham Platner is running to 1:44:14.400 --> 1:44:18.840 end the thirty year reign of Republican Senator Susan Collins, 1:44:19.360 --> 1:44:23.880 who brands herself as a moderate, independent leaning Republican but 1:44:24.040 --> 1:44:28.240 is consistently backed Trump's on popular policies while holding on 1:44:28.320 --> 1:44:31.639 to power. Beating Susan Collins would be a key part 1:44:31.720 --> 1:44:35.680 of taking the Senate away from the Republicans. Much of 1:44:35.720 --> 1:44:39.519 the media coverage and discussion of this election has focused 1:44:39.560 --> 1:44:43.720 on the scandals relating to Graham Platner's personal life, with 1:44:44.040 --> 1:44:48.080 very little on the real relations of his campaign, the 1:44:48.120 --> 1:44:51.240 political platform he's running, on the relations between him and 1:44:51.400 --> 1:44:56.200 organized labor unions and working class maners. Platter's campaign has 1:44:56.200 --> 1:45:01.559 attracted overwhelming support from voters in Maine despite the series 1:45:01.600 --> 1:45:05.720 of well reported personal controversies the Nazi links tattoo he 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:09.000 got his a marine, old offensive reddit posts, marital issues, 1:45:09.040 --> 1:45:12.120 relationship issues, and an ext girlfriend who worked at the 1:45:12.120 --> 1:45:16.799 Heritage Foundation accusing him of quote unquote disturbing behavior after 1:45:16.880 --> 1:45:20.280 he got out of the military. Mainstream outlets have covered 1:45:20.280 --> 1:45:24.360 those at length. This episode, I'm going to narrowly focus 1:45:24.520 --> 1:45:28.439 on the relations of Grand Platner's campaign. I'll start by 1:45:28.479 --> 1:45:32.120 going over his campaign platform, then his ties to labor 1:45:32.200 --> 1:45:36.880 unions and community organizing, and finally, how those ties set 1:45:36.920 --> 1:45:40.880 up his campaign for massive success in the Democratic primary. 1:45:41.479 --> 1:45:45.519 Platner calls himself a new deal Democrat, and, like Bernie Sanders, 1:45:45.520 --> 1:45:48.919 believes we need a quote unquote political revolution in this country. 1:45:49.560 --> 1:45:51.640 He wants to shake up the Supreme Court, increase the 1:45:51.680 --> 1:45:56.360 federal minimum wage, and ban billionaires from buying elections. His 1:45:56.400 --> 1:45:59.320 platform is also designed to address the concerns of working 1:45:59.360 --> 1:46:04.760 class Mayer like declining manufacturing, decaying infrastructure, closing hospitals, and 1:46:04.840 --> 1:46:09.479 spiking energy costs. Platinir supports universal health care and ultimately 1:46:09.479 --> 1:46:12.760 wants to pass a Medicare for all type system, while 1:46:12.800 --> 1:46:17.479 pointing to how the country could build on the VA model, saying, quote, 1:46:17.800 --> 1:46:20.559 the level of healthcare I've received with Maine's excellent VA 1:46:20.680 --> 1:46:25.320 system should be available to all on quote we all 1:46:25.360 --> 1:46:28.040 know that going up against for profit healthcare will be 1:46:28.200 --> 1:46:32.240 a hard battle to win. His platform contains a list 1:46:32.280 --> 1:46:36.040 of policies that will start to break up healthcare monopolies 1:46:36.080 --> 1:46:40.599 and crack down on pharma corruption, like banning insurance companies 1:46:40.600 --> 1:46:43.960 and private equity from buying medical practices and hospitals, and 1:46:44.000 --> 1:46:48.040 banning prescription drug advertising Platina says he wants to expand 1:46:48.240 --> 1:46:51.880 Medicare and MEDICAIDS power to negotiate drug prices, allow the 1:46:51.880 --> 1:46:54.720 import of low cost prescription drugs from other markets, and 1:46:54.840 --> 1:46:57.960 ban stock buybacks, and impose a cap on executive compensation 1:46:58.040 --> 1:47:02.320 for pharmaceutical companies that receive public funds. His platform calls 1:47:02.360 --> 1:47:06.360 to direct federal funds to reopen recently closed hospitals, birthing units, 1:47:06.360 --> 1:47:11.479 and clinics, establish a national public drug manufacturing sector, make 1:47:11.600 --> 1:47:15.519 Medicare telehealth coverage permanent reverse doge cuts to the via 1:47:16.120 --> 1:47:19.719 national legislation, mandating a safe level of nurse to patient ratios, 1:47:19.760 --> 1:47:24.280 to counter chronic hospital understaffing, and to open a new 1:47:24.280 --> 1:47:27.840 medical school at University Maine. A large part of Grand 1:47:27.880 --> 1:47:32.679 Platner's policy platform is focused on protecting democracy by keeping 1:47:32.800 --> 1:47:37.320 money out of elections. Quote. Democracy cannot function when wealth 1:47:37.360 --> 1:47:41.439 buys power. Since Citizens United unlimited, dark money has flooded 1:47:41.439 --> 1:47:46.120 American politics, giving billionaires and special interests enormous influence unquote, 1:47:47.000 --> 1:47:50.640 Platnair wants to overturn Citizens United, either through a constitutional 1:47:50.640 --> 1:47:54.240 amendment or a different Supreme Court. More on that later. 1:47:54.720 --> 1:47:58.520 He also campaigns on banning congressional stock trading, and advocates 1:47:58.520 --> 1:48:03.200 that former members of Congress should be banned from congressional lobbying. Quote. 1:48:03.400 --> 1:48:07.160 Public service should never become a pathway to private affluence unquote. 1:48:07.520 --> 1:48:11.479 Platner supports mandating congressional term limits two for the Senate 1:48:11.520 --> 1:48:14.640 and six for the House, and at a minimum, returning 1:48:14.680 --> 1:48:19.320 to the talking filibuster. His platform also includes congressional representation 1:48:19.479 --> 1:48:22.880 for everyone in the country quote unquote, including in places 1:48:23.000 --> 1:48:27.080 like Washington, d c. As for the Supreme Court, Platner 1:48:27.120 --> 1:48:30.320 wants to pack the court and end lifetime appointments with 1:48:30.439 --> 1:48:34.920 staggered time limited terms. He's also in favor of impeaching 1:48:35.120 --> 1:48:38.280 justices on the Supreme Court by quote holding the Court 1:48:38.360 --> 1:48:41.960 to the same ethic standards we hold all other federal 1:48:42.040 --> 1:48:46.960 judges unquote. Platine supports passing a constitutional amendment to quote 1:48:47.120 --> 1:48:52.840 prohibit partisan jerrymandering and require independent redistricting commissions to draw 1:48:52.960 --> 1:48:56.439 their maps, which he says would keep elected officials more 1:48:56.439 --> 1:49:01.920 accountable and make voters voices stronger. To combat anti labor 1:49:02.080 --> 1:49:05.439 legislation like the Taft Hartley Act, Plantner wants to strengthen 1:49:05.439 --> 1:49:09.000 our quote unquote right to organize by passing the Protecting 1:49:09.080 --> 1:49:12.320 the Right to Organize Act, which would crack down on 1:49:12.439 --> 1:49:16.240 union busting by issuing significant penalties and override right to 1:49:16.320 --> 1:49:20.200 work laws. Planner also supports creating a union job requirement 1:49:20.240 --> 1:49:24.759 for all jobs funded by federal dollars. In interviews, Plantner 1:49:24.800 --> 1:49:28.400 is advocated for something akin to FDR's proposed Economic Bill 1:49:28.439 --> 1:49:31.559 of Rights. Quote. In order to democratize our economy, we 1:49:31.600 --> 1:49:35.839 need to provide as rights things like housing, healthcare, education, 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:39.080 and collective bargaining unquote. He also wants to pass the 1:49:39.120 --> 1:49:42.920 Equal Rights Amendment to protect against sex discrimination, while addressing 1:49:42.960 --> 1:49:46.639 how communities of color, LGBTQ, Americans, and immigrants have had 1:49:46.800 --> 1:49:49.759 the legal protections that were meant to guarantee them equal 1:49:49.880 --> 1:49:53.839 rights quote turned against them instead of working in their defense. 1:49:54.439 --> 1:49:57.720 We need a twenty first century constitution that restores the 1:49:57.760 --> 1:50:01.200 original purpose of these guarantees equal rights under the law 1:50:01.240 --> 1:50:05.320 protected for every person in this country unquote. His policy 1:50:05.320 --> 1:50:11.320 platform includes passing federal LGBTQ anti discrimination legislation and calls 1:50:11.360 --> 1:50:15.320 out Democrats for quote unquote peddling soft bigotry to pander 1:50:15.400 --> 1:50:19.879 to Trump voters. One of Platner's most in depth policy 1:50:19.920 --> 1:50:24.280 pages is for his billionaire tax plan, which he says 1:50:24.360 --> 1:50:27.960 represents quote the bare minimum of what I believe we 1:50:27.960 --> 1:50:32.799 should expect a democratic Congress under our next president to pass. 1:50:33.479 --> 1:50:36.840 Plantner believes that income taxes alone quote cannot address the 1:50:36.880 --> 1:50:40.120 massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. 1:50:40.160 --> 1:50:43.919 Only a tax on wealth can do so. He promotes 1:50:43.960 --> 1:50:47.120 a five to six percent annual tax on wealth over 1:50:47.280 --> 1:50:51.120 one billion dollars, as well as taxing capital gains the 1:50:51.160 --> 1:50:55.479 same as wages, quadrupling taxes on stock buybacks, and taxing 1:50:55.520 --> 1:50:59.680 excessive CEO pay to pressure corporations to reinvest profits back 1:50:59.720 --> 1:51:02.439 into the workers through higher wages, better benefits, and long 1:51:02.520 --> 1:51:05.960 term security. On the campaign trail, he's talked with voters 1:51:05.960 --> 1:51:09.639 about removing the one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars 1:51:09.680 --> 1:51:13.760 a year income tax cap on Social Security payments so 1:51:13.840 --> 1:51:17.160 that the ultra rich contribute to the same payroll tax 1:51:17.280 --> 1:51:19.800 rate as the rest of us. He also wants to 1:51:19.800 --> 1:51:24.360 restore the enhanced child tax credit. Platner's tax plan doesn't 1:51:24.400 --> 1:51:28.680 just include raising taxes on the rich, but closing loopholes 1:51:28.720 --> 1:51:33.640 make a corporation's use to avoid paying taxes altogether. Quote 1:51:34.000 --> 1:51:36.840 By closing corporate loopholes. We ensure that the giants who 1:51:36.840 --> 1:51:41.080 profit off our shared infrastructure, courts, and educated workforce finally 1:51:41.120 --> 1:51:44.519 pay their way, and that we can sustain investments into schools, safety, 1:51:44.560 --> 1:51:49.040 and services every community depends on. One way to stop 1:51:49.120 --> 1:51:53.479 corporate tax dodging is by ending worker misclassification, that is, 1:51:53.560 --> 1:51:56.600 hiring workers as quote unquote contractors to deprive workers of 1:51:56.680 --> 1:52:01.320 labor protections and healthcare, while using this misclassification to dodge 1:52:01.360 --> 1:52:05.599 payroll taxes. Instead of foreign policy dominated by trade agreements 1:52:05.640 --> 1:52:10.240 that exploits workers and promotes endless war, Platner's platform calls 1:52:10.320 --> 1:52:14.160 for a new era of American quote unquote economic diplomacy 1:52:14.880 --> 1:52:18.160 that takes on billionaires who quote defund the societies that 1:52:18.280 --> 1:52:21.800 made their fortunes possible simply by shuffling money into an 1:52:21.800 --> 1:52:27.599 offshore account unquote. He advocates a global billionaire minimum tax 1:52:27.880 --> 1:52:31.960 to quote ensure that extreme wealth is finally reinvested in 1:52:32.040 --> 1:52:36.040 the public good, regardless of where it is parked unquote. 1:52:36.360 --> 1:52:39.440 This is based on a proposal by the EU's Internal 1:52:39.560 --> 1:52:43.040 Tax Observatory. To accomplish this, Platner says, we would need 1:52:43.080 --> 1:52:47.200 to overhaul global economic institutions, use our leverage as a 1:52:47.240 --> 1:52:52.040 trading partner, and use international economic diplomacy to target concentrated 1:52:52.080 --> 1:52:57.000 wealth and coordinate taxes and sanctions on ultra wealthy individuals quote, 1:52:57.360 --> 1:53:02.400 rather than relying on broad trades actions that harm ordinary people. 1:53:03.200 --> 1:53:06.960 He also wants to close an inheritance tax loophole by 1:53:07.000 --> 1:53:10.000 stopping billionaires from passing down their wealth to their errors 1:53:10.040 --> 1:53:14.519 tax free through buying appreciating assets, borrowing against those assets, 1:53:14.560 --> 1:53:17.599 and then passing down the assets after they die while 1:53:17.640 --> 1:53:22.040 avoiding any taxes on the increased asset value. Platner says 1:53:22.080 --> 1:53:25.639 time for those gains to be taxed too. The tax 1:53:25.680 --> 1:53:29.000 plan also includes ways to lower taxes for working and 1:53:29.040 --> 1:53:32.880 middle class Americans. Quote. If we tax millionaires and billionaires 1:53:32.920 --> 1:53:35.479 at fair levels, we can provide a quote unquote cost 1:53:35.520 --> 1:53:38.360 of living exemption from federal income tax up to a 1:53:38.400 --> 1:53:42.479 reasonable threshold for working and middle class Americans. If we 1:53:42.520 --> 1:53:46.320 stop multinational monopolies from dodging their taxes, we can cut 1:53:46.360 --> 1:53:49.439 taxes on the small businesses and self employed individuals who 1:53:49.439 --> 1:53:53.160 are struggling to survive. The federal government could adopt a 1:53:53.280 --> 1:53:57.840 property tax fairness credit similar to MAINZ that ensures low 1:53:57.920 --> 1:53:59.760 and middle income families do not pay more than for 1:53:59.840 --> 1:54:03.680 percent of their income in property taxes by providing a 1:54:03.720 --> 1:54:08.000 refundable credit, including a fair calculation of rent attributable to 1:54:08.120 --> 1:54:13.000 property taxes, so that renters are treated equitably un quote. 1:54:13.040 --> 1:54:16.960 Something we've previously reported on is Platner's opposition to what 1:54:17.040 --> 1:54:22.040 he calls regressive gas and diesel taxes. Quote. Relying on 1:54:22.120 --> 1:54:25.040 fossil fuels to fund basic infrastructure does not make sense 1:54:25.120 --> 1:54:29.400 if we want to reduce fossil fuels used in transportation. Instead, 1:54:29.680 --> 1:54:33.600 public goods should be financed by progressive general revenues, as 1:54:33.600 --> 1:54:38.600 outlined in my end billionaire welfare tax plan unquote. Platner 1:54:38.720 --> 1:54:41.920 notes that an extra two hundred and seventy five billion 1:54:42.000 --> 1:54:46.600 dollars has supplemented the tax based Highway Trust Fund since 1:54:46.640 --> 1:54:51.080 two thousand and eight. Platner also supports Rocana's Big Oil 1:54:51.200 --> 1:54:54.880 Windfall Profits bill that would implement a per barrel tax 1:54:54.920 --> 1:54:57.160 equal to fifty percent of the difference between the current 1:54:57.160 --> 1:55:00.280 oil price and the price per barrel last year, and 1:55:00.360 --> 1:55:03.919 he promotes a national electricity rate freeze by quote, providing 1:55:04.000 --> 1:55:07.800 direct low cost energy infrastructure financing to any state that 1:55:07.880 --> 1:55:12.240 freezes or lowers electricity rates for four years, funded by 1:55:12.280 --> 1:55:17.720 the windfall profits tax and repurposed federal fossil fuel subsidies. Quote. 1:55:18.560 --> 1:55:22.760 His platform states that the most effective national security project 1:55:23.120 --> 1:55:27.720 would be a huge buildout of domestic clean energy production, 1:55:28.560 --> 1:55:31.000 rather than relying on private equity to invest in new 1:55:31.000 --> 1:55:35.840 clean energy. Plantner supports a National Energy Infrastructure Fund that 1:55:35.840 --> 1:55:38.879 would issue debt backed by the federal government and quote 1:55:39.120 --> 1:55:43.040 partner with state lending authorities to provide cheap capital directly 1:55:43.080 --> 1:55:48.320 to utilities, rural electric cooperatives, public energy authorities, and other 1:55:48.400 --> 1:55:53.760 developers of low risk clean energy projects unquote. Plantner believes 1:55:53.760 --> 1:55:56.800 this fund could cut Wall Street speculators out of the equation, 1:55:57.360 --> 1:56:00.839 help build at scale with union jobs, low lower costs, 1:56:00.880 --> 1:56:04.520 and pass savings onto rate payers. He also wants the 1:56:04.520 --> 1:56:07.680 Department Energy to use the Defense Production Act to revive 1:56:07.960 --> 1:56:13.080 dimestic manufacturing to procure and stockpile critical clean energy technologies. 1:56:13.840 --> 1:56:17.280 His platform also includes creating a strategic fuel reserve for 1:56:17.320 --> 1:56:21.360 farmers and fisheries, a national whole home repair program to 1:56:21.440 --> 1:56:26.520 assist in weatherization, electrification, and heat pumps to lower household 1:56:26.560 --> 1:56:29.640 bills by partnering with public housing authorities, county programs, and 1:56:29.680 --> 1:56:32.960 local trade unions. As well as reinvesting the money funnel 1:56:33.000 --> 1:56:37.920 to big defense contractors back into shipbuilding. On the campaign trail, 1:56:37.960 --> 1:56:40.800 Platner talks a lot about being a veteran and the 1:56:40.880 --> 1:56:45.080 various ways that's informed his politics. He's promised to quote, 1:56:45.360 --> 1:56:49.680 never send Americans into a pointless war, and to solve 1:56:49.680 --> 1:56:52.560 the issue of a president effectively being able to declare 1:56:52.600 --> 1:56:55.400 wars but it's not call them wars. Platner is called 1:56:55.440 --> 1:56:58.600 on Congress to reclaim its war powers and other authorities 1:56:58.680 --> 1:57:03.200 over the executive. We must pass a new War Powers Act. 1:57:03.760 --> 1:57:07.080 This say must go for ending the executive's intrusion on 1:57:07.160 --> 1:57:12.520 congressional powers of the purse, taxation, and other legislative prerogatives. Unquote. 1:57:12.880 --> 1:57:17.000 We'll talk more about grand Platner's campaign platform and ties 1:57:17.040 --> 1:57:31.200 to organized labor after this ad break. Welcome back to 1:57:31.320 --> 1:57:35.320 it could happen here. Democratic nominee for US Senate, grand 1:57:35.360 --> 1:57:38.320 Platner was interviewed by The New York Times and said 1:57:38.360 --> 1:57:41.640 that since the end of the Second World War, American 1:57:41.680 --> 1:57:46.280 foreign policy, our wars and interventions haven't been good for 1:57:46.480 --> 1:57:51.320 workers or American families. Quote, they often are very good 1:57:51.400 --> 1:57:55.120 for corporate interests, defense contractors, and people in places of 1:57:55.120 --> 1:57:58.320 political power who want to use war as a mechanism 1:57:58.400 --> 1:58:03.480 of protecting their political power unquote. Platter told The Times 1:58:03.480 --> 1:58:07.120 that he has a complicated relationship with the military, where 1:58:07.560 --> 1:58:11.200 he's still proud of being a marine, but is ashamed 1:58:11.240 --> 1:58:14.040 of what's happened in the Middle East and says that 1:58:14.080 --> 1:58:18.040 the policies and systems orchestrating those wars are quote unquote 1:58:18.280 --> 1:58:21.320 flawed from the top down, and that he considers himself 1:58:21.360 --> 1:58:22.080 anti war. 1:58:22.800 --> 1:58:24.320 But it doesn't matter if you try your best inside 1:58:24.320 --> 1:58:27.160 of a flawed policy, in a flawed system, it's flawed 1:58:27.680 --> 1:58:30.200 from the top down. It's bound to fail. It's bound 1:58:30.200 --> 1:58:33.040 to bring an immense amount of violence upon people who 1:58:33.200 --> 1:58:35.320 in no way, shape or form are deserving it of it, 1:58:35.440 --> 1:58:39.720 because I mean, we destroyed a Raq, and we destroyed Afghanistan, 1:58:40.240 --> 1:58:42.920 and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, 1:58:43.320 --> 1:58:48.920 all the displacement, all of it was we brought that 1:58:49.960 --> 1:58:53.880 We the United States, did that, and then that I'm 1:58:53.920 --> 1:58:59.320 ashamed of. The anger that I feel is for the 1:58:59.320 --> 1:59:03.160 people that sent me, who are frankly still the same 1:59:03.160 --> 1:59:07.320 people who are sending people off right now to go 1:59:07.400 --> 1:59:09.280 but be in harms way. So we can start and 1:59:09.280 --> 1:59:10.520 have the stupid war with Iran. 1:59:11.440 --> 1:59:14.440 Platner has been clear that Israel is committing a genocide 1:59:14.480 --> 1:59:17.560 in Gaza and that the US has aided in the 1:59:17.600 --> 1:59:21.960 genocide of Palestinians. Quote. It is the moral question of 1:59:22.040 --> 1:59:25.960 our time, and we failed as a nation. Platner believes 1:59:26.000 --> 1:59:29.200 that Israel should not receive any US tax dollars and 1:59:29.240 --> 1:59:33.520 has proudly opposed a pack, though he has voice support 1:59:33.640 --> 1:59:38.040 for sending aid to Ukraine. Platner calls abolishing Ice the 1:59:38.080 --> 1:59:42.000 quote unquote moderate position, and that he supports a path 1:59:42.040 --> 1:59:46.120 to citizenship, strong border security, and a quote unquote end 1:59:46.240 --> 1:59:50.800 to the mass deportation machine. His policy platform says that 1:59:50.880 --> 1:59:55.959 quote unquote, many multinational corporations have no interest in immigration 1:59:56.040 --> 2:00:00.960 reform because quote they want illegal workers with no rights 2:00:01.120 --> 2:00:04.280 who they can pay slave wages and abuse at will. 2:00:06.080 --> 2:00:09.240 In response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which 2:00:09.440 --> 2:00:14.200 Susan Collins assisted in by voting for Brett Kavanaugh, Platner 2:00:14.280 --> 2:00:17.960 wants to codify abortion rights and protect privacy rights. His 2:00:18.080 --> 2:00:22.000 platform states, quote, the Constitution should make clear that Americans 2:00:22.000 --> 2:00:25.600 have a fundamental right to privacy, including personal medical decisions, 2:00:25.640 --> 2:00:29.400 control over one's own body and freedom from unjust surveillance. 2:00:29.880 --> 2:00:32.840 In an age of mass data collection and artificial intelligence, 2:00:33.240 --> 2:00:38.080 this protection is more important than ever. Platner certainly leans 2:00:38.120 --> 2:00:42.080 pro gun. He's taught leftist armed self defense classes and 2:00:42.320 --> 2:00:45.760 owns air fifteens. He doesn't support an assault weapons span, 2:00:46.120 --> 2:00:48.400 but did back a referendum to create a red flag 2:00:48.480 --> 2:00:52.360 law in the state of Maine. Other miscellaneous campaign planks 2:00:52.360 --> 2:00:55.680 include more funding for the Post Office, passing the Postal 2:00:55.720 --> 2:00:59.600 Banking Act, developing a federal childcare policy for kids under six, 2:01:00.160 --> 2:01:03.720 defending Medicare access for people with disabilities, strengthening the Clean 2:01:03.760 --> 2:01:07.800 Air and Clean Water Act, opposing any federal support for 2:01:07.960 --> 2:01:12.080 private school vouchers, reviving federal support for housing something like 2:01:12.120 --> 2:01:16.320 the VA Home Loan program for more Americans, banning hedge 2:01:16.320 --> 2:01:19.480 funds from buying homes through legislation like the End Hedge 2:01:19.480 --> 2:01:24.000 Fund Control of American Homes Act, and legalizing cannabis and 2:01:24.040 --> 2:01:27.880 clemency for people caught up in the War on Drugs. 2:01:28.400 --> 2:01:31.879 That is a long list of policies, goals, and prospective 2:01:31.920 --> 2:01:36.480 legislation that would be no easy task to enact. Some 2:01:36.600 --> 2:01:40.000 would mean a fundamental transformation in American politics and the 2:01:40.040 --> 2:01:44.640 world economy. Platner knows that not everything in his platform 2:01:45.040 --> 2:01:48.600 can be passed overnight, but says that Democrats need a 2:01:48.640 --> 2:01:53.240 strategic vision to fight for, telling the Main Monitor quote, 2:01:53.600 --> 2:01:55.680 I'll be the first one to say that me being 2:01:55.720 --> 2:01:58.560 in the Senate as the junior senator from Maine is 2:01:58.600 --> 2:02:01.160 not going to get us medicare for There is this 2:02:01.240 --> 2:02:04.560 sort of establishment pushback where people are often like, well, 2:02:04.560 --> 2:02:08.000 you're not gonna be able to do that immediately, Like, well, no, shit, 2:02:08.440 --> 2:02:11.720 that's what power building is, That's what a long term 2:02:11.840 --> 2:02:16.440 plan is unquote. In interviews, Platner often talks about his 2:02:16.520 --> 2:02:20.480 quote unquote theory of power and how the Democratic Party 2:02:20.520 --> 2:02:24.080 has quote never been able to articulate what it's trying 2:02:24.120 --> 2:02:27.240 to do, like what's the end goal. It never really 2:02:27.360 --> 2:02:29.960 articulates a clear set of policies to get us there, 2:02:30.440 --> 2:02:33.960 and then never seems to want to wield power to 2:02:34.080 --> 2:02:38.440 make those policies a reality unquote. Plattner told The New 2:02:38.520 --> 2:02:41.880 York Times that Democratic Party leadership has failed the moment, 2:02:42.280 --> 2:02:45.720 that the party needs new leadership and that Chuck Schumer 2:02:45.760 --> 2:02:50.560 should be replaced. Of course, candidates can say anything to 2:02:50.600 --> 2:02:54.680 get elected. We've all seen politicians run on populist platforms, 2:02:55.120 --> 2:02:59.240 only to then serve lobbyists, corporate interests, and themselves once 2:02:59.360 --> 2:03:03.640 in office. Trump himself first ran as a populist outsider 2:03:04.120 --> 2:03:08.840 despite being a billionaire. Senator John Fetterman also comes to mind, though. 2:03:08.880 --> 2:03:13.200 The only thing that really made Harvard graduate John Fetterman 2:03:13.360 --> 2:03:16.960 and quote unquote outsider was that he wore a hoodie 2:03:16.960 --> 2:03:20.440 and head stupid facial hair. Prior to his Senate campaign, 2:03:20.600 --> 2:03:24.400 he served as mayor of Braddock for thirteen years and 2:03:24.560 --> 2:03:28.720 lieutenant governor for four. Fetterman also claims that suffering a 2:03:28.760 --> 2:03:33.840 stroke quote unquote liberated him from quote unquote progressivism. All 2:03:33.920 --> 2:03:38.080 is to say, John Fetterman and Graham Plattner's respective backgrounds 2:03:38.080 --> 2:03:43.320 are quite different. But obviously words and promises aren't enough 2:03:43.840 --> 2:03:47.480 to measure a candidate's worth. One must look deeper at 2:03:47.480 --> 2:03:51.160 the ties to local communities and organizations that might inform 2:03:51.240 --> 2:03:55.920 a candidate's political platform and facilitate their ability to run 2:03:55.960 --> 2:03:59.720 for office. To quote Graham Platner, we need to build 2:03:59.720 --> 2:04:02.800 play power through getting people like me into the US Senate, 2:04:03.040 --> 2:04:05.920 into Congress, and we also need to do it while 2:04:05.960 --> 2:04:10.520 building organizational power outside of this system. There's never been 2:04:10.560 --> 2:04:13.560 a moment in American history where we've gotten good things 2:04:13.640 --> 2:04:17.080 just because the institutions or people in power decided to 2:04:17.160 --> 2:04:21.040 do it. They need to be pressed. I mean, this 2:04:21.200 --> 2:04:24.480 is honestly why the country has killed the labor movement. 2:04:24.920 --> 2:04:27.280 We did it on purpose. We did it because the 2:04:27.360 --> 2:04:30.680 labor movement is the foundation of power that can actually 2:04:30.720 --> 2:04:35.480 like push back against this system. Unquote. Grand Platner is 2:04:35.480 --> 2:04:39.320 only running for Senate because last summer the afl CIO, 2:04:39.440 --> 2:04:42.240 along with other local labor unions, we're looking to put 2:04:42.320 --> 2:04:45.080 up a candidate to run against Susan Collins on a 2:04:45.120 --> 2:04:49.879 working class platform. In July twenty twenty five, candidate scouts 2:04:50.040 --> 2:04:53.640 showed up outside Platner's door asking him to run for Senate. 2:04:54.000 --> 2:04:56.000 Platner says he and his wife told them to quote 2:04:56.080 --> 2:05:00.800 unquote fuck off. The scouts, including progressive strategists Daniel Moroff, 2:05:01.240 --> 2:05:03.600 had learned about Platner from a video he was in 2:05:03.640 --> 2:05:07.400 a few years ago about community organizing against a corporate 2:05:07.440 --> 2:05:10.080 Norwegian salmon farm that was trying to move in to 2:05:10.160 --> 2:05:10.640 their bay. 2:05:11.440 --> 2:05:14.440 My daily grind is coming out in the morning, cleaning 2:05:14.440 --> 2:05:17.760 equipment and tying knots and fixing rope and fixing line 2:05:17.760 --> 2:05:22.000 and fixing boats, and cleaning oysters and listening to podcasts. 2:05:24.120 --> 2:05:27.080 My name is Graham Plattner and I live in Sullivan, Maine, 2:05:27.280 --> 2:05:30.720 the owner of Frenchman Bay Oyster Company. Born and raised 2:05:30.720 --> 2:05:33.720 here in Sullivan. I grew up three houses down from 2:05:33.760 --> 2:05:34.880 the house I currently live in. 2:05:35.880 --> 2:05:39.080 Bank Or Daily News reported that in July, Platner spoke 2:05:39.120 --> 2:05:43.520 with Jason Shedlock, the president of the main State Building 2:05:43.560 --> 2:05:47.360 and Construction Trades Council, via zoom to quote talk about 2:05:47.400 --> 2:05:51.120 the potential run while working on his oyster boat. About 2:05:51.160 --> 2:05:54.440 a week after first knocking on his door, the campaign 2:05:54.440 --> 2:05:57.720 scouts showed up again, but this time with a detailed 2:05:57.760 --> 2:06:00.720 plan and the connections to get a camp pagn up 2:06:00.760 --> 2:06:05.000 and running. Union support helped provide resources to shoot a 2:06:05.080 --> 2:06:09.920 launch video, facilitate small dollar fundraising, and get Platner's name 2:06:10.080 --> 2:06:13.480 in local papers. He had never run for office before, 2:06:13.560 --> 2:06:16.840 but did serve as the harbor master and chair of 2:06:16.880 --> 2:06:20.160 the Planning Board for the town of Sullivan. In terms 2:06:20.200 --> 2:06:25.520 of Platner's own working class or middle class background, Platner's 2:06:25.560 --> 2:06:28.440 father was a lawyer in rural Maine, and his mom 2:06:28.560 --> 2:06:31.320 was a small business owner who currently owns a local 2:06:31.360 --> 2:06:34.920 restaurant as a kid. His family got a financial aid 2:06:35.000 --> 2:06:39.280 package for a fancy private school in Connecticut, but Plattner 2:06:39.280 --> 2:06:42.040 got himself kicked out after three months and then went 2:06:42.120 --> 2:06:45.240 back to Maine. After xiting the military, he worked as 2:06:45.280 --> 2:06:48.640 a bartender while going to university in DC, dropped out, 2:06:49.120 --> 2:06:53.280 then worked as a private military contractor for six months 2:06:53.320 --> 2:06:57.560 at the embassy in Afghanistan. While there, Platner says he 2:06:57.600 --> 2:07:02.040 got deeply disillusioned with government corruption and the military industrial complex. 2:07:02.760 --> 2:07:06.440 Quit moved back to Maine, started working at a friend's 2:07:06.520 --> 2:07:11.480 oyster farm, and got into local organizing. In a less 2:07:11.640 --> 2:07:15.400 reported on a Reddit post made by Graham Plattner, he 2:07:15.480 --> 2:07:19.760 credited late political commentator Michael Brooks with moving him towards 2:07:20.240 --> 2:07:24.400 left wing, working class politics around twenty nineteen to twenty twenty. 2:07:25.000 --> 2:07:28.440 Platner also made Reddit posts about being an anti fascist. 2:07:29.120 --> 2:07:32.000 The Senate campaign launched in mid August, and in just 2:07:32.120 --> 2:07:35.400 nine days it raised one million dollars, with an average 2:07:35.440 --> 2:07:38.000 donation of thirty three dollars. Ninety eight percent of the 2:07:38.040 --> 2:07:41.880 donations were under one hundred dollars. During its first week, 2:07:42.280 --> 2:07:46.960 the campaign was attracting three hundred volunteers per day. Pretty soon, 2:07:47.040 --> 2:07:50.320 the campaign attracted the attention of Bernie Sanders, who comes 2:07:50.360 --> 2:07:55.280 September invited Platner to speak on his upcoming Fight Oligarchy 2:07:55.320 --> 2:07:59.200 tour and has continued to campaign with and back Platner 2:08:00.120 --> 2:08:03.520 while Governor Janet Mills was recruited by Chuck Schumer to 2:08:03.600 --> 2:08:07.080 beat Platner in the Democratic primary. From early on in 2:08:07.080 --> 2:08:11.000 the race, Plattner had received backing from local labor unions. 2:08:11.040 --> 2:08:15.640 Beyond the main AFL CIO, Platner has received endorsements from 2:08:15.800 --> 2:08:20.760 Iron Workers Local seven, National Nurses United Maine State Nurses Association, 2:08:21.080 --> 2:08:25.760 American Postal Workers Local four five eight, the National Postal 2:08:25.800 --> 2:08:29.560 Mail Handlers Local three oh one, the Electrical Workers Union 2:08:29.640 --> 2:08:33.760 Local two three two seven, the International Federation of Professional 2:08:33.760 --> 2:08:37.920 and Technical Engineers, Main State Council of Building and Construction Trades, 2:08:38.040 --> 2:08:43.000 North Atlantic States, Regional Council of Carpenters, Carpenter's Local three 2:08:43.080 --> 2:08:47.160 four nine and three five two, Painters and Allied Trades 2:08:47.360 --> 2:08:51.400 DC thirty five Massachusetts and Northern New England Labours and 2:08:51.440 --> 2:08:55.960 District Council Mill Rights Local one one two one, Labourer's 2:08:56.040 --> 2:08:59.560 International Union of North America Local three two seven six 2:08:59.680 --> 2:09:03.880 six eight, and nine seven six, Teamster's Local three forty, 2:09:04.240 --> 2:09:08.000 and the United Auto Workers, who represents nearly two thousand 2:09:08.120 --> 2:09:12.640 workers in Maine, including marine draftsman at the Bath Iron Works, 2:09:12.920 --> 2:09:16.720 nonprofit employees, workers at the Portland Museum of Art, and 2:09:16.840 --> 2:09:21.760 graduate employees across the University of Maine system. In their endorsement, 2:09:21.880 --> 2:09:27.320 UAW Region nine A director Brandon Mansilla said, quote, Graham 2:09:27.320 --> 2:09:29.680 Platner has emerged as a voice for the people of Maine, 2:09:29.720 --> 2:09:32.520 fed up with the corrupting influence of the oligarchy and 2:09:32.600 --> 2:09:36.240 money in our politics. More importantly, he's building a mass 2:09:36.280 --> 2:09:39.800 movement that will not only power his campaign, but will 2:09:39.800 --> 2:09:43.000 be ready to take on the challenges facing working families 2:09:43.040 --> 2:09:46.360 in Maine and across the country once in office. Our 2:09:46.440 --> 2:09:49.040 members are ready to hit the ground running with Graham's 2:09:49.040 --> 2:09:53.960 campaign and take back the power for Maine's working class. Unquote. 2:09:54.840 --> 2:09:58.240 Platner has said he wanted this campaign to be an 2:09:58.240 --> 2:10:01.440 extension of the local community organizing that he and his 2:10:01.480 --> 2:10:05.080 wife were already engaged in. Telling the main monitor the 2:10:05.160 --> 2:10:09.240 campaign is a quote organizing strategy first and an electoral 2:10:09.280 --> 2:10:13.280 strategy second. For the past few years, Platner is organized 2:10:13.280 --> 2:10:16.919 with a mutual aid and community activist group called Arcadia 2:10:17.000 --> 2:10:21.120 Action and was named in local news coverage for organizing 2:10:21.200 --> 2:10:25.160 a protest after Trump was reelected. The protest focused on 2:10:25.240 --> 2:10:29.360 quote the preservation of constitutional rights, support for Ukraine, and 2:10:29.440 --> 2:10:34.080 protecting transgender maners. Platner was also an active member of 2:10:34.120 --> 2:10:38.040 the Panopsicate County chapter of the Mainz People's Alliance, the 2:10:38.160 --> 2:10:41.880 largest quote unquote progressive community action organization in the state, 2:10:42.280 --> 2:10:45.080 which claims to have more than thirty two thousand members. 2:10:45.920 --> 2:10:49.080 As a member of the main People's Alliance, Platner traveled 2:10:49.080 --> 2:10:51.280 to Washington, DC a couple of years ago for a 2:10:51.440 --> 2:10:55.560 march to protest access to healthcare, and since then has 2:10:55.640 --> 2:10:59.480 been doing grassroots community organizing in Hannock County. According to 2:10:59.600 --> 2:11:04.200 the organization, the member led board of directors of Maine 2:11:04.200 --> 2:11:09.320 People's Alliance voted unanimously to endorse Graham Platner to quote 2:11:09.320 --> 2:11:13.360 the announcement Maine People's Alliance board co chair Gina Morin. 2:11:13.400 --> 2:11:17.200 They them said, quote, listening to Platner during interviews in 2:11:17.240 --> 2:11:20.240 town halls, it is clear that he addresses the critical 2:11:20.240 --> 2:11:24.879 issues affecting our country and specifically Maine. He speaks directly 2:11:24.880 --> 2:11:27.879 to the reality that the top one percent are hoarding 2:11:27.960 --> 2:11:31.120 wealth while the middle class and the poor are left 2:11:31.160 --> 2:11:34.560 to go without. He's also addressed the need to fix 2:11:34.600 --> 2:11:37.600 the same issues that we have been working on for years, 2:11:37.640 --> 2:11:41.440 such as health care, affordability, the housing crisis, and immigrant rights. 2:11:42.160 --> 2:11:45.520 His activism drove him to seek this office out of frustration. 2:11:46.280 --> 2:11:49.680 His values and dedication are what align him with the 2:11:49.800 --> 2:11:54.440 Main People's Alliance. Unquote. The organization said back in February 2:11:54.840 --> 2:11:58.440 that Platner has been quote active and vocal in resisting 2:11:58.520 --> 2:12:01.320 IS's presence here in May and has been calling on 2:12:01.320 --> 2:12:03.720 our members of Congress to do more to protect everyone 2:12:03.840 --> 2:12:08.360 in Maine and across the country from ICE's violent, racist tactics. 2:12:09.560 --> 2:12:13.760 Main People's Alliance board member Sean Donnelly said, quote. Graham 2:12:13.840 --> 2:12:16.840 names the oligarchy and corporate greed as the true enemies 2:12:16.880 --> 2:12:19.640 of progress in Washington, and he understands that the only 2:12:19.680 --> 2:12:24.000 way to defeat them is through grassroots organizing. His personal 2:12:24.000 --> 2:12:27.360 story of finding purpose through his community and activism has 2:12:27.400 --> 2:12:30.880 the power to inspire many who may feel angry, disconnected, 2:12:30.960 --> 2:12:34.840 or hopeless about politics. Graham is a talented leader whose values, vision, 2:12:34.840 --> 2:12:37.480 and strategy are aligned with the mission of the Main 2:12:37.560 --> 2:12:42.400 People's Alliance quote. Following the primary, the Planned Parenthood Action 2:12:42.520 --> 2:12:45.800 Fund endorsed Platner over Susan Collins, who was one of 2:12:45.800 --> 2:12:48.680 the deciding votes and sending Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. 2:12:49.120 --> 2:12:53.160 And last week, the Main Service Employees Association, which represents 2:12:53.200 --> 2:12:57.000 more than thirteen thousand active and retired public service workers 2:12:57.000 --> 2:13:01.720 in the state, formally endorsed Graham Platner. So why are 2:13:01.760 --> 2:13:07.200 these endorsements and community ties important? These relations are what 2:13:07.240 --> 2:13:12.440 a working class campaign's political platform emerges from, and this 2:13:12.480 --> 2:13:16.000 community voting block is a mechanism to hold working class 2:13:16.040 --> 2:13:20.240 candidates accountable to their constituents. Platner has told The New 2:13:20.320 --> 2:13:23.280 York Times that he's a quote firm believer that organized 2:13:23.360 --> 2:13:26.520 people is the only actual place of power to conflict 2:13:26.760 --> 2:13:31.440 with organized money, and in our society, money is very 2:13:31.560 --> 2:13:36.040 organized unquote. He echoed this sentiment at a campaign rally 2:13:36.240 --> 2:13:38.160 covered by more Perfect Union. 2:13:38.640 --> 2:13:42.160 Politics is about power, and in this society, power is 2:13:42.200 --> 2:13:46.400 either organized money or its organized people. And the money 2:13:46.440 --> 2:13:49.000 is organized. It always has been and it always will 2:13:49.040 --> 2:13:52.080 be until we organize enough people to pull it back. 2:13:53.320 --> 2:13:57.240 In May, Platner told John Stewart that getting someone like 2:13:57.320 --> 2:14:01.040 him elected quote needs to be in tandem with a 2:14:01.080 --> 2:14:04.840 fully organized, broad based coalition here in the state of 2:14:04.880 --> 2:14:08.400 Maine that can put pressure on members of our delegation 2:14:08.560 --> 2:14:11.640 if need be, because it's not going to be enough 2:14:11.680 --> 2:14:16.240 to just rely on the systems. Quote. Two days before 2:14:16.360 --> 2:14:19.680 the primary election, Platner spoke at a town hall about 2:14:19.920 --> 2:14:23.520 building a Senate office that prioritizes a relationship with labor 2:14:23.640 --> 2:14:27.040 unions rather than the owners of the industries that labor 2:14:27.160 --> 2:14:30.960 works in a Senate office where a worker, labor organizer, 2:14:31.080 --> 2:14:33.720 or civil rights representative should get more face to face 2:14:33.720 --> 2:14:35.920 time with a Senator than any lobbyist. 2:14:36.480 --> 2:14:39.960 I very much believe that we need to connect that 2:14:40.200 --> 2:14:44.839 kind of local organizing work directly to a Senate office 2:14:45.760 --> 2:14:49.920 in DC. So something like I used to have been 2:14:49.920 --> 2:14:54.400 an organizer with Main People's Alliance before, and I firmly 2:14:54.440 --> 2:14:59.720 believe that we need closer coordination between community organizations and 2:14:59.760 --> 2:15:04.920 vil mental organizations frankly, all of the organizing groups around 2:15:04.920 --> 2:15:09.760 Maine with institutional power, because I do think that that's 2:15:11.000 --> 2:15:14.840 history tends to show that you're most successful when outside 2:15:14.960 --> 2:15:19.720 organizing is working in tandem with institutional power. That tends 2:15:19.760 --> 2:15:21.839 to be when we get the most significant wins. 2:15:22.600 --> 2:15:25.520 I'll come back to discuss how the Platner campaign was 2:15:25.560 --> 2:15:40.240 actually run after this ad break. Welcome back to what 2:15:40.280 --> 2:15:45.560 could happen here. This past April, one of Platner's former 2:15:45.640 --> 2:15:50.200 high school classmates turned journalist named Josh Keef wrote an 2:15:50.280 --> 2:15:53.800 article for The Main Monitor about why Platner's campaign has 2:15:53.840 --> 2:15:58.400 been so successful in Maine. The Platner told his former 2:15:58.440 --> 2:16:02.320 classmate that the campaign is being run like a community 2:16:02.480 --> 2:16:06.800 organizing project. Quote. This kind of campaign and kind of 2:16:06.840 --> 2:16:10.600 politics with an organizing focus. This doesn't work if you 2:16:10.760 --> 2:16:14.960 just run TV ads. My background is in organizing and 2:16:15.040 --> 2:16:18.000 I want to take that on the road as a candidate. 2:16:18.680 --> 2:16:20.560 And the only way it ever works is by going 2:16:20.600 --> 2:16:23.680 out and engaging with people directly. You got to like 2:16:24.120 --> 2:16:28.960 not sleep unquote. Direct person to person engagement has been 2:16:29.000 --> 2:16:33.800 the hallmark of Platner's campaign strategy here. Age is certainly 2:16:33.879 --> 2:16:37.720 playing a factor in the race. Platner is forty one, 2:16:37.920 --> 2:16:42.800 Janet Mills is seventy eight, and Susan Collins is seventy three. 2:16:43.520 --> 2:16:46.360 Platner's younger age is not just compelling to voters who 2:16:46.400 --> 2:16:50.199 want a younger generation of candidates, but it also impacts 2:16:50.320 --> 2:16:54.800 how he can campaign. Platter is effectively campaigning full time, 2:16:55.360 --> 2:16:59.000 making three to six campaign appearances a day, while his 2:16:59.040 --> 2:17:03.800 business partner handles the oyster farm. From late September to 2:17:03.840 --> 2:17:08.200 the early June primary, his campaign held eighty three town 2:17:08.240 --> 2:17:11.879 hall events across the state, pulling in hundreds of people 2:17:11.920 --> 2:17:16.720 per event and filling out community venues. In comparison, Susan 2:17:16.760 --> 2:17:20.480 Collins has not held a single public town hall meeting 2:17:20.920 --> 2:17:25.279 in over twenty five years. Janet Mills didn't even release 2:17:25.320 --> 2:17:29.879 a policy platform until April. Platner told more Perfect Union quote, 2:17:30.080 --> 2:17:32.520 people want to hear about the future, People want to 2:17:32.520 --> 2:17:36.440 hear about your policies, and people also want access to 2:17:36.560 --> 2:17:38.840 you so they can figure out if you're full of 2:17:38.840 --> 2:17:43.600 shit or not. Unquote. Considering the smaller size of Maine, 2:17:44.120 --> 2:17:47.160 come the November election, there's a good chance Platner will 2:17:47.200 --> 2:17:50.200 have spoken face to face with nearly every voter in 2:17:50.240 --> 2:17:54.720 the state. At these town halls, he often talks about power, 2:17:55.200 --> 2:17:58.560 how working class power won the New Deal, and how 2:17:58.680 --> 2:18:02.400 since the seventies, cooport interests have been undermining that power 2:18:03.000 --> 2:18:08.000 using money to influence policy. At an event in Freiburg, Maine, 2:18:08.120 --> 2:18:11.560 Platner said, quote, we are the richest society in the 2:18:11.640 --> 2:18:14.840 history of humanity. We can have universal health care. We 2:18:14.840 --> 2:18:18.280 can have universal childcare. We can have universal education going 2:18:18.280 --> 2:18:21.520 from kindergarten all the way through higher education. We can 2:18:21.560 --> 2:18:23.640 have a tax code that pulls back the wealth that 2:18:23.760 --> 2:18:26.120 was stolen from the working class of this country for 2:18:26.160 --> 2:18:29.560 the past fifty years. What we need to do is 2:18:29.560 --> 2:18:32.879 from the ground up, build power the old fashioned way. 2:18:33.440 --> 2:18:39.120 This comes from organizing unquote. Platner's campaign has helped with 2:18:39.320 --> 2:18:43.680 other local electoral and legislative efforts, and The Main Monitor 2:18:43.760 --> 2:18:47.680 reported that Platner's events often serve as locations for quote 2:18:47.879 --> 2:18:51.920 food donation drop offs. He is frequently introduced by a 2:18:52.000 --> 2:18:55.400 local activist who gets to talk about their work unquote. 2:18:56.120 --> 2:18:59.039 Platner told the Main Monitor, quote, we really have to 2:18:59.080 --> 2:19:02.400 fundamentally understand and that no one is coming to save us. 2:19:03.040 --> 2:19:05.440 And the only way to build that power on your 2:19:05.480 --> 2:19:08.920 own is here in the real world, face to face 2:19:08.959 --> 2:19:14.440 with your neighbors, building trust in relationships again unquote. Platner 2:19:14.440 --> 2:19:17.840 has also said that building that kind of outside power 2:19:18.560 --> 2:19:21.120 is also how to find more people to run for 2:19:21.200 --> 2:19:24.240 office and gather the resources needed to get them elected 2:19:24.680 --> 2:19:28.320 to take power in an interview with John Stewart, Platner 2:19:28.360 --> 2:19:30.879 said that because the US Senate is in many ways 2:19:30.879 --> 2:19:34.800 a uniquely undemocratic institution quote set up to be a 2:19:34.840 --> 2:19:38.280 specific bulwark against working class people to protect the elites, 2:19:38.920 --> 2:19:42.320 that actually makes it a quote unquote unique place of 2:19:42.360 --> 2:19:45.959 power if candidates with strong ties to working class communities 2:19:46.280 --> 2:19:51.520 can occupy those seats. Following their historic loss in twenty 2:19:51.560 --> 2:19:55.160 twenty four, the Democratic Party establishment has been in a 2:19:55.320 --> 2:20:00.039 uniquely weak position, opening up the opportunity to address the 2:20:00.080 --> 2:20:04.600 shoes that have led the party into national irrelevancy. Graham 2:20:04.640 --> 2:20:08.440 Plattner lays blame on the Democrats abandoning the working class, 2:20:08.680 --> 2:20:12.000 and that doesn't just mean white construction workers, but the 2:20:12.040 --> 2:20:17.320 actual multicultural, multi racial working class wage workers and those 2:20:17.360 --> 2:20:20.680 who cannot live off their investments. For the past forty years, 2:20:20.720 --> 2:20:23.760 the party has abandoned organized labor and begun catering to 2:20:24.160 --> 2:20:27.240 upper middle class professionals and has become a party of 2:20:27.320 --> 2:20:31.039 the elites and ivy leagues. In the United States, there 2:20:31.080 --> 2:20:34.080 are a lot of people who don't vote based on 2:20:34.440 --> 2:20:38.880 an ideology they hold, but in response to what's happening 2:20:39.040 --> 2:20:44.080 in their communities. Hospitals closing jobs, disappearing groceries and utility 2:20:44.160 --> 2:20:47.039 is getting more expensive. Why would they vote for a 2:20:47.080 --> 2:20:50.800 party that says everything is fine, The economy is technically 2:20:50.800 --> 2:20:55.199 doing great. The Democratic establishment has wagered that voters would 2:20:55.240 --> 2:20:59.080 rather protect the system rather than change it, and in 2:20:59.120 --> 2:21:04.199 twenty twenty four that wager was proven wrong. People want change, 2:21:04.560 --> 2:21:07.240 even if that change is being promised by a billionaire 2:21:07.360 --> 2:21:11.520 charlatan whose real interest is in serving the upper class 2:21:11.560 --> 2:21:14.879 and tech companies. But for as many people who decided 2:21:14.879 --> 2:21:18.040 to vote for Trump, there were many others who saw 2:21:18.160 --> 2:21:22.440 through the charade but were so disillusioned by party politics 2:21:22.959 --> 2:21:26.840 that they chose not to vote at all. Plattner's campaign 2:21:26.920 --> 2:21:29.840 has made itself not just about taking on Trump or 2:21:29.879 --> 2:21:34.600 even Susan Collins, but a part of a larger seismic 2:21:34.680 --> 2:21:39.119 shift the working class reasserting its power and taking back 2:21:39.160 --> 2:21:43.440 the Democratic Party. To quote the main Monitor, quote, Unlike 2:21:43.440 --> 2:21:46.280 a Janet Mills, He's not trying to convince voters he 2:21:46.320 --> 2:21:49.160 will stand up to Trump. He's trying to start a 2:21:49.240 --> 2:21:52.879 movement to build a world without the despair and resentment 2:21:53.160 --> 2:21:58.720 that he believes allows Trump's brand of politics to flourish. Unquote. 2:21:58.879 --> 2:22:02.440 Later at that event in the town of Freiburg, Platner 2:22:02.520 --> 2:22:06.279 told the crowd, quote, people when their lives begin to deteriorate, 2:22:06.360 --> 2:22:09.680 are going to look for folks to blame. And if 2:22:09.680 --> 2:22:13.720 we don't have an actual answer, then hatred and xenophobia, 2:22:13.760 --> 2:22:17.320 and racism and homophobia and transphobia, all of them will 2:22:17.360 --> 2:22:20.720 fill the vacuum. This means we have to go out 2:22:20.760 --> 2:22:23.360 in our community and we have to wear our hearts 2:22:23.440 --> 2:22:29.080 on our sleeves unquote. Maine has semi open primaries, meaning 2:22:29.080 --> 2:22:33.600 that unenrolled voters can vote in a party primary in 2:22:33.600 --> 2:22:36.240 the leader to the primary. Platner's campaign at a series 2:22:36.240 --> 2:22:40.400 of videos where he gets coffee with Republican leaning voters 2:22:40.840 --> 2:22:43.920 and they talk about how their interests are more aligned 2:22:44.520 --> 2:22:48.039 compared to the interests of Trump, the billionaire class, and 2:22:48.360 --> 2:22:52.840 Susan Collins. Platner himself has said that his rise in 2:22:52.959 --> 2:22:56.320 Maine says more about the appetite for a new kind 2:22:56.360 --> 2:23:01.720 of politics rather than him specifically as a candidate. But 2:23:02.080 --> 2:23:05.200 from the perspective of some voters, the slow drip of 2:23:05.440 --> 2:23:10.440 scandals and controversies might actually bolster Platner's image as an 2:23:10.440 --> 2:23:15.359 anti establishment candidate. For example, these people interviewed by CNN 2:23:15.440 --> 2:23:17.360 and MS. Now, are you. 2:23:17.360 --> 2:23:20.960 Considering holding your breath and voting for him? 2:23:21.240 --> 2:23:24.680 I got until Tuesday to decide, but I'm pretty sure 2:23:24.680 --> 2:23:27.039 i'll vote for him. I don't take a lot of 2:23:27.040 --> 2:23:28.760 this crap is anybody else's business. 2:23:29.040 --> 2:23:32.760 For some Democrats, they're willing to look past the interpersonal stories. 2:23:33.080 --> 2:23:38.039 I'm not really interested in the guy's Floyd Bules, you know. 2:23:38.320 --> 2:23:41.360 I'm interested in his vision and what he has to say, 2:23:42.160 --> 2:23:44.720 and I love what he has to say. So, yeah, 2:23:44.760 --> 2:23:49.240 it's been definitely difficult because everybody is piling on this guy. 2:23:49.400 --> 2:23:52.440 Does he have a problem at past, Yes, but I 2:23:52.440 --> 2:23:55.720 would rather have a redemption story than somebody telling you 2:23:56.160 --> 2:24:00.240 how wonderful they are, how much research they do. 2:24:00.680 --> 2:24:03.520 And yet they still make the wrong decision for the 2:24:03.560 --> 2:24:07.760 people of me. On election day, June ninth, Platner won 2:24:07.959 --> 2:24:11.600 seventy one point nine percent of the vote, with one 2:24:11.680 --> 2:24:16.360 hundred fifty four thousand and fifty eight votes. Governor Janet Mills, 2:24:16.360 --> 2:24:19.720 who stopped campaigning a month and a half prior but 2:24:19.879 --> 2:24:23.320 remained on the ballot, one forty one thousand votes, or 2:24:23.480 --> 2:24:28.680 nineteen point three percent. Grand Platner won more primary votes 2:24:28.720 --> 2:24:33.520 than any other Democratic Senate candidate in the history of Maine. 2:24:34.080 --> 2:24:36.440 As he walked onto the stage for his victory speech, 2:24:37.080 --> 2:24:41.160 Dropkick Murphy's cover of Which Side Are You On blaired 2:24:41.200 --> 2:24:45.240 in the background. Platner promised, quote, I will be a 2:24:45.280 --> 2:24:48.680 senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator. 2:24:49.720 --> 2:24:49.920 Now. 2:24:51.440 --> 2:24:55.119 Now, the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking 2:24:55.240 --> 2:25:00.120 for that one story, that one headline, that one moment 2:25:00.560 --> 2:25:04.200 in my life that they can define the campaign by. 2:25:04.520 --> 2:25:08.320 But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed 2:25:08.320 --> 2:25:11.520 to understand that this is not about me at all. 2:25:18.360 --> 2:25:19.200 This is a. 2:25:19.400 --> 2:25:29.000 Movement about us, about the far too many, working far 2:25:29.080 --> 2:25:32.920 too hard and struggling far too much at the hands 2:25:32.959 --> 2:25:34.080 of the ruling class. 2:25:34.959 --> 2:25:37.520 At a town hall just a few days before the primary, 2:25:38.080 --> 2:25:41.440 Platner spoke about the need to rebuild our old alliances 2:25:41.480 --> 2:25:46.240 with labor union's, community organizations, and civil rights groups. Quote, 2:25:46.400 --> 2:25:49.680 the only thing that's ever beat fascism is a broad 2:25:49.720 --> 2:25:54.240 based working class coalition. Fascism is what we are up against. 2:25:54.800 --> 2:25:56.520 I think a lot of the folks at the national 2:25:56.600 --> 2:26:00.879 level misunderstand the reason they keep getting everything wrong. They 2:26:00.920 --> 2:26:02.920 think this is a race about me, but it isn't. 2:26:03.000 --> 2:26:05.480 This is a race about us. This is a race 2:26:05.520 --> 2:26:08.080 about the future of politics in Maine. This is a 2:26:08.160 --> 2:26:10.360 race about building power, the old fashioned away from the 2:26:10.360 --> 2:26:14.720 ground up, going out into our communities and having hard conversations, 2:26:15.200 --> 2:26:17.600 putting in time and energy that many of us do 2:26:17.720 --> 2:26:21.760 not have. We've got to do it anyway. So what 2:26:21.800 --> 2:26:24.280 I'm asking to do. If you don't want to volunteer 2:26:24.360 --> 2:26:28.520 on this campaign, that's fine. Join a labor union, Go 2:26:28.600 --> 2:26:31.560 help out at the local food pountry, go help out 2:26:31.600 --> 2:26:34.720 at a food bank. It doesn't matter what you do. 2:26:35.080 --> 2:26:38.480 What you gotta do something because the moment we're in 2:26:38.560 --> 2:26:42.879 right now, it's going to require all of us. Unquote, 2:26:42.959 --> 2:26:45.400 there were two hundred and fifteen thousand votes in the 2:26:45.440 --> 2:26:52.439 Democratic primary. Plattner's campaign had fifteen thousand volunteers. These volunteers 2:26:52.520 --> 2:26:56.560 went up against and beat the Democratic establishment, and now 2:26:56.600 --> 2:27:01.000 they face the GOP establishment. This shift in the politics 2:27:01.040 --> 2:27:04.320 of the Democratic Party is not isolated to Maine. Democratic 2:27:04.360 --> 2:27:07.840 Socialists just won in Washington, DC, and following the election 2:27:07.879 --> 2:27:12.080 of Zorammdani, nine more DSA candidates just won the Democratic 2:27:12.120 --> 2:27:15.560 primary in New York, including three seats in the US 2:27:15.600 --> 2:27:20.320 House of Representatives. But Maine occupies a unique place in 2:27:20.360 --> 2:27:25.720 American politics, the stereotypical purple state. Unseating Susan Collins would 2:27:25.720 --> 2:27:30.600 prove that real working class politics don't just win liberal cities, 2:27:31.040 --> 2:27:34.480 but can take down what Bernie Sanders would call the oligarchy. 2:27:36.080 --> 2:27:41.680 There's an old saying, as Maine goes, so goes the nation. 2:27:42.720 --> 2:27:46.080 If you want to stop if you want to stop 2:27:46.440 --> 2:27:49.840 war with Iran in n the Forever Wars, If you 2:27:49.840 --> 2:27:53.320 want to give workers the rays they deserve, seniors the 2:27:53.400 --> 2:27:56.360 security they worked for. You want to bring back Roe 2:27:56.440 --> 2:28:01.600 v Wade. As Maine goes, so goes the nation. If 2:28:01.600 --> 2:28:05.480 you want to stop a Trump family slush fund, their ballroom, 2:28:05.840 --> 2:28:09.760 their deals with Saudi princes and tech oligarchs. If you 2:28:09.800 --> 2:28:14.600 want to stop the corruption, as Maine goes, so goes 2:28:14.640 --> 2:28:18.960 the nation. If we want to dismantle Ice, win back 2:28:19.040 --> 2:28:23.960 the Senate, check Donald Trump's power, and take back hours. 2:28:24.600 --> 2:28:30.039 As Maine goes, so goes the nation. Together we will 2:28:30.040 --> 2:28:31.440 defeat Susan Collins. 2:28:32.400 --> 2:28:36.800 Grand Platner is slightly ahead in the polls above Susan Collins, 2:28:37.240 --> 2:28:40.720 but the race is still quite close. In twenty twenty, 2:28:40.760 --> 2:28:44.560 when Collins was facing a challenger, she too was behind 2:28:44.560 --> 2:28:48.160 in the polls but still pulled off a victory. That 2:28:48.160 --> 2:28:50.000 doesn't for me. Ed, it could happen here. 2:28:50.840 --> 2:29:00.840 See you on the other side. 2:29:07.840 --> 2:29:11.360 This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly 2:29:11.400 --> 2:29:14.160 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 2:29:14.200 --> 2:29:16.760 and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today, 2:29:16.879 --> 2:29:19.760 joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Robert Evans. 2:29:19.840 --> 2:29:20.120 Hey. 2:29:20.400 --> 2:29:23.320 This episode, we are covering the week of June seventeenth 2:29:23.400 --> 2:29:24.959 to June twenty fourth. 2:29:25.240 --> 2:29:27.279 Yeah, sho, we start off with some little things. 2:29:27.680 --> 2:29:30.680 Yeah, let's start out with some small things. 2:29:31.080 --> 2:29:33.640 Mm hmmm, So I guess to begin with the federal 2:29:33.680 --> 2:29:38.280 judge Sparkles suit Nananaccheley, who we've heard about before in 2:29:38.320 --> 2:29:41.840 the show, has spoked the Trump administration from quote haphazardly 2:29:41.920 --> 2:29:44.120 assembling a list of citizens it will be used to 2:29:44.200 --> 2:29:45.560 purge voter rolls. 2:29:46.480 --> 2:29:49.720 Great. Yeah, I'm glad they can't do that haphazardly. 2:29:50.280 --> 2:29:54.080 Yeah, given the timing right link before the midterms, hopefully 2:29:54.080 --> 2:29:55.800 that means that this isn't going to happen in a 2:29:55.840 --> 2:29:58.879 way that will impact the midterms. The State Department has 2:29:58.920 --> 2:30:02.279 announced it's going to begin provoking passports people with outstanding 2:30:02.360 --> 2:30:05.320 child support of more than two thousand, five. 2:30:05.200 --> 2:30:06.800 Hundred United States dollars. 2:30:07.400 --> 2:30:10.040 They can contact an embassy to get a temporary passport 2:30:10.080 --> 2:30:11.560 to come back to the US, but they'll only have 2:30:11.560 --> 2:30:14.160 a full passport resort. I guess if they pay their 2:30:14.320 --> 2:30:15.800 standing child support debt. 2:30:16.080 --> 2:30:20.600 Okay, Yeah, I'm wondering what got this to their ears? 2:30:20.720 --> 2:30:24.480 How big a problem is this? Again, I'm not against this. 2:30:24.600 --> 2:30:27.600 I'm just wondering, like, why they moved to do this. 2:30:28.000 --> 2:30:31.120 I saw it on the Twitter feed of the US 2:30:31.200 --> 2:30:35.440 Embassy in Nigeria, and I would be interested. And I 2:30:35.480 --> 2:30:37.320 don't know how possible this would be to go after 2:30:37.320 --> 2:30:42.960 with public records to know which particular embassies are revoking 2:30:43.080 --> 2:30:46.000 passports of which particular people, if you. 2:30:46.000 --> 2:30:46.560 See what I mean. 2:30:46.720 --> 2:30:50.680 Yeah, I think in general, revoking passports is a bad 2:30:50.840 --> 2:30:52.000 thing to do. 2:30:52.240 --> 2:30:53.920 Yeah, I think this isn't the way to go after 2:30:53.920 --> 2:30:56.199 the childs. But you are a piece of shit if 2:30:56.200 --> 2:30:59.240 you're not playing paying your child support. But I think 2:30:59.360 --> 2:31:02.840 generally that the possibility of someone being left like stateless, 2:31:03.520 --> 2:31:05.240 you know, that's not how we get to a better 2:31:05.240 --> 2:31:05.720 world here. 2:31:05.959 --> 2:31:08.400 I'm just wondering why they're doing this, Like that's that's 2:31:08.440 --> 2:31:09.920 about Like this has to be they have to be 2:31:09.959 --> 2:31:12.280 targeting somebody with this, Like I don't believe this is 2:31:12.320 --> 2:31:14.800 about the problem of like there being a lot of 2:31:15.280 --> 2:31:17.800 people who are getting out of child support by fleeing 2:31:17.800 --> 2:31:20.280 the country. Like I don't believe that's the motivation here. 2:31:20.280 --> 2:31:21.680 And I'm kind of curious what it is. 2:31:22.320 --> 2:31:24.840 I can tell you for sure, but the fact that 2:31:24.840 --> 2:31:27.120 I saw it is on the Nigeria embassy website. I 2:31:27.160 --> 2:31:28.920 mean I can look right now and see what if 2:31:28.959 --> 2:31:31.920 other embassies posted it. I guess here we go US 2:31:31.959 --> 2:31:36.520 embassy in Spain. I don't see it on their page 2:31:37.200 --> 2:31:38.000 for example. 2:31:38.120 --> 2:31:41.160 Interesting, Okay, it'd be interesting to follow sub Jackson. 2:31:41.280 --> 2:31:44.720 But yeah, sure, somethink I came across, like you know, 2:31:44.720 --> 2:31:46.160 about half an hour before we recorded this. 2:31:46.320 --> 2:31:47.120 No, it's not worthy. 2:31:47.800 --> 2:31:51.720 A judge has quashed a subpoena aimed at Governor Waltz 2:31:51.720 --> 2:31:55.439 and their Frey and with other state politicians in Minneapolis, 2:31:55.920 --> 2:31:59.199 writing quote, this course of events in and of itself 2:31:59.320 --> 2:32:02.200 establishes beyond a reasonable dispute that the subpoenas were part 2:32:02.200 --> 2:32:05.160 of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials 2:32:05.160 --> 2:32:08.560 in Minnesota to assist their Trump administration in its enforcement 2:32:08.600 --> 2:32:11.640 of immigration laws. And of course, this campaign played out 2:32:11.680 --> 2:32:14.800 against a backdrop of the Trump administration's well established history 2:32:15.160 --> 2:32:19.520 of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the 2:32:19.600 --> 2:32:23.879 president's political and personal adversaries. Very clear, everything that Trump 2:32:23.840 --> 2:32:26.439 adminstras she has done with the DOJ, right, but it's 2:32:26.480 --> 2:32:27.480 good to see it called out. 2:32:27.520 --> 2:32:30.760 I guess sure USCAS is. 2:32:30.959 --> 2:32:34.920 Looking to increase fees for existing permanent residents to naturalize 2:32:34.959 --> 2:32:37.920 I become US citizens, as well as removing fee waivers 2:32:37.920 --> 2:32:41.400 for lower income migrants. This will be a barrier to people, right, 2:32:41.560 --> 2:32:42.600 and that is why it's happening. 2:32:43.000 --> 2:32:44.280 Yep, A Rep and. 2:32:44.440 --> 2:32:52.039 A Paulina Luna used clawed aimend legislation. She's deleted her tweet, 2:32:52.120 --> 2:32:54.360 but I actually posted a link to her tweet on 2:32:54.400 --> 2:32:57.119 Blue Sky and it still contains like the cached text 2:32:57.160 --> 2:32:58.560 of the tweet if you want to go read it. 2:32:58.959 --> 2:33:01.600 She immediately responded by throwing her stuff under a bus. 2:33:01.720 --> 2:33:03.119 Sure noble, claiming that it. 2:33:03.120 --> 2:33:06.320 Was not uncommon for stuff to use claude fucking amend 2:33:06.360 --> 2:33:08.000 national legislation and people. 2:33:07.800 --> 2:33:10.400 Just don't like to do their job, do you my god? 2:33:10.520 --> 2:33:13.240 Yeah, it's yeah, I don't know how for hundreds of 2:33:13.280 --> 2:33:16.280 years people wrote legislation without asking fucking Claude. She left 2:33:16.320 --> 2:33:20.440 the like it's it had. Claude responded in the text 2:33:20.480 --> 2:33:21.600 of the bill that that's. 2:33:21.440 --> 2:33:23.400 Had great stuff. 2:33:23.640 --> 2:33:27.759 Yeah. Claude is very popular in Washington, DC, like specifically, yeah. 2:33:27.360 --> 2:33:29.280 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's widely agreed to be 2:33:29.320 --> 2:33:30.680 the best of the of the. 2:33:30.760 --> 2:33:32.400 Chat, the thinking person's chat. 2:33:32.440 --> 2:33:34.280 But yeah, yeah, the thinking man's chat. 2:33:34.280 --> 2:33:34.480 Butt. 2:33:34.840 --> 2:33:37.320 There is like a weird bizarro universe where you get 2:33:37.360 --> 2:33:42.080 like the Mark Fisher Claude outputs that writes tons of 2:33:42.160 --> 2:33:46.960 legislation that gets suddenly passed, where the US Center is 2:33:46.959 --> 2:33:50.800 a very odd odd time because they kept using this 2:33:50.920 --> 2:33:55.320 chatbot that really liked like a certain certain writing from 2:33:55.360 --> 2:33:56.080 certain shit. 2:33:55.959 --> 2:33:58.520 That people were reading online in two thousand and one. 2:33:59.200 --> 2:34:00.959 Yeah, have certain see he's baked in. 2:34:01.080 --> 2:34:04.119 Yeah yeah, I'm having this night mirror image. I'm having 2:34:04.160 --> 2:34:07.040 this nightmare image of people doing like prompt injection attacks, 2:34:07.080 --> 2:34:11.080 specifically to like get Claude to like auto spit out 2:34:11.080 --> 2:34:12.279 certain lines of regulation. 2:34:12.640 --> 2:34:13.080 Yeah. 2:34:13.160 --> 2:34:18.760 Yeah, just inserting trans rights into use appropriations. 2:34:17.959 --> 2:34:22.240 Built Claude amending prescription drug laws to allow me specifically 2:34:22.280 --> 2:34:25.199 to purchase a lotted over the counter. I can see 2:34:25.240 --> 2:34:27.360 a lot of good, good places to go here. Yeah, 2:34:27.400 --> 2:34:30.359 the Evans Amendment, the Evan's Amendment, I just get to call. 2:34:32.040 --> 2:34:33.640 It can actually be delivered. You don't even have to 2:34:33.680 --> 2:34:34.240 purchase it. 2:34:34.320 --> 2:34:36.160 Yeah, they put it in a trash bag for me. 2:34:36.240 --> 2:34:37.920 Yeah, drop it with the drone. 2:34:38.680 --> 2:34:41.959 Talking of inserting shit into bills, let's talk about Mike Lee. 2:34:42.040 --> 2:34:45.440 The only person wors for planet than the sport of golf, Michael. 2:34:45.440 --> 2:34:48.000 He mentioned two weeks in a row. I'm run three. 2:34:48.400 --> 2:34:50.800 I'm mentioned in Mike Lee until he stops with this shit. 2:34:50.879 --> 2:34:54.119 Let me tell you, a bipartisan group of legislators has 2:34:54.160 --> 2:34:56.800 introduced legislation to block the back door set of public 2:34:56.879 --> 2:34:58.680 lands through the reconciliation process. 2:34:58.959 --> 2:34:59.279 Huzzah. 2:35:00.200 --> 2:35:02.400 They might as well have called this fuck you, Mike Lee. 2:35:02.400 --> 2:35:07.520 Stopped doing this bill, Mike Like, it is exclusively one 2:35:07.600 --> 2:35:10.120 the person, Yeah, who is doing this, and it is 2:35:10.200 --> 2:35:10.720 Mike Lee. 2:35:10.959 --> 2:35:13.720 The bill equivalent of spritzing a single guy on the 2:35:13.800 --> 2:35:15.200 nose with a bottle of water. 2:35:17.440 --> 2:35:18.840 Yeah, he's been slapped down. 2:35:19.680 --> 2:35:22.840 It's it's interesting to see, like you see less bipartisanship 2:35:22.879 --> 2:35:25.600 than he used to but no one likes Mike Lee 2:35:25.600 --> 2:35:28.440 in this ship. Yeah, apart from people in Utah who 2:35:28.520 --> 2:35:29.800 inexplicably elected him. 2:35:29.840 --> 2:35:32.359 There's nothing people in Utah hate more than the beautiful 2:35:32.440 --> 2:35:33.520 land in which they inhabit. 2:35:34.400 --> 2:35:37.280 Yeah, not being able to mine and graze it as much. 2:35:37.440 --> 2:35:41.720 So like, Yeah, the Atlantic is reporting that Xcess has 2:35:41.920 --> 2:35:45.520 pressured General Donahue into stepping down Seince. Donahue will leave 2:35:45.520 --> 2:35:48.920 his job next week. Yeah, I guess, I mean, Robert 2:35:48.920 --> 2:35:50.160 you I'm sure if for minut as well. 2:35:50.360 --> 2:35:54.360 Donahue is a massive figure. He's very famously like the 2:35:54.480 --> 2:35:59.640 last US military official to leave Afghanistan during the withdrawal. 2:36:00.240 --> 2:36:03.480 He's a pretty major guy and was widely considered to 2:36:03.520 --> 2:36:05.040 be kind of one of the folks you'd think would 2:36:05.080 --> 2:36:07.240 be sort of bulletproof outside of the fact that he 2:36:07.320 --> 2:36:11.160 was involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan famously, like and 2:36:11.200 --> 2:36:13.240 I think most people assumed that because it was in 2:36:13.280 --> 2:36:16.520 a very like stereotypically heroic way, and because this guy 2:36:16.560 --> 2:36:20.680 had such a reputation within like special operations, that he 2:36:20.720 --> 2:36:24.400 would be protected. But this is kind of further example 2:36:24.400 --> 2:36:26.560 of the brain drain that's been hitting all of the 2:36:26.640 --> 2:36:29.039 guys who know how to do stuff. Yeah, in the 2:36:29.080 --> 2:36:29.960 Department of Defense. 2:36:30.480 --> 2:36:32.800 Yeah, it is quite remarkable when you look at a 2:36:32.840 --> 2:36:35.680 list of the people who have been purged, like you know, 2:36:36.080 --> 2:36:39.440 quote unquite retired, right, Like, in terms of US military 2:36:39.520 --> 2:36:42.160 leadership capacity, it has been significantly diminished. 2:36:42.280 --> 2:36:43.560 Yeah, by p hexeth. 2:36:44.240 --> 2:36:46.000 I just I just want to put a note in 2:36:46.120 --> 2:36:50.080 here for later on hopefully hopefully this never becomes relevant. 2:36:50.080 --> 2:36:51.920 But I really really do not like that in a 2:36:51.959 --> 2:36:54.080 two year span there's been a significant purge of both 2:36:54.080 --> 2:36:56.439 the senior leadership of the American and Chinese militaries. 2:36:57.080 --> 2:36:58.080 Really do not like that. 2:36:58.760 --> 2:37:02.040 Just just just putting this note in the record that like, yeah, 2:37:02.160 --> 2:37:03.120 very very similar. 2:37:03.680 --> 2:37:05.960 I mean all the guys who like know each other. Yeah, 2:37:06.200 --> 2:37:08.240 you can say, no, I don't think that means that 2:37:08.400 --> 2:37:10.560 I know this guy he would do wouldn't do that 2:37:10.600 --> 2:37:13.200 for this reason, Like everyone like that on both sides 2:37:13.320 --> 2:37:16.080 is gone, and that maybe is how traditionally disasters happen. 2:37:16.240 --> 2:37:20.199 Yeah, yeah, so I don't like this, just putting good note. 2:37:20.680 --> 2:37:22.640 It's actually like say what you want about I mean, 2:37:22.680 --> 2:37:25.840 say many different things about like the fucking militaries of 2:37:25.840 --> 2:37:28.360 both China and the United States. But it's really good. 2:37:28.400 --> 2:37:31.240 Actually when you have like a professional officer CADRA that's 2:37:31.240 --> 2:37:34.560 insulated from politics and also like kind of socially know 2:37:34.640 --> 2:37:37.200 the guys in the other countries at the higher levels 2:37:37.240 --> 2:37:40.959 because they've like spoken like that's actually really useful in 2:37:41.080 --> 2:37:42.320 de escalation. 2:37:41.959 --> 2:37:45.959 Of conflicts exactly. Yeah, it gives an informal de escalation mechanism, and. 2:37:46.000 --> 2:37:48.400 When that disappears, it can lead the problems. 2:37:48.879 --> 2:37:52.959 Yeah, when you're promoting like people of the heg seth. Yeah, 2:37:53.160 --> 2:37:54.959 fucking tendency especially right. 2:37:55.280 --> 2:37:58.400 A surprising number of disasters have been averted, and not 2:37:58.560 --> 2:38:02.119 just because military official because like people in two countries 2:38:02.120 --> 2:38:03.640 who were like high up in the government like just 2:38:03.720 --> 2:38:05.960 kind of had hung out with each other in events 2:38:06.240 --> 2:38:07.960 and one was able to call the other and be like, 2:38:07.959 --> 2:38:10.800 hey Joe, like you guys aren't doing this, are you? 2:38:10.920 --> 2:38:15.160 Because my people are fucking flipping out. Yeah, those relationships 2:38:15.760 --> 2:38:18.199 are really load bearing. In the US, all not dying 2:38:18.200 --> 2:38:21.840 an atomic fire thing. So yeah, you know, there seems 2:38:21.840 --> 2:38:25.400 to be some kind of counterfactory. There's just a lie 2:38:25.520 --> 2:38:29.280 going around x dot com that like, Donahue, don't whe's 2:38:29.280 --> 2:38:31.440 the last song to leave Afghanistan is road it said, 2:38:31.480 --> 2:38:33.440 and like that like they were being shot at and 2:38:33.480 --> 2:38:36.400 there were like junior enlisted folks being shot at. 2:38:36.600 --> 2:38:37.600 That wasn't happening. 2:38:37.840 --> 2:38:41.880 The last thirteen US troops who died in Afghanistan were 2:38:41.879 --> 2:38:44.520 not shot by the Taliban. They were killed in Islamic 2:38:44.560 --> 2:38:45.640 State suicide bombing. 2:38:45.920 --> 2:38:49.640 Again because the Taliban was cooperating with our withdrawal. They 2:38:49.640 --> 2:38:52.560 were not like the Talban was not fighting shooting at 2:38:52.560 --> 2:38:56.200 the US as we were leaving because they wanted us 2:38:56.240 --> 2:38:57.360 to do what we were doing. 2:38:57.560 --> 2:39:01.120 Yeah, yeah, they got the outcome with having to do that. 2:39:01.400 --> 2:39:04.080 If you're the Taliban and the war is almost over, 2:39:04.280 --> 2:39:05.840 and you know, if you know what you know one 2:39:05.840 --> 2:39:07.520 thing about the US is the Taliban, which is like 2:39:07.560 --> 2:39:10.120 if we just suddenly kill up onto their guys, maybe 2:39:10.120 --> 2:39:10.879 they don't leave. 2:39:11.640 --> 2:39:13.520 Yeah, I know they will return and do a fucking 2:39:13.760 --> 2:39:17.000 murdering people spree. Like I know people once again, right, 2:39:17.120 --> 2:39:19.200 Like things that have happened in the last five years 2:39:19.200 --> 2:39:21.039 seem to not exist in the mind of people who 2:39:21.080 --> 2:39:22.199 use x dot com to get. 2:39:22.040 --> 2:39:23.480 Their news ever existed for them. 2:39:23.840 --> 2:39:24.200 I guess. 2:39:24.240 --> 2:39:28.880 Finally some good news from Maugway PDF who destroyed a 2:39:28.959 --> 2:39:32.600 top my door I seventeen helicopter using FPV drones yesterday. 2:39:32.840 --> 2:39:35.240 Oh wow, Yeah, not the first time it has happened 2:39:35.240 --> 2:39:38.880 in Meenma. I constantly see when a drone is used 2:39:38.879 --> 2:39:41.520 in Ukraine in a sort of relatively novel way, people 2:39:41.560 --> 2:39:43.560 saying this is the first time that has happened, and 2:39:43.720 --> 2:39:47.320 almost always it has already happened in Meanma. Not always, 2:39:47.320 --> 2:39:49.120 like there were some autonomous drones that kill people in 2:39:49.200 --> 2:39:50.840 Ukraine a couple of years ago that I'm not aware 2:39:50.879 --> 2:39:53.879 of existing in me Mma. But like, Orientalism definitely plays 2:39:53.879 --> 2:39:57.280 a role in people's ignorance when it comes to like 2:39:57.920 --> 2:40:01.520 military firsts happening in the Spring Revolution. But yeah, in 2:40:01.560 --> 2:40:05.080 this instance, they seemed to hit it with multiple FPV 2:40:05.200 --> 2:40:07.959 drones taking out it's it's landing gear than its engines. 2:40:09.320 --> 2:40:12.400 I do have one short story here that I've tried 2:40:12.440 --> 2:40:17.200 to avoid covering because they really don't think it's that important. Yeah, 2:40:17.240 --> 2:40:19.480 but much like the algae just keeps creeping back into 2:40:19.520 --> 2:40:23.080 the headlines. So last month, President Trump got super obsessed 2:40:23.120 --> 2:40:26.240 with the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool spent fourteen million dollars 2:40:26.280 --> 2:40:28.480 in a no contract bid to get rid of the algae. 2:40:29.280 --> 2:40:31.800 Trump used his own pool guys and they drained the 2:40:31.879 --> 2:40:37.760 reflection pool. They painted the bottom quote unquote American flag 2:40:37.920 --> 2:40:39.840 blue and then filled that thing up again. 2:40:40.440 --> 2:40:44.720 Brilliant marketing decision by whoever named that paint, by the way. 2:40:45.560 --> 2:40:49.160 Yeah, somehow the algae returned and in an even worse state, 2:40:49.360 --> 2:40:54.560 turning the entirety of the blue reflecting water green. So 2:40:54.800 --> 2:40:58.400 in response, they sort of dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide 2:40:58.440 --> 2:41:03.840 into the pool to kill the algae. Now, hydrogen beroxide 2:41:03.879 --> 2:41:08.080 also a paint thinner, and stripped of the American flag 2:41:08.320 --> 2:41:11.520 blue paint started peeling off the bottom of the pool, 2:41:12.160 --> 2:41:15.360 making the situation worse. Now here's where things get really interesting. 2:41:15.400 --> 2:41:17.840 This is the only reason why we're covering this because 2:41:18.000 --> 2:41:23.280 last weekend, Trump began making the completely unsubstantiated claims that 2:41:23.400 --> 2:41:27.039 the algae filled blue paint fiasco was the result of 2:41:27.080 --> 2:41:32.560 quote unquote radical left lunatics who vandalized the pool. Yeah, 2:41:33.000 --> 2:41:35.280 the National Garden the park police have since then been 2:41:35.400 --> 2:41:41.600 arresting people for standing near the reflecting pool. On Tuesday night, 2:41:41.760 --> 2:41:45.320 President Trump truth to quote, six people have been arrested 2:41:45.480 --> 2:41:48.880 and seven people had been sighted for the damage they 2:41:48.920 --> 2:41:53.240 did to our country's now beautiful reflecting pool. The three 2:41:53.320 --> 2:41:56.920 hundred and fifty foot gash made by a very sharp 2:41:57.000 --> 2:42:02.800 knife or razors is actually numerous slashes over a very 2:42:02.879 --> 2:42:06.240 long three hundred and fifty foot length. It was purposely, 2:42:06.280 --> 2:42:10.520 incriminally done, and someone had to work very hard, probably 2:42:10.560 --> 2:42:14.840 in the dark of the night, to create such a situation. Unquote, 2:42:15.280 --> 2:42:18.640 no evidence this has happened. Obviously, people have been watching 2:42:18.680 --> 2:42:22.280 the pool NonStop. No one's been seeing God waiting in 2:42:22.320 --> 2:42:25.959 there with a knife cutting the floor. 2:42:26.400 --> 2:42:28.880 And garrison, garrison. You're not understanding what the president's saying. 2:42:29.120 --> 2:42:31.039 One man didn't wait in there with a knife. A 2:42:31.080 --> 2:42:34.879 team of hundreds each made a single slash. That's the 2:42:34.959 --> 2:42:37.080 kind of discipline and dief is capable of, you know, 2:42:38.560 --> 2:42:40.160 night and of course in the dark of the. 2:42:40.160 --> 2:42:43.600 Night, they were black. There's out out looks like the 2:42:43.680 --> 2:42:48.200 Washington cous just reported on Trump's claims without noting that 2:42:48.240 --> 2:42:52.200 this is just a lie, just nonsense. Yeah, but as 2:42:52.400 --> 2:42:54.680 as the President has said, six people have been arrested, 2:42:54.840 --> 2:42:57.119 one of whom for sticking his hand in the pool 2:42:57.200 --> 2:43:00.360 and touching one of the floating pieces of blue hain't. 2:43:00.600 --> 2:43:01.000 Yeah. 2:43:01.160 --> 2:43:02.920 Trump has said they will need to join the pool 2:43:02.920 --> 2:43:05.480 again to make further repairs. Ahead of the fourth of 2:43:05.520 --> 2:43:08.440 July two hundred and fiftieth celebration. 2:43:08.520 --> 2:43:12.039 If you read the actual report that was made by 2:43:12.160 --> 2:43:13.720 UH I think it was the Parts Department or whatever, 2:43:13.959 --> 2:43:17.520 like analyzing what had happened in the reflecting pool. They 2:43:17.560 --> 2:43:20.400 did notice some like things that were described as cuts, 2:43:20.440 --> 2:43:22.960 but concluded they had nothing to do with the paint itself. 2:43:24.040 --> 2:43:26.600 Like if you actually read the report, like what he's 2:43:26.640 --> 2:43:29.480 talking about is not like what his own people said. 2:43:29.800 --> 2:43:31.880 He just saw cuts in the report and ignore that. 2:43:31.920 --> 2:43:34.240 It was like, but these were somewhere else and not 2:43:34.400 --> 2:43:37.240 relevant to the paint peeling and just went with it 2:43:37.400 --> 2:43:38.720 like that's the root of all this. 2:43:39.360 --> 2:43:40.840 The thing with the story is like, yeah, on the 2:43:40.840 --> 2:43:43.520 one hand, it is very funny that the pool the 2:43:43.560 --> 2:43:47.959 pool green, but also the fact that Trump can just 2:43:48.640 --> 2:43:51.560 lie about this stuff and then also a bunch of 2:43:51.600 --> 2:43:55.520 people get arrested, Yeah, is really bad. It is in 2:43:55.560 --> 2:43:58.240 fact really bad. But you can be arrested for putting 2:43:58.320 --> 2:44:02.640 your hand in a pool. That's very bad. I just 2:44:02.640 --> 2:44:05.000 just on just on a fundamental level, not not a 2:44:05.040 --> 2:44:07.720 sign of a society that is functioning. 2:44:07.240 --> 2:44:09.400 Or healthy or at all not doing well. 2:44:10.480 --> 2:44:14.160 Yeah yeah no great, no not a good Yeah, not 2:44:14.280 --> 2:44:17.000 a good look for us on the USA. 2:44:17.000 --> 2:44:18.480 It's two hundred and fifty is birthday. 2:44:18.600 --> 2:44:25.600 Yeah, deeply authoritarian society. Speaking of let's discuss probably the 2:44:25.600 --> 2:44:29.360 worst piece of news this week, which is the sentencing 2:44:29.440 --> 2:44:33.760 in the Prairie Land case, where the Trump administration brought 2:44:33.840 --> 2:44:37.039 terrorism charges against what they alleged as an ANTIFA cell 2:44:37.640 --> 2:44:41.320 who attended a protest outside of an iced attention facility 2:44:42.400 --> 2:44:47.360 last fourth of July. Benjamin Song was sentenced to one 2:44:47.440 --> 2:44:51.960 hundred years in prison. Song was convicted of attempted murder 2:44:52.240 --> 2:44:54.720 for shooting toward a police officer who was pointing a 2:44:54.760 --> 2:44:59.760 handgun at fleeing protesters. Marcilla Reda was sentenced to seventy 2:44:59.840 --> 2:45:04.680 year in prison. Zachary Evitt's Autumn Hill, Savannah Batten, Elizabeth Soto, 2:45:04.959 --> 2:45:08.840 and Megan Morris were sentenced to fifty years in prison 2:45:09.240 --> 2:45:14.480 after being convicted of providing quote unquote material support to terrorists. Now, 2:45:14.560 --> 2:45:18.680 some of these people weren't even involved in planning the protest, 2:45:18.760 --> 2:45:21.640 but just knew others who were. One of the people 2:45:21.720 --> 2:45:26.040 in this case wasn't even at the protest. Daniel Sanchez 2:45:26.080 --> 2:45:28.720 des Strata, who was sentenced to thirty years in prison, 2:45:28.959 --> 2:45:31.359 did not attend the protest, but was convicted of concealing 2:45:31.400 --> 2:45:35.560 documents for moving a box of personal items and anarchisines 2:45:35.600 --> 2:45:39.160 from one house to another that got him sentenced to 2:45:39.360 --> 2:45:42.959 thirty years in prison. One of the judges, Judge O'Connor, 2:45:42.959 --> 2:45:45.520 who was not the judge for the trial, said that 2:45:45.560 --> 2:45:48.720 the maximum sentences are to quote, send a message to 2:45:48.760 --> 2:45:51.240 anyone who shares similar ideologies. 2:45:51.560 --> 2:45:57.600 Yeah, these are brutal sentences, right, Like, Yeah, these are 2:45:57.600 --> 2:45:59.760 the sort of things that you see in the potential 2:45:59.840 --> 2:46:02.960 life a bitity, but it's in my experience, I haven't 2:46:02.959 --> 2:46:06.879 seen many people get like maximum sentences, Like I'm familiar 2:46:06.959 --> 2:46:10.400 with guys who are convicted of providing material support to 2:46:10.400 --> 2:46:13.199 the Islamic State, for instance, who did not get sentences 2:46:13.480 --> 2:46:14.480 anywhere near this duration. 2:46:15.200 --> 2:46:18.279 No, this is absolutely insane. Least, it is not unprecedented, 2:46:18.959 --> 2:46:24.720 very clearly politically motivated, as the judge openly said during sentencing. 2:46:24.360 --> 2:46:26.640 Yeah, deliberately admitted it was. 2:46:26.840 --> 2:46:30.280 Yeah, like the Adam Laffin guy who planned to attack 2:46:30.320 --> 2:46:32.720 power grids a few years ago was just sentenced to 2:46:32.760 --> 2:46:36.400 twenty This is absurd, Like a song, sentence of one 2:46:36.440 --> 2:46:40.120 hundred years is pretty insane itself, for even for being 2:46:40.120 --> 2:46:43.080 convicted of attempted murder, but all of these material support 2:46:43.400 --> 2:46:48.000 charges and concealing documents at thirty to seventy years is like. 2:46:48.200 --> 2:46:50.840 Yeah, it's outrageous. Yeah, it's a very clear attempt to 2:46:50.879 --> 2:46:53.160 having a chilling it. Yeah, right, Like a's the goal here, 2:46:53.320 --> 2:46:57.880 the goal with the with the prosecutions in Minneapolis as well, 2:46:58.080 --> 2:47:00.840 Like yeah, you know, it's all this same part of 2:47:00.879 --> 2:47:01.720 the stage strategy. 2:47:02.120 --> 2:47:06.000 Yeah, now, using conspiracy charges to rope in people to 2:47:06.160 --> 2:47:10.240 this larger case, arguing that this conspiracy is evidenced through 2:47:11.000 --> 2:47:14.240 reading zines, through wearing certain clothes at a protest, not 2:47:14.360 --> 2:47:17.360 being ut out quote unquote Antifa, and then they don't 2:47:17.400 --> 2:47:19.760 need to actually argue that every single person did a 2:47:20.080 --> 2:47:24.000 specific violent crime, but justice association with each other can 2:47:24.120 --> 2:47:27.200 lead to a conviction. And we are seeing this, you know, 2:47:27.320 --> 2:47:30.560 copied in Minnesota where just like one or two people 2:47:30.640 --> 2:47:33.680 are charged with doing violence like you know, kicking a vehicle. 2:47:34.200 --> 2:47:36.880 But what links the fifteen defendants together in Minnesota are 2:47:36.959 --> 2:47:38.880 these conspiracy charges? Yeah. 2:47:39.080 --> 2:47:39.280 Yeah. 2:47:39.680 --> 2:47:41.360 The thing that it reminds me the most of is 2:47:41.560 --> 2:47:46.360 just is Haymarket, where you know, in a very similar way, 2:47:46.480 --> 2:47:51.400 you have an attempt to not even necessarily go after 2:47:51.520 --> 2:47:54.080 the people who did the thing. You have an attempt 2:47:54.120 --> 2:47:56.760 to put the ideology on trial. I mean, the judge 2:47:56.800 --> 2:47:59.760 explicitly says this, right, this is not a trial. This 2:47:59.800 --> 2:48:02.920 is because something happened. This is specifically an attempt to 2:48:03.000 --> 2:48:05.560 send the message. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, to send a message 2:48:05.560 --> 2:48:08.920 into like stop resistance to everything the Troil adminstration has 2:48:08.959 --> 2:48:12.560 been doing, and particularly to try to try to like 2:48:13.040 --> 2:48:15.600 bring down a level of resistance to ice and border 2:48:15.680 --> 2:48:19.920 patrols like raids and actions going forward. 2:48:20.200 --> 2:48:23.280 The defendants will absolutely need support for what it's going 2:48:23.320 --> 2:48:26.760 to be a lengthy appeals process. Yeah. The worst case 2:48:26.800 --> 2:48:29.560 scenario is going to require building a mass movement to 2:48:30.040 --> 2:48:34.480 push for pardoning anti ice protesters, including the Prairie Line defendants, 2:48:34.840 --> 2:48:38.680 in a post Trump government. Of A complicating factor in 2:48:38.959 --> 2:48:41.560 this case is that some of these defendants are also 2:48:41.600 --> 2:48:45.320 facing state charges, which a federal pardon would not cover 2:48:45.760 --> 2:48:50.760 in Texas. Yeah, but rallying behind these people is of 2:48:50.879 --> 2:48:55.440 the utmost urgency, same as all the anti ice protesters 2:48:55.440 --> 2:48:58.960 around the country who are facing repression. I do want 2:48:59.000 --> 2:49:01.720 to know that, like our previous coverage of Prairie Life, 2:49:01.840 --> 2:49:06.119 my previous coverage focused on how the government used these 2:49:06.280 --> 2:49:10.080 specific charges, how they use specific testimony and flimsy evidence 2:49:10.680 --> 2:49:14.360 to successfully argue a conviction, while also mentioning that some 2:49:14.440 --> 2:49:17.040 of the mistakes that the public defenders made during that case, 2:49:17.160 --> 2:49:20.360 missing deadline stile motions, not calling witnesses. There is unique 2:49:20.360 --> 2:49:22.840 aspects of this case, and I think knowing what those 2:49:22.920 --> 2:49:25.279 are is important. When I was putting together that episode, 2:49:25.280 --> 2:49:27.560 a lot of the coverage I saw talked about how 2:49:28.000 --> 2:49:30.560 fucked up this situation is, and it really is right, 2:49:31.200 --> 2:49:33.480 but I think it's also important to actually know how 2:49:33.720 --> 2:49:35.960 the state is able to do this, like how they're 2:49:35.959 --> 2:49:39.680 able to argue this in very specific ways, to understand 2:49:39.920 --> 2:49:42.080 some of the unique aspects of this case, and to 2:49:42.240 --> 2:49:46.080 know what this state and jurors considered relevant evidence saying 2:49:46.160 --> 2:49:49.880 certain things in group chats, but also just being at 2:49:49.959 --> 2:49:53.400 a protest with someone else wearing possibly matching clothing. 2:49:53.520 --> 2:49:53.600 Right. 2:49:53.879 --> 2:49:57.279 Understanding those specifics I think is also important. But going forward, 2:49:57.600 --> 2:50:01.240 supporting these defendants, regardless of the can addiction is of 2:50:01.600 --> 2:50:04.480 the utmost urgency. We will link to the Support Committee 2:50:04.520 --> 2:50:07.640 for the Prairie Line Defendants and the donation link to 2:50:07.720 --> 2:50:10.840 help with legal costs and other expenses resulting from the 2:50:10.879 --> 2:50:11.600 state repression. 2:50:11.840 --> 2:50:15.360 Yeah, I'm curious people will have a lengthly challenging appeal 2:50:15.480 --> 2:50:20.520 process ahead of them, like they will need significant legal support. 2:50:20.959 --> 2:50:22.480 Yeah, if they're going to get out of prison. 2:50:22.840 --> 2:50:26.680 And you know, like if we look at like previous 2:50:26.760 --> 2:50:29.560 movements in the US, think like Biden pardon Leonard Peltier 2:50:30.160 --> 2:50:33.600 after decades right yep of him being in prison, like 2:50:33.720 --> 2:50:35.800 most of the rest of his life was spent in jail, 2:50:36.280 --> 2:50:38.240 and we can come to contrast set to have Trump 2:50:38.280 --> 2:50:40.720 pardon the J six is very rapidly. 2:50:40.959 --> 2:50:45.440 No, specifically in a in a post J six pardon world, 2:50:46.040 --> 2:50:50.879 and considering the popular resistance to ICE, Yeah, I think 2:50:50.920 --> 2:50:53.240 it's it's it's it's it's imperative that we go forward 2:50:53.320 --> 2:50:56.959 with this specific intention of even if the appeals fail, 2:50:57.480 --> 2:50:59.840 an anti as movement needs to include these people in 2:51:00.000 --> 2:51:03.120 their advocacy and getting them pardons in the future. 2:51:03.360 --> 2:51:03.560 Yeah. 2:51:03.760 --> 2:51:03.960 Yeah. 2:51:04.160 --> 2:51:07.240 And I think it is also just worth saying that, 2:51:07.959 --> 2:51:09.480 you know, I think there's there's an extent to which 2:51:09.520 --> 2:51:12.280 this repression would have happened regardless, but part of the 2:51:12.320 --> 2:51:14.080 reason why this is happening, and part of the reason 2:51:14.120 --> 2:51:15.920 why the judge is saying the stuff, part of the 2:51:16.000 --> 2:51:19.400 reason why they find the need to try to do 2:51:19.520 --> 2:51:21.959 a chilling effect and you know, use fear and terror 2:51:22.040 --> 2:51:24.440 to stop anything else, you know, to stop any of 2:51:24.480 --> 2:51:26.240 the resistance, is that the resistance is working. 2:51:26.920 --> 2:51:27.080 Right. 2:51:27.160 --> 2:51:30.599 That doesn't mean that people aren't getting hurt in unbelievably 2:51:30.920 --> 2:51:33.480 sort of hideous ways. It doesn't mean that deportations are continuing, 2:51:33.600 --> 2:51:36.920 but they have not been able to do the things 2:51:36.959 --> 2:51:37.840 that they wanted to do. 2:51:38.120 --> 2:51:40.160 Now, this is defensive lashing out. 2:51:40.400 --> 2:51:43.280 Yeah, yeah, you know, there is an extent to which 2:51:43.280 --> 2:51:45.000 they're doing this because they're losing and they know it, 2:51:45.120 --> 2:51:47.440 and they have something has to happen in order to 2:51:47.520 --> 2:51:50.039 change the balance of how this whole sort of conflict 2:51:50.080 --> 2:51:53.760 between ice and people's communities has been unfolding. And this 2:51:53.840 --> 2:51:55.200 is one of the things they're trying to do to 2:51:55.320 --> 2:51:55.520 do that. 2:51:56.320 --> 2:52:00.520 Yeah, and more broadly, they're just trying to chill anything 2:52:00.600 --> 2:52:04.119 that could become part of successful resistance. Like they understand 2:52:04.240 --> 2:52:07.720 that anything that's public to the administration that looks bad 2:52:07.879 --> 2:52:10.560 can make them look bad. Like that's why they're lashing 2:52:10.600 --> 2:52:12.920 out at the fucking reflecting pool tool. Like the goal 2:52:13.160 --> 2:52:15.879 is to just like to instill a sort of instinctive 2:52:16.000 --> 2:52:19.080 fear of doing anything that could make the administration look bad. 2:52:19.120 --> 2:52:21.000 They're trying to like force their own sort of like 2:52:21.120 --> 2:52:25.400 less majest situation out through just like arresting people whenever 2:52:25.480 --> 2:52:26.600 they embarrass the regime. 2:52:27.280 --> 2:52:32.240 Yeah, and specifically trying to criminalize common protest tactics and 2:52:32.400 --> 2:52:35.080 picking specific cases like you know, Prairie Land and like 2:52:35.160 --> 2:52:39.080 the fifteen defendants in Minneapolis, and rather than actually focusing 2:52:39.480 --> 2:52:43.480 the majority of the case on alleged crimes, instead focusing 2:52:43.560 --> 2:52:49.200 on Antifa as this scary specter, right is anarchism, violent militancy, 2:52:49.760 --> 2:52:54.640 where just discussions or aesthetics of militancy is really what 2:52:54.879 --> 2:52:56.760 is is really what the case is like resting on 2:52:57.240 --> 2:52:59.120 and convincing a jury that these people are a scary 2:52:59.160 --> 2:53:02.400 group of outside ATGE dictators, but by solidifying a conviction 2:53:02.879 --> 2:53:06.480 that actually criminalizes what are legal protest tactics Like this 2:53:06.560 --> 2:53:09.080 is the scariest part about the case in Minneapolis in 2:53:09.120 --> 2:53:12.960 the Twin Cities is that most of that document is 2:53:13.400 --> 2:53:16.800 covering legal like ICE like ICE Watch, rapid Response Networks, 2:53:16.879 --> 2:53:21.320 right legal actions, but they're trying to criminalize people's coordination 2:53:21.520 --> 2:53:25.720 to do that legal action by focusing on a group 2:53:25.800 --> 2:53:28.640 that the government thinks is specifically, you know, militant or 2:53:29.120 --> 2:53:30.760 has certain political beliefs. 2:53:31.080 --> 2:53:34.080 Yeah, I would say that the Minneapolis indictment is not 2:53:34.160 --> 2:53:36.760 the Peri Land indictment like that, It's a very different thing, 2:53:36.920 --> 2:53:39.240 totally and totally. Yeah, we made an episode and that 2:53:39.280 --> 2:53:40.680 people go back and listen to it. But like I 2:53:40.959 --> 2:53:47.119 think people, I understand the fear that people are feeling. 2:53:47.560 --> 2:53:50.240 But like I want you to know that this isn't 2:53:50.480 --> 2:53:53.160 every case going forward, right for this is a case, 2:53:53.320 --> 2:53:56.360 yeah that they have had success and they extracted like 2:53:56.440 --> 2:54:00.400 a really horrific burden. Most of the cases they bought 2:54:00.440 --> 2:54:01.800 in Minnesota have been thrown out. 2:54:02.040 --> 2:54:05.000 The details and evidence of these cases are very, very different. 2:54:05.280 --> 2:54:09.520 I'm only invoking the comparison because the strategy from the 2:54:10.000 --> 2:54:13.520 DOJ is similar. Even if the specific details and evidence 2:54:13.520 --> 2:54:16.520 in these cases do wide, they differ. And regardless of 2:54:16.520 --> 2:54:19.120 those differences, I think both both the defendants in both 2:54:19.200 --> 2:54:21.600 cases should receive the same amount of support. 2:54:21.840 --> 2:54:22.040 Yeah. 2:54:22.879 --> 2:54:26.560 Like I mentioned, links for the support committee and the 2:54:26.680 --> 2:54:29.560 donation link will be at the very top of the 2:54:29.800 --> 2:54:33.360 description below. Let's go on a break and return for 2:54:34.280 --> 2:54:34.760 more news. 2:54:46.720 --> 2:54:48.800 We are back when we're talking about Iran. 2:54:49.720 --> 2:54:51.680 We saw like a lot of back and forth over 2:54:51.760 --> 2:54:55.279 the weekend about the MoU, about Trump threatening the Iranian delegation, 2:54:55.480 --> 2:54:56.560 about them not signing it. 2:54:56.959 --> 2:55:01.120 The mu of Versai didn't didn't work out, So we 2:55:01.400 --> 2:55:04.520 have an an MoU in place. 2:55:04.800 --> 2:55:09.880 Right at the time of writing, this rest on a 2:55:10.320 --> 2:55:14.160 very fragile piece in Lebanon, and I want to read 2:55:14.240 --> 2:55:18.959 something from Bengavia about Lebanon. He's a national security minister 2:55:19.160 --> 2:55:21.560 in Israel. The last time we spoke about him, he 2:55:21.879 --> 2:55:25.400 was physically assaulting people from the flotilla. I think I'm 2:55:25.400 --> 2:55:27.160 just going to read this out. For every tier of 2:55:27.160 --> 2:55:30.240 an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All 2:55:30.320 --> 2:55:33.320 of Lebanon must burn, with all due respect to the Americans. 2:55:33.480 --> 2:55:35.800 Israel must make it clear to the entire world that 2:55:35.879 --> 2:55:37.800 the blood of our sons and the security of our 2:55:37.800 --> 2:55:39.640 citizens are not forfeit. 2:55:40.120 --> 2:55:41.480 All of Lebanon must burn. 2:55:42.000 --> 2:55:44.200 Our supreme duty is to protect the citizens Visrael and 2:55:44.240 --> 2:55:46.800 the soldiers the IDF, and this commitment takes presence over 2:55:46.879 --> 2:55:49.680 every other consideration. I told the Prime Minister even in 2:55:49.760 --> 2:55:52.280 a private meeting. So every tier of an Israeli mother, 2:55:52.480 --> 2:55:55.640 a thousand Lebanese mothers, must weep enough with a ping 2:55:55.720 --> 2:55:58.320 pong in the Middle East. You don't win with measured 2:55:58.360 --> 2:56:01.480 responses and restraint. You need to go berserk, to obliterate, 2:56:01.800 --> 2:56:04.640 to crush the terror. That's just a genocide post like 2:56:04.720 --> 2:56:05.359 there's there's. 2:56:05.280 --> 2:56:08.560 Insane genocidal, yes, super genocide, Like. 2:56:08.680 --> 2:56:10.400 He might as well just say, like, what I want 2:56:10.520 --> 2:56:12.480 is a genocide. The genocide is what I want. 2:56:12.640 --> 2:56:17.480 Like in other historically documented genocides, it is relatively rare 2:56:18.040 --> 2:56:19.960 to have the person just being like, we're doing a 2:56:20.040 --> 2:56:20.959 genocide over here. 2:56:21.040 --> 2:56:24.360 This is a genocide, seems like a good dame, like. 2:56:26.200 --> 2:56:29.960 It is historically somewhat remarkable to just being I guess 2:56:30.000 --> 2:56:31.840 we want to wipe them all out. Actually, if anyone 2:56:31.920 --> 2:56:34.120 wonders if this is a genocide or not, absolutely like 2:56:34.680 --> 2:56:37.480 you will not find it clearer statement of genocidal intent 2:56:37.640 --> 2:56:42.480 than this. And so the Iran peace deal being contingent 2:56:42.720 --> 2:56:46.400 on Israel at least finding peace in Lebanon right now 2:56:46.440 --> 2:56:48.600 they're occupying something Lebanon, it doesn't look like they're leaving, 2:56:49.320 --> 2:56:52.200 is contingent on this government, which includes someone who is 2:56:52.320 --> 2:56:58.680 openly genocidal. That finding a peace deal with Lebanon, which 2:56:58.760 --> 2:57:00.680 I mean, what kind of piece. What kind of compromise 2:57:00.760 --> 2:57:04.440 can you come to with that person? Israel continues to 2:57:04.600 --> 2:57:08.640 be the force that continues to destabilize the region and 2:57:08.760 --> 2:57:12.119 cause more death and suffering. Let's move back to America. 2:57:12.640 --> 2:57:16.000 The Senate did pass a war powers resolution this week, 2:57:16.320 --> 2:57:19.320 came through from the House. A resolution here it expresses 2:57:19.360 --> 2:57:21.160 a will of Congress. It's slightly different for a piece 2:57:21.160 --> 2:57:24.800 of legislation. It is a setback for Trump, right, like 2:57:24.920 --> 2:57:29.000 it's not nothing, especially because some Republicans supported it, ran 2:57:29.080 --> 2:57:32.720 Paul Lisa Makowski, Susan Collins, and Bill Cassidy. Of course 2:57:32.800 --> 2:57:35.240 John Fetterman cross the other way because he is the 2:57:35.320 --> 2:57:38.800 marga Republican. He just has a blue badge next to him. 2:57:39.360 --> 2:57:42.400 So in twenty nineteen, probably the most analogous kind of 2:57:42.560 --> 2:57:46.720 recent example, Trump vetoed resolution concerning US support for the 2:57:46.840 --> 2:57:50.600 Saudi led coalition in Yemen. Right, he will likely ignore 2:57:50.680 --> 2:57:53.800 this history. Understanders will know that we didn't stop supporting 2:57:53.840 --> 2:57:58.640 to Saudi's right, and he is very unlikely to change 2:57:58.680 --> 2:58:01.879 his policy about this, but he is clearly very upset 2:58:01.920 --> 2:58:05.400 about it. And this is important because Trump has a 2:58:05.680 --> 2:58:10.160 record As we go into the mid terms of attempting 2:58:10.200 --> 2:58:13.080 to destroy the careers of any Republican who he considers 2:58:13.120 --> 2:58:16.160 to have spoken out against him. Right, So, in a 2:58:16.440 --> 2:58:19.360 general sense, with the war, Congress would have to approve 2:58:19.400 --> 2:58:22.240 it within sixty days, sometimes for national security reasons. It 2:58:22.280 --> 2:58:25.240 could be extended by the eggective branch in ninety days. Well, 2:58:25.280 --> 2:58:27.520 the White House is arguing here is that the April 2:58:27.600 --> 2:58:30.560 ceasefire means that that clock has stopped, and that the 2:58:30.640 --> 2:58:32.840 War Powers resolution therefore became to a war that no 2:58:32.959 --> 2:58:35.520 longer exists. And if they start again, it will be 2:58:35.560 --> 2:58:38.560 a completely different, separate and unrelated thing, and that club 2:58:38.560 --> 2:58:41.879 would start again from zero. Yeah, Jesus crazy, but that's 2:58:41.959 --> 2:58:44.640 kind of magical thinking. But that's what they're going with. Right. 2:58:45.320 --> 2:58:48.520 Just before we recorded, it was reported that Trump had 2:58:48.560 --> 2:58:51.600 a lunch, like a closed door lunch with GP centers, 2:58:52.160 --> 2:58:54.680 which resulted in him getting into a screaming match with 2:58:54.840 --> 2:58:59.040 some of those senators, including Cassidy. Clearly, the peace deal, 2:58:59.360 --> 2:59:02.320 the forty points that we that we spoke about last 2:59:02.360 --> 2:59:08.560 time have been extremely unpopular with the Republicans, right because 2:59:09.000 --> 2:59:11.960 Trump poventually caved on like Grans coming out of this 2:59:12.920 --> 2:59:15.280 perhaps strategically in a better position than it went into this. 2:59:15.440 --> 2:59:17.800 And now, obviously the US has done massive damage to 2:59:18.000 --> 2:59:21.920 Iranian infrastructure to kill people, right, but in terms of 2:59:21.920 --> 2:59:24.800 actually their military capacity, it seems to be a much 2:59:24.879 --> 2:59:29.080 less degrade than we initially thought. It looks like this 2:59:29.680 --> 2:59:32.760 continues to be one of the areas where Trump is 2:59:32.920 --> 2:59:36.640 bleeding GOP support, and so it is interesting to keep 2:59:36.720 --> 2:59:40.480 track of this. Let's move on to talk about immigration now. 2:59:41.360 --> 2:59:43.640 So the DC District Court had a ruling this week 2:59:43.920 --> 2:59:46.440 in order the government to facilitate the return of a 2:59:46.480 --> 2:59:50.400 man mister Martinez and Dino, that they had deported to 2:59:50.760 --> 2:59:54.400 ondore US. The quote from the opinion I'm going to 2:59:54.480 --> 2:59:56.520 quote kind of extendedly, hear, I have removed like when 2:59:56.560 --> 2:59:59.160 you get these opinions right, they will have intex citations 2:59:59.560 --> 3:00:02.480 for other cour cases. Never removed those from reading clarity. 3:00:03.520 --> 3:00:06.480 After being arrested and detained in Montana by immigration authorities 3:00:06.560 --> 3:00:09.400 and moved between at least six detention centers in different 3:00:09.440 --> 3:00:12.720 states across the country, he seemingly disappeared. He was not 3:00:12.840 --> 3:00:15.680 permitted to contact his attorneys for more than ten days, 3:00:16.120 --> 3:00:19.879 and neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor Customs and Border 3:00:19.920 --> 3:00:23.040 Protection would tell his attorneys where he was or in 3:00:23.160 --> 3:00:28.400 which agency's custody, despite repeated requests, Not until his attorneys 3:00:28.480 --> 3:00:32.600 filed this lawsuit, initially seeking only a temporary restraining order 3:00:33.520 --> 3:00:36.640 directing defendants to tell them where and in whose custody 3:00:36.680 --> 3:00:39.920 plaintiff was located, did the government disclose that he had 3:00:39.959 --> 3:00:44.240 been removed to Honduras the same day, purportedly because he 3:00:44.320 --> 3:00:48.000 had voluntarily agreed to that departure. So this guy was 3:00:48.080 --> 3:00:50.520 kept without contact to his lawyer, who was trying to 3:00:50.560 --> 3:00:52.920 contact him and who he was asking to talk to, 3:00:53.560 --> 3:00:57.760 for ten days. He disputes in this case that he 3:00:58.040 --> 3:01:01.640 voluntarily agreed to depart because he was deprived of access 3:01:01.760 --> 3:01:03.600 to his legal team because he wasn't able to understand 3:01:03.600 --> 3:01:06.120 the documents he was asked to sign. I can say 3:01:06.160 --> 3:01:09.119 from numerous interviews I've conducted with people who have been 3:01:09.200 --> 3:01:11.440 in detention that there is a great deal of pressure 3:01:11.480 --> 3:01:13.680 to sign those documents, and they're there all the time, 3:01:13.800 --> 3:01:15.120 right like in the middle of the night, when you 3:01:15.200 --> 3:01:17.880 can't sleep and it's freezing fucking cold, that document is 3:01:17.920 --> 3:01:20.360 right there in the wall for you to sign. The 3:01:20.800 --> 3:01:23.560 court ordered the government to quote ensure that his case 3:01:23.680 --> 3:01:26.440 is handled as it would have been had he not 3:01:26.560 --> 3:01:29.680 been improperly sent to Honduras. And they cited out at 3:01:29.680 --> 3:01:33.320 aggasi of US is gnome right, so they're using that 3:01:33.640 --> 3:01:36.680 like a precedent here. That doesn't mean that he gets 3:01:36.720 --> 3:01:40.160 to come home and he's not going to be pursued 3:01:40.200 --> 3:01:43.800 by immigration, right. That means that they have to process 3:01:43.920 --> 3:01:47.200 him and not hide him away from his lawyer for 3:01:47.320 --> 3:01:50.080 ten days, because effectively what they did was hit this 3:01:50.200 --> 3:01:51.560 man from his lawyers for more than a week and 3:01:51.600 --> 3:01:53.600 then forced him to sign a document he couldn't meaningfully 3:01:53.640 --> 3:01:57.200 consent to. Some background here, he entered his fourteen year 3:01:57.240 --> 3:01:59.640 old without family members. I don't like the term and 3:01:59.720 --> 3:02:03.360 a minor because I've spent time with Margaret's traveling to 3:02:03.360 --> 3:02:05.000 the US, and there are often children who are traveling 3:02:05.000 --> 3:02:08.200 without their family, but they're still accompanied by somebody or 3:02:08.240 --> 3:02:10.200 somebody who's just decided to take care of them. 3:02:10.800 --> 3:02:12.240 But that would be the legal term here, right. 3:02:12.680 --> 3:02:17.360 He was granted SIJ Special Immigrant Juvenile status, and then 3:02:17.440 --> 3:02:19.960 when he got back to Honduras, he contacted his lawyer 3:02:20.160 --> 3:02:22.600 filed enough for David, stating that the paperwork he signed 3:02:22.959 --> 3:02:25.280 when he was detained was not explained to him and 3:02:26.040 --> 3:02:28.360 he was quote told the only option he had attention 3:02:28.560 --> 3:02:31.760 was to sign for the paperwork. He quote asked to 3:02:31.800 --> 3:02:35.040 speak with his attorneys for days between nine days between 3:02:35.080 --> 3:02:38.520 March thirty first and April ninth, and his quote requests 3:02:38.560 --> 3:02:42.080 were ignored or denied, and he quote told immigration officials 3:02:42.080 --> 3:02:44.520 that he was afraid to return to Honduras and wanted 3:02:44.959 --> 3:02:47.199 an interview or a hearing with the judge. 3:02:47.640 --> 3:02:49.800 These requests were also quote ignored or denied. 3:02:50.360 --> 3:02:52.959 He also says he felt terribly mistreated due to poor 3:02:53.040 --> 3:02:56.320 food and no access to showers. He also gave a 3:02:56.440 --> 3:03:00.400 different himeline of deportation than that which government is entered 3:03:00.440 --> 3:03:02.360 in his case. Just think that he may not have 3:03:02.520 --> 3:03:05.400 entered the country at the time the government said he 3:03:05.560 --> 3:03:09.199 was out of their custody, which is important, right because 3:03:09.240 --> 3:03:13.640 the government saying we don't have him anymore. His timeline 3:03:13.760 --> 3:03:15.960 when they landed, how long they sat on the tarmac, 3:03:16.080 --> 3:03:19.080 when they transited the border there is different from the 3:03:19.160 --> 3:03:21.680 one that the government provided. It's good to see this 3:03:21.760 --> 3:03:23.640 case right, but he will still face an uphill battle. 3:03:24.360 --> 3:03:27.040 I also want to talk very briefly about Blanche versus Lao. 3:03:27.520 --> 3:03:30.840 This is a ruling that returning Green card holders are 3:03:30.879 --> 3:03:34.440 now considered or can be considered, applicants for admission, which 3:03:34.520 --> 3:03:37.200 means they can be placed on immigration parole when entering 3:03:37.280 --> 3:03:40.840 the country. A case he potentially mister Lao, who returned 3:03:40.840 --> 3:03:44.320 to twenty twelve and was placed on parole while facing charge, 3:03:44.440 --> 3:03:46.840 is related to trademark counterfeiting. I do want to go 3:03:46.920 --> 3:03:50.000 back and reference their date again, twenty twelve. This is 3:03:50.080 --> 3:03:53.600 something that happened when Barack Obama was president. Barack Obama 3:03:54.160 --> 3:03:57.680 loved to deport people. Anybody who's telling you that it 3:03:57.720 --> 3:03:59.000 isn't the case is lying to you. 3:03:59.560 --> 3:03:59.880 Missed a. 3:04:00.080 --> 3:04:04.000 Lao later pled guilty and therefore was swiftly praised in 3:04:04.160 --> 3:04:08.680 removal proceedings because the government argued he was inadmissible. So 3:04:08.800 --> 3:04:13.280 when you are parolled, you're not technically admitted. You are 3:04:13.400 --> 3:04:17.720 parolled pending admission. Therefore, if you're found to be inadmissible, 3:04:18.280 --> 3:04:21.480 it is quicker to begin that removal. So this is 3:04:21.640 --> 3:04:25.879 where the Supreme Court had to decide. Right, Generally, Green 3:04:25.959 --> 3:04:28.920 card holders are considered to have already been admitted when 3:04:28.959 --> 3:04:29.800 they are returning. 3:04:30.280 --> 3:04:30.400 Right. 3:04:31.280 --> 3:04:35.000 This ruling, though, will have serious consequences for lpr's legal 3:04:35.040 --> 3:04:40.039 permanent residents. Green card holders. Right, this pertains to crimes 3:04:40.080 --> 3:04:42.760 involving moral turpitude. I spoke about these a great deal, 3:04:42.800 --> 3:04:44.120 and I don't think we already have the space or 3:04:44.160 --> 3:04:45.520 time to go into them here. But it's going to 3:04:45.560 --> 3:04:50.200 say that it is a broad and nebulous category because 3:04:50.440 --> 3:04:52.560 quote from the Supreme Court opinion here, nothing in the 3:04:52.640 --> 3:04:54.720 Ina required the border officer to have a clear and 3:04:54.840 --> 3:04:58.160 convincing evidence that Lao had committed a crime involving moral 3:04:58.200 --> 3:05:01.720 turpitude before deeming him an appetit for admission. So mister 3:05:01.800 --> 3:05:04.240 Lao had not been convicted of that crime, right he 3:05:04.280 --> 3:05:06.959 had been charged with that crime. Mister Law is still 3:05:07.000 --> 3:05:10.400 contesting whether this particular crime does involve moral turpitude, it seems. 3:05:10.800 --> 3:05:14.000 But nonetheless, this is a significant thing that green card 3:05:14.040 --> 3:05:15.840 holds legal public residents need to. 3:05:15.840 --> 3:05:16.360 Be aware of. 3:05:17.200 --> 3:05:19.640 That's it for James reads a bunch of court documents 3:05:19.720 --> 3:05:22.560 this week. I'll link to all the court docks in 3:05:22.720 --> 3:05:25.000 the thing you guys want to get deep in there. 3:05:26.560 --> 3:05:29.520 So another extremely bleak news. We're moving to the climate 3:05:29.600 --> 3:05:33.640 front where we are seeing a whole bunch of heat 3:05:33.680 --> 3:05:36.360 waves across the world. I want to start in India 3:05:36.400 --> 3:05:40.480 and Pakistan, so India has been dealing with very very 3:05:40.560 --> 3:05:42.920 serious heat wave for a lot of parts of May 3:05:43.000 --> 3:05:46.160 and June. Temperatures just in parts of New Delhi have 3:05:46.320 --> 3:05:48.760 hit one hundred and twenty three degrees fahrenheit, which is 3:05:49.040 --> 3:05:49.600 a nightmare. 3:05:49.840 --> 3:05:51.520 Yeah, that's really bad. 3:05:51.879 --> 3:05:54.480 Yeah, Yeah, in New Delhi has consistently been over one 3:05:54.520 --> 3:05:55.160 hundred degrees. 3:05:55.280 --> 3:05:57.200 We're also talking about over one hundred degrees in one 3:05:57.200 --> 3:06:00.840 of the most human and worst AQ Yeah. Places. That's 3:06:00.920 --> 3:06:02.120 just hell, yeah, that's hell. 3:06:02.400 --> 3:06:02.600 Yeah. 3:06:03.360 --> 3:06:03.520 Yeah. 3:06:03.560 --> 3:06:04.840 And as we're going to get you in a second, 3:06:05.040 --> 3:06:07.720 in places where people don't have access to air conditioning, 3:06:08.440 --> 3:06:13.000 and especially the you know, the the more rural and 3:06:13.080 --> 3:06:16.520 the more like the further out you get, you're dealing 3:06:16.640 --> 3:06:20.280 with people where you don't have good access to electricity, 3:06:20.520 --> 3:06:23.039 and electricity grids tend to fail on the heat, especially 3:06:23.080 --> 3:06:26.920 when it is is hot and also this humid just 3:06:27.360 --> 3:06:29.560 that we know of the direct reporting from the Indian 3:06:29.840 --> 3:06:32.400 Health Ministry is reporting one hundred dead from the heat. 3:06:33.240 --> 3:06:35.120 It's probably much larger than that. 3:06:36.160 --> 3:06:38.080 One of the very consistent things when you when you're 3:06:38.080 --> 3:06:41.000 reporting on this, and you know the PPC, for example, 3:06:41.040 --> 3:06:44.480 we'll talk to researchers, is that, yeah, the deaths are 3:06:44.520 --> 3:06:47.760 probably way higher, but there's real problems with how heat 3:06:47.800 --> 3:06:51.320 related deaths are categorized, because the thing that kills you 3:06:51.600 --> 3:06:54.040 is the heat, but you're dying from like another sort 3:06:54.080 --> 3:06:57.240 of like health factor you had going on, So we're 3:06:57.280 --> 3:07:00.560 probably not going to know what the mat attitude of 3:07:00.680 --> 3:07:04.320 this was. For a pretty long time, things have been 3:07:04.360 --> 3:07:06.640 bad enough that almost half of the states in India 3:07:06.760 --> 3:07:09.840 have either and it depends a lot on the region, 3:07:09.920 --> 3:07:11.520 but a lot of these places have just straight up 3:07:11.520 --> 3:07:14.680 shut down their schools or have revised the schedules for 3:07:14.879 --> 3:07:18.280 their schools and effectively just started the summer break early 3:07:18.440 --> 3:07:22.080 because it is too hot to send kids to classrooms. 3:07:22.160 --> 3:07:26.000 Sometimes there's been like zoom school all all sort of 3:07:26.840 --> 3:07:30.080 stuff people probably are familiar from from like the lockdowns. 3:07:30.280 --> 3:07:34.320 But yeah, the BBC did a report from Bando, which 3:07:34.360 --> 3:07:36.800 is a district in Utu Pradesh, where there was a 3:07:36.879 --> 3:07:38.920 full week in May where it was between one hundred 3:07:38.920 --> 3:07:42.240 and sixteen and one hundred and eighteen degrees, which is 3:07:43.200 --> 3:07:46.880 just a nightmare and the other extremely dangerous part. And 3:07:47.000 --> 3:07:49.039 this is also true with the other places we want 3:07:49.040 --> 3:07:52.160 to be talking about, but is particularly has been true 3:07:52.200 --> 3:07:53.800 in a lot of places in India is that it's 3:07:53.840 --> 3:07:56.640 not really cooling at night, and that as we've discussed 3:07:56.640 --> 3:07:58.880 on this show before in a whole bunch of different segments, 3:07:58.920 --> 3:08:01.520 but it's worth repeating every single time it is hot. 3:08:02.520 --> 3:08:05.080 That's one of the ways that things get very, very 3:08:05.200 --> 3:08:08.480 dangerous because when there art periods you can cool off 3:08:08.520 --> 3:08:10.400 at night. That is like, that is part of the 3:08:10.480 --> 3:08:13.200 way that that heat stroken, deaths from heat injury are 3:08:13.360 --> 3:08:14.720 exacerbated intensified. 3:08:15.879 --> 3:08:20.080 Now there's also a heat wave going on across Europe. 3:08:20.240 --> 3:08:22.879 Yeah, a lot of heat waves to go around here. 3:08:22.959 --> 3:08:27.240 Yeah, fortunately, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. So both the 3:08:27.360 --> 3:08:30.640 UK and France are seeing their hottest weather on record. 3:08:30.760 --> 3:08:33.199 France saw their hottest day on record and their hottest 3:08:33.280 --> 3:08:37.360 night on record, which is extremely bad. Forty people have 3:08:38.040 --> 3:08:40.840 died in France. I think it's the beginning of June, 3:08:41.760 --> 3:08:44.760 just from drownings from people trying to escape the heat. 3:08:44.959 --> 3:08:52.000 Got that's really yeah, that's brutal. Yeah, and there's also 3:08:52.040 --> 3:08:55.400 been a record temperatures places in Spain. You're seeing temperatures 3:08:55.480 --> 3:08:59.920 that should not be happening, not just at sea level, 3:09:00.120 --> 3:09:02.840 but up in the mountains. You're seeing temperatures that are 3:09:03.440 --> 3:09:08.200 astounding and temperatures that you know, the architecture of these 3:09:08.280 --> 3:09:11.960 places and they're electrical grids, and just like do you 3:09:12.080 --> 3:09:15.320 have air conditioning? Right, Like a lot of the places 3:09:15.360 --> 3:09:17.240 with these ways are striking, are not places that they've 3:09:17.240 --> 3:09:21.320 necessarily hit before, and they're not designed to handle this 3:09:21.600 --> 3:09:22.199 kind of heat. 3:09:22.400 --> 3:09:23.680 Yeah, I mean people haven't familiar. 3:09:24.280 --> 3:09:27.360 Most of our houses in Europe built differently from houses 3:09:27.360 --> 3:09:31.279 in the US, and they're not particularly designed, like especially 3:09:32.120 --> 3:09:33.920 as you get into Spain, like some of the designed 3:09:33.920 --> 3:09:36.160 with shade in mind, but not with like a temperature 3:09:36.400 --> 3:09:39.400 conservation insulation, and so it's specifically a conditioning, right. 3:09:39.480 --> 3:09:41.400 Air conditioning is much much less common than it is 3:09:41.440 --> 3:09:42.240 in the United States. 3:09:42.400 --> 3:09:42.600 Yep. 3:09:43.280 --> 3:09:45.680 Yeah, It's also worth noting that, like one of the 3:09:45.720 --> 3:09:47.920 things is intensifying this in a lot of places in India. 3:09:48.040 --> 3:09:48.720 But this is true. 3:09:49.480 --> 3:09:52.080 The more into the developing world you are, like the 3:09:52.160 --> 3:09:54.720 more fucked you are in a lot of ways about this. 3:09:55.000 --> 3:09:57.720 But like you're also dealing with a lot of places 3:09:57.760 --> 3:10:00.880 where just the trees have been cut down for industrial 3:10:00.959 --> 3:10:04.880 and sort of mining purposes, and that also is increasing temperatures. 3:10:05.400 --> 3:10:08.640 And I want to close by just saying that, right, 3:10:08.720 --> 3:10:13.400 we're seeing the hottest temperatures on record. And this is 3:10:13.480 --> 3:10:18.040 what's happening under one point four degrees of global warming. Right, 3:10:18.800 --> 3:10:21.120 Like the versions of this where we're supposed to be 3:10:21.240 --> 3:10:25.200 stabilizing are you know, the sort of was supposed to 3:10:25.200 --> 3:10:28.360 be the sort of habitable zone. Right, The ca scenarios 3:10:28.360 --> 3:10:31.040 where we like quote unquote deal with climate change are 3:10:32.000 --> 3:10:34.880 like two degrees of warming, two point five degrees of warming. 3:10:35.480 --> 3:10:39.240 It's already this bad. It is just going to get worse. 3:10:40.160 --> 3:10:44.000 And this is one of the just persistent kind of 3:10:44.200 --> 3:10:48.320 quiet crises that is happening in the back top of 3:10:48.360 --> 3:10:51.280 everything else, which is that, Yeah, the way that we're 3:10:51.600 --> 3:10:54.040 powering all of our industries is causing the world to burn. 3:10:54.760 --> 3:10:58.240 Yeah, complicated further by like austerity measures and make it 3:10:58.320 --> 3:11:02.120 harder for people to fund cooling their homes in Europe, right, 3:11:02.959 --> 3:11:04.760 and the things you might need to buy or do 3:11:04.959 --> 3:11:07.280 to keep your house cool. Margaret and I mad an 3:11:07.280 --> 3:11:09.240 episode a while ago about heat wave. So you're looking 3:11:09.320 --> 3:11:11.280 for some resources, you might be able to find some there. 3:11:11.560 --> 3:11:14.440 Yeah, let's go and break and then we will return 3:11:14.560 --> 3:11:17.280 for a few more news stories, hopefully not all of 3:11:17.400 --> 3:11:18.320 them depressing. 3:11:18.440 --> 3:11:32.360 Don't worry, I've got a happy one. Yay, we're back, 3:11:34.080 --> 3:11:37.200 and as promised, I have some less depressing stuff to 3:11:37.280 --> 3:11:39.720 talk to you all about. Oh sorry, no, I messed up. 3:11:40.120 --> 3:11:42.520 We're going to talk about the deaths of millions. So 3:11:42.720 --> 3:11:44.680 if you can recall back to the first months of 3:11:44.680 --> 3:11:48.080 the Trump administration, in like February third, twenty twenty five, 3:11:48.160 --> 3:11:51.400 this is a little bit after Musk started his you know, 3:11:51.640 --> 3:11:54.760 the early stages of his work with DOGE. He tweeted, quote, 3:11:54.840 --> 3:11:57.640 we spent the weekend feeding USAID at the wood Shipper. 3:11:57.640 --> 3:12:00.280 I think we all remember that that great moment. And 3:12:01.000 --> 3:12:04.480 this been widely criticized, and there are numerous articles, studies, 3:12:04.520 --> 3:12:06.960 and reports that have come out and made the case 3:12:07.040 --> 3:12:10.440 that the cuts to USAID that Doge made have resulted 3:12:10.480 --> 3:12:13.920 in a tremendous amount of human death and suffering. Musk 3:12:13.959 --> 3:12:17.440 has consistently denied this. Earlier this week, he quote tweeted 3:12:17.440 --> 3:12:20.320 a fan who had written, if cutting USAID killed a child, 3:12:20.480 --> 3:12:22.480 a single child, it would be covered by the media 3:12:22.600 --> 3:12:26.440 like the biggest story in history. Musk added exactly in 3:12:26.560 --> 3:12:30.279 his quote tweet. Now, there actually have been several stories 3:12:30.440 --> 3:12:33.119 that specify individual children that have died because of cuts 3:12:33.160 --> 3:12:35.120 to USAID and we'll be talking about some of them. 3:12:35.280 --> 3:12:37.080 Oh yeah, But I want to quote from a recent 3:12:37.200 --> 3:12:41.039 article by Matt Novak and Gizmoto, the Trillionaire Oligarchy, if 3:12:41.080 --> 3:12:43.240 it insisted that USAID is the one that's killed people, 3:12:43.320 --> 3:12:46.560 retweeting a conspiracy theory from Rand Paul that Anthony Fauci 3:12:46.720 --> 3:12:49.120 was to blame for the COVID nineteen pandemic because federal 3:12:49.160 --> 3:12:51.400 funds were being used to conduct gain a function research. 3:12:51.840 --> 3:12:55.960 Usa'd money killed millions, must wrote Tuesday. Admittedly, US intelligence 3:12:55.959 --> 3:12:58.680 agencies now endorsed the idea that COVID nineteen escaped from 3:12:58.680 --> 3:13:00.959 a lab, but that only happened after President Trump took 3:13:01.000 --> 3:13:03.920 office for a second time. Before Trump took control, intel 3:13:04.000 --> 3:13:07.240 agencies were largely skeptical of the idea. So you're already 3:13:07.280 --> 3:13:09.640 seeing like the dimensions of sort of the spin here 3:13:09.920 --> 3:13:12.199 to the all of the many deaths as a result 3:13:12.240 --> 3:13:14.080 of and this, this, this will come down to not 3:13:14.280 --> 3:13:16.360 just you know, the USA cut cuts. But anytime this 3:13:16.440 --> 3:13:19.960 is pointed out is the counterfact will be well, but 3:13:20.280 --> 3:13:22.800 you know, actually, these these these groups were killing way 3:13:22.840 --> 3:13:26.400 more people because of and then insert this insane conspiracy theory. Right, 3:13:26.440 --> 3:13:29.120 we've reached the point where they're now load bearing. Ye, 3:13:29.400 --> 3:13:32.600 both for like the personal like mental health of the 3:13:32.720 --> 3:13:36.200 richest man in the world, and for the federal government itself. 3:13:36.360 --> 3:13:39.160 Like the conspiracy theories aren't just a thing that are 3:13:39.240 --> 3:13:41.960 being sign posted to get votes. They're a load bearing 3:13:42.040 --> 3:13:46.360 part of the ideology, because otherwise everything's a failure. Right, 3:13:47.160 --> 3:13:51.560 good stuff, Glad we're here. So Novak's article noted, and 3:13:51.720 --> 3:13:53.960 as I opened the episode by mentioning, a ton of 3:13:53.959 --> 3:13:56.120 people have done the important work of documenting just how 3:13:56.200 --> 3:13:58.760 many human beings have been killed as a result of 3:13:58.800 --> 3:14:02.240 the cuts that Elon muh was integral in pushing. We'll 3:14:02.280 --> 3:14:03.840 talk more about that later, but I want to give 3:14:03.920 --> 3:14:06.880 one example from a Washington Post article published in September 3:14:06.920 --> 3:14:09.680 of twenty twenty five that does specify a single child 3:14:09.760 --> 3:14:12.760 that was killed as a result of these cuts. Quote. 3:14:13.040 --> 3:14:15.840 Fever ravaged the body of five year old Suzic Kenyabi 3:14:15.879 --> 3:14:17.880 as she sweated and shivered on a thin mattress and 3:14:17.920 --> 3:14:20.400 a two room clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 3:14:21.080 --> 3:14:23.320 The pig tailed girl who had liked pretty dresses, was 3:14:23.360 --> 3:14:26.520 battling malaria and desperately needed medication that could save her life. 3:14:26.720 --> 3:14:29.959 That medication already purchased by a US taxpayer funded program, 3:14:30.120 --> 3:14:32.640 was tantalizingly close a little more than seven miles away, 3:14:32.879 --> 3:14:34.920 but it hadn't reached the clinic where Susa was being 3:14:34.959 --> 3:14:37.600 treated because President Donald Trump's suspension of four and eight 3:14:37.640 --> 3:14:41.000 had thrown supply chains into chaos. The injection Susan needed 3:14:41.040 --> 3:14:43.440 had traveled thousands of miles to the Central African nation 3:14:43.720 --> 3:14:46.320 Usaight and other records show, only to be stranded in 3:14:46.320 --> 3:14:48.800 a regional distribution warehouse in the same city where she 3:14:48.920 --> 3:14:51.200 was gasping for air. Less than a week after her 3:14:51.200 --> 3:14:54.520 symptoms began, Susa was dead. Congolese government data shows that 3:14:54.600 --> 3:14:57.240 in Susa's province, deaths caused by malaria nearly tripled in 3:14:57.320 --> 3:15:01.040 the first half of this year, So keep that in 3:15:01.160 --> 3:15:03.840 mind during this next bet. That's just one of many 3:15:04.000 --> 3:15:06.040 stories we may I think I will cover this at 3:15:06.080 --> 3:15:08.440 some point on bTB in more detail. But a couple 3:15:08.480 --> 3:15:10.480 of days ago, you know, the same week that we're 3:15:10.560 --> 3:15:15.360 recording this episode, Roekana, a Democrat from California, went on 3:15:15.520 --> 3:15:18.560 the Ihip News podcast, which I am not familiar with, 3:15:18.720 --> 3:15:21.840 but is apparently a sister podcast to what the Hill 3:15:22.000 --> 3:15:25.520 calls the notable. I've had it podcast. I don't know 3:15:25.760 --> 3:15:29.160 who any of these people are, but whatever. Kinda was asked, like, 3:15:29.400 --> 3:15:32.440 what will your party do if the Democrats win the midterms? 3:15:33.000 --> 3:15:35.520 Here's what the Hill says happen next. I do believe 3:15:35.560 --> 3:15:37.520 that once we take power, there has to be accountability. 3:15:37.520 --> 3:15:40.520 There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk Kinda told Welch, 3:15:40.920 --> 3:15:44.199 you know, they're celebrating that he created forty four hundred millionaires, 3:15:44.240 --> 3:15:45.560 but they don't talk about the four and a half 3:15:45.680 --> 3:15:48.080 million children around the world who he possibly sentenced to 3:15:48.120 --> 3:15:51.520 death by dismantling the US Agency for International Development USA. 3:15:52.000 --> 3:15:54.119 Kinda added, he needs to answer for that. He needs 3:15:54.160 --> 3:15:56.760 to be subpoened, he needs to face investigation. He needs 3:15:56.800 --> 3:15:58.600 to answer for what he did with the Department of 3:15:58.640 --> 3:16:03.039 Government Efficiency. Kanna's comments were quickly exerted from the podcast 3:16:03.120 --> 3:16:06.080 itself and shared all around the Internet until they reached Musk, 3:16:06.200 --> 3:16:08.000 and he made a comment of his own on the 3:16:08.160 --> 3:16:11.200 website that he owns. The standard applied by DOGE was 3:16:11.280 --> 3:16:14.279 very simple and easy. Provide contact information for the recipients 3:16:14.280 --> 3:16:16.320 of AIDS that we can confirm it's not fraudulent. The 3:16:16.400 --> 3:16:18.920 tech Trillionaire set in one of the posts. The reality 3:16:19.000 --> 3:16:21.280 is that money was being sent to corrupt politicians under 3:16:21.280 --> 3:16:23.920 the guise of AID liars and stock inside traders like Row. 3:16:23.959 --> 3:16:26.200 The robbers should be in prison. Musk went on to 3:16:26.280 --> 3:16:28.199 claim that it's time to sue this liar. 3:16:28.400 --> 3:16:30.600 It would be great if he sued them. That would 3:16:30.600 --> 3:16:31.520 be a fantastic out. 3:16:32.400 --> 3:16:32.680 Great. 3:16:32.879 --> 3:16:35.000 I'd be fine with that. It looks like the direction 3:16:35.160 --> 3:16:37.920 Roe wants to go as much dumber because everything, if 3:16:37.959 --> 3:16:41.520 every one of us politics is annoying. Kanna responded to 3:16:41.600 --> 3:16:44.640 this by challenging Elon Musk to a televised debate, and 3:16:45.240 --> 3:16:47.560 I'm the fuck all, I'm not gonna say what I think. 3:16:47.720 --> 3:16:50.520 I'm frustrated anyway. Instead of going into that, I want 3:16:50.560 --> 3:16:53.520 to talk about where the number rows sided came from, 3:16:53.600 --> 3:16:55.720 because that is worth discussing. It has claimed four and 3:16:55.720 --> 3:16:58.080 a half million children who might die as a result 3:16:58.120 --> 3:17:01.119 of the USAID cuts. On January first of twenty twenty five, 3:17:01.200 --> 3:17:04.160 the UCA Fielding School of Public Health carried out research 3:17:04.680 --> 3:17:08.199 that found that over the prior twenty years USAID funding 3:17:08.240 --> 3:17:12.040 it helped save ninety one million lives. Obviously, that same 3:17:12.080 --> 3:17:15.320 study also concluded that the massive cuts to usaid under 3:17:15.360 --> 3:17:18.280 Trump would imperil that work, and they calculated that the 3:17:18.360 --> 3:17:21.440 cuts would cause fourteen million additional deaths around the world 3:17:21.520 --> 3:17:24.160 by twenty thirty, including the deaths of more than four 3:17:24.200 --> 3:17:26.720 and a half million children under five. So, if you 3:17:26.760 --> 3:17:28.560 look back to rose phrasing, I think he actually did 3:17:28.600 --> 3:17:32.119 a reasonably good job of like citing this information, because 3:17:32.280 --> 3:17:33.840 what Rose said was they don't talk about the four 3:17:33.840 --> 3:17:35.560 and a half million children around the world who he 3:17:35.760 --> 3:17:38.880 possibly sends to death by dismantling USA. Right, That's a 3:17:39.040 --> 3:17:41.879 reasonably accurate way to sum that up. So I'll give 3:17:41.920 --> 3:17:43.600 Rose some points there, although I'll take a couple of 3:17:43.640 --> 3:17:46.440 points away because this phrasing does somewhat emit that these 3:17:46.480 --> 3:17:49.360 are predicted future deaths. He's not like not saying that, 3:17:49.480 --> 3:17:51.640 but he could have been a little clearer here. Yeah, 3:17:51.760 --> 3:17:53.960 And I might also say because I think you could 3:17:54.040 --> 3:17:57.280 argue that he undercounted the severity of what that study says, 3:17:57.400 --> 3:17:59.400 because the study just notes that four and a half 3:17:59.440 --> 3:18:02.800 million children under five could die as a result of 3:18:02.879 --> 3:18:05.960 these cuts, which suggests way more than four and a 3:18:06.000 --> 3:18:08.840 half million total children deaths. Right, there are a lot 3:18:08.879 --> 3:18:10.520 of children who are over five. 3:18:11.080 --> 3:18:13.440 Yeah, Yeah, most of the children are of a fund. 3:18:13.680 --> 3:18:16.600 Most children are probably over five years old. I do 3:18:16.680 --> 3:18:18.960 want to quote from UCLA Studies again here, just to 3:18:19.000 --> 3:18:22.200 clarify where their data came from. Quote the London based 3:18:22.320 --> 3:18:24.480 journal The Lance. It analyzed data from one hundred and 3:18:24.520 --> 3:18:27.640 thirty three countries. The work combined to approaches a retrospective 3:18:27.680 --> 3:18:30.320 evaluation covering the years twenty one to twenty twenty one, 3:18:30.600 --> 3:18:33.480 and forecasting models projecting impacts through twenty thirty. Based on 3:18:33.520 --> 3:18:37.080 reductions to the budget of USAIGHT, US citizens contribute about 3:18:37.120 --> 3:18:39.520 seventeen cents per day to US eight about sixty four 3:18:39.560 --> 3:18:41.840 dollars per year. I think most people would support continued 3:18:41.920 --> 3:18:44.240 USAID funding if they knew just how effective such a 3:18:44.280 --> 3:18:46.879 small contribution can be to saving millions of lives, said 3:18:46.920 --> 3:18:49.560 doctor James Machenko. And I agree with that. I think 3:18:49.800 --> 3:18:51.280 those are the kind of numbers that we should be 3:18:51.360 --> 3:18:54.480 putting out, which is like, this is how little money 3:18:54.560 --> 3:18:58.240 it costs per US tax repair to save this huge 3:18:58.360 --> 3:19:01.280 number of lives around the world. It's worth digging into 3:19:01.400 --> 3:19:03.440 some of the more specific reporting we've seen on the 3:19:03.480 --> 3:19:07.280 consequences of these USAID cuts, because the reporting that Roe 3:19:07.440 --> 3:19:10.840 was citing is just predicting future possible deaths. Yeah, but 3:19:11.080 --> 3:19:13.960 there's documentation, as I cited earlier, about the people that 3:19:14.040 --> 3:19:17.240 Elon Musk and Doge have already helped to kill or 3:19:17.280 --> 3:19:20.680 write or who have the cuts that they have championed 3:19:20.959 --> 3:19:23.440 have led to these people's deaths, would be the most 3:19:23.959 --> 3:19:27.840 accurate way of saying that and celebrated like yeah, and 3:19:27.959 --> 3:19:31.040 celebrated it right they have. So again, I'll probably do 3:19:31.080 --> 3:19:32.560 a whole bTB and all this stuff later, but I 3:19:32.600 --> 3:19:35.000 want to discuss one more story which was published earlier 3:19:35.040 --> 3:19:37.160 this year in the New York Times. The title that 3:19:37.280 --> 3:19:40.039 article was in Afghanistan, a Trail of hunger and death 3:19:40.120 --> 3:19:45.119 behind usaid cuts. Trump last year very suddenly cut usaid 3:19:45.160 --> 3:19:47.680 to Afghanistan. You know, even after our twenty twenty one 3:19:47.720 --> 3:19:49.800 pull out from the country, we had continued to send 3:19:49.840 --> 3:19:52.440 a significant amount about a billion dollars worth of aid 3:19:52.520 --> 3:19:54.840 a year, which was more than a third of all 3:19:54.920 --> 3:19:57.560 of the aid flowing into Afghanistan. So given the status 3:19:57.640 --> 3:19:59.320 of that country, you can see how load bearing that 3:19:59.440 --> 3:20:03.520 is to their life infrastructure of health. Cutting that has 3:20:03.640 --> 3:20:06.840 caused the worst child starvation crisis in twenty five years 3:20:06.879 --> 3:20:10.120 in Afghanistan. And this catastrophe has been exacerbated by the 3:20:10.160 --> 3:20:12.280 closing of four hundred and fifty health centers as a 3:20:12.280 --> 3:20:15.240 result of these cuts. Here's a selection from that Times article. 3:20:15.720 --> 3:20:18.120 The isolated province of Daikundi has lost many of its 3:20:18.160 --> 3:20:20.800 health clinics to the US eight cuts. The clinic in Naleje, 3:20:20.840 --> 3:20:23.360 surrounded by parched fields of almond and mulberry trees, was 3:20:23.360 --> 3:20:26.000 a lifeline for eight hundred and fifty families. The villager 3:20:26.040 --> 3:20:28.920 say it's closure has hurt children the most. Sakiya, three 3:20:28.959 --> 3:20:31.119 months old, has been vomiting since birth and her condition 3:20:31.240 --> 3:20:34.720 is deteriorating, said her mother, Sharifa Kowari. For weeks, she 3:20:34.800 --> 3:20:36.680 hoped her husband would bring back enough money from the 3:20:36.720 --> 3:20:38.680 coal mine where he worked to finance a taxi ride 3:20:38.720 --> 3:20:40.880 to the nearest clinic, but he said his pay was 3:20:40.920 --> 3:20:43.039 barely enough to put food on the table. The loss 3:20:43.040 --> 3:20:45.160 of the clinic erased years of monitoring that had saved 3:20:45.240 --> 3:20:47.960 children's lives. When I was giving birth, we were losing babies, 3:20:47.959 --> 3:20:50.560 said Nick Bocht, miss Kowari's mother in law. One would 3:20:50.600 --> 3:20:54.040 hope that younger mothers these days wouldn't face that. And 3:20:54.200 --> 3:20:57.360 another tragedy contained that article quote In twenty twenty four, 3:20:57.480 --> 3:21:00.280 the United States funded over half of Afghanistan's nutrient and 3:21:00.320 --> 3:21:04.080 agricultural programs. Food and security has skyrocketed since last year's cuts. 3:21:04.160 --> 3:21:07.000 More than seventeen million Afghans, forty percent of the population 3:21:07.400 --> 3:21:09.720 now face acute levels of hunger, two million more than 3:21:09.800 --> 3:21:13.320 last year. Seven province has faced critical food and security, 3:21:13.400 --> 3:21:16.320 the final stage before famine, according to the Integrated Food 3:21:16.400 --> 3:21:20.000 Security Phase Classification, a group of international organizations that the 3:21:20.080 --> 3:21:23.320 United Nations and aid agencies rely on to monitor global hunger. 3:21:23.480 --> 3:21:25.920 None were at this level a year ago. Mount nutrition 3:21:26.080 --> 3:21:29.160 is also hitting cities, affecting the most vulnerable, the very young, sick, 3:21:29.200 --> 3:21:32.320 and elderly first, as it does elsewhere. Muhammad Ali, nine 3:21:32.320 --> 3:21:34.360 months old, was one of a dozen toddlers way lating 3:21:34.360 --> 3:21:36.800 their dozing in a Kabul nutrition ward on a recent morning. 3:21:37.080 --> 3:21:38.920 He was too weak to ingest milks at his mother, 3:21:39.160 --> 3:21:41.720 her husband's meager and commis a housekeeper, means they often 3:21:41.800 --> 3:21:45.320 eat only once a day. And there's millions of stories 3:21:45.440 --> 3:21:47.560 like this already, and just to hit I mean, the 3:21:47.680 --> 3:21:49.480 number of deaths already as a result of these cuts 3:21:49.520 --> 3:21:52.680 is hideous and undeniable, and one of the counters. You'll 3:21:52.720 --> 3:21:54.320 see when this get brought up to Musk and his 3:21:54.440 --> 3:21:56.360 fawning fans, is that like, oh, the money was just 3:21:56.400 --> 3:21:59.640 going to corrupt dictators and local rulers and like no 3:22:00.120 --> 3:22:03.200 damage that were already seeing shows that it wasn't. There 3:22:03.440 --> 3:22:06.120 was aiden place that was catching some people and it's 3:22:06.200 --> 3:22:09.200 not catching them now and the human consequences of this 3:22:09.360 --> 3:22:12.879 have been atrocious, and that's that's just inarguable. Yeah, anyway, 3:22:12.920 --> 3:22:13.880 that's all I got for today. 3:22:14.440 --> 3:22:18.240 I remember that time receiving calls and messages from people 3:22:18.560 --> 3:22:21.560 in the in the Burmese tiaspar and on the Thai 3:22:21.840 --> 3:22:24.640 Burmese border about one of the only clinics where people 3:22:24.680 --> 3:22:28.280 could deliver their babies closing down and people literally going 3:22:28.360 --> 3:22:31.520 to the clinic finally it locked like inaccessible to them 3:22:31.560 --> 3:22:34.920 and delivering their babies on the street outside. Like this 3:22:35.120 --> 3:22:40.320 is within maybe days hours after the USA, after after 3:22:40.480 --> 3:22:42.080 la Must tweeted about how he didn't go to a 3:22:42.160 --> 3:22:45.360 party because he was too busy acting this shit like yeah, 3:22:45.879 --> 3:22:49.200 I've seen usad all over the world, and yeah, undoubtedly 3:22:50.360 --> 3:22:52.960 not every penny that goes into that goes directly to 3:22:53.240 --> 3:22:55.560 buying food, because that's not how that shit works, right, 3:22:55.600 --> 3:22:57.920 People have to administer this, People have to get things done. 3:22:58.120 --> 3:23:01.480 Sometimes the way you get things done is through things 3:23:01.560 --> 3:23:06.600 that we would consider corruption. I don't particularly care as 3:23:06.800 --> 3:23:09.800 long as it results in the person who needs food 3:23:09.800 --> 3:23:12.440 getting food, or who needs medicine getting medicine. And like, 3:23:12.600 --> 3:23:15.320 there are of course other ways to achieve that end, 3:23:15.360 --> 3:23:17.360 and I think we should pursue them. But like, this 3:23:17.560 --> 3:23:19.640 is one of the worst things that the Trump administration 3:23:19.760 --> 3:23:22.600 has done, one of the cruelest and most evil things 3:23:23.120 --> 3:23:25.480 that the United States has done in a very long time. 3:23:25.800 --> 3:23:29.680 And like the USAID often crowded out other agencies, right, 3:23:29.879 --> 3:23:34.200 so that like local networks, local NGOs, other NGOs couldn't 3:23:34.720 --> 3:23:37.600 exist in that space, And then bait and switching like 3:23:37.680 --> 3:23:40.360 this is particularly evil for. 3:23:40.600 --> 3:23:45.760 Our last main story, something that is I arguably arguably 3:23:45.879 --> 3:23:49.720 less depressing. On Tuesday night, we saw the first real 3:23:49.800 --> 3:23:53.920 test of Zoramumdani and New York City DSA's political power. 3:23:54.720 --> 3:23:58.920 All three of the Mamdani endorsed candidates, one the Congressional 3:23:59.040 --> 3:24:03.199 Democratic Crime I'm Mary, and nine out of ten insurgent 3:24:03.280 --> 3:24:07.280 candidates on the DSA slate won their races for Congress, 3:24:07.360 --> 3:24:11.560 State Assembly, and state Senate. These insurgent candidates are non 3:24:11.600 --> 3:24:15.600 income people challenging seats. Now, as for the Mamdani slate, 3:24:16.080 --> 3:24:21.080 former City comptrol Or Bradlander beat incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman 3:24:21.560 --> 3:24:23.400 with sixty five point eight percent of the vote in 3:24:23.520 --> 3:24:27.680 District ten, which is Park Slope to Lower Manhattan. Dan 3:24:27.720 --> 3:24:31.360 Goldman is an establishment Democrat who's supported by Apak. He 3:24:31.480 --> 3:24:36.640 got famous for Trump's first impeachment hearings. Oh how well 3:24:36.720 --> 3:24:41.120 that went. Bradlander opposes a pack has long called Israel's 3:24:41.160 --> 3:24:44.840 actions in Gaza genocide, but also describes himself as a 3:24:44.959 --> 3:24:48.320 quote unquote liberal Zionist, the one that would vote against 3:24:48.480 --> 3:24:53.440 offensive weapons sales to Israel. When campaigning with Mamdani and 3:24:53.640 --> 3:24:57.680 Palestinian activists Mohsen Madui, who's been targeted by the Trump administration, 3:24:58.320 --> 3:25:01.360 Bradlander said, quote as a proud Jewish New Yorker, I 3:25:01.440 --> 3:25:04.720 will join you in that fight to end occupation and 3:25:04.840 --> 3:25:09.920 apartheid and genocide. Lander's victory here is a pretty significant 3:25:09.959 --> 3:25:11.760 upset he was projected to when he was doing good 3:25:11.800 --> 3:25:15.480 in the polls, but unseating Goldman is not a small feat. 3:25:16.240 --> 3:25:18.120 The second congression race, I want to talk about is 3:25:18.240 --> 3:25:22.320 in Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and this was technically an 3:25:22.400 --> 3:25:26.840 empty seat, but the outgoing congresswoman threw her backing behind 3:25:27.320 --> 3:25:32.440 progressive Antonio Renoso. The Brooklyn Bureau President Mom Donnie, and 3:25:32.560 --> 3:25:36.520 the DSA backed Claire Valdez, a state assembly member and 3:25:36.760 --> 3:25:41.240 a union organizer. There was a huge organizing push for 3:25:41.360 --> 3:25:43.640 Claire in the weeks leading up to the election. There's 3:25:43.680 --> 3:25:48.480 a massive ground game from DSA, three hundred thousand doors knocked. Meanwhile, 3:25:48.840 --> 3:25:51.920 a dark money superpack dropped up to a million dollars 3:25:52.400 --> 3:25:55.000 in the last week of the election to blast pro 3:25:55.200 --> 3:25:58.480 Renosso ads and Renosso had backing up a bunch of 3:25:58.680 --> 3:26:01.680 unions and the Working Families Party. More kind of like 3:26:01.800 --> 3:26:07.240 typical progressive democratic establishment organizations in New York. This is 3:26:07.280 --> 3:26:09.120 the quote unquote like a comedy corridor. This is like 3:26:09.240 --> 3:26:12.320 the kind of one of the further left districts in 3:26:12.440 --> 3:26:17.680 the country. And Ronoso is a progressive figure, but Claire 3:26:17.800 --> 3:26:21.720 was absolutely running to his left and had support from 3:26:21.840 --> 3:26:26.039 the UAW as well as the DSA, and come election day, 3:26:26.400 --> 3:26:30.080 Claire won with fifty six point one percent of the vote, 3:26:30.520 --> 3:26:34.920 while Renoso earned thirty five point eight percent. But the 3:26:35.040 --> 3:26:38.920 biggest upset of the night was in the thirteenth District, 3:26:39.000 --> 3:26:43.240 Upper Manhattan and parts of the West Bronx community. Organizer 3:26:43.520 --> 3:26:47.160 Deriliza of the La Chavier beat the chair of the 3:26:47.280 --> 3:26:51.960 Congressional Hispanic Concus, Adriano Espayat. Espayot has been a powerhouse 3:26:52.040 --> 3:26:55.080 in New York City politics for thirty years. He's deeply 3:26:55.160 --> 3:26:58.560 tied to the New York City Democratic political establishment, and 3:26:59.040 --> 3:27:03.400 this was the closest race. Avila Chavier won with forty 3:27:03.520 --> 3:27:06.960 nine point four percent of the vote to Espayot's forty 3:27:07.120 --> 3:27:11.280 five point nine percent. Avila Chavier has been very active 3:27:11.440 --> 3:27:14.400 in pro Palestinian organizing in New York City, including the 3:27:14.640 --> 3:27:19.080 Columbia Encampments. Pro Espayot attack ads against her highlighted a 3:27:19.120 --> 3:27:21.480 tweet she wrote a few years ago reading quote unquote 3:27:21.840 --> 3:27:26.279 fuck Kamala. Harris Apak pumped six hundred and fifty thousand 3:27:26.280 --> 3:27:30.040 dollars into a pro Espayot superpack, which spent almost three 3:27:30.120 --> 3:27:33.680 million dollars to help re elect him, and in total, 3:27:33.800 --> 3:27:37.240 Espiot received over seven million from the Real Estate Wall 3:27:37.320 --> 3:27:41.720 Street Pro Israel lobby and from GOP donors, as well 3:27:41.760 --> 3:27:44.920 as a collection of superpacks in the lead up to 3:27:45.000 --> 3:27:49.440 this primary, things were getting pretty ugly. In response to 3:27:49.560 --> 3:27:53.080 a campaign speech where Mamdani quoted jes K's translation of 3:27:53.120 --> 3:27:55.200 Gramscy quote the old world is dying and the new 3:27:55.240 --> 3:27:58.119 world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters, 3:27:58.840 --> 3:28:01.600 before discussing how A and super PACs are using dark 3:28:01.680 --> 3:28:04.600 money to hide the identity of donors while blanketing the 3:28:04.640 --> 3:28:08.199 airways in bad pay attacks. In response to this speech, 3:28:08.720 --> 3:28:15.360 New Jersey Democratic House Rep. Josh Gottheimer responded, monsters, dark 3:28:15.520 --> 3:28:20.680 money a hidden hand turning us against each other. Swap 3:28:20.800 --> 3:28:23.959 a pack for Jews, and it's the oldest anti Semitic 3:28:24.040 --> 3:28:27.120 conspiracy theory in the books. Unquote it. 3:28:27.240 --> 3:28:28.760 You'll make up a bunch of shit and it means 3:28:28.800 --> 3:28:29.360 a different thing. 3:28:29.680 --> 3:28:32.120 Yeah, if you swap this word for this word you 3:28:32.320 --> 3:28:33.280 changed for this. 3:28:33.600 --> 3:28:35.680 Yeah, if you said something completely different, it would have 3:28:35.720 --> 3:28:36.400 a different meaning. 3:28:37.000 --> 3:28:41.000 But Mamdani has faced multiple questions about this in the 3:28:41.120 --> 3:28:43.520 past few days, and I think he has answered them 3:28:43.879 --> 3:28:48.240 fairly well. But yeah, people trying to insinuate that dark 3:28:48.440 --> 3:28:51.880 money is like an antisemitic term when it just refers 3:28:51.920 --> 3:28:55.040 to like an actual process of hiding the identity of 3:28:55.080 --> 3:28:56.120 donors to a super pack. 3:28:56.320 --> 3:28:58.280 Yeah, and a term people who have been using for 3:28:58.760 --> 3:28:59.440 twenty years. 3:28:59.600 --> 3:29:01.880 It's a real it's a real term. 3:29:02.120 --> 3:29:04.320 There's a book called Dark Funny. It's a term people 3:29:04.360 --> 3:29:05.520 have been using for forever. 3:29:06.080 --> 3:29:09.480 It's completely absurd. But things got way worse than this. 3:29:10.160 --> 3:29:14.200 While campaigning, Daria Lezo was harassed by people yelling quote 3:29:14.280 --> 3:29:23.880 unquote Jew hater, I'm gonna win, and someone following her 3:29:23.959 --> 3:29:25.959 around screaming she's Haitian. 3:29:26.720 --> 3:29:29.160 Jesus, Jesus CHRISTI here. 3:29:30.040 --> 3:29:33.800 Racial animis continue to be weaponized in the District thirteen election. 3:29:34.640 --> 3:29:38.400 A senior advisor to Representative Espayot, who is then on leave, 3:29:38.840 --> 3:29:41.879 went on a Spanish language podcast to say that Mamdani 3:29:42.200 --> 3:29:46.600 wanted to change the racial demographics of Washington Heights Northern 3:29:46.680 --> 3:29:51.000 Manhattan by making it quote no longer a bastion of 3:29:51.160 --> 3:29:55.480 the Dominican community unquote, but instead a quote unquote bastion 3:29:55.800 --> 3:29:59.320 of the Haitian Muslim community allied to him. 3:30:00.040 --> 3:30:05.600 Oh boy, Anti Haitian bigotry specifically among the Americans is 3:30:05.640 --> 3:30:08.160 a real and vicious thing. Where We've made a whole 3:30:08.200 --> 3:30:10.320 podcast about this a couple of weeks ago. But I 3:30:10.400 --> 3:30:13.360 did wonder when they swear someone was shouting she's Haitian. 3:30:13.360 --> 3:30:15.720 If that was what was happening there, Yes, and that 3:30:15.920 --> 3:30:20.640 was definitely weaponized by campaign advisors and volunteers going into 3:30:20.800 --> 3:30:25.080 this race. Darielzer herself is a child of Dominican immigrants, 3:30:25.200 --> 3:30:29.680 She's Afro Latina. But this advisor's invocation of this great 3:30:29.800 --> 3:30:33.720 replacement theory style attack is an extremely disgusting play. 3:30:33.920 --> 3:30:37.440 Yeah, this exists in the discourse in the Dominican Republic, 3:30:37.520 --> 3:30:39.000 to be clear, and like it's no, they didn't, they 3:30:39.040 --> 3:30:40.440 didn't whip that one out in air. 3:30:40.360 --> 3:30:45.160 But politicians from the Dominican Republic echoed this rhetoric on 3:30:45.840 --> 3:30:48.640 X the everything app in specific reference to this District 3:30:48.720 --> 3:30:53.280 thirteen election. Come election day, Spaiyot's canvassers screamed at Dai 3:30:53.400 --> 3:30:58.360 lees of voters and volunteers, quote, Dominicans only go to 3:30:58.520 --> 3:31:02.400 Cuba if you want communist shut up, get educated. We 3:31:02.560 --> 3:31:08.240 don't want Islam here either. Were Christians here unquote Jesus Christ. 3:31:09.480 --> 3:31:14.000 Very ugly weaponization of racial nationalism. Yeah, now this did 3:31:14.080 --> 3:31:17.160 not work. Terry Halisa one in what is a massive 3:31:17.240 --> 3:31:21.720 upset and her Palestinian activism was a big part of 3:31:22.000 --> 3:31:25.600 her campaign and prove that anti Israel politics do have 3:31:25.800 --> 3:31:29.640 a strong place in the Democratic Party moving forward, and 3:31:29.920 --> 3:31:32.200 to do that you have to unseat these A pack 3:31:32.320 --> 3:31:36.480 backed candidates. This was a really big night for New 3:31:36.560 --> 3:31:38.720 York City DSAY, and this election has cemented that New 3:31:38.800 --> 3:31:42.760 York City, ESSAY is possibly the strongest political machine in 3:31:42.879 --> 3:31:45.080 the city, at least in terms of elections right and 3:31:45.440 --> 3:31:47.360 if you want to look at political power more broadly, 3:31:48.040 --> 3:31:49.680 it's like the New York City DSA and like the 3:31:49.840 --> 3:31:52.680 NYPD right now there are like strong dueling factions and 3:31:53.000 --> 3:31:57.679 part of Zornmandani's mayorship is a manifestation of those contradictions. 3:31:58.160 --> 3:32:00.840 But also based on this sweep of DSA candidates going 3:32:01.000 --> 3:32:05.840 against establishment Democrat incumbents, people are also reconsidering Zoron and 3:32:05.879 --> 3:32:11.080 the DSA's decision to curb Councilman Chaose's primary challenge against 3:32:11.120 --> 3:32:14.959 Hakeem Jeffries. Yeah, who knows how that would have gone. 3:32:15.040 --> 3:32:19.040 Possibly she could have tapped into this incredible momentum and 3:32:19.160 --> 3:32:22.520 beaten House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries. That could have certainly 3:32:22.560 --> 3:32:27.240 been possible. DSA was also pretty thinly stretched this election. 3:32:27.800 --> 3:32:29.280 They had a lot of stuff going on, and it's 3:32:29.320 --> 3:32:32.879 possible that a primary of this scale would have prohibited 3:32:32.920 --> 3:32:36.200 their ability to win some of these other elections. We 3:32:36.280 --> 3:32:39.080 don't know. I don't think it's super useful to retroactively 3:32:39.160 --> 3:32:42.960 speculate so much, but this sweep is useful information going 3:32:43.120 --> 3:32:46.480 forward that supports the idea that there is a real 3:32:46.560 --> 3:32:50.920 hunger to unseat these establishment democratic figures, and that has 3:32:51.000 --> 3:32:53.360 been proven Tuesday night in New York City. 3:32:53.800 --> 3:32:58.720 It's the supporter opposite of what we've seen in California, right, 3:32:58.959 --> 3:33:02.200 which is like the Democrat Party doubling down without as 3:33:02.320 --> 3:33:04.600 many successful left primary challenges. 3:33:05.000 --> 3:33:07.240 Yeah, and I mean New York City, DA say, is 3:33:07.280 --> 3:33:11.600 like a uniquely highly organized like faction in this city 3:33:11.640 --> 3:33:13.600 like that. The fact that it was able to outorganize 3:33:13.640 --> 3:33:16.439 the Working Families Party is significant. 3:33:16.560 --> 3:33:16.720 Yeah. 3:33:16.760 --> 3:33:19.600 Yeah, and to a pretty to a pretty extensive degree. 3:33:20.160 --> 3:33:23.720 In Bushwick, the Comedy Cord or Green Point Williamsburg. 3:33:24.160 --> 3:33:27.000 There's still space for Pinos attempts to run into the 3:33:27.040 --> 3:33:31.280 Working Families Party and we run a spoiler, but we'll 3:33:31.320 --> 3:33:31.960 see how it goes. 3:33:32.400 --> 3:33:35.880 Yeah, and I mean if specifically, if Darie Olasa gets 3:33:35.920 --> 3:33:38.440 into Congress, which it is almost certain that she will 3:33:38.520 --> 3:33:41.200 based on how this night went she could very likely 3:33:41.240 --> 3:33:45.000 be the farthest left congress member in the history of 3:33:45.040 --> 3:33:46.879 the country, or at least in the past like fifty years, 3:33:47.160 --> 3:33:49.840 like significantly to the left of of AOC, and like 3:33:49.920 --> 3:33:54.359 the campaign itself was significantly to the left of AOC's campaign. Yeah, anyway, 3:33:54.800 --> 3:33:57.760 that is that is what happened in New York Tuesday night. 3:33:58.440 --> 3:33:58.680 Cool. 3:33:59.240 --> 3:34:01.360 I guess last we should talk about a couple of 3:34:01.400 --> 3:34:06.000 mass shootings. Yeah, that have unfortunately occurred in the last week. 3:34:06.600 --> 3:34:09.240 Two mass shootings that I wanted to talk about. One 3:34:09.600 --> 3:34:12.840 happened just the day before we are recording this. So 3:34:13.200 --> 3:34:18.200 on June twenty third of twenty twenty six in Montreal. 3:34:18.200 --> 3:34:22.359 Twenty five year old Seth Hatfield of Lethbridge, Virginia allegedly 3:34:22.400 --> 3:34:26.720 started shooting from a hotel window in the Codine borough 3:34:26.800 --> 3:34:30.640 of Montreal. Footage posted to social media shows the shooter 3:34:30.959 --> 3:34:34.280 firing at police on street level before being shot and 3:34:34.520 --> 3:34:38.200 killed himself. Two other people were killed during this incident, 3:34:38.320 --> 3:34:40.040 a police officer and a civilian. 3:34:40.800 --> 3:34:43.480 There's a manifesto. It's about one hundred and four pages 3:34:44.200 --> 3:34:46.480 that is out. I have not gotten to read the 3:34:46.560 --> 3:34:50.320 whole thing yet, but early reporting on it suggests It's 3:34:50.720 --> 3:34:53.120 a lot of in cell type rhetoric, a lot of 3:34:53.200 --> 3:34:57.200 discussion about like how it's unfair that women are you know, 3:34:57.360 --> 3:35:00.240 hypergamus and going for all of this like tiny member 3:35:00.240 --> 3:35:03.160 of attractive guys and so this huge now it's very 3:35:03.240 --> 3:35:05.760 normal like in cell stuff. He like lists out the 3:35:05.840 --> 3:35:08.279 different like classes of targets that he thinks are okay. 3:35:09.360 --> 3:35:11.120 One thing that does kind of make this interesting is 3:35:11.160 --> 3:35:15.840 he's grafting this like weird kind of like reactionary anti 3:35:15.959 --> 3:35:19.320 capitalism to the in seldom which has been done before. 3:35:19.440 --> 3:35:21.440 This is not like the first time I've seen this. 3:35:21.760 --> 3:35:24.680 We also mixing in the West is preventing me from 3:35:24.760 --> 3:35:29.439 getting my girlfriends right, Yeah, mixing in some anti semitism 3:35:30.120 --> 3:35:33.320 and anti Zionism, and also mixing in like at least 3:35:33.360 --> 3:35:37.320 some like kind of left wing and right wing signifying. 3:35:37.600 --> 3:35:41.200 Really like there's some calls to you know, ending capitalism 3:35:41.280 --> 3:35:42.959 that can seem kind of socialist, but then a lot 3:35:43.000 --> 3:35:46.879 of really reactionary anti immigrant stuff in there too. He's 3:35:46.920 --> 3:35:50.199 also really angry at pickup artists. The shooting took place 3:35:50.320 --> 3:35:53.440 outside of the head office of a Low, which is 3:35:53.560 --> 3:35:55.680 the parent company of porn Hub, and he was also 3:35:55.800 --> 3:35:58.240 really angry about porn hub. A big, a big chunk 3:35:58.240 --> 3:36:01.320 of the manifest was apparently him justifying attacking executives of 3:36:01.560 --> 3:36:04.240 specific companies, including like the people who put out pornography. 3:36:05.040 --> 3:36:09.840 This is not like super weird stuff, unfortunately, but yeah, 3:36:10.200 --> 3:36:12.240 it is very sad. It's not the first time this 3:36:12.280 --> 3:36:15.280 has epen in Canada. There've been in twenty eighteen. There's 3:36:15.280 --> 3:36:17.480 a van attack in Toronto that killed ten that was 3:36:17.560 --> 3:36:19.280 kind of an in cell linked attack. There was a 3:36:19.320 --> 3:36:22.120 twenty twenty machete attack, and then of course there was 3:36:22.160 --> 3:36:25.000 the a Coole Polytechnic attack, which was a couple of 3:36:25.080 --> 3:36:27.280 decades ago at this point, which is considered to be 3:36:27.480 --> 3:36:29.560 in some cases some people would argue like the first 3:36:29.680 --> 3:36:32.840 of the in cell kind of like public like mass attacks. 3:36:34.000 --> 3:36:36.279 And then also this week there was a mass shooting 3:36:36.360 --> 3:36:39.360 in Chico, California. We don't know a whole lot about 3:36:39.400 --> 3:36:41.240 this one yet, but I did want to note that 3:36:41.520 --> 3:36:44.680 it's happened. Law enforcement officials have said that the shooter 3:36:44.840 --> 3:36:48.760 was wearing clothing like that of the Columbine killer Eric Harris, 3:36:49.040 --> 3:36:51.480 and seems to have been like a columnbiner, someone who 3:36:51.680 --> 3:36:55.200 was interested in mass shootings as a fan and was 3:36:55.520 --> 3:36:58.080 carrying out this almost as an active fandom. Again, this 3:36:58.200 --> 3:37:01.120 is the kind of scene think we've seen ye unfortunately 3:37:01.240 --> 3:37:03.560 well over a hundred times in the past, so it's 3:37:03.680 --> 3:37:06.440 very sad. We'll probably talk a little more about Chico 3:37:06.480 --> 3:37:09.160 in the future. There's just not a ton of information out, 3:37:09.200 --> 3:37:11.240 but I didn't want people to not be aware of it. 3:37:12.360 --> 3:37:13.440 Those countries sucks. 3:37:13.600 --> 3:37:15.400 Yeah, well the news. 3:37:15.560 --> 3:37:17.080 Yeah, I've done a great time in America. 3:37:17.760 --> 3:37:25.880 Well, to quote Zoran's quote of Jijak mistranslating gramscy Yeah, 3:37:27.320 --> 3:37:29.440 the world is dying and the new one struggles to 3:37:29.520 --> 3:37:31.360 be bored. Now is the time of Monsters. 3:37:31.480 --> 3:37:33.680 No, no, no, no, I disagree. I think now is 3:37:33.720 --> 3:37:36.960 the time of the Mons stars, the antagonists from the 3:37:37.000 --> 3:37:40.280 classic film Space Jam. This is their year. Go nixt yep. 3:37:43.440 --> 3:37:47.600 Put a trounscroll in your couch. We reported the news. 3:37:48.879 --> 3:37:56.760 We reported the news. Hey, We'll be back Monday with 3:37:57.040 --> 3:37:59.800 more episodes every week from now until the heat Death 3:37:59.800 --> 3:38:00.480 of the Verse. 3:38:01.240 --> 3:38:01.840 It could happen. 3:38:01.879 --> 3:38:04.240 Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more 3:38:04.320 --> 3:38:08.240 podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, 3:38:08.720 --> 3:38:11.600 or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts 3:38:11.920 --> 3:38:14.680 or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find 3:38:14.760 --> 3:38:17.800 sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. 3:38:18.160 --> 3:38:18.920 Thanks for listening.