Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: This is It could Happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 2: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and maybe Sophie Lichtermann.
Speaker 3: Maybe, yeah, let's send you first name.
Speaker 1: I'm always here. I just don't necessarily have anything to
Speaker 1: add because you're all so good at your jobs.
Speaker 2: No, no, we love when Sophie has something to contribute
Speaker 2: to this show. So what should we talk about?
Speaker 4: First?
Speaker 1: Let's do some quick updates from last week. As we
Speaker 1: mentioned in the episode description, last week we recorded prior
Speaker 1: to an incident that happened in Portland where two people
Speaker 1: were shot by board patrol or ice. Very unclear that
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of information given out and
Speaker 1: the way that the situation unfolded, the way that DHS
Speaker 1: said it that there was a targeted stop of two
Speaker 1: people and they resisted arrest. So of course what do
Speaker 1: they do?
Speaker 4: Just shoot into a car and.
Speaker 1: Those people drove away and then quickly called for help
Speaker 1: and then went to the hospital. We really don't know
Speaker 1: anything further than that. I watched many press conferences from
Speaker 1: Oregon and Portland officials, including the governor and the mayor,
Speaker 1: talking about the situation. Everybody's pretty horrified by it locally.
Speaker 1: But that's not the story we were getting from DHS.
Speaker 1: I can read the statement if you guys want, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: since Robert's don't here. Robert was at CS but was
Speaker 1: also following the story very closely and did some reporting
Speaker 1: on his Blue sky if you want to go back
Speaker 1: and look at that. But the statement from DHS said
Speaker 1: at two nineteen pst. US Border Patrol agents were conducting
Speaker 1: a targeted vehicle stop in Portland. Organ The passengers of
Speaker 1: the vehicle and target is a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated
Speaker 1: with the transnational gang trendy Agua prostitution ring and involved
Speaker 1: in a recent shooting in Portland. The vehicle drivers believed
Speaker 1: to be a member of the vicious Venezuelan gang trendy Agua.
Speaker 1: They love to just throw that out of that. When
Speaker 1: agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized
Speaker 1: his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents.
Speaker 1: Fearing for his life and safety, An agent fire defensive
Speaker 1: shot the driver drove off, with the passenger fleeing the scene.
Speaker 1: The situation is evolving and more information is forthcoming. That
Speaker 1: was on January eighth, at about five pm Pacific, And
Speaker 1: that's their take, that's their go to move. The excuse
Speaker 1: for randomly shooting at a car is that they were
Speaker 1: weaponizing the vehicle towards the agent. We really don't know
Speaker 1: much further than that, Miya. Do you have anything you
Speaker 1: want to add?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think we should make two things through one.
Speaker 4: Both of the people who were shot have survived, which
Speaker 4: is good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's also worth noting that. So the day we
Speaker 4: are recording this, on the fourteenth, there was a report
Speaker 4: released by Del Cameron and Ryan Shapiro at Wired talking
Speaker 4: specifically about how they got a bunch of intelligence documents
Speaker 4: from the Trump administration about trend Agua and briefly supprised
Speaker 4: or I'm just going to quote the subtitle of it
Speaker 4: because it gives a good representation of what is in
Speaker 4: the actual intelligence documents. That's all the info we need. Yeah,
Speaker 4: hundreds of records that pained by Wired shows thin intelligence
Speaker 4: on the Venezuelan Gang of the United States, describing fragmented
Speaker 4: low level crime rather than a coordinated terrorist threat, So
Speaker 4: they could barely even find existence of this group in
Speaker 4: the United States. These two people. I am ninety nine.
Speaker 4: I would I would stake my life on the on
Speaker 4: none of the stuff in that report about them being
Speaker 4: in this Venezuelan criminal organization being true. Almost everything that
Speaker 4: has come out of Homeland Security, as we've talked about
Speaker 4: with every other previous shooting, almost everything that comes out
Speaker 4: of Homeland Security is a lie. So yeah, we will
Speaker 4: probably in the coming weeks figure out what actually happens.
Speaker 4: But unfortunately, right now we're relying on a combination of
Speaker 4: Portland government officials who are somewhat more reliable, and the
Speaker 4: Department of Homeland Security, which is utterly unreliable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I do have one thing to note here as for
Speaker 2: what the local officials in Portland are saying. Portland Police
Speaker 2: Bureau Chief Bob Day started a January tenth press conference
Speaker 2: by saying, quote, recently, I read the Declaration of Independence
Speaker 2: for the first time unquote, and then stated that the
Speaker 2: two victims of the shooting have quote some next is
Speaker 2: to involvement with Trenda Agua, and then on January eleventh,
Speaker 2: Maltnama County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez was interviewed on CADU
Speaker 2: News and said that he believes trend to Agua is
Speaker 2: active in Portland, but he can not confirm in his
Speaker 2: office has any criminal cases against the gang.
Speaker 5: The Department of Homeland Security has identified the people who
Speaker 5: were shot, saying they are affiliated with Trinda I Ragua,
Speaker 5: the Venezuelan gang, and are connected to other crimes in Portland.
Speaker 5: Does your office have any cases against these individuals?
Speaker 6: You know, this is all These are all things that
Speaker 6: we're going to be looking at and going through very
Speaker 6: carefully as we evaluate the case. One to make sure
Speaker 6: that if there are other pending matters out there that
Speaker 6: they're taken care of, but also just to make sure
Speaker 6: we get a full picture of what's going on in
Speaker 6: this situation.
Speaker 5: Do you have any knowledge of whether trendera Ragua is
Speaker 5: active in Portland and Maltnoma County.
Speaker 6: It's certainly something that we have seen and we are
Speaker 6: we are working on with our local law enforcement. We
Speaker 6: have seen them in our area. They are one of
Speaker 6: kind of a host of different groups or individuals out
Speaker 6: there that are engaged in criminal activity, and it's something
Speaker 6: that we're working on.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of biased disinformation and misinformation. We don't
Speaker 1: actually really know what happened, but I am grateful that
Speaker 1: those folks did not lose their lives unlike Renee Good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I also briefly want to mention here about
Speaker 4: Renee Good. There's been an attempt by the Department of Justice.
Speaker 4: A bunch of people at the Department Justice have resigned
Speaker 4: rather than attempt to prosecute Renee Good's wife.
Speaker 2: Six high level prosecutors have resigned in the past week.
Speaker 4: And this has been a very very standard reaction from
Speaker 4: law enforcement when they don't kill someone or when there's
Speaker 4: someone else on the scene. A few months ago, Ice
Speaker 4: shot a woman in Chicago. She thankfully survived, but they
Speaker 4: also charged her afterwards. So this is a very very
Speaker 4: standard practice, and they are right now trying this on
Speaker 4: Rene Good's wife after she watched her fucking wife get
Speaker 4: killed in front of her. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I know people have also been waiting for updates
Speaker 3: on Iran. We have an episode that came out. It
Speaker 3: will have come out on Wednesday, two days before this
Speaker 3: comes out, So if you'd like to know more about
Speaker 3: what's happening in Iran, we had a really excellent talk
Speaker 3: with Gordayen, and I would suggest you go back and
Speaker 3: find that episode. And I wanted to update people on
Speaker 3: what is happening in Syria. I guess specifically northern Syria
Speaker 3: right now. So the two neighborhoods Shikmunk sud Ne so Fria,
Speaker 3: those are both neighborhoods in Aleppo. Right that there's sometimes
Speaker 3: characterized as Kurdish neighborhoods, but like ZD people live there.
Speaker 3: There are various Christian people living there as well. Right,
Speaker 3: it's not one hundred percent Kurdish. I think sometimes there's
Speaker 3: a tendency among people who write about Syria to see
Speaker 3: things as ethnic modelists, and I think that is not
Speaker 3: the way to approach these things. But anyway, both of
Speaker 3: those neighborhoods have now been fully seized by the Syrian
Speaker 3: Transitional government. Some SDF fighters will bust back to Kamishlo,
Speaker 3: which is the capital of the aa Nes somethimes known
Speaker 3: as Frojava fighting is now moving closer to the Euphrates, right,
Speaker 3: closer to the core of what people will call Rasjava.
Speaker 3: I think at a minimum, the goal is probably to
Speaker 3: remove the SDF from any areas and are not majority Kurdish,
Speaker 3: so right now that they're fighting in der Haafa and
Speaker 3: they will begin fighting, or that they have already been
Speaker 3: drawne attacks in other areas as well. In a leopard
Speaker 3: Is Syrian observed. Joined Human Rights, which is a Writen
Speaker 3: based human rights organization, documented several war crimes and going
Speaker 3: to quote here, SOHR documented twenty three cases of extra
Speaker 3: judicial executions and desecration of bodies in shik Maksud and
Speaker 3: Alasafriya neighborhoods in Aleppo City in the past few days.
Speaker 3: Here are further details. The bodies of fifteen members of
Speaker 3: the Internal Security Forces ASAISH including body. These are four
Speaker 3: female members were deliberately incinerated. A female member of the
Speaker 3: SAH forces was killed during the clashes and her body
Speaker 3: was thrown from the top of the building. The reason
Speaker 3: they've been able to document these is that they're widely
Speaker 3: broadcast on telegram. Right, people are very proud of what
Speaker 3: our war crimes, the desecration of the remains. At the
Speaker 3: same time, the Islamic State carried out three simultaneous attacks
Speaker 3: on the twelfth of January during several SDF personnel and
Speaker 3: it seems that this whole debacle has put the peace
Speaker 3: process between the PKK. The PKK is a distinct entity
Speaker 3: from the SDF right, but nonetheless the PKK yes it
Speaker 3: is seeing Kurdish people killed in Syria and Turkish support.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: There have been some reports of Turkish drones being used
Speaker 3: or flying around there. So the KSEK, if people aren't
Speaker 3: familiar to, KSEK, is the organization that brings together the
Speaker 3: different political groups in Kurdis Dan that broadly adhere to
Speaker 3: the political idealogy your thought of Abdula oh Julan, but
Speaker 3: take different approaches to that. The k c K released
Speaker 3: a statement saying, quote, the attacks on Chikmunk, Sud and
Speaker 3: Asafria and the preparations for attacks on the east of
Speaker 3: the Euphrates also call into question the cease fire between
Speaker 3: our movement and Turkey and the ongoing peace and democratic society.
Speaker 3: That is not great, right, Yeah, you know, this is
Speaker 3: a place where people have been at war, killing and
Speaker 3: dying for more than a decade, and it's very sad
Speaker 3: to think of more killing and dying happening there. Garina,
Speaker 3: you wanted to talk a little bit about some domestic terrorism,
Speaker 3: I guess some actual domestic terrorism and us an attack rate.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: On Saturday, January tenth, the Beth Israel Congregation Synagogue in Mississippi,
Speaker 2: and historic synagogue, the oldest in the state that was
Speaker 2: once targeted by the KKK, was set on fire in
Speaker 2: the middle of the night, damaging the interior of the building.
Speaker 2: A nineteen year old college student named Stephen Spencer Pittman
Speaker 2: has been charged with federal and state arson charges, as
Speaker 2: well as a hate crime enhancement. On Instagram, Pittman described
Speaker 2: himself as a quote unquote follower of Christ and shared
Speaker 2: a meme of the anti Semitic happy Merchant hours before
Speaker 2: the attack.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ Jesu.
Speaker 2: The happy Merchant is an anti Semantic Jewish stereotype that
Speaker 2: is often used in memes originating from the four Chen
Speaker 2: era of WOA Jack memes. You've probably seen it before.
Speaker 2: It's a crude, anti Semitic rendering of a Jewish person
Speaker 2: with his hands clasped together. Pittman has confessed to starting
Speaker 2: a fire in the building, which he described as the
Speaker 2: quote unquote Synagogue of Satan. According to an FBI affidavit
Speaker 2: and reporting from the AP states that during his first hearing.
Speaker 2: When the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, quote,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ is Lord.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 2: According to the FBI ay Affidavid Pittman texted his own
Speaker 2: father during the arson, sending a photo of the synagogue
Speaker 2: with the messages there's a furnace in the back, hoodie
Speaker 2: is on, and they have the best cameras unquote. Pittman's
Speaker 2: father attempted to convince his son to come home and
Speaker 2: later turned him into the authorities. Pittman suffered burns to
Speaker 2: himself during this attack. He's the only person injured as
Speaker 2: a result of this incident.
Speaker 4: Big flee. I'm glad he got hurt.
Speaker 2: Pittman's phone was found in the synagogue, damaged from the fire,
Speaker 2: though his location was able to be tracked via the
Speaker 2: Life three sixty GPS tracking app, which shows a stop
Speaker 2: at a gas station where Pittman allegedly picked up gasoline
Speaker 2: before heading onto the synagogue.
Speaker 3: Great of what a fucking idiot. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: this is the only synagogue in the state right like.
Speaker 2: To the oldest synagogue in the state. I doubt this
Speaker 2: is the only synagogue in Mississippi.
Speaker 4: The largest one. That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah, it's it's like the most famous one
Speaker 2: from the Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you said, it was attacked by the
Speaker 3: Klan before it was didn't he attack exactly the same
Speaker 3: part of the synagogue that the Klan previously burned.
Speaker 2: I don't have that in my notes, but that is it.
Speaker 3: Seems like that's what he was same vibes.
Speaker 2: No, he did say that he did a lot of
Speaker 2: research on the target and that he needed a home
Speaker 2: run in communications to his father, and Pittman was a
Speaker 2: baseball player in the state. There's not much more to
Speaker 2: say about this, Like this is a weirdo Instagram Christian
Speaker 2: Zoomer who also offered like a fitness service. It's unclear
Speaker 2: how real this is or if he had like, you know, customers,
Speaker 2: but he was offering faith based fitness transformations.
Speaker 3: Jes Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like you have a little bit of like the Christian
Speaker 2: looks Max sur Vibe going on with him, as well
Speaker 2: as sharing a series of anti Smitic posts made on Instagram.
Speaker 3: Yeah did you see this, Deborah lipstat tweet gere No So.
Speaker 3: Deborah lipsdat right, who was previously the she like the
Speaker 3: envoy on anti Semitism, posted a twenty three on January eleventh.
Speaker 3: This is a major tragedy, but it's more than that.
Speaker 3: It's an arson attack and another step in the globalization
Speaker 3: of the Intefada.
Speaker 2: Thates not seem to be the case. Yeah, it doesn't know.
Speaker 3: No, but this is like pretty uh way off base
Speaker 3: in fact, right, But yeah, I think it's still rather
Speaker 3: telling that.
Speaker 2: This is This is not like a Hamas anti imperialist
Speaker 2: Zoomer red triangle in biotype guy. This is a right
Speaker 2: wing Christian nationalist college athlete, Christian Zoomer who shares anti
Speaker 2: Smitic memes on Instagram. This is a pretty standard, you know,
Speaker 2: pre twenty twenty two type of like synagoguet. Yeah, in fact,
Speaker 2: the fire was started right in front of a Tree
Speaker 2: of Life memorial plaque in this synagogue.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ God, of course it was yeah.
Speaker 2: Fuck quick correction or clarification. Though the fire was started
Speaker 2: in front of a Tree of Life wall plaque, this
Speaker 2: wall memorial plaque is unrelated to the Tree of Life
Speaker 2: shooting in Pittsburgh and is specific to the Beth Israel
Speaker 2: Synagogue to commemorate and honor important life events for members
Speaker 2: of the congregation.
Speaker 4: And we are back. So, the thing I thought I
Speaker 4: was going to be talking about this week was a
Speaker 4: Supreme Court ruling on Trump's tariffs. However, the Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: contrary to the expectations of basically everyone, didn't actually release
Speaker 4: a ruling on the tariff stuff today. We have no
Speaker 4: idea when they're going to release that. However, instead of that,
Speaker 4: we got one of the most bizarre and extraordinary statements
Speaker 4: and videos I have ever seen from someone who was
Speaker 4: even remotely affiliated with the US government. So on Sunday,
Speaker 4: Thorer Reserve Chair Jerome Powell released, I don't even have
Speaker 4: a good reference for what this is. The closest thing
Speaker 4: I can think of is it's a kidnapping video, but
Speaker 4: it's more like a help I'm about to be kidnapped video,
Speaker 4: in which she says, quote, the Department of Justice serve
Speaker 4: the Thorough Reserve with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal
Speaker 4: indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee
Speaker 4: last June. So this is nominally about cost overruns effectively
Speaker 4: in renovations of the Federal Reserve. If anyone has ever
Speaker 4: paid attention to any single US government project ever, you
Speaker 4: will know that there are cost overruns on by most projects.
Speaker 4: This is just how the government works, because you come
Speaker 4: in with your little bid that's below what the actual
Speaker 4: cause is going to be, and then it costs more
Speaker 4: than that. Now this investigation is being run directly into
Speaker 4: Jerome Powell. And by the way, this statement was published
Speaker 4: on the Federal Reserves. This is like an official statement
Speaker 4: from the Federal Reserve Board.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he also says later in the statement, quote, the
Speaker 4: threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal
Speaker 4: Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessments of
Speaker 4: what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences
Speaker 4: of the presidents. This is about whether the Fed will
Speaker 4: be able to continue to set interest rates based on
Speaker 4: evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will
Speaker 4: be directed by political pressures or intimidation. This is extraordinary.
Speaker 4: They got sixteen other central bank leaders from around the world,
Speaker 4: and we're talking about Norway to Indonesia to submit a
Speaker 4: letter expressing where they use the word solidarity to express
Speaker 4: the support of Powell. I cannot emphasize enough. Do you
Speaker 4: know how bad it is to get central bank leaders
Speaker 4: is to say the word solidarity?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Now, this is following a Trump two pattern of using
Speaker 4: the DOJ to attack their political enemies. Today, the fourteenth,
Speaker 4: as we're recording, this also saw the beginning of investigation
Speaker 4: into Senator Elisa Slotkin over her participation in a video
Speaker 4: a few months ago encouraging US troops to disobey illegal orders.
Speaker 4: Mark Kelly, who was also in that video, was also
Speaker 4: targeted with a Pentagon investigation over the video. So this
Speaker 4: has become very common. However, Jerome Powell is a Trump
Speaker 4: one appointee, so this is someone who is also and
Speaker 4: this is this is this is something that that worth mentioning.
Speaker 4: Powell is very popular in conservative circles, largely outside of
Speaker 4: a very very immediate circle of people around Trump who
Speaker 4: want their president to be able to control the interest rate.
Speaker 4: Now I'm going to do a full episode about this
Speaker 4: probably next week, but the independence of the central bank
Speaker 4: is one of the core pillars of the global reputation
Speaker 4: and stability of the US dollar. Now I'm not saying
Speaker 4: here that the central bank is good. I'm saying that
Speaker 4: this is how the entire world economic system operates.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 4: It is based on the central bank operating as a
Speaker 4: series of quasi public but still technically non government entities
Speaker 4: that make independent decisions on interest rates. Now, FED interest
Speaker 4: rates effectively and I'm saying effectively here because I'm simplifying
Speaker 4: a very complicated set of economic interactions into one sentence,
Speaker 4: but they effectively set interest rates for bank loans in
Speaker 4: the broader economy, which in turn has a massive impact
Speaker 4: on how fast or slow the economy grows, and the
Speaker 4: FED uses this as a tool to control inflation and
Speaker 4: unemployment through a basically a single macroeconomic policy lever. The
Speaker 4: FED does much much more stuff than this. I will
Speaker 4: get into this in the other episode. It has a
Speaker 4: series of unbelievably crucial functions. But what is happening here
Speaker 4: is the Trump administration attempting to directly seize control of
Speaker 4: the FED, and this is a nightmare. The actual mechanisms
Speaker 4: that work here, in terms of the relationship between interest
Speaker 4: rates and the fed's economic policy toolkit and inflation are
Speaker 4: not well understood even by the FED, which is something
Speaker 4: you can get if you go read the Federal Reserve documents.
Speaker 4: It's very complicated, it's all contested, but it is the
Speaker 4: Fed's job to be able to do this, and they
Speaker 4: will admit they're not incredible at it if the Trump
Speaker 4: administration is running this directly. The Trump aministration has absolutely
Speaker 4: no idea how any of this stuff works. Yeah, this
Speaker 4: is giving them the keys to the global economy and
Speaker 4: they are going to just start pushing buttons. This is
Speaker 4: a significant enough threat that several Republican senators and this
Speaker 4: is not just Morowski, these are just regular Republican senators
Speaker 4: have spoken out against this move and have express, you know,
Speaker 4: expressed that they think that drump Powell is innocent and
Speaker 4: that they will vote against any attempt to approve a
Speaker 4: Trump nominee for the head of Federal Reserve, which is
Speaker 4: also extraordinary. This is one of the largest breaks we've
Speaker 4: seen with Trump from the Republican Party so far. And
Speaker 4: the reason that there have been actual breaks from the
Speaker 4: Republican Party is that this is the rubicon for a
Speaker 4: lot of sectors of capital. Almost anything can be endured
Speaker 4: as long as the president does not have direct control
Speaker 4: over the money supply, which is what Trump controlling the
Speaker 4: Federal Reserve directly would be. Now. Part of what's going
Speaker 4: on here right is that this is an attempt to
Speaker 4: choose a new chair of the Federal Reserve Board by
Speaker 4: getting Powell out of his job. However, so Powell's term
Speaker 4: expires in May, but that's Powell's term as the chair
Speaker 4: of the Federal Reserve. He's still on the Board of Governors,
Speaker 4: and the Board of Governors also has to approve and
Speaker 4: you to the Federal Reserve. So Trump needs to oust
Speaker 4: him from his position as the governor of a Federal
Speaker 4: Reserve board because if he doesn't do this, he doesn't
Speaker 4: have enough votes to get his appointments. The really dangerous
Speaker 4: thing here, on top of the abstract principle of you know,
Speaker 4: the president having direct control over the central banking system,
Speaker 4: the direct media threat is that because preferred candidates, who
Speaker 4: is currently one of the Federal Reserve Board governors or
Speaker 4: one of the Federal Reserve governors she's on the board
Speaker 4: is Stephan Mirin, who is the guy who wants to
Speaker 4: charge other countries for holding US bonds. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: forget that this guy is a mediac, right, Like, that's sorry,
Speaker 4: that is that is deeply unfair to mediacs, who are
Speaker 4: very reasonable people. This guy is I cannot emphasize enough
Speaker 4: if you put someone in charge of the Federal Reserve
Speaker 4: who literally did not understand what economics was, they would
Speaker 4: do less damage than putting Steve Sevan Mirn in charge
Speaker 4: of this. This is a nightmare. This guy has no
Speaker 4: idea what he's doing at all. He is effectively a
Speaker 4: cipher for Trump administration. And this is one of the
Speaker 4: positions in the entire capital system where the chair of
Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve has to be someone who at least
Speaker 4: sort of knows what's going on. They can be evil,
Speaker 4: and they very often have been, but they have to
Speaker 4: sort of know what's happening. If this guy gets put
Speaker 4: in charge of the Federal Reserve, he is going to
Speaker 4: turn the US economy into a smoking crater. And that's
Speaker 4: that's what's at stake here with this attempt to prosecute
Speaker 4: Jerome Powell. Powell blink three times if you need help.
Speaker 4: He is cabin s O s with his fingers.
Speaker 2: It is a very unnerving video that he posted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just like one of those if I disappear.
Speaker 4: He looks really scared. Yeah, And I think this is
Speaker 4: going to be one of the major flashpoints here because
Speaker 4: even the tariffs don't have the potential impact for economic
Speaker 4: disruption that handing the make countries pay money. The whole
Speaker 4: US bonds guy, the Federal Reserve Board chairman does so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you will see a position from Republicans because it
Speaker 3: directly impacts their bag.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is the most you can possibly fuck with
Speaker 4: the money by intending to take control of the entire
Speaker 4: money supply. There's a lot of fears here too, and
Speaker 4: it's sort of worth mentioning this. I've been seeing this
Speaker 4: passed around a lot, is that there is another sort
Speaker 4: of recent example of a technically elected president assuming effectively
Speaker 4: dicatorial powers, and it's Air to one and air to
Speaker 4: one eventually took control of the central bank. And to
Speaker 4: get a sense of how that's going, the inflation rate
Speaker 4: in Turkey right now is currently thirty percent and everyone
Speaker 4: is celebrating because it's below thirty one percent, and this
Speaker 4: is the lowest the inflation rate has been in ages.
Speaker 4: It was like seventy percent when they first started this,
Speaker 4: and it was fifty percent last year, and they've gotten
Speaker 4: it down to a mere thirty percent inflation rate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thinks King, Well.
Speaker 4: So this is the kind of thing that's on these
Speaker 4: people's minds because they all understand this and this is
Speaker 4: not the Turkish central bank. Central bank is obviously important
Speaker 4: in the world economy. This is the United States Central Bank.
Speaker 4: This is a question of the fundamental legitimacy of the
Speaker 4: dollar as the world reserve currency and of the premier
Speaker 4: currency in the world economy. So we will see what
Speaker 4: happens as this continues to unfold. But this is probably
Speaker 4: the premier economic fight of the entire TIP administration, and
Speaker 4: we will we will continue to update it as we
Speaker 4: learn more about how this is going to go.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk about something that came to
Speaker 3: my attention of the break here.
Speaker 2: I feel like we should utilize a banking segue in
Speaker 2: my opinion.
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, yeah, fine, fine, fine, talking of banks and
Speaker 3: of centralizing bank power under the state, let's talk about
Speaker 3: an organization that once began as member of the KPD.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about Germany, and specifically I want
Speaker 3: to talk about an organization called Roster Hilfer.
Speaker 4: Red Aid.
Speaker 3: Don't really speak German, so if I've pronounced that wrong,
Speaker 3: I hope you'll understand why we're talking about Rotter Hilfer
Speaker 3: is that we a few months ago reported on the
Speaker 3: State Department adding various European organizations to its FTO list
Speaker 3: Foreign Terrorist Organization right, and we wondered what this was
Speaker 3: about and what it would mean. We are now starting
Speaker 3: to see a little bit of what it would mean
Speaker 3: because Rotter Hilfer red Aid has had its bank account
Speaker 3: closed in Germany. It had accounts with two different banks,
Speaker 3: both of which had sort of broadly social or ecological missions, right,
Speaker 3: they were sort of progressive banks. I guess if such
Speaker 3: a thing can exist, because these banks are concerned with
Speaker 3: being sanctioned and effectively locked out for the United States
Speaker 3: Swift system for doing business with a terrorist organization. Just
Speaker 3: to give some background on the ORG, I guess there's
Speaker 3: not a direct lineage from the KPD to this, but
Speaker 3: there was an organization of the same name from which
Speaker 3: it sees itself as descended, set up by the German
Speaker 3: Communist Party, which of course was dissolved by the Nazis. Today,
Speaker 3: what they do is they do legal aid stuff. They
Speaker 3: appear to like send observers out to protests to kind
Speaker 3: of document state violence that they have done some aid
Speaker 3: for asylum seekers. It has grown massively. It's like it's
Speaker 3: doubled and they're doubled again in the last decade in
Speaker 3: terms of membership, right, and there have been attempts to
Speaker 3: ban it from the domestic right in Germany. I've linked
Speaker 3: to one of the after ones in the show notes
Speaker 3: to people want to read it. But it being underbanked
Speaker 3: is effectively going to be fatal for the organization, right
Speaker 3: like it can't provide legal aid, It can't provide legal
Speaker 3: support if it doesn't have a place to store its MND.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess you could just have a big
Speaker 3: box of cash, but it's going to make it very
Speaker 3: hard for the organization to take donations or to allocate
Speaker 3: that the money that it has. So this is something
Speaker 3: we might see more right certainly in Germany because Anti
Speaker 3: for aust is the organization that was sanctioned, but potentially
Speaker 3: also in other places talking of having no money, hear
Speaker 3: us and advertisements that can liberate you of some of yours.
Speaker 2: So for one of our last stories, I would like
Speaker 2: to discuss one of the bigger news stories from the
Speaker 2: end of the year, but something we did not have
Speaker 2: time to discuss in our lasted of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: and this is the Turtle Island Liberation Front. An episode
Speaker 2: next week will be going into even more detail, but
Speaker 2: I will go over some of the broad strokes of
Speaker 2: the Turtle Island Liberation Front alleged bombing plot. On December twelfth,
Speaker 2: the FBI arrested four people in southern California, who the
Speaker 2: government claims are members of a left wing activist group
Speaker 2: called the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The criminal complaint, signed
Speaker 2: on December thirteenth by an FBI agent working at the
Speaker 2: Joint Terrorism Task Force in La alleges that these four
Speaker 2: individuals conspired an a bombing plot planned for New Year's
Speaker 2: Eve twenty twenty five. According to the complaint, on November
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, one of the alleged TILF members I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say TILF instead of the full name from now on,
Speaker 2: named Audrey Irene Carroll, gave an eight page hand written
Speaker 2: document titled Operation Midnight Sun outlining the plan for the
Speaker 2: bombing to a confidential human source who works for the
Speaker 2: FBI as an informant. The criminal complaint says this of
Speaker 2: the confidential human source quote, the confidential human source is
Speaker 2: cooperating with law enforcement and is a validated and vetted source.
Speaker 2: Theidential human source has been a reliable source information since
Speaker 2: in or around August twenty twenty one. The confidential human
Speaker 2: sources cooperating for financial compensation. The confidential human source does
Speaker 2: not have any criminal history. The confidential Human source provided
Speaker 2: past reliable reporting on other cases and has provided reliable
Speaker 2: reporting in this case.
Speaker 4: Unquote.
Speaker 2: The plan was for teams of four on the ground
Speaker 2: participants to plant backpacks containing complex pipe bombs quote unquote
Speaker 2: or IEDs outside of buildings at five locations, targeting two
Speaker 2: US companies, and then simultaneously detonate the bombs at midnight
Speaker 2: on New Year's Eve twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: There would be an.
Speaker 2: Off the ground member assisting the team remotely by listening
Speaker 2: to police scanners or be stationed in a vehicle in
Speaker 2: case a quote emergency getaway is needed quote that's quoting
Speaker 2: from the plan, and one member of each on the
Speaker 2: ground team would create griff of a red triangle and
Speaker 2: one message of the team's choosing on the sidewalk closest
Speaker 2: to the building while the other three are placing the devices.
Speaker 2: This indictment is a really interesting look at the modern
Speaker 2: direct action LEFT because it includes a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: little tidbits like block and d block. It includes the
Speaker 2: alleged co conspirators ground names like asanoch Ak, Nomad, and Kickware,
Speaker 2: which are their ground names for this action. The criminal
Speaker 2: complaint states that after making the initial plan, Carol and
Speaker 2: another individual, Zachary Aaron Page, recruited additional co conspirators who
Speaker 2: participated in further planning meetups and helped procure bomb making materials.
Speaker 2: On December twelfth, the four defendants traveled to a remote
Speaker 2: location in the Mohabi Desert with the alleged intent to
Speaker 2: build and test explosive devices. FBI observed from a surveillance
Speaker 2: plane and then arrested Carrol Paid, Dante Garfield, and Tina
Speaker 2: Lai before they completed assembling a functional explosive device. They
Speaker 2: have since been charged with conspiracy and possession of an
Speaker 2: unregistered destructive device.
Speaker 7: As I mentioned in my talking points, on December twelfth,
Speaker 7: a group of individuals, again members of this this anti
Speaker 7: government group, traveled out to the desert to test their
Speaker 7: explosive devices.
Speaker 4: They had precursor.
Speaker 7: Chemicals there and they were going to they were going
Speaker 7: to create these these bombs in the desert. What they
Speaker 7: are starting to do is put their chemicals and whares
Speaker 7: and the components out on the on the table on
Speaker 7: the table. There this footage that you're watching is from
Speaker 7: our surveillance plane. And then what happened after this is
Speaker 7: the Los Angeles FBI SWAT Team, along with the FBI's
Speaker 7: Hostage Rescue Team moved in and arrested all four subjects
Speaker 7: without without incident.
Speaker 2: Now, the Eternal Island Liberation Front appears to be a relict,
Speaker 2: the new group with a social media footprint that only
Speaker 2: was back to July twenty twenty five. The Instagram page
Speaker 2: for their LA chapter reads quote liberation through decolonialization and
Speaker 2: tribal sovereignty.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 2: Their most recent post, from December twelfth, the day of
Speaker 2: the arrests, is promoting a quote Palestine pop up market
Speaker 2: in Culver City. A post from November twenty eighth reads
Speaker 2: quote if they hurt you, they hurt me too. Our
Speaker 2: destinies are intertwined. Liberation for one must mean liberation for all.
Speaker 2: The empire must fall, and from within the belly of
Speaker 2: the beast, we must be the ones to dismantle it.
Speaker 2: Revolution is the only way stop quote peaceful protesting unquote,
Speaker 2: rise up, fight back. We are not outnumbered. They are
Speaker 2: organized and be ready unquote yeah. The FBI source met
Speaker 2: with two TILFH members in late November Carolin page, and
Speaker 2: during this meeting, Carol gave the FBI source the handwritten
Speaker 2: bombing plot and retained three to four additional copies of
Speaker 2: this plan. And the plan identified five locations to target
Speaker 2: as marks with more blank slots on the plan which
Speaker 2: are captioned add more if enough comrades. According to the
Speaker 2: criminal complaint, these targets were quote property and facilities operated
Speaker 2: by two separate companies that are used or engaged in
Speaker 2: activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce unquote. These are Amazon
Speaker 2: distribution type facilities. They've not specifically confirmed they are Amazon facilities,
Speaker 2: but they are these sorts of like global shipping facilities.
Speaker 2: One of the things I find really interesting about this
Speaker 2: criminal complaint is the way that this FBI agent describes
Speaker 2: direct action tactics and the Turtle Island Liberation Front members
Speaker 2: like security practices throughout the planning of this action. This
Speaker 2: is quoting from the criminal complaint.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 2: The plan described multiple operation security measures the Coken Spirit
Speaker 2: should take to conceal their identities, such as the use
Speaker 2: of a burner phone that would be disposed of after
Speaker 2: the bombings by quote submerging it in a concrete brick
Speaker 2: after destroying the sim and then disposing of the brick
Speaker 2: in a body of water. The target date of the operation,
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, was identified as an opportune time because
Speaker 2: quote fireworks will be going off at the time, so
Speaker 2: the explosions will be less likely to be noticed as
Speaker 2: immediately as any normal day quote. The plan emphasized that
Speaker 2: quote absolutely no mistakes can be made. The plans outline
Speaker 2: the use of quote unquote black block over top a
Speaker 2: layer of quote unquote casual gray block on top of
Speaker 2: normal street clothes, and noted to keep hair very tightly concealed,
Speaker 2: and to wear gloves for the purpose of avoidance of
Speaker 2: leaving behind DNA. The plan further instructed that precipins should
Speaker 2: leave their personal devices at home and make sure that
Speaker 2: devices were set up to stream a long movie during
Speaker 2: the time of the attacks, as to craft an alibi
Speaker 2: or quote unquote plausible deniability by having it appear as
Speaker 2: though the actor was actively using their devices. The plan
Speaker 2: discussed pre operational surveillance of targets, identification of d block
Speaker 2: or d clothing locations, and not leaving quote anything other
Speaker 2: than IED's behind as they could not quote risk any
Speaker 2: evidence tracing back to us unquote. The plan also noted
Speaker 2: the benefit of placing a small pebble in a shoe
Speaker 2: to alter natural gait to obfiscate their identification. Instructions on
Speaker 2: how to purchase materials to construct a pipe bomb suggested
Speaker 2: using cash only, purchasing only in small quantities toward suspicion,
Speaker 2: and splitting purchases amongst a team rather than individually unquote.
Speaker 2: This is the type of stuff I find really interesting,
Speaker 2: is this emphasis on all of these, you know, op
Speaker 2: sect like operational security measures, all while working with an
Speaker 2: FBI informant from the very start of the operation and
Speaker 2: then recruiting another one during the planning stages. During a
Speaker 2: meeting on December seventh, three Turtle Island Liberation Front members
Speaker 2: at least met both with the confidential human source as
Speaker 2: well as an undercover fi BI employee while trying to
Speaker 2: recruit more members to join this operation, both of whom
Speaker 2: accompanied the Turtle Island Liberation Front members as they travel
Speaker 2: to the Mohave Desert on December twelfth to allegedly build
Speaker 2: and test out explosive devices for the direct action. There's
Speaker 2: a lot more information in the indictment, as well as
Speaker 2: some news that has happened since then, like an arrest
Speaker 2: in Louisiana, also tied to Turtle Island Liberation Front, but
Speaker 2: we will discuss those in a future episode. As of now,
Speaker 2: three defendants in this case have pled not guilty and
Speaker 2: the fourth is set to be arraigned on January twentieth.
Speaker 1: Are you planning on doing that next week here?
Speaker 2: Yes, there will be an episode next week going into
Speaker 2: more details about this group, their politics, as well as
Speaker 2: the FBI undercover and informant and their level of involvement
Speaker 2: in this action, which has spurred a lot of discourse
Speaker 2: online about this being a quote unquote like sting operation,
Speaker 2: about this being a que unquot sigh up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I'll just say very briefly other the
Speaker 3: FBI is that it's not their first time, and it's
Speaker 3: not their last time probably doing something like this. Right,
Speaker 3: you can look at many other cases and see FBI
Speaker 3: sort of ci is doing this kind of thing, So
Speaker 3: I think that context is important here.
Speaker 4: I just want to.
Speaker 3: Finish up with a migration update. First of all, DHS
Speaker 3: fractured the skull of a protester and blinded him by
Speaker 3: firing a less than lethal munition into its face. At
Speaker 3: close range. It sounded to Anna this week of link
Speaker 3: to an article for people who'd like to read more
Speaker 3: of that. Secondly, Judge Boseburg, who was the judge over
Speaker 3: seeing the case about the Alien Enemies Act, ordered the
Speaker 3: government to provide relief to Venezuelan and sent to scot
Speaker 3: Marco Rubio, provided a statement responding that doing so would
Speaker 3: quote materially damage US foreign policy interests. Essentially, he's saying
Speaker 3: the state can't comply with the order to provide redress
Speaker 3: for wrongdoing by returning them, and it can't even give
Speaker 3: them due process right because it has since kidnapped the
Speaker 3: president of Venezuela. Related news, senators including Schmidt and Cruz
Speaker 3: have called for Boseberg's impeachment. Cruz makes these allegations, they're
Speaker 3: pretty minor, and crucially and very unusually. Both of them
Speaker 3: have been repudiated by the Administrative Office of the United
Speaker 3: States Courts, which doesn't normally do this kind of thing, right,
Speaker 3: But in both cases they've written letters kind of clarifying
Speaker 3: why Boseberg's conduct is totally normal. Both the Cruz claims
Speaker 3: related to decisions Boseburg made with which he disagrees. One
Speaker 3: pertains to a non disclosure order that he gave so
Speaker 3: that Republican senators would not be notified of subpoenas of
Speaker 3: their phone records in the fake elector investigation that was
Speaker 3: called the Arctic Frost investigation at the time that looked
Speaker 3: at attempts to overturn the twenty twenty United States election.
Speaker 3: They're also trying to impeach Judge Boardman for a separate
Speaker 3: decision in which they feel her sentence for a person
Speaker 3: who played guilty to attending to murder Justice Covenar was
Speaker 3: too light. And then just today, which is Wednesday of
Speaker 3: this week as we're recording, the State Department announced on
Speaker 3: dot com the Everything website that it is pausing visa
Speaker 3: processing for seventy five countries quote whose migrants take welfare
Speaker 3: from the American people at unacceptable rates. The freeze will
Speaker 3: remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants
Speaker 3: will not extract wealth from the American people. It's not
Speaker 3: clear what they are talking about. They talking about immigrant
Speaker 3: non imigrant visas both of the above. Are they talking
Speaker 3: about people who have violated the public charge rule or
Speaker 3: they just feel that any access of any benefit of
Speaker 3: state support is quote unquote extracting wealth from the American people.
Speaker 3: If you do not know what the public charge rule is,
Speaker 3: Luckily for you, I made a podcast about it in
Speaker 3: November of twenty twenty four, so you can scroll all
Speaker 3: the way back more than a year and find that.
Speaker 3: I'll try and find it for you and include a
Speaker 3: link in the show notes. I think what's crucial here
Speaker 3: is that this will reduce dramatically the rate of which
Speaker 3: migrants access government services right, which are often very beneficialist
Speaker 3: when it comes to things like child nutrition, child welfare services.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 3: Finally, the State Department also posted on x dot com
Speaker 3: the Everything website that it has revoked one hundred thousand visas,
Speaker 3: including eight thousand student visas, in the last year. We
Speaker 3: have no way of verifying that. If you would like
Speaker 3: to email us, you could do so. Just email cool
Speaker 3: Zone tips at proton dot me. If you want it
Speaker 3: to be encrypted, you should use a proton mail address
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: We reported the news. We reported the news.
Speaker 4: It could happen.
Speaker 8: Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
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Speaker 8: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts,
Speaker 8: or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find
Speaker 8: sources where it could happen here listened directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.