Speaker 1: Cool media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here? Executive that Disorder. Our
Speaker 2: weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, Yes,
Speaker 2: the crumbling world and what it means for me and you.
Speaker 2: I'm Garrison Davis today. I'm joined by James Stout and
Speaker 2: Robert Evans. Yes, this week we're covering the week of
Speaker 2: February nineteen to February twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: Boy, if you thought we had ed before, do we
Speaker 3: have ed now?
Speaker 4: We still haven't got that HYM sponsorship, but will yeah crying.
Speaker 3: We're gonna keep working at it. I'm also looking to
Speaker 3: get us a penis pump sponsorship. Speaking of penis pumps,
Speaker 3: let's talk about the Germans. So, Germany had its election
Speaker 3: very recently after their most recent coalition collapsed. The way
Speaker 3: their government works is that periodically governments can't continue being governments,
Speaker 3: and so they have to have a very sudden election.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to explain it much more than that,
Speaker 3: but the actual results of the election were pretty interesting, right.
Speaker 3: The primary winner was off Day AfD Alternative for Germany
Speaker 3: would be kind of the closest English translation of the
Speaker 3: name of the party. This is a far right party.
Speaker 3: It is primarily popular in East Germany now, but it
Speaker 3: has surged massively after years and years of being decidedly
Speaker 3: on the political fringe. One of the reasons it has
Speaker 3: always been on the political fringe is that German parties,
Speaker 3: both centrists, Conservatives and the left, have had a tacit
Speaker 3: agreement since the end of World War Two called the
Speaker 3: Court on Santaire. It's not just Germany, this is the
Speaker 3: thing that used to be present in all of Europe.
Speaker 3: And basically the gist of the Court in Sanitaire is
Speaker 3: you don't form a coalition because these are parliamentary democracies, right,
Speaker 3: so usually no one party has fifty percent or more
Speaker 3: of the vote. So you know, a party with twenty
Speaker 3: and a party with fifteen and a party with eight
Speaker 3: and they form a coalition government. And the norm for
Speaker 3: up until now, and thankfully is still the normal we'll
Speaker 3: talk about that is that you don't coalition with AfD,
Speaker 3: which is a part of why that and kind of
Speaker 3: lingering stigma about the Nazis kept them from being a
Speaker 3: major force in German politics until you know, over the
Speaker 3: last eight or so years they have grown substantially to
Speaker 3: the point where in this recent election they doubled their
Speaker 3: support from around ten percent to a little over twenty percent.
Speaker 3: This makes them they're not the largest single block in
Speaker 3: the German in the Reichstag.
Speaker 2: They're number two though, right they are number two, I believe,
Speaker 2: which sucks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the CDU is still significantly larger, although not like
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly larger to be clear. So basically right now, the CDU,
Speaker 3: which is the centrist party and it's kind of like
Speaker 3: center right, a little center right, has two hundred and
Speaker 3: eight seats in the Reichstag. AfD has one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty two, the Social Democrats have one hundred and twenty,
Speaker 3: the Greens have eighty five, and the Left Party has
Speaker 3: sixty four. So AfD is a minority in the government
Speaker 3: compared to all of the people who didn't vote for AfD,
Speaker 3: but the rate at which they're increasing is a serious problem,
Speaker 3: especially since most Germans list immigration as their primary voting
Speaker 3: concern right now, this most recent election had unusually high
Speaker 3: voter turnout. Twenty twenty one election, seventy six percent of
Speaker 3: the country or so voted. More than eighty two percent
Speaker 3: of the country voted in this most recent election, so
Speaker 3: the fact that like you have record high turnout and
Speaker 3: AfD doubling its support is deeply chilling. Now it's not
Speaker 3: one hundred percent bad news because one of the other
Speaker 3: stories here is the new Left Party, well not super new,
Speaker 3: but the Left Party, which is kind of came out
Speaker 3: of East Germany's Communist Party, massively increased their support too.
Speaker 3: And they actually for the first time, like very significantly
Speaker 3: increased their share of the vote, which had been under
Speaker 3: this kind of five percent threshold before and is now
Speaker 3: at about eight point eight percent. So they went up
Speaker 3: by an amount. Actually it's not like as much as
Speaker 3: AfD went up, but like in terms of a percentage
Speaker 3: of their prior vote, it's a similar increase. So there's
Speaker 3: another party that had significant gains in this and it's
Speaker 3: it's kind of a newer party called the BSW, which
Speaker 3: is you could say they do a little bit of
Speaker 3: like a Red Brown Alliance kind of thing, where there's
Speaker 3: some left wing messaging in what they're saying with they're
Speaker 3: also like super anti immigrant and they're not, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not kind of like to the extent that the
Speaker 3: AfD is. But when they came on to the scene,
Speaker 3: they were expected by some people to pull votes away
Speaker 3: from the AfD this election, and that's really not what happened.
Speaker 3: And in fact, a lot of the votes they pulled
Speaker 3: were from Social Democrats and the left parties, so that
Speaker 3: was one of the you know, it's because the way
Speaker 3: the parliamentary system works, which is more rational than our system.
Speaker 3: This didn't like hand the whole election to off day. Again.
Speaker 3: This is the benefit of a system like the Germans had,
Speaker 3: which is pretty explicitly set up to make it a
Speaker 3: lot harder for a right wing dictator to get in again.
Speaker 3: But it is interesting to me that that kind of messaging,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's further kind of evidence of what's been
Speaker 3: happening everywhere, which is when your party positions itself to
Speaker 3: try to win over far right votes by kind of
Speaker 3: mixing in Well, okay, what if we did some sort
Speaker 3: of you know, liberal lefty policies, but we also got
Speaker 3: really racist. You don't take votes from the far right,
Speaker 3: but you do wind up pulling the worst people from
Speaker 3: the left. Yeah, and yeah, I guess that's kind of
Speaker 3: like the broad strokes. Now, like this is bad, although
Speaker 3: it's also not comprehensively a nightmare. One of the things
Speaker 3: that's kind of hot. I don't know, positive may not
Speaker 3: be the right. Wait, but interesting to me is if
Speaker 3: you looked at the twenty twenty one election maps of
Speaker 3: the strongest party by constituency in the twenty twenty one election,
Speaker 3: and I found a good article German election results explaining
Speaker 3: graphics on DW dot com. If you just google that,
Speaker 3: you'll find it. In twenty twenty one, off Day obviously,
Speaker 3: like the whole northeast was you know, their territory, but
Speaker 3: they also had strong inroads into the northwest parts of
Speaker 3: the country, right, you know, primarily like rural areas and
Speaker 3: the like. But like there was a there was a
Speaker 3: lot of red on that map orthwest portion of Germany.
Speaker 3: In the new election that's all black, which is the
Speaker 3: CDU right, Which means while off Day's representation of the
Speaker 3: Reichstag and like number of voters increased substantially, their geographical
Speaker 3: reach has been kind of cauterized, would be, in a
Speaker 3: fair way of saying it is, which is interesting to
Speaker 3: me hard to say too much, like does that mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I think some of what has happened here,
Speaker 3: Because it's important both to note that this is bad,
Speaker 3: it's bad that the Nazis got doubled their share of
Speaker 3: the vote, but also it was expected to be a
Speaker 3: little worse than it was. You know, there's some evidence
Speaker 3: that after JD Vance made his speech introducing AfD, their
Speaker 3: pollings started to like freeze a little bit. And it
Speaker 3: may be the fact because a lot of older voters
Speaker 3: came in and they they seem to have primarily gone
Speaker 3: with the CDU, with this sort of center right party.
Speaker 3: So the story here is you can maybe look at
Speaker 3: it as a lot of older, more conservative Germans who
Speaker 3: are also old enough to really not like the idea
Speaker 3: of the AfD came out and voted for, you know,
Speaker 3: the center right party in order to kind of cut
Speaker 3: off their power. The other thing, though, that's kind of
Speaker 3: a lot less optimistic, is that AfD is most popular
Speaker 3: among people under thirty, who widely don't view it as
Speaker 3: an extremist party, which is deeply, deeply concerning.
Speaker 2: And AfD won the majority of like working class, unemployed
Speaker 2: and male votes. Yes, yes, pretty substantially.
Speaker 3: Yes, they did extremely well with young men and unemployed
Speaker 3: young men in particular, and that's all deeply concerning. So
Speaker 3: you know, there's a few things going on here. All
Speaker 3: of which are very interesting to me, but the power
Speaker 3: often they continues to have with younger, really young Germans,
Speaker 3: is frightening. That said, there's allso some evidence here that
Speaker 3: the situation in the United States has galvanized a chunk
Speaker 3: of the German voting populace to attempt to stop off
Speaker 3: day and kind of one of the positive things that
Speaker 3: came out is prior to this election, there was a
Speaker 3: lot of talk about whether or not the CDU would
Speaker 3: choose to coalition with the AfD and thus into the
Speaker 3: Cordon sanitaire. And to make a long story short, they're
Speaker 3: not going to do that. They're looking to coalition with
Speaker 3: the Social Democrats, which is a good thing. You know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean no one will do that in the future.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, a majority of German voters suspect AfD will
Speaker 3: be in a coalition by twenty thirty, but it hasn't
Speaker 3: happened yet. And that's as good as things get right now.
Speaker 3: And that's what I got to say about Germany.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and people frame these results is like
Speaker 2: slightly better than expected, slightly Previous pulling showed AfD being
Speaker 2: being slightly better in results, and that dip for Vance
Speaker 2: and Musk started started really trying to push AfD both
Speaker 2: in person and digitally, So you saw a slight dip there.
Speaker 3: Yes, And this is the other thing that's kind of
Speaker 3: worth noting that kind of like red Brown Party, in
Speaker 3: addition to being kind of pro social programs, anti immigration,
Speaker 3: they're also very anti United States.
Speaker 4: Okay, so.
Speaker 3: That may explain some of that too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does seem like things are changing a lot.
Speaker 4: And one of the things that we've seen, like as
Speaker 4: we've spoken before, like not just in Germany, being Canada,
Speaker 4: was that like people hate Musk and Trump so much
Speaker 4: in the rest of the world that like their endorsement
Speaker 4: could be something of a kiss of death electorally.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the Conservative Party in Canada has been growing
Speaker 2: pretty exponentially in terms of like popular support the past
Speaker 2: few years as the Liberals have like tanked, and now
Speaker 2: those trends actually started to reverse. The Canadian like liberal
Speaker 2: pulling is up ten points that can sort of pulling
Speaker 2: us down. Conservatives might not even be able to control
Speaker 2: Parliament in the next election, as they were like expected to.
Speaker 2: And it'll be interesting to see like if this if
Speaker 2: this anti like far right United States trend continues to
Speaker 2: more countries beyond, like Germany in Canada, but I'm still
Speaker 2: I'm still eagerly, eagerly waiting for the next Canadian election.
Speaker 3: And this is part of the story that is really
Speaker 3: interesting right now, where we've talked a lot about the
Speaker 3: transnational fascist coalition. You know, the fact that Trump and
Speaker 3: his people have had the quasi dictator of Hungary, you know,
Speaker 3: over at mar A Lago, and have repeatedly cited him
Speaker 3: as an inspiration for how to take and centralized power.
Speaker 3: You know how close Bolsonaro was in the last Trump administration,
Speaker 3: Like you know, obviously the Republican parties increasing closeness and
Speaker 3: embrace of Putin's Russia. But what also is happening right
Speaker 3: now is people like countries that had been heading at
Speaker 3: a very a more authoritarian right wing direction and turning
Speaker 3: around in part due to the war in Ukraine and
Speaker 3: turning away from kind of the international right wing movement,
Speaker 3: as Poland being the best example right where had Polish
Speaker 3: politics have changed substantially in the last several years, and
Speaker 3: a big part of that is the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of Poles who I think
Speaker 3: otherwise would have been more on board for a lot
Speaker 3: of the socially conservative shit who are like, well, but
Speaker 3: all these fuckers are pro Russia and we're Poland, Like, no,
Speaker 3: all right, let's go on a break and return to
Speaker 3: talk more about the crumbling world. And you said, yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, we are back. I'm gonna ther to James
Speaker 3: to to do a segment on usaid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we are back. And before I talk about USAD,
Speaker 4: I do want to talk about something else that has
Speaker 4: been advertised along with whatever products and services support this show.
Speaker 4: That is the Gold Card. So the Gold Card, if
Speaker 4: you're not familiar, is something that Trump floated this week
Speaker 4: to replace the EB five investor visa. Trump suggested that
Speaker 4: the Gold Card it would require a five million dollar investment.
Speaker 4: Well investment, I think that it's just a charge, right,
Speaker 4: You're just giving the money to the United States government,
Speaker 4: and in return you will receive a Green card plus privileges,
Speaker 4: and it will be not a Green but a Gold card.
Speaker 4: So that's great. That is the EB five visa if
Speaker 4: you're not familiar, required you since twenty twenty two, it's
Speaker 4: been one million and fifty thousand dollar investment and the
Speaker 4: creation of ten jobs. So it had some kind of
Speaker 4: like it trickled down economics. It's not a real thing.
Speaker 4: It's a lie that they tell you. But it had
Speaker 4: some idea that these rich people would create jobs in
Speaker 4: the US people who are less wealthy. The gold card
Speaker 4: seems to not have that. You just have to be rich, right,
Speaker 4: So that's say, that's an interesting change to the immigration system.
Speaker 4: The other thing I want to talk about today is
Speaker 4: a United States Agency for International Development, better known as USAID.
Speaker 4: It's been a target of like the anti woke right
Speaker 4: for some time because they fundamentally don't understand what Joseph
Speaker 4: Nia would have called soft power, right, their power to persuade,
Speaker 4: the power to influence outcomes around the world with things
Speaker 4: other than tanks and bonds.
Speaker 3: Oh and again, if your power is soft right now,
Speaker 3: you might consider trying Hymns or one of our other sponsors.
Speaker 2: Gyms is not a sponsor.
Speaker 4: Sorry, James, we needed to do that, But I have
Speaker 4: been diverted. But returning to my topic, Yeah, the agency
Speaker 4: has been massively impacted by DOGE and Trump administration cuts. Right.
Speaker 4: The Trump administration suspended all foreign aid January via executive
Speaker 4: order on the twentieth of January in order to assess
Speaker 4: if it was quote serving US interests. The State Department
Speaker 4: then issued guidance that seemed to go beyond the executive
Speaker 4: order and cut nearly basically all usaily expensive On the
Speaker 4: thirteenth of this month, that's February if you're listening, later,
Speaker 4: a judges shued a temporary restraining order. This TIERRO didn't
Speaker 4: really stop them from doing what they were doing, because
Speaker 4: it told them to continue with existing contracts. And what
Speaker 4: the State Department claims that it's doing is implementing clauses
Speaker 4: that are already in the contract, so the contracts will
Speaker 4: have some kind of kill clause, right, and that they
Speaker 4: claim that they're implementing that, so they think they've found
Speaker 4: a fun work around. Rather than talking extensively about court battles,
Speaker 4: I want to talk about what this means. These are
Speaker 4: cuts made by the richest man in the world that
Speaker 4: have had a direct, tangible, and devastating impact on the
Speaker 4: poorest people on the planet. In Sudan, eighty percent of
Speaker 4: emergency kitchens have been closed. That means that close to
Speaker 4: two million people will go without food. Local groups who
Speaker 4: organize the kitchens are running out of money. The way
Speaker 4: this works is that even when Rubio issued a communication
Speaker 4: talking about continuing food aid, it's unclear exactly what that means,
Speaker 4: because in this case and in other cases, USAID is
Speaker 4: sending them money in order to provision themselves locally, as
Speaker 4: opposed to sending them food as an inkind donation.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Whatever he communicated, these people are not getting food an
Speaker 4: as a result. The people who run these mutual aid
Speaker 4: kitchens it's a mutual Aid coalition of Sudan are facing
Speaker 4: the horrible decision of having to turn people away it
Speaker 4: or deciding who to feed, which is pretty bad. On
Speaker 4: the border between Thailand and Myanmay, a place where Robert
Speaker 4: and I have been to report, I've heard that people
Speaker 4: are having babies right now outside lat of clinics and
Speaker 4: life support machines have been removed for it to people
Speaker 4: who were relying on those life support machines obviously.
Speaker 3: And at least one person has died.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm sure many many more people than that
Speaker 4: have done. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean that's just what's reported, Like it's a lot
Speaker 3: of most of what happens there does not get out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I will try in not too long to be
Speaker 4: there and report on that, but it's pretty devastating right
Speaker 4: now that Robert and I have met the people who
Speaker 4: run some of these clinics and they are some of
Speaker 4: the most incredible people doing amazing work. And yeah, they
Speaker 4: relied on USAID funding. There's lots of other places do
Speaker 4: and that's not happening now. The State Department has exempted
Speaker 4: quote life saving humanitarian assistance programs from the cuts, but
Speaker 4: no one really knows what that means. Right. The order reads,
Speaker 4: quote life saving humanitarian assistance applies to core life saving medicine,
Speaker 4: medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance, as well as
Speaker 4: supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance.
Speaker 4: As I mentioned before, the mutual AIDS who are in
Speaker 4: coalition was receiving financial assistance to help it provision, right,
Speaker 4: which is much better than the US going through all
Speaker 4: the infrastructure spending of being able to deliver that aid
Speaker 4: itself or through USAID contractors. Other contractors implementing partners of
Speaker 4: USAID are still owed money for work that they completed
Speaker 4: before January, before the stop work orders stopped payment to them.
Speaker 4: For work to begin again on any of these contracts,
Speaker 4: they need the contract officer to sign up on it,
Speaker 4: and it's at a lunclear exactly how many of these
Speaker 4: contract officers are still employed at USAID because of the
Speaker 4: federal employment cuts. So essentially USAID has stopped all over
Speaker 4: the world. In addition to this, in this country, four
Speaker 4: hundred and ninety million dollars worth of US grown food,
Speaker 4: which is in the USAID pipeline to go to people
Speaker 4: who very desperately needed food, is currently at risk of
Speaker 4: spoilage according to USAID. So it's not just that people
Speaker 4: are starving, it's that we are allowing food to go
Speaker 4: bad here while people starve in other places, which is
Speaker 4: pretty bleak. I will just really briefly hear plug the
Speaker 4: mutual aids who don't coalition. If you'd like to help,
Speaker 4: you can direct to them directly, And it's mutual aids
Speaker 4: who donig If you'd like to do that, it'll be
Speaker 4: into show, not to if you're driving or whatever.
Speaker 2: And there is like ongoing legal fights over this issue.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, February twenty fifth, another judge ordered the Trump
Speaker 2: administration to resume hundreds of million dollars of funding towards USAID,
Speaker 2: and there's no indication Trump's going to follow that order.
Speaker 2: They're already planning to appeal again. They have already appealed before.
Speaker 2: And we've seen them continually deny court orders from judges,
Speaker 2: fine loopholes, fine workarounds, and Musk and Trump continue to
Speaker 2: just openly float like defying the order of the court.
Speaker 2: Representative Andy Ogeles introduced articles have appeachment against a specific
Speaker 2: quote unquote activist judge. This will go nowhere. They don't
Speaker 2: have nearly enough numbers to make anything like this happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a frontal assault on the separation of powers.
Speaker 4: It's what he's proposed, right, And like they don't have
Speaker 4: their numbers.
Speaker 2: Yet, yes, well, and then they have openly floated just
Speaker 2: like defying orders because they're interpreting the actions of the
Speaker 2: judges as like themselves, unlawful. But Musk has himself called
Speaker 2: to impeach judges who violate the law, and I believe
Speaker 2: his most recent pinned pinned x posts ye reads quote
Speaker 2: if any judge anywhere can block every presidential action everywhere,
Speaker 2: we do not have a democracy. We have a tyranny
Speaker 2: of the judiciary.
Speaker 4: So what a great legal mind.
Speaker 3: Shit we were saying and back in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: So this will continue. I mean, I'm really really waiting
Speaker 2: for a final showdown between Trump Elon and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the Supreme Court and seeing if they will actively
Speaker 2: defy a ruling from the Supreme Court, if they indeed
Speaker 2: rule against Trump and Musque. But until then, I feel
Speaker 2: like we're just kind of all chugging along as the
Speaker 2: Trump administration, you know, very very unconstitutionally defies the authority
Speaker 2: of the Court. In some related news, last week, President
Speaker 2: Trump signed in executive order stating that the president can
Speaker 2: change laws erroneously, citing Article two, which only calls for
Speaker 2: the presidents to quote faithfully execute the law. I'm going
Speaker 2: to quote from the order the President to and the
Speaker 2: Attorney General, subject to the President's supervision and control, will
Speaker 2: interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having
Speaker 2: separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations. The next section is titled
Speaker 2: reigning in independent Agencies. It reads the Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 2: the Federal Communications Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission have
Speaker 2: exercised enormous power over the American people without presidential oversight.
Speaker 2: These agencies issue rules and regulations without the review of
Speaker 2: the democratically elected president. They also spend American tax dollars
Speaker 2: to set priorities without consulting the president, voters, and the
Speaker 2: president can now hold all federal agencies, not just cabinet departments,
Speaker 2: responsible for their decisions as the constitution demands. This is absurd.
Speaker 2: This is like extremely dangerous, one of the most like
Speaker 2: blatant like attempts at power that we've seen since Dick Nixon.
Speaker 2: Like this is gonna get litigated, but this is crazy.
Speaker 2: The the fact that we have that we have a
Speaker 2: president saying that he has the ability to interpret the
Speaker 2: law something that specifically he cannot do. That's why, it's
Speaker 2: why we have three branches of government, just like openly
Speaker 2: openly claiming that power is like very worrying. Again, like
Speaker 2: I feel like I have every episode on Executive Disorder,
Speaker 2: I say that, you know, I'm very worried. I'm very concerned,
Speaker 2: but that does continue to be the case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is very concerned. I don't know what more
Speaker 4: to say, because it's mad, like we're watching a coup
Speaker 4: happen on the timeline while everyone just continues to go
Speaker 4: shopping and stuff like it's it's it's pretty weird.
Speaker 2: Speaking speaking of shopping, I just got a fantastic Swedish
Speaker 2: M ninety feel jacket. It looks great, it fits tight.
Speaker 2: I'm very happy, incredible.
Speaker 4: Garrison's becoming a mills Up.
Speaker 2: We will go on break once again to come back
Speaker 2: to talk about the Navy and the FBI. All right,
Speaker 2: we are back. Let's now talk about the Navy, arguably
Speaker 2: one of the gayer branches of the military, besides the
Speaker 2: besides the drone operators.
Speaker 3: Oh you're you're really missing out on the marine career.
Speaker 3: He has multiple Marine veterans have told the US Marine
Speaker 3: Corps is the gayest place I've ever been.
Speaker 2: The Marines are like part of the Navy, right, come on,
Speaker 2: they are, they are, they are, and they hate it
Speaker 2: when you say, oh, well, wait, wait, go cry about
Speaker 2: Daddy Trump. I don't care.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, there's a shakeups in the Navy and the
Speaker 2: Marines as relating to Trump's anti trans executive orders. And
Speaker 2: we have obtained an al Nave memo directed to all
Speaker 2: Navy units and Marine Corps from February twenty fifth that
Speaker 2: outlines the Department of Navy's guidance on how to implement
Speaker 2: the anti trans executive orders. Now, this includes ending programs
Speaker 2: and policies related to quote unquote and gender ideology all
Speaker 2: across the Navy, as well as only using assigned sex
Speaker 2: at birth on official documentation. I will quote from the
Speaker 2: statement quote don entities will review policies for quote unquote
Speaker 2: intimate single sex spaces and take appropriate action to ensure
Speaker 2: such spaces are designated by sex and not gender identity
Speaker 2: on installations, facilities, ships, and any other infrastructure under the
Speaker 2: jurisdiction of the Department of Navy unquote. So this will
Speaker 2: force women into bathrooms and barracks with men. It's in
Speaker 2: line with the stuff that like Trump's been talking about
Speaker 2: and the stuff that he's been signing. But we are
Speaker 2: still getting more and more of these implementation guides getting
Speaker 2: sent around to various departments.
Speaker 4: James, Yeah, and like just to clarify that to people,
Speaker 4: most of these spaces are pretty full, right, These are
Speaker 4: pretty crowded places. So this will mean women sharing rooms
Speaker 4: with young marines. Right. This will meet them sharing non
Speaker 4: stalled bathrooms with young sailors and marines.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: This will force them into very confined spaces together on
Speaker 4: board ships.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 4: This isn't like some kind of sort of minor inconvenience
Speaker 4: or whatever like this, This will put these people at
Speaker 4: a demonstrable risk for US so all for bullying, which
Speaker 4: is a serious thing and an issue in lots of militaries,
Speaker 4: including the US one. But like, and many of these
Speaker 4: people I should add, like have had that they're like
Speaker 4: post surgery right, and not that it matches hugely, but
Speaker 4: that people who might pass is as women or men
Speaker 4: and they are now forced to live according to their
Speaker 4: gender assigned at birth pretty fucked up.
Speaker 2: It's not great. I'm going to wait before I do
Speaker 2: reporting on the implementation guides for visas. I know there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of articles in the Guardian and a
Speaker 2: few trans journalists have conflicting interpretations of a few Department
Speaker 2: of State cables regarding the issuing of visas to people
Speaker 2: who are trans Specifically, I think the main cable that
Speaker 2: we've seen allows the continued issuance of visas, but that
Speaker 2: would only match what the case officer or like the
Speaker 2: whoever whoever is like handling the actual these information, whatever
Speaker 2: they determined to be the assigned gender at birth to be,
Speaker 2: That's that's how it would get issued. But I'm going
Speaker 2: to wait to report on kind of the rest of
Speaker 2: the nitty gritty details, because there is conflicting information from
Speaker 2: like from like these like policy wonks, lawyers and journalists
Speaker 2: themselves who are trying to figure out kind of what
Speaker 2: the full implications of those cables are. But we are
Speaker 2: aware of them, We've been talking about them in our chat. Yes,
Speaker 2: they are bad, but I don't necessarily want to like
Speaker 2: overblow the scope of some of these things just to
Speaker 2: like induce panic when when really this is all kind
Speaker 2: of vary in line with Trump's earlier orders to only
Speaker 2: have male and female documentation that matches assigned gender at birth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say. Also, like if you are soldier,
Speaker 4: sailor em and a person marine whatever, and like these
Speaker 4: these gexy voters are affecting you, you can email us
Speaker 4: cool Zone tips at proton dot me. I know trans
Speaker 4: folks tend to serve at a higher rate than cisgender folks,
Speaker 4: so those a good number of people who will be
Speaker 4: affected by this, And like, for whatever it's worth, if
Speaker 4: you want to talk to us, you can reach out
Speaker 4: to us.
Speaker 2: I'm also going to note we obtain information on the
Speaker 2: Department of Defense for removing travel coverage for abortion. On
Speaker 2: January eighteenth, Department of Defense Travel Management Office Room of
Speaker 2: Dissection from their joint travel regulations that outlined travel allowances
Speaker 2: for quote non covered reproductive health care quote meaning like
Speaker 2: abortion and assisted reproductive technology like IVF. Now, this change
Speaker 2: was directly in compliance with Trump's executive order to enforce
Speaker 2: the High Amendment, which Mia has talked about lots before
Speaker 2: on the show. And then on February fourth, they actually
Speaker 2: re established coverage for assisted reproductive technology, so probably just IVF,
Speaker 2: but abortion was not re established, so.
Speaker 4: That means travel cover for abortion related medical care reproduct
Speaker 4: fil Okay, it's no longer there. Correct.
Speaker 2: Correct. For our last main story, I like to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about updates to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Speaker 2: Trump goon, rap producer and children's book author Cash Ptel
Speaker 2: has been confirmed as FBI director, and Patel is joined
Speaker 2: by far right podcaster and conspiracy theorist Dan Gino, who
Speaker 2: has been appointed deputy director.
Speaker 3: A God, and I look, I gotta say it. I'm
Speaker 3: just glad there's an adult in the room.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, this is thank God again, Like I
Speaker 2: don't want to just be talking about how how you know,
Speaker 2: kooky everything is in this new administration. But this is wild.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is no no, no Garrison. I disagree, and
Speaker 3: that's because I have professional solidarity. Anything that's good for
Speaker 3: podcasters in general, you know, is is good for the country.
Speaker 2: So not not great.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Last week, Ptel tolds senior officials he wants to relocate
Speaker 2: upwards of fifteen hundred employees from DC to fuel offices
Speaker 2: around the country, and in a statement on last Friday,
Speaker 2: which is February twenty first, Patel said, quote, anyone that
Speaker 2: wishes to do harm to our way of life and
Speaker 2: our citizens here and abroad will face the full wrath
Speaker 2: of the DOJ and the FBI. If you seek to
Speaker 2: hide in any corner of this country or planet, we
Speaker 2: will put on the world's largest man hunt, and we
Speaker 2: will find you, and we will decide your end state unquote.
Speaker 2: Agents and government employees have warned that under Patel, the
Speaker 2: Bureau will be on course to refocus efforts away from
Speaker 2: far right street fighters and accelerationists and towards the nebulous
Speaker 2: BLM Antifa. In related news, on Tuesday, a far right
Speaker 2: extremist named Joe Kent was confirmed as director of the
Speaker 2: National counter Terrorism Center Kent is a former Special Forces
Speaker 2: and CIA operative. He's described himself as an American First
Speaker 2: populist and has strong ties to the Proud Boys and
Speaker 2: Patriot Prayer. Kent has praised Joey Gibson for standing up
Speaker 2: to Antifa, and Kent himself employed a Proud Boy to
Speaker 2: consult on a failed congressional campaign in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Kent has historically advocated that the FBI refocus their efforts
Speaker 2: to target Antifa. And this is like all amidst a
Speaker 2: report from the Guardian suggesting that the Nazi cocelerationist group
Speaker 2: the Base, has had a decent resurgence in activity and
Speaker 2: recruitment efforts inside the United States.
Speaker 4: That's good, so.
Speaker 2: Not cool stuff happening, read the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Speaker 2: I guess i'll close unless we have any other thoughts
Speaker 2: on Kent or Patel or our podcaster deputy director, What
Speaker 2: are you supposed to say?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think it's funny that because of
Speaker 3: the number of podcasters that have been hired, there have
Speaker 3: been statements by people in the administration that like, there
Speaker 3: aren't going to be any more conservative podcasters because we're
Speaker 3: giving them all government jobs.
Speaker 4: Well, that's more hymns advertising dollars for us.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. I feel like this is going
Speaker 3: to be huge for us.
Speaker 2: I would like to close on three more funny news
Speaker 2: moments from the past week. Elon Musk danced around with
Speaker 2: a chainsaw at c Pack while multiple of his ex
Speaker 2: wives and baby Mama's pleaded for him on Twitter to
Speaker 2: respond to emergencies regarding his children, including that including that
Speaker 2: weird far right journalist and Babylon Be contributor who's had
Speaker 2: an increasing spat with Musk and I now I believe
Speaker 2: has filed for complete custody of their child.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean that's good luck.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess good luck.
Speaker 4: I can't think of a worse situation to be in
Speaker 4: than Elon Musk being one of your legal parents for
Speaker 4: the sake of that child. I hope that she succeeds.
Speaker 2: Tesla stock is down nearly thirty percent this month. There's
Speaker 2: been a real pressure on him because people in Europe
Speaker 2: are refusing to buy Tesla's in a boycott, you know,
Speaker 2: upset at him for doing the whole Nazi salute and
Speaker 2: being a Nazi thing. And finally, in some very sad news.
Speaker 2: A crypto trader killed himself live on a Twitter space
Speaker 2: in order to start a meme coin. Sorry sorry, on
Speaker 2: an x space in order to start a meme coin.
Speaker 2: How do we feel about this, folks? I know it's
Speaker 2: a dark time for our community.
Speaker 4: They did start the meme coin.
Speaker 2: Multiple meme coins actually were starting so well.
Speaker 4: Well done for the people cashing in and the guy
Speaker 4: shooting himself in the head and then bleeding out for
Speaker 4: thirty minutes on stream. You are vampires, I don't know,
Speaker 4: not the cool kind. No, yeah, not the not the
Speaker 4: cool kind, the evil kind, vultures. Vultures can be cool
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: I guess it depends. Well. I think that's it for us.
Speaker 2: We reported the news again.
Speaker 3: We reported the news.
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