WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 171 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.200 Al Zone Media. 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.000 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.680 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.920 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.759 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.280 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.200 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:22.959 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:24.720 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.080 Welcome Jay Knappen here a podcast that has been really, 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.839 really fucking bleak basically since Trump took office. So instead 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.000 of doing another episode about how doom Vus is, we 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.600 are taking a I don't know a field trip to 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.879 Argentina to talk about something extremely funny. And that extremely 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.599 funny thing is the Argentinian President, Javier Malai promoting a 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.840 meme coin and maybe going down for it and with 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.520 me to talk about this is really the only person 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.160 I could have on to talk about a crypto thing. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.639 Who is Molly White And I'm trying to explain who 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.200 Bally White is. My explanation of this is in the 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.000 same way that the great twentieth century marksis theorist C. 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:09.319 LR. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.120 James's book Beyond a Boundary is both universally considered to 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.839 be the best book ever written about cricket and also 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:17.640 literally calling it the thing that it is the best 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.640 book ever written about cricket is like a damning insult 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.560 to how good the actual book is. Molly is like 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.440 probably the world's best crypto journalist and writes the newsletter 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.039 citation needed also does web three is going great, which 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.600 is amazing. Everyone should go listen to it, and Molly, 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:34.679 welcome to the show. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:36.880 Thanks for having me. What an intro. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.440 I've been waiting for an opportunity to use that one 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.960 for such a long time. A great book, by the way, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.240 which everyone should both go subscribe to citation needed and 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.720 also go read Beyond the Boundary because it's great. So God, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.080 we were talking about this before the show. I had 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.080 planned this episode out before Elon Musk showed up at 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:01.680 Sea Pac with Javier Malay like with me Malay's signature chainsaw, 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.680 doing an even weirder version of Malays thinking about like 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:10.080 cutting regulation with a chainsaw. But Jesus Christ. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.680 Yeah, what a spectacle that was. 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:19.040 Oh my god, I like Steve Bannon doing the Nazi salute. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.760 Wasn't even the weirdest thing that happened there that was 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:22.679 only like day one. 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.920 Well that's overdone now you know everyone's doing it. You 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:26.919 have to do something new. 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.240 Yeah, you have to get to wander around the stage 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.920 with a chainsaw like he didn't even do the Malay thing, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:34.400 which is you have you have like a book of 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:40.880 regulations or whatever, you cut it with a chainsaws. Oh god. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.680 So I am very excited to talk about the crypto 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.240 scandal that might finally bring this administration down. However, and 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.520 I am deeply sorry. I already I apologized before this 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.880 recording started. I am deeply sorry. In order to explain 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.160 who Hoavier Malay is, I have to do the single 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.040 most difficult thing I've ever attend in my like not 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:02.919 just in my like my history as a podcast, like 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.320 that's obviously trivially true, like by my entire history doing 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.720 theoretical work in general, which is I'm about to attempt 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.320 to explain paronism in under ten minutes on four hours 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:13.639 of sleep. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.680 Let's say it. 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.320 Here, we fucking go because because to guess, that's why 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.000 you know, why we have to do this, right, Like, 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:28.000 Malay is able to take power like basically because he 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:29.880 he's like one of the first candidates in a long 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.440 time to in Argentina to run as an anti Paronist. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.280 And that may seem weird because hold on, wait, shouldn't 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.680 there always be like, okay, if you have an ideology, 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.520 shouldn't it shouldn't that the person from like either the 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.160 left right side of the political spectrum, you know, be 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.839 running against an ideology and no, no, up until basically now, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.000 both the left and the right in Georgina we're both paronists. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.320 So to get an understanding of what paranism is, we 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:57.800 need to go back not just to who who I'm 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.240 parone is, and we'll we'll we'll get to Hujuan Peron, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.320 who's like the guy this ideology is named after, and 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.200 you know, the ideology is based on like this guy 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.120 returning from exile from the military coups. But we have 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.400 to go back to one of the sort of foundational 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.240 parts of the modern Argentinian state, and that element is 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.080 the fact that Argentina has one of the most militant 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.160 workers movements in the entire world and has had it 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.440 for about a century. I was on Margaret's show, it 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.560 could happen here, and Jesus Christ not it could happen here. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:30.680 Good Lord, you tell them on. 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.000 Four US you're doing great, Thank you, thank you. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.919 I haven't even gotten we have not gotten to my 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.320 final analysis of Peronism, where that the closest thing I 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.440 can compare it to is post short cultural revolutions nineteen 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.680 seventies era China. So this is about to get so 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.680 much more unhitched. But a while back I was on 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.839 Margaret Show Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff to talk 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:58.120 about the second Argentinian giant and arcosyndy closed uprising in 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.160 about a span of four years, which was the giant 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.160 anarchist rebellion in Patagonia in nineteen twenty one nineteen twenty two. 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.080 And this is the second one because the first one 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.800 was the nineteen nineteen general strike, which ends in an 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.120 event called the Tragic Week where everyone sort of gets 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.640 killed by the military. But you know, the fact that 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.880 there's there's two in different parts of the country, enormous 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.440 and arcosndicalist uprisings in a span of about four years 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:23.599 is a demonstration of the fact that this is one 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.359 of the most billetant working classes in the world, and 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.120 any political movement that is trying to hold power in 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.280 this country is going to have to deal with the 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.440 fact that the Argentinian working class at any moment. Can 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.600 you know, if you're a factory owner, you can wake 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.440 up one day and there's a black flag flying over 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.200 your factories because your workers have seized it. And the 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.920 sort of culmination of this, and the reason this is 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.039 even still relevant today is that like the last of 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:50.400 what you would I guess you could call like the 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.840 classical twentieth century revolutions. So a line of uprising started 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.760 with like the original formation of the workers' councils in 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.120 Russia in nineteen oh five, you know, and that continues 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:00.960 to do like the occupations of factories and Itallly you 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.120 the two Red Years, and like nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen, 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:04.960 like the anarchist parts of the Spanish Revolution, with the 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.880 revolutions in Hungaria and Algeria, like you know, all like 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.440 through sixty eight, like the factor occupations in France and Italy, 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.840 and like all this whole, this whole lineage of like 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.000 the thing that happens when you do you revolution, as 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:16.840 workers occupy the factories and try to seize control of 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.440 the country. The last one of those ever was in Argentina. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.719 In two thousand and one, like everywhere else in the world, 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.160 this ship was gone, and then randomly in Argentina in 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:28.680 two thousand and one, like there's a there's a giant 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.520 one of these uprisings that is, you know, only really 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:37.239 put down by a sort of left Corona's government agreeing 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.200 to like tell I am have to fuck off, which 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.200 was like, you know, a sort of seismic change in 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:47.440 the political landscape. But all of this is to say that, Okay, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.800 if you were a capitalist in Argentina and you have 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:51.960 to deal with this, like what what do you do? 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.719 And the answer is to create the most unhinged ideology 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.360 the world has ever seen by uniting socialism and fascism 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.760 under the sea batter of Argentinian nationalists class collaboration, which 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.200 the thing that makes no sense, but you have to understand, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.920 like paroism is, oh god, protoism is simply the weirdest 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.280 ideology ever. I promise we're going to get to the 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.320 fun crypto stuff, but we have to, unfortunately do this, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:16.920 We have to do our whole work first, and part 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.040 of this is so Juan Perone, the actual guy who 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.040 who is ideologies based off is an enormously popular president 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:25.920 in like the late forties and fifties until he gets 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.040 overthrown by military coup and to get a sense of 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.040 again like how weird this guy is. Like, this is 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.680 a guy who when he comes into power a bunch 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.680 of the most famous Nazi war criminals and like not 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.120 just you know, obviously like like the famous Nazis fleet Argentina. 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:39.360 This is the whole meme about that, right, But I 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:40.960 mean we're talking about guys who do u stat si 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.920 like guys guys who literally did the Holocaust by hand, 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.600 like flee to Argentina and Drena's administration, and when a 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.080 military coup overthrows him, they flee the country. So again, 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.560 like the US back military junta is less pro Nazi 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.240 than this guy is. He is also personal friends with 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.480 Chae Guavara and consider like the Cuban Revolution to be 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.640 like part of his like revolutionary project. So a deeply 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:10.320 deeply weird, deeply weird guy. And the result of this 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.600 is that, Okay, so you have a military dictatorship through 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.440 like the fifties and the sixties, right, and like the 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.160 entire time there's a tatorship, not the entire night, but 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.440 most of the time this atatorship is happening, right, the 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.280 entire political spectrum sort of projects all of their political 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.160 energy onto we want Parone back, because Parona is remembered 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:28.920 as like the guy who like brought workers rights to 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:30.840 the country and also like gave women the right to vote, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.480 and also as you remember it as like a stable 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.280 nationalist right wing government by the rights like everyone on 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.640 like both sides the political spectrum project all of their 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.600 political aspirations into the single figure of Perome, which works 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.840 because he's not in the country, is not not there, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.959 so you know, and because he's gone, you can project 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.599 anything you want onto him. And this is to a 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.520 large extent the origin of modern populism, right, like the 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.319 you know, modern populism is the projection of all grievances 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.760 onto one guy and then having that come in take 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.199 power do constant sort of semi political mobilization to like 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.439 fix your issues. And one of the interesting threads here 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.800 is that like the theoretical origin of left populism is 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.000 very specifically Paronism, because one of the theoreticians of like 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.280 modern left populism, one of the most famous ones, is 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.520 my old nemesis, the Argentinian political philosopher and NESTL. Leclough 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.480 and his wife Chantill Moffe, who were like they were like, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:24.800 you know, these are these people were like the the 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.280 theoretical forces behind a bunch of like the European left 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.160 in this sort of euro Communism era and even up 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.839 until like like pot Daemos in Spain twenty eleven, like 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:34.880 these are the people who are the theoretical force behind 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.480 so much like left electoral stuff in the last like 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.599 fifty years. And it's all from Leclough, who was a 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.400 left paronist. So all of all the dots are going 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.520 on the pin board and while he's gone, he's this 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.880 guy that like from an American perspective, it's like imagine 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.360 that like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump from twenty sixteen 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:57.160 were both the same guy, and both sides were just 0:09:57.200 --> 0:09:59.120 trying to get this one guy to come back to 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:04.880 Argentina like fix everything. So this creates like the left 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.199 and right paronists. And when parn comes back in the 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.240 seventies and like immediately gets elected president again, the right 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.640 Paronis just I mean you literally starts slaughtering to left 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.240 Paronis in the streets, and Parne like backs the right 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.720 Paronists against the left, and you would think this would 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.640 destroy left Paranism, but no, no, Left Paronism was in 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.120 power in Argentina until like Malai's election like a few 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.439 years ago. It's so okay, So like why would you 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.960 still be a left Paronis after Parone like had all 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.040 your boys machine guns in the seventies. Part of the 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.880 reason this works also is that he dies and his 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.240 wife takes power and there's like another military coup, so 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.319 you know, he's not like in power long enough kind 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.360 of for like the disenchantment to really set in. He's 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.160 just he's in power just long enough for people to 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.000 remember it as like the break between the dictatorships. And 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.680 at this point I could finally attempt to go what's Paronism? 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.120 They're like how many minutes of like, oh god, I 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.000 think I've got over my limit of what is But okay, 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:04.719 Paron's deal is this right? 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:05.880 Like so okay? 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:07.920 Like if you're a pronus, right, and in Perona's state, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.679 everyone is supposed to be equal before the power of 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.400 the Argentinian state, And so if you're a leftist, you 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.000 focus on the everyone is going to be equal part, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:17.240 and this means on the one hand, you know, there 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.480 are there are real substantive gains for the Argentinian working 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.800 class that they didn't get under the you know, the 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.559 sort of previous administrations. And under the junta, right, you know, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.440 you have like massive expansions of workers' rights and nationalizations 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.559 of a bunch of sectors of the economy. You have 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.760 this like strategy of national development through like import substitution. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.280 There's there's like a long strain of like feminist paranism 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.200 from you know his like like him being the administration 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.120 where women got the right to vote. On the other hand, 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.480 if you're a fascist, you focus on the like before 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.640 the power of the Argentinian state part which means like 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.120 permanent class collaboration. And this this is the part of 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:54.800 the deal that brings the right in is like the 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.840 deal is that, okay, so you give the workers all 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.720 of this stuff, and you set up these really complicated 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.679 patriots networks, and you know, people have jobs and like 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.080 they have a social safety that at least in theory, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.680 and the trade off is you will never ever again 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.840 attempt to like occupy a factory or and like drive 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.120 these parasites. You run your entire life out of power. 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.679 And the second part of that is this like this hardline, 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.679 unhinged right wing like Argentinian nationalism, which is wielded against 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.760 for example, like Argentinian indigenous groups. And so I promise 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.440 the comparison to the to the Long Culture seventies Long 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.640 Culture Revolution. We've reached that point of it, so to 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.680 understand like really what this is, right, It's an active 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.160 counterinsurgency that is sort of that is waged by the 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.079 state and waged by a bunch of like parts of 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.280 the social sector to unfold this really dynamic and miilitant 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.760 workers movement into the state in such a way that 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.920 there can still be politics kind of but it won't 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.480 actually be a threat to the ruling class. And my, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.679 my sort of like closest thing to this is this 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.040 very very weird period in Chinese history between like the 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.319 end of the Short Culture Revolution in like nineteen sixty 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.920 nine and the death of Mao in seventy six, where 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.800 like the most unhinged parts of the Culture Revolution are 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.599 sort of over because Mao has set off, you know, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.560 so nineteen sixty seven, like Mao sets off this uprising 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.599 in Shanghai. He does this deliberately as part of his 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.719 strategy to game power of the party. The problem is 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.880 that control of Shanghai is no longer in the hands 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.040 of the Chinese Communist Party, like like the workers take 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.760 the city, and this is a disaster because they've all 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.599 been reading about the Paris Commune, and I think with 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.240 the Paris comunies that they had like direct elections of people. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.959 And there's a moment I actually like I found this 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.319 this moment of this transcript where Mao is talking to 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.160 Joe and Lai, and Joe and Lai is like, if 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.280 we let these people do direct elections, like it's going 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.400 to lead to anarchism, and Mao is like, oh shit, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.920 we have to stop this. So what happens is that 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.719 he wheels together this baffling coalition of like student Red 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.000 Guards and the sort of somebody some like loyal like 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.360 rebel workers factions, along with a bunch of like the 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:06.120 remaining party bureaucracy and the military, which is a coalition 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:10.320 comprised of everyone on every side of the Cultural revolution, right, 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.880 Like normally the Culture Revolution is broken down into very roughly, 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.320 there are rebel factions and there are like government factions, right, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.280 and he's he's pulled together coalition of a bunch of 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.520 elements of both of them with the explicit thing of 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.800 we are going to end the revolution. And in the 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.000 short run, what this does is it leads to the 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:28.920 back half of the Culture Revolution that people don't talk 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.440 about very much, which is instead of like everyone dying 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:34.760 because there are rebels running around, everyone's dying because the 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.400 state is killing everyone to like bring everyone back under control. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.320 And that's what most of the people die in the 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.040 Culture Revolution are killed, putting the whole thing down. If 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.160 one of trying to understand like what parenism is, right, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.960 it's this ideology of bringing together all of the different 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.120 sort of disparate political factions in a moment. Right, You're 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.240 bringing together everyone from like the fascist on the right 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.840 to like the socialists on the left, and you're bringing 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.800 them into the banner of this one guy and the 0:14:57.840 --> 0:14:59.320 same And the reason Malo was able to do this 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:03.480 is because, like he's Mao, right, every single like faction 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.240 on every side of the Culture Revolution, whatever they're trying 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.400 to do, is justifying it in the name of like, oh, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.160 this is what Mao wants, This is what Parona is doing, right, 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.800 He's drawing together the entire political spectrum in a way 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.840 that he can sort of stabilize power, take it away 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.640 from like the junta, and forge this permanent political collition. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.480 And this results in like like the sort of total 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:25.920 dominance that this ideology has a Roger tim politics means 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.760 that like basically every election in Argentina until like Malai 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:32.960 takes power is an election between the left and the 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:37.040 right paranists. And okay, okay, I'm so sorry. This finally 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.480 is the end divide attempt to explain Baronis. But we're 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.280 gonna go to ads when we come back. I'm gonna 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.680 actually do this interview that I've been promising. I am 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:58.280 so sorry. Okay, we are back. Thank you so much 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.080 for serve. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:01.760 This. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.840 This sort of brings us to like how he kind 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.040 of takes power and how you know, there's an economic crisis. 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.040 There's like all this inflation and so he comes in 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.080 on like I don't know, we were talking about this 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.440 beforehands and we're going to talk to you about this. 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.960 Like there's all these really weird parallels between this and 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.840 the American election, where it's like except the inflation in 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:26.920 Argentina is like real. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.800 Yeah, we just have this sort of like boogeyman version 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:32.960 of it. They actually have hyperinflation. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.720 Yeah, yeah, we really checked the current inflation rate. Yeah, 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.680 I think, I mean it's like several hundred percent right now. 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.560 I think I think it's like three hundred something percent, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:47.520 which is actually Lay's entire thing was that he was 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.680 going to stop inflation. It's actually it's way worse under 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:54.480 him than it was the previous like Parnas administration. Oh 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.040 there's one other thing I forgot about it, which is like, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:58.560 you know, why if you're on the left, would you 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.120 take this deal? And this also ties into like how 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:01.920 this politics? 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:02.640 How is politics? 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.520 I took over the state, which is that like you know, 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.359 there were people in Argentina like under these Prona's governments 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.680 got things that are like unimaginable here, Like there's one 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.720 that's important to me. And like obviously like it's still 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:15.640 you're still living under capitalism. A lot of it still sucks. 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.280 But like one of the things that people won under 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.800 these governments was this mandate that one percent of all 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.440 government employees had to be trans which is like unimaginable here, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.760 like like like even at the height of like you 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.800 know like sort of transacceptance or whatever. Like that's there's 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.639 what like that's that's not that's not a thing. That's 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.280 even like no one even like thinks to ask about that, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:40.359 and like yeah, like I don't know, like yeah, like 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.639 I might sell my soul to Juan Perona if it 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.479 meant that, like none of my trans friends ever had 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.240 to sleep in an alley. Again, like I you know, 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.680 but the wheels fall off of this and they put 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.000 the self described and narcro capitalists in power, which is 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.680 this is great and oh god, okay, and this finally 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.440 gets a the fun part of this. I said the 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.439 top of this episode that like he did a meme coin, right, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:09.440 can you explain what that is? Because oh god, yeah. 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.359 So meme coins are a particularly weird part of the 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.560 cryptocurrency world where they basically go out and say that 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.560 this is a token that has no inherent value, which 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.280 I mean, you know, skeptics would argue that that's true 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.240 of all cryptocurrency, but but meme coins very actively embrace 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.280 that fact, and they're often themed around a meme. So, 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.280 you know, a lot of people know of dogecoin, which 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.320 is themed about the you know, around the she but 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.760 you new dog. They're also sometimes just themed around sort 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.399 of an idea or a person or you know, just 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.960 sort of whatever is capturing the public attention at any 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.399 given moment. And the idea is that you buy in, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.639 and all of the attention causes more people to buy in, 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.119 and if you're really good at it or really lucky, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.000 you're one of the first people to buy in, and 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:56.919 so you buy in at a low price and then 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.480 you sell after everyone else has bought in and pumped 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.320 the price. Hire that's the idea. In reality, it doesn't 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.440 really work that way. It's full of insider trading and 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.440 market manipulation, and it's not sort of a fair game 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.440 where anyone has a chance to be one of those 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.680 early people. But that's sort of the shape of it 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.480 at least. And so I guess that brings us to Libra, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.159 which is the name coin that. 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:25.280 Mila was convinced I guess to endorse. 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.560 Yeah, I mean, I think this is interesting thing here too, 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.080 where it's like our government is just like a fucking 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.200 meme coin. Now, Like the thing that is it ConTroll 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.000 of the American state is Doge, the barber of government efficiency, 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:37.480 which is just the Doge coin meme. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:43.720 Like, yeah, we're in sort of a post ironic world 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.479 at this point where crypto and the US government are 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.640 somehow completely intertwined. And I guess we should probably mention 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.520 that just before Trump took office, he launched his own 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.760 meme coin, which was the Trump Token, followed very shortly 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.880 after by his wife launching the Malania And they did 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:03.800 what all good meme coins do, which is that they 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.360 spiked in price based on the original interest, and then 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.800 they lost everyone a bunch of money once the price 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.240 came back down, because with meme coins, people lose interest 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.359 and move on to the next one. And you know, 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.720 the Trump token shockingly does not have enduring value. 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:20.840 So yeah, like and that's just interesting thing about it, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.040 which is like, Okay, this is just a pump them 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.040 dump scheme. Yes, Like, it's just securities fraud. Like I 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.200 we have an entire economy based on security. Everyone doing 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.879 securities fraud, and everyone knows that securities fraud. I don't know. 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:36.960 I mean, it's it's really cynical. 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.000 Like if you actually talk to people who are deep 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:42.640 into meme coins, either creating them or trading them, there's 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.439 this broad acceptance that like, oh yeah, yeah, it's totally 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.240 a scam. People are trying to run off with the 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.639 money after they launched these tokens, Like there's all of 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:55.040 this mark manipulation happening average everyday people, who are you know, 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.359 seeing these stories about people buying in super early and 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.600 then making a million dollars out of thin air like 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.879 that never happens. Those aren't average people. Those are like 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:09.240 deeply sophisticated trading bots or people with insider knowledge. Like 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.400 everyone knows this and openly discusses it, and yet there's 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.359 still this active participation in it because the idea is 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.399 that like, Okay, sure it's a scam, but if you 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.600 get in on the scam early enough, you can be 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.200 the scammer and you can be the one who profits 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.040 and you know, screw everybody else. So it's like this 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.600 really deeply rotten, like cynical world. 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.800 Yeah, I remember you talked about this on Jamie's show 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.600 about like how just deeply nihilistic it all is. Yeah, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.000 and I think you know, I mean, it's not even 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:41.800 it used to be. You had to do metaphors to 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.280 draw a direct line between this sort of like the 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.879 nihilism of this shit and like the nihilism of putting 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.320 like the lie or like putting Trump and Elon like 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.760 in office. But now it's just I mean, they just 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.520 do the meme coin right, like there's no Yeah, the 0:21:58.680 --> 0:21:59.159 mask is. 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.640 Like fully off of crypto in the memechoin era. I think, like, yeah, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.520 it's kind of amazing. How during the previous crypto boom 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.080 in like twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, there was 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.480 this phrase that everyone was saying, which was wag me, 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:13.720 which was like we're all going to make it, and 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:15.919 the idea was like we're all going to get rich together, 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.399 everyone's gonna succeed. And now it's like they've totally like 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.239 you never hear that anymore. And now it's like, oh, 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.280 I will punch you in the face and steal your 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.000 wallet if I get the moment opportunity, and that is 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:29.360 like broadly accepted throughout the crypto world. 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:31.280 Yeah, you know, and like that that is also like 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.360 what Malai has been doing to like everyone in Argentina 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:37.800 right like his his thing came in is he I mean, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:38.960 I got one of the things I remember from like 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:40.960 the very first days he was in offices, he was 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.639 talking about all this stuff about how they were going 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:45.560 to take away will for benefits from anyone who was 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.480 arrested at protest. Yeah, and like that didn't start. There's 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:50.960 been massive protests like basically since the moment he took power. 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:55.560 But you know, like it's just this really deeply cynical, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.919 very explicit thing of like pitting like everyone in society 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.439 against each other. Like you know, like making this argument 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:04.080 too is like a crime thic article about this word. 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:05.800 It's like they, you know, like he's very explicitly making 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.240 this argument. They're like, well, Okay, if you're like a 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:10.560 private sector worker and you're making no money, the reason 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.040 you're making no money is because wages are too high. 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.240 In the public sector, it's because taxes are too high, 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:17.440 and if taxes and corporations were lower, they would pay 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.920 you more. It's like, yeah, no, but if it fits 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.880 into this sort of like pure nihilism of like, yeah, 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:26.040 everyone trying to grift each other, and it's i. 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.760 Mean, it's really recognizable here in the United States too, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.080 where it's the same story of like, oh, you're not 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.359 making enough money because you know, people are stealing your 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.040 tax money and it's going to you know, people who 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.080 don't deserve it, or it's going to these programs to 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:42.879 fund foreign aid instead of people in the United States 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:45.120 or you know, it's like very much trying to pit 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:47.960 everyone against one another so that you don't notice that 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:50.479 the person who's actually taking the money is the guy 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:52.520 who launched the meme coin or the people who have 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:53.640 the insider information. 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:53.960 You know. 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.320 It's like this very direct mirror of what is happening 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.560 in society, and yet it's like so obvious. 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:03.440 The problem that we have is like I think people 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:07.600 do probably recognize that, like everyone who is rich got 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.960 rich by fucking robbing people. But instead of trying to 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:13.560 do anything about that, the solution that's being positive by 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:15.280 these people is like, well, instead of you just being 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:17.720 scammed all the time, like you could be the scam artist. 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:19.840 You could be the robbery. Yeah, Like that's. 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:21.320 Like the new scam instead of like, you know, because 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:23.680 like organizing is fucking hard, right, and like attempting to 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:25.440 fight these people is really hard. They have all the money, 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:27.040 they have all the power, they have the police, they 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.560 have the military, and so you get like this shit 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:34.080 on the other hand, sometimes in backfires because these people 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:38.120 like are like all in enough on this fucking meme 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:40.440 cooin shit to like run it. So yeah, let's let's 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.680 talk about this specific mean coin Libra. Yeah. 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:47.840 So it's kind of a weird example of a meme coin, 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:50.840 because you know, most meme coins, the idea is like 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:53.560 this has no intrinsic value, this has no purpose. You 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:55.920 just gamble on the token price and hope for the best. 0:24:56.440 --> 0:25:00.280 Libra was ostensibly supposed to actually have some sort of 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:04.040 point to it, making it much unlike most of the 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:06.600 meme coins, but it was still you know, basically a 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:09.320 meme coin under the hood. But the idea was that like, 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:13.720 somehow some of the profits from this Libra token we're 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:19.359 going to be put towards supporting Argentine entrepreneurs or something 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:22.040 like that. There was this sort of like social benefit 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:24.920 side to it, where which was all very vague and 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:27.639 like they're very little detail, like you know, you never 0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:30.639 really know what these things what is actually supposed to happen. 0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:32.840 But that was the story, is that like this is 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:36.000 going to support Argentine entrepreneurs and it's going to funnel 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:37.639 money to their projects and all this. 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:40.159 It almost feels like an older kind of scam, Like 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:42.640 it reminds me of like an NFT scam. We're like, yeah, 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:44.760 they'll they'll be like ah, so we're in the future 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.000 we're going to make a game and you're all going 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:50.600 to put it. It's like that thing, but they brought 0:25:50.640 --> 0:25:51.840 it back for one last ride. 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:52.919 Right. 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:56.040 It's like the historical, like twenty twenty era crypto scam 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:58.240 where it was like, look, we have this beautiful roadmap 0:25:58.320 --> 0:25:59.760 of all these things we're going to do, and we're 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:02.600 going to give you gifts and rewards. And then it's 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:03.920 like okay, but how is it going to work? And 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:06.040 they're like, Oh, don't worry about it, we'll tell you later. 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:08.800 Just give us your money now. And that was kind 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:12.920 of the idea with the libri coin. But basically the 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:16.440 team behind it had some folks who were involved in 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:20.159 something called tech Forum Argentina, which was like a group 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.919 of tech entrepreneurs with this sort of like blockchain angle 0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:28.000 to it, who had access to Malay via this sort 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:30.800 of project that was happening in Argentina where you could 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:33.440 like pay to come to this conference and Malay was 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:35.359 going to be there and all this, and so they 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:39.480 joined forces with some meme coin guys who had a 0:26:39.560 --> 0:26:42.800 lot of experience launching other meme coin projects, including the 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:47.560 Malania token, including the Enron token, which was literally launched 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:52.160 by someone who purchased the trademark rights to the Enron company. 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:53.680 I forgot about that. 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:56.000 Oh yeah, yeah, that came back. 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:58.840 To haunt us, and so they all joined forces and 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:01.840 launched this meme coin, and they were able to get 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:06.760 President Mila to promote the meme coin on his Twitter 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:10.240 account by saying like, here's this Libra project. It's going 0:27:10.320 --> 0:27:14.760 to support Argentinine entrepreneurs. Here's the contract address. Buy in, 0:27:15.520 --> 0:27:19.040 And so everyone got super excited because a president had 0:27:19.119 --> 0:27:22.520 just endorsed a meme coin, and he unfortunately was too 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:24.680 slow to be the first president to do such a thing, 0:27:24.840 --> 0:27:27.399 with Trump beating him to that particular record. 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:31.439 But actually, I actually can't believe I blankey on his name, 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:35.360 the guy Nol Salvador hadn't pulled one yet. Oh yeah, Bukeley, 0:27:36.240 --> 0:27:38.160 I'm like stunned he hadn't done it yet. 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:41.760 Yeah, it's probably because he's a real bitcoiner and bitcoin 0:27:41.880 --> 0:27:45.359 maximalists are not a huge fan of any other cryptocurrencies. 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:47.080 That would be my guess. But yeah, it is a 0:27:47.080 --> 0:27:48.360 little surprising. Yeah. 0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:48.840 Oh. 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:51.840 Also, okay, there's another run hinged angle here which I 0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:54.440 want to briefly mention because it's extremely funny. One of 0:27:54.440 --> 0:27:56.320 my good friends, Julie point to bt which is part 0:27:56.359 --> 0:27:58.560 of the thing that's like originally, originally maybe you want 0:27:58.600 --> 0:28:00.920 to do this is that So one of the people 0:28:00.960 --> 0:28:03.399 who was like involved in like this hookup process with 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:06.439 like the crypto people was this guy named Augustine Lahay 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:09.080 who's like this very very famous conservative writer and he's 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:12.040 the guy who like introduced the concept of gender ideology 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:14.680 to Argentina. So he's like one of and one of 0:28:14.760 --> 0:28:16.920 what lays like big things is like being a turf 0:28:17.040 --> 0:28:19.720 all the time, right, And the guy who like got 0:28:19.800 --> 0:28:22.280 all of these people into turf shit is like the 0:28:22.359 --> 0:28:25.119 guy who introduced him to this fucking crypto scamp, and 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:27.280 he might have to sell him out in order to 0:28:27.359 --> 0:28:31.640 get out of the cryptoscamp bullshit, which is just oh god, 0:28:33.320 --> 0:28:34.840 trans people getting our revenge. 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:36.760 You love to see it. 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:40.000 Speaking of crypto scams, we should take one more ad 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:42.760 break before we get into all of the rest of 0:28:42.840 --> 0:28:57.080 this bullshit. We are back to the main story of 0:28:57.600 --> 0:29:01.680 the really unprecedented access is a ministration has given the 0:29:01.720 --> 0:29:04.840 crypto people. Can you talk a bit about like who 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:07.600 the like who the people involved in this are, because 0:29:07.600 --> 0:29:09.920 it's a lot of like very very large like players 0:29:09.960 --> 0:29:10.600 in this world. 0:29:11.360 --> 0:29:14.360 Yeah, so, I mean it's still sort of coming out 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:17.760 like who exactly was involved and to what degree they 0:29:17.840 --> 0:29:21.080 were involved, but it's really starting to look like the 0:29:22.400 --> 0:29:25.800 creation of this meme coin was spearheaded by a bunch 0:29:25.880 --> 0:29:29.120 of guys at a group called Kelsey or Ventures that 0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:31.160 has been involved in, like I said, launching a bunch 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:34.400 of these tokens, and that's sort of a family run operation. 0:29:34.680 --> 0:29:37.720 There's a guy named doctor Tom and then his two sons, 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:39.920 Hayden and Gideon. 0:29:39.960 --> 0:29:45.760 I believe that lady named Kitty Jesus Rice like oh no, 0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:51.880 making these guys in a lab, and you know they're 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:54.200 they're kind of young guys, like Hayden is like twenty 0:29:54.280 --> 0:29:56.680 eight or something like that, which is you know, typical 0:29:56.760 --> 0:29:57.880 for the crypto world, I guess. 0:29:58.000 --> 0:30:02.400 But yeah, and so Hayden Davis is the mastermind behind 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:05.760 much of the launch, but they're working very closely with 0:30:05.880 --> 0:30:08.040 a bunch of other people in the crypto world. And 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:10.000 that's something that they sort of have to do with 0:30:10.120 --> 0:30:13.440 these big, splashy token launches, you know, the Trump token. 0:30:13.480 --> 0:30:15.640 I had to do this as well, where you can't 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:17.760 just show up as like a president and launch a 0:30:17.840 --> 0:30:21.560 meme coin and expect everything will just work, because when 0:30:21.960 --> 0:30:24.400 that many people all try to buy a token at once, 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:26.440 you know, you need someone on the other end to 0:30:26.560 --> 0:30:29.840 actually be selling the tokens. And you know, there's all 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:33.200 of this infrastructure behind it that goes into these launches, 0:30:33.280 --> 0:30:35.840 and so you need people to do the market making, 0:30:36.000 --> 0:30:38.840 and there's the liquidity providers, and there's all these you know, 0:30:39.640 --> 0:30:43.120 projects under the hood that are that are involved. And 0:30:43.560 --> 0:30:45.800 it's beginning to look like a lot of those people 0:30:45.960 --> 0:30:49.160 were deeply involved in these token launches in ways that 0:30:49.800 --> 0:30:54.400 was perhaps not entirely proper. Yeah, I know, propriety around 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:56.840 mem coin launches is maybe a lot to expect, but 0:30:57.680 --> 0:31:01.120 you know, we're there's sort of talks out how one 0:31:01.160 --> 0:31:03.600 of the co founders of a project called Mediora, which 0:31:03.720 --> 0:31:07.600 is one of these huge liquidity platforms and also a 0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:10.160 place where people are actually buying these tokens, can. 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:13.120 You explain like what a liquidity platform is for listeners. 0:31:13.400 --> 0:31:13.560 Yeah. 0:31:13.680 --> 0:31:16.280 Yeah, so it's it's basically sort of what I what 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:18.440 I suggested, which is that like if you go out 0:31:18.480 --> 0:31:22.280 and launch a token and you don't do any prep 0:31:22.560 --> 0:31:25.320 when someone goes to buy that token there's or sell 0:31:25.400 --> 0:31:27.400 that token there's there's no one on the other side 0:31:27.440 --> 0:31:29.760 of that trade. You need some amount of liquidity in 0:31:29.840 --> 0:31:32.160 the markets when you start off. 0:31:32.400 --> 0:31:33.959 Yeah, so they're like, there have to be like there 0:31:34.000 --> 0:31:35.520 have to be like actual tokens that you can sell 0:31:35.560 --> 0:31:35.880 to people. 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:39.320 Just yeah, and if someone, you know, if someone buys 0:31:39.360 --> 0:31:40.880 one of your tokens, they want to be able to 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:43.600 sell it to someone as well. And so you need 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:46.200 to be able to sort of absorb that kind of 0:31:46.280 --> 0:31:49.120 trading without just assuming that, you know, out of thin air. 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:51.760 These people will exist on both sides of the trade, 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:54.760 and so there are these projects called liquidity providers where 0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:58.520 you know, sometimes it's like big firms will provide liquidity 0:31:58.600 --> 0:32:01.080 and they'll step in in that role, and that's sort 0:32:01.120 --> 0:32:04.000 of the market maker end of things. Mediora is a 0:32:04.040 --> 0:32:09.040 little bit unusual in that they do like decentralized liquidity provision, 0:32:09.120 --> 0:32:11.240 which I'm not going to go into too much detail 0:32:11.240 --> 0:32:12.640 about because it's very mind numbing. 0:32:12.760 --> 0:32:15.000 But it's also so funny that like the terms that 0:32:15.080 --> 0:32:17.960 have taken hold for these things like are financial terms, 0:32:18.040 --> 0:32:20.080 and it's like, yeah, it's like like this is not 0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:23.560 liquidity in the sense of like does the US government 0:32:23.640 --> 0:32:25.640 have cash on hand to pay something? This is like 0:32:26.120 --> 0:32:30.280 are there these like stupid little weird program things to 0:32:30.480 --> 0:32:32.400 like move other programs around. 0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:34.120 Yeah, and it's not even. 0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:36.120 Dollars, you know, we're not We're not talking about real 0:32:36.240 --> 0:32:38.920 dollars here. We're talking about like people providing you one 0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:42.600 fake token in exchange for another fake token. But I 0:32:42.640 --> 0:32:46.080 think they very much intentionally use the traditional financial terms 0:32:46.120 --> 0:32:48.360 to sort of lend a degree of legitimacy to it 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:50.560 and cover up the fact that, like, oh and if 0:32:50.560 --> 0:32:53.200 you're a liquidity provider and you just like siphon all 0:32:53.240 --> 0:32:55.120 the liquidity out of there, you've just made a ton 0:32:55.160 --> 0:32:57.680 of money in a total scam. But it sounds legit 0:32:57.760 --> 0:33:00.520 because it's a liquidity provider and it's something that exists 0:33:00.560 --> 0:33:04.000 in like traditional finance. But yeah, so there's this Mediora 0:33:04.120 --> 0:33:09.000 project where that liquidity operation all happens, and you know, 0:33:09.120 --> 0:33:12.720 Mediora was deeply sort of involved in some of these 0:33:12.800 --> 0:33:17.360 big token launches like trump token was starting out on Mediora. 0:33:17.680 --> 0:33:21.160 Milania started out there, this Libra token started out there, 0:33:21.920 --> 0:33:24.160 and now it seems like the co founder was like 0:33:24.920 --> 0:33:29.719 very closely connected to this Hayden guy, He even supposedly 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:34.600 introduced the Milania team to Hayden Davis, the Kelcier guy. 0:33:35.440 --> 0:33:38.080 Sounds like, you know, according to some of the allegations 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:40.960 out there, he was personally involved in a lot of 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:43.680 this early insider trading that I'm sure we'll get into 0:33:43.800 --> 0:33:46.440 when it comes to Libratoken and why everything went so wrong. 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:49.880 And it seems like there is this sort of network 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:53.560 of people throughout this meme coin world who are running 0:33:53.600 --> 0:33:56.640 these big platforms and who are making connections and all 0:33:56.720 --> 0:34:00.800 of that, who are personally insider trading a lot of 0:34:00.880 --> 0:34:04.400 these big token launches, so that when those people who 0:34:04.440 --> 0:34:06.920 were buying it up early and making all this money, 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:09.640 it's like, oh, yeah, that's the guy who runs Metiora. 0:34:10.320 --> 0:34:12.200 This happens so much in the crypto world, and I 0:34:12.280 --> 0:34:15.080 should stop being surprised every time it happens. But what 0:34:15.280 --> 0:34:18.279 happened is when the co founder of Metiora stepped down, 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:22.080 the other co founder, who was like previously not really known, 0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:25.040 stepped up and was like, hey, I'm the other co founder, 0:34:25.080 --> 0:34:27.719 and he released this whole statement about how Ben Chow, 0:34:27.880 --> 0:34:30.560 the co founder who stepped down, was, you know, he 0:34:30.640 --> 0:34:33.399 thought he was totally innocent of all this and nothing 0:34:33.480 --> 0:34:36.080 shady was happening at Metiora et cetera. The other co 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:38.840 founder who just like came out of the woodwork. He 0:34:39.000 --> 0:34:42.400 runs Jupiter, which is the other it's like the ostensible 0:34:42.440 --> 0:34:44.880 Metiora competitor. It's like, oh yeah, it's all just the 0:34:45.000 --> 0:34:48.640 same people, you know, behind the scenes. And you know, 0:34:49.080 --> 0:34:51.640 some of the insiders who were sort of whistleblowing on 0:34:51.719 --> 0:34:53.480 this were saying, oh yeah, the Jupiter guys were all 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:56.360 insider trading too. The Metiora guys are insider trading, like 0:34:56.400 --> 0:35:00.080 they're all trading against you. So it's really exposed a 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:03.280 lot of the rot in this sort of meme coin world, 0:35:03.640 --> 0:35:06.560 in all of this infrastructure and the fact that like 0:35:06.640 --> 0:35:08.560 oh yeah, yeah, when you're buying meme coins like you 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.719 are playing in a rigged casino, which has certainly not 0:35:11.840 --> 0:35:14.440 done any favors to the meme coin reputation, but certainly 0:35:14.520 --> 0:35:16.160 also to Malays as well. 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:19.520 Yes, well, let's let's get into like Malay's involvements in this. 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:21.560 Can you give you lamps to the timeline of this, 0:35:21.719 --> 0:35:23.440 because it's so funny. 0:35:24.160 --> 0:35:27.120 Yeah, it's a little wild, so unlike the Trump token, 0:35:27.200 --> 0:35:29.719 Malay did not launch this token. He was not the 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:33.600 mastermind behind it. It's not clear how much he really 0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:36.640 knew about the team behind it or what they were doing, 0:35:36.800 --> 0:35:42.040 but he was certainly convinced to endorse this token and 0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:45.040 you know, pump it up on Twitter and all of this. 0:35:45.200 --> 0:35:48.399 And again, this is not an unusual thing for meme 0:35:48.480 --> 0:35:50.400 coins to do. I mean, it's unusual for them to 0:35:50.400 --> 0:35:53.960 find a president, but apparently not now, Like it was 0:35:54.040 --> 0:35:58.040 true it was unusual for them to find a present. 0:35:58.840 --> 0:36:01.080 But you know, there's this whole process with meme coins 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:04.400 where they try to find influential people to talk about 0:36:04.480 --> 0:36:07.640 them to drive the interest in the token. And so 0:36:08.400 --> 0:36:12.080 they will hire celebrities or people who are influential in 0:36:12.120 --> 0:36:14.960 the crypto world or you know, anyone with some degree 0:36:15.040 --> 0:36:20.200 of a platform to promote a token, and ostensibly they're 0:36:20.200 --> 0:36:23.160 supposed to disclose that they are being paid. 0:36:22.960 --> 0:36:24.840 To promote the token. They rarely do. 0:36:25.680 --> 0:36:30.760 Yeah, it is technically illegal, but like rarely rarely enforced 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:35.080 for for someone to promote a token without disclosure. One 0:36:35.120 --> 0:36:37.360 of the very few cases where it was enforced was 0:36:37.360 --> 0:36:39.080 against Kim Kardashian aivolts. 0:36:39.239 --> 0:36:42.440 Yeah, although that that SIT's all gone now. 0:36:42.719 --> 0:36:45.680 Yeah, and that was years ago before the SEC was 0:36:45.719 --> 0:36:47.960 bought by the crypto companies and so yeah, and. 0:36:48.040 --> 0:36:50.600 Like I mean they literally like I think, like yesterday 0:36:51.360 --> 0:36:53.680 it was that this Yeah, was it yesterday as we're recording, 0:36:53.680 --> 0:36:56.320 this recording is on Friday? Was it yesterday that the 0:36:56.520 --> 0:36:59.759 the is it the SEC the SEC that dropped the 0:36:59.800 --> 0:37:01.040 case sainst Coinbase. 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:03.640 SEC and that was today yeah, this morning to day. 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:04.279 Oh my god. 0:37:04.440 --> 0:37:04.640 Yeah. 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.000 Yeah, And I mean we're seeing this everywhere. 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:10.439 But the SEC has paused a case against Binance, which 0:37:10.560 --> 0:37:14.239 had involved allegations of actual fraud, not just the sort 0:37:14.239 --> 0:37:16.440 of like minor securities law violation. 0:37:17.080 --> 0:37:19.400 Fraud is also actually of the securities law violation. 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:19.680 Yeah. 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:21.000 Those those are all, by the way, a bunch of 0:37:21.080 --> 0:37:23.960 like very very like like by Ins and like Coinbase, 0:37:24.120 --> 0:37:26.640 like the biggest players in like the regular crypto market. 0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:29.759 Yeah, Finance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. 0:37:29.960 --> 0:37:32.680 Coinbase is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. 0:37:33.080 --> 0:37:36.839 Coinbase spent over seventy five million dollars on the most 0:37:36.920 --> 0:37:40.960 recent political cycle in the US and now is reaping 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:44.560 the rewards by having the SEC case against them dropped. 0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:46.800 So I would not expect much in the way of 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:51.719 SEC enforcement against crypto founders or companies. Yeah, especially given 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:56.000 that they have also installed crypto friendly people at the SEC. 0:37:56.360 --> 0:38:00.400 At the CFTC. The CFTC nominee for chair is an 0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:03.840 Andreson Horowitz, guy who is advising them on crypto policy. 0:38:04.000 --> 0:38:05.440 Like it's totally rotten now. 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:06.040 Yeah. 0:38:06.080 --> 0:38:08.240 Well, and also with the actual guy running the government 0:38:08.320 --> 0:38:11.040 right now is Elon Musk, who is you know, like 0:38:11.640 --> 0:38:13.560 what are their boys? 0:38:13.800 --> 0:38:16.400 Yeah, and the guy who's ostensibly running the project has 0:38:16.480 --> 0:38:18.920 his own meme coin project, so I suspect he's not 0:38:19.000 --> 0:38:21.920 going to be super keen on anyone enforcing laws against 0:38:21.960 --> 0:38:23.919 meme cooin operations either. 0:38:24.040 --> 0:38:24.200 Yeah. 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:27.160 Good god, it's such a mess. 0:38:27.920 --> 0:38:28.000 Ye. 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:32.160 Back to Argentina before we get lost in despair. 0:38:32.520 --> 0:38:33.080 Oh god. 0:38:34.400 --> 0:38:34.600 Yeah. 0:38:34.760 --> 0:38:38.680 So, so basically, you know, the coin launches, me lay, 0:38:39.280 --> 0:38:41.680 you know, fires off a tweet about how this is 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:44.600 such a great meme coin, and you know, he he 0:38:44.680 --> 0:38:46.719 gives the token address so you can all go buy it, 0:38:47.360 --> 0:38:50.600 and then very early on it becomes clear that there 0:38:50.680 --> 0:38:54.320 is some degree of insider trading happening. So, you know, 0:38:54.440 --> 0:38:57.200 the beauty and the horror of crypto is that it's 0:38:57.200 --> 0:38:58.840 all recorded on a public blockchain. 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:00.560 People can look. 0:39:00.480 --> 0:39:03.840 At who is doing the early trades and these tokens, 0:39:04.480 --> 0:39:08.759 and it fairly quickly becomes apparent that the wallets that 0:39:08.880 --> 0:39:11.759 are that were involved in launching the token, and so 0:39:12.239 --> 0:39:14.799 the ones that are being controlled by the people who 0:39:15.280 --> 0:39:18.120 you know actually created this token and are promoting it, 0:39:18.680 --> 0:39:22.360 are also involved in this early sniping of the token. 0:39:22.560 --> 0:39:24.200 And sniping is when. 0:39:25.280 --> 0:39:29.719 You use crypto trading bots, you know, like automated programs 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:34.480 to buy up the tokens very early on at low, low, 0:39:34.520 --> 0:39:38.040 low prices, you know, earlier than any human could reasonably 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:40.240 be expected to go but hit the buy button. 0:39:40.719 --> 0:39:42.840 Yeah, it's the thing that like fucking ticket scalpers do 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:44.480 or like, like the reason why you can't buy a 0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:47.440 PS five is that all these trading bots get in 0:39:47.719 --> 0:39:49.200 like immediately exactly. 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:52.000 It's one hundred percent analogous to that. But in the 0:39:52.080 --> 0:39:54.160 case of these trading bots, you know, often they have 0:39:54.560 --> 0:39:57.920 insider information, they have the contract address before it's public, 0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:00.640 so that they can be like split stack and on 0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:03.479 it to buy these tokens early, and then they usually 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.239 dump them really early too. So you know, if if 0:40:06.360 --> 0:40:09.160 Melea tweets about ameme coin. The price shoots up within 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:12.960 minutes of this thing launching, and within minutes these snipers 0:40:13.040 --> 0:40:17.280 sell off and they make millions of dollars, often in profits. 0:40:17.880 --> 0:40:21.040 And it is that selling that often causes the price 0:40:21.120 --> 0:40:24.359 to crash right back down again, causing those average people 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:26.959 who thought that they were early to be the ones 0:40:27.200 --> 0:40:30.640 basically subsidizing the folks who make. 0:40:30.600 --> 0:40:32.160 Millions of dollars off these launches. 0:40:32.520 --> 0:40:33.319 Like it's pupp a dump. 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:36.640 It's just literally just a puppe dump, Like it's just fraud, 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:39.960 Like I just right, I don't know, like I just 0:40:40.480 --> 0:40:44.080 this is my my like old like twenty ten cents 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:47.080 of ethics emerging here, which apparently doesn't exist in the 0:40:47.120 --> 0:40:49.800 sort of bold new world, is like nihilism, Like this 0:40:50.000 --> 0:40:51.120 is just fraud. 0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:54.000 Yeah no, And like people talk about, you know, we 0:40:54.080 --> 0:40:57.760 need cryptoregulations, like you don't need any new regulations. Fraud 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:01.320 is still fraud, Like stealing from people is illegal. But 0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:03.319 that's like a whole seperate point. 0:41:03.560 --> 0:41:06.400 This entire thing. When everyone was doing this on Wall Street, 0:41:06.480 --> 0:41:08.279 it like crashed the economy a bunch of times. We 0:41:08.360 --> 0:41:10.080 were like, holy shit, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to 0:41:10.120 --> 0:41:12.840 do this, But I don't know, capitalism is such that 0:41:12.880 --> 0:41:14.839 you could just buy the governments and now all your 0:41:14.920 --> 0:41:17.279 follow You're like, fraud schemes are legal, right if you 0:41:17.360 --> 0:41:18.240 do it on the blackchain? 0:41:18.360 --> 0:41:19.719 Crime is legal apparently. 0:41:20.040 --> 0:41:20.239 Yeah. 0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:22.839 But yeah, so you know there's this there's this really 0:41:23.200 --> 0:41:27.000 early scandal where it's like, oh, you know, insiders are 0:41:27.040 --> 0:41:30.080 trading this token. Everyone's calling it a rug pull because 0:41:30.200 --> 0:41:34.200 that's like the cloak wheal term for when someone launches 0:41:34.239 --> 0:41:36.279 a project and then steals all the money. And it 0:41:36.520 --> 0:41:39.759 certainly looks like that's what's happening. And so Melay very 0:41:39.840 --> 0:41:43.240 quickly distances himself from the project. He deletes the tweet 0:41:43.320 --> 0:41:46.320 that he made and he sends out a new tweet saying, basically, 0:41:46.440 --> 0:41:48.879 I didn't know anything about these guys. I don't really 0:41:49.000 --> 0:41:51.520 know what their project is. I just thought it was this, 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:55.880 you know, cool thing that was gonna support Argentinian businesses. 0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:59.880 I you know, I renounced all affiliation with it, basically. 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:02.799 And then he of course like blames his political opponents 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:05.640 for trying to weaponize this against him, and you know, 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:08.680 he goes very much shout swinging on people, being like, 0:42:08.760 --> 0:42:11.120 I can't believe you're taking advantage of this scam to 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:12.640 come after my reputation. 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:15.080 Oh the pronus made me do it. 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:19.000 Oh yeah right, He's like, this is all your fault somehow. 0:42:20.160 --> 0:42:24.359 So anyway, you know, that all happens, and it sort 0:42:24.400 --> 0:42:28.440 of launches the project into chaos because the way that 0:42:28.560 --> 0:42:30.719 the people on the inside are talking about it, and 0:42:31.040 --> 0:42:33.880 huge grain of salt here, because you know, these are 0:42:33.920 --> 0:42:36.560 people who are potentially admitting to their crimes. 0:42:36.680 --> 0:42:39.520 Well it also like these are professional liars, like their 0:42:39.680 --> 0:42:41.960 job is to lie to people for a living, like 0:42:42.120 --> 0:42:43.440 it's and yeah. 0:42:43.280 --> 0:42:45.200 And several of the things that they've said have already 0:42:45.239 --> 0:42:47.759 been proven to be untrue. So like a huge, huge, 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:50.560 huge grain of salt here. But their story is that, oh, 0:42:50.960 --> 0:42:54.640 we were sniping the token yes, but it's not bad 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:57.640 because we were doing it to try to protect people 0:42:57.760 --> 0:43:01.360 from the other token snipers who show up on launches 0:43:01.440 --> 0:43:04.200 like this, Like we didn't no. 0:43:04.280 --> 0:43:05.080 No, you know what I said. 0:43:05.160 --> 0:43:06.160 We had to do. 0:43:06.200 --> 0:43:08.200 The scam to save you from the other people who 0:43:08.239 --> 0:43:09.680 were trying to do the same scan. 0:43:10.000 --> 0:43:12.439 You're not even exaggerating. That's literally what they said. 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:14.560 That's so good. 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:17.680 And so they come up with this like hair brain 0:43:17.880 --> 0:43:20.960 theory where they're like Okay, if we snipe the tokens early, 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:25.120 we can stop other token snipers from accumulating these huge 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:27.720 piles of the tokens and then dumping them and causing 0:43:27.760 --> 0:43:30.319 the whole thing to crash. And so you know, they 0:43:30.400 --> 0:43:34.160 will be limited to sniping smaller quantities that won't totally 0:43:34.239 --> 0:43:37.240 wreck the whole you know, chart basically and cause. 0:43:37.080 --> 0:43:37.799 It to go to zero. 0:43:38.320 --> 0:43:41.640 And then we'll take our accumulated pile of tokens and 0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:46.319 like slowly seed it back in to try to stabilize 0:43:46.400 --> 0:43:49.640 the chart. I mean, it's like blatant manipulating market manipulation 0:43:49.760 --> 0:43:53.480 that they're describing, like in defending themselves against allegations that 0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:56.000 they're committing crimes, they're admitting to new crimes. 0:43:56.120 --> 0:43:57.560 It's like this whole thing. 0:43:58.200 --> 0:43:59.800 But that's the story is that they were like, we 0:43:59.880 --> 0:44:03.160 have to do this to protect the chart. And the 0:44:03.320 --> 0:44:05.200 idea was that, like Melay was going to make this 0:44:05.480 --> 0:44:09.160 video promoting the token even more, and at that point 0:44:09.280 --> 0:44:10.759 they were going to put all this money that they 0:44:10.800 --> 0:44:13.520 had taken back into the project. But of course that 0:44:13.680 --> 0:44:16.600 video never came because Meulay had already cut his losses 0:44:16.640 --> 0:44:18.279 and was like, I don't want anything to do with this, 0:44:18.880 --> 0:44:21.680 and so now the guys who launched this token are 0:44:21.719 --> 0:44:26.160 sitting on like, ostensibly one hundred million dollars worth of tokens. 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:30.279 I use the word ostensibly because it's crypto and the 0:44:30.400 --> 0:44:33.560 numbers aren't real, and you know, there's really not one 0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:34.840 hundred million dollars. 0:44:34.600 --> 0:44:35.520 Floating around in there. 0:44:35.640 --> 0:44:35.839 Yeah. 0:44:35.920 --> 0:44:38.000 People again people talk about how this is like a 0:44:38.040 --> 0:44:41.399 four point five billion dollar crypto scam. There was never 0:44:41.560 --> 0:44:44.479 four point five billion dollars in this. It's all fake money. 0:44:44.680 --> 0:44:47.799 But like the it is true that there were people 0:44:47.840 --> 0:44:51.840 who put real money into this. They got totally scammed, 0:44:51.960 --> 0:44:54.120 basically taken for a ride because they thought that they 0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:55.960 might be able to make money on it because the 0:44:56.040 --> 0:44:59.239 President endorsed it, because they thought there was this, you know, 0:44:59.680 --> 0:45:03.400 some legitimate scheme behind it to go to Argentinian businesses. 0:45:03.920 --> 0:45:05.680 They lost their money and it all went to this 0:45:05.760 --> 0:45:08.759 guy Hayden Williams, who is you know, connected to Mela, 0:45:09.320 --> 0:45:12.880 who has some degree of influence with Malay, who claimed 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:14.240 in text messages. 0:45:13.840 --> 0:45:15.239 That he controls Mela. 0:45:15.480 --> 0:45:17.799 Oh my god, yeah, but what use the N word 0:45:18.080 --> 0:45:22.239 by the way, these two, yeah, like who these people are? 0:45:22.560 --> 0:45:24.239 Like this is this is this is a white guy, 0:45:24.320 --> 0:45:26.560 using the N word like Ica is like whiter than 0:45:26.600 --> 0:45:28.480 I am, and using the N word to say that. 0:45:30.480 --> 0:45:31.000 Not great. 0:45:32.520 --> 0:45:34.719 He said in this text message that was leaked that 0:45:35.120 --> 0:45:38.040 he was sending money to Mela's sister, who is very 0:45:38.080 --> 0:45:41.880 influential and who sort of is Meala's right hand sister, 0:45:42.480 --> 0:45:44.640 you know, sent money to her, and that as a 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:47.080 result of that, Melee will do anything that I want. 0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:49.000 He'll say what I want, he'll tweet what I want, 0:45:49.080 --> 0:45:52.239 He'll you know, he's my puppet basically. Of course, Mela 0:45:52.440 --> 0:45:56.040 was very unhappy about this characterization, but it seems like 0:45:56.120 --> 0:45:58.959 there's money trading hims behind the scenes, even though Mela 0:45:59.200 --> 0:46:03.960 was not, you know, behind the token directly. And you know, 0:46:04.040 --> 0:46:06.560 this has all resulted in somewhat of a political scandal 0:46:06.600 --> 0:46:10.480 for Ula, which is both surprising that like, of all 0:46:10.560 --> 0:46:13.000 things that could have caused a political scandal for Meula, 0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:14.759 there are so many things to choose from, and this 0:46:14.960 --> 0:46:18.960 is what it was. But you know, he's now facing 0:46:19.040 --> 0:46:22.080 these these allegations that he was complicit in the fraud, 0:46:22.320 --> 0:46:25.000 that he should be impeached. Even you know, there's some 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:28.440 rumblings among the opposition party about trying to start some 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:31.680 sort of impeachment proceedings against him, and it's all gone 0:46:31.840 --> 0:46:33.399 very south, very quickly for him. 0:46:33.480 --> 0:46:37.200 I think, God, it really would be so incredibly funny 0:46:37.200 --> 0:46:38.640 if this is the thing that brings him down. I 0:46:38.680 --> 0:46:43.360 don't know if it will. But also like I don't know, 0:46:43.800 --> 0:46:46.960 this is one of these, like an even bigger way 0:46:47.120 --> 0:46:49.800 than like the Trump plane crashes are like a political 0:46:49.920 --> 0:46:52.600 fucking godsend, like handed down to the opposition, and the 0:46:52.640 --> 0:46:55.200 Democrats aren't don't use it right because you know they're 0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:58.320 the Democrats, right, instead of just like doing instead of 0:46:58.320 --> 0:46:59.759 doing a thing I would do, which is starting literally 0:47:00.000 --> 0:47:02.840 free speech with fucking no cops, no kings, no crashes. 0:47:03.880 --> 0:47:05.920 They're like they're like, no atiuty. But like this is 0:47:06.040 --> 0:47:09.759 like if you were like a Catholic opponent of this administration, 0:47:09.960 --> 0:47:12.720 like this is like fucking God like reaching a giant 0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:14.759 hand down and going, hey, have this thing to beat, 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:16.600 have this stick to beat over the head with. 0:47:17.640 --> 0:47:19.360 Yeah, And you know, to their credit, I feel like 0:47:19.560 --> 0:47:23.480 Argentinian politicians are taking better advantage of this than US 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:26.839 politicians have taken of their many opportunities because they are 0:47:27.000 --> 0:47:30.640 calling for you know, impeachment. There have been you know, 0:47:30.800 --> 0:47:34.600 many lawsuits filed against me Lee, and you know there 0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:38.560 is a judge looking into his degree of connections here. 0:47:39.200 --> 0:47:42.200 Obviously there is you know, some amount of corruption over 0:47:42.320 --> 0:47:45.400 in the Argentinian government and so you know, the degree 0:47:45.480 --> 0:47:50.280 to which they will adequately investigate themselves is somewhat. 0:47:50.400 --> 0:47:52.319 Questionable, let's just say, yeah. 0:47:52.520 --> 0:47:55.960 And you know, the likelihood of an impeachment proceeding actually 0:47:56.120 --> 0:47:57.880 you know, getting the votes to go to trial is 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:01.560 certainly questionable. But this has been used, you know, in 0:48:01.760 --> 0:48:04.840 a somewhat effective way to attack the credibility of Melee, 0:48:05.000 --> 0:48:06.160 which is you. 0:48:06.200 --> 0:48:07.200 Know, worth doing. 0:48:07.719 --> 0:48:10.640 And you know, I say this about paranism, right like 0:48:11.040 --> 0:48:12.960 the thing that the thing about Paronism is that it 0:48:13.040 --> 0:48:15.279 it's like the engine that devours social movements, right like 0:48:15.280 --> 0:48:17.320 anytime social movement comes in, the parnas sort of like 0:48:17.600 --> 0:48:20.640 consume it from the inside. But the thing, the thing 0:48:20.680 --> 0:48:23.480 about the way that like protos and functions is like, okay, 0:48:23.640 --> 0:48:26.040 so they've they've eaten all these social movements, but it's 0:48:26.080 --> 0:48:27.520 not quite like the US where you can just like 0:48:27.680 --> 0:48:30.480 disband it and make it go away, like you actually 0:48:30.520 --> 0:48:33.200 have to still have have the thing that social movement does. 0:48:33.520 --> 0:48:36.040 And that means that these motherfuckers can throw a protest, 0:48:36.400 --> 0:48:39.399 like whatever else is it about the paronas, like aren't 0:48:39.400 --> 0:48:42.160 capable of putting an unbelievable number of people into the streets. 0:48:42.200 --> 0:48:44.320 And I'm really interested to see what's going to happen 0:48:44.880 --> 0:48:47.640 like this weekend and over the coming weeks, to see 0:48:47.680 --> 0:48:51.640 if we see another seventeenth giant round of protests, like 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:53.040 also specifically about this. 0:48:53.920 --> 0:48:55.759 Yeah, yeah, I'll be curious too. 0:48:55.840 --> 0:48:58.279 It's really interesting to me, like to what degree this 0:48:58.480 --> 0:49:02.360 resonates with three Day people, I guess in Argentina because 0:49:02.560 --> 0:49:04.800 you know, there's there's a lot to complain about with 0:49:04.960 --> 0:49:08.040 the MELA government, and so you know, it's sort of 0:49:08.080 --> 0:49:10.680 fascinating to me that people are latching onto this, and 0:49:11.239 --> 0:49:13.520 you know, it's sort of interesting just to compare with 0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:16.240 the United States, where there's a lot to complain about 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.840 with the Trump administration, and you know, people were complaining 0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:22.440 about the meme coin, but by the time that was, 0:49:22.560 --> 0:49:25.920 you know, partly because it was pre inauguration and so 0:49:26.320 --> 0:49:28.800 Trump hadn't started signing all the executive orders and so 0:49:28.960 --> 0:49:32.200 it was very quickly overshadowed by the other sort of 0:49:32.280 --> 0:49:35.920 blatantly illegal things happening within the Trump administration, and so 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:38.440 it didn't get that much traction in sort of the 0:49:38.560 --> 0:49:41.640 longer term. So it's interesting to me to watch this 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:44.720 play out in a different country where you know, Milay 0:49:44.800 --> 0:49:47.600 has been in office for some time now, and you know, 0:49:47.719 --> 0:49:50.520 this has gained at least some degree of a foothold, 0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:52.880 and I'll be curious to see, you know, if that 0:49:53.080 --> 0:49:55.520 endures or not. He's he's sort of trying to play 0:49:55.560 --> 0:49:58.240 it off as like, you know, oh, everyone knows crypto 0:49:58.360 --> 0:50:01.080 is risky. He said something and he tried to do 0:50:01.160 --> 0:50:05.319 this like damage control interview on TV where he said 0:50:05.360 --> 0:50:08.040 that basically, like the people who bought this token knew 0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:10.280 they were playing Russian roulette and they got the bullet, 0:50:10.600 --> 0:50:14.319 which is a wild thing to say. Christ Yeah, that's 0:50:14.440 --> 0:50:17.080 just a nutty thing to say, but also very in 0:50:17.200 --> 0:50:20.320 character for him. And you know, he said something in 0:50:20.360 --> 0:50:22.719 then an interview to the effect of, like, you know, 0:50:22.840 --> 0:50:26.120 only a couple thousand people lost money, what's the chances 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:29.120 that those people were even Argentinian, Like we shouldn't even 0:50:29.200 --> 0:50:33.160 care if they were, you know, not Argentinian. And so, 0:50:33.800 --> 0:50:35.680 you know, it's it's sort of interesting to watch him 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:37.560 try to downplay this. It's like well, yeah, of course 0:50:37.600 --> 0:50:39.759 people lost money. It's a scam, you know. 0:50:40.440 --> 0:50:41.840 Like yeah, I guess. 0:50:52.040 --> 0:50:53.239 I think part of the reason this is like a 0:50:53.320 --> 0:50:57.160 real issue for him is that like he really truly 0:50:57.360 --> 0:50:58.719 you know, and this is something that like Trump is 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:00.640 also doing this, like that he but he he like 0:51:00.800 --> 0:51:05.319 really truly went out to like his main base of supporters, yeah, 0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:07.480 and was like I'm just going to take you up 0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:09.520 behind a woodsend shoot you and like take the money 0:51:09.560 --> 0:51:12.320 out of your pocket. And like the way he's like 0:51:12.520 --> 0:51:15.480 systematically fucking all of the people who were supposed to 0:51:15.520 --> 0:51:18.200 be his political base, and like like Trump was also 0:51:18.239 --> 0:51:20.640 doing is but like people sort of like haven't set 0:51:20.719 --> 0:51:22.600 in that this is what's happening, whereas like this rug 0:51:22.719 --> 0:51:24.960 pull thing, it's like this is like the only thing 0:51:25.040 --> 0:51:28.480 that the fucking unhinge right when crypto wrote people care about, 0:51:28.560 --> 0:51:30.240 like this is like the one thing you could possibly 0:51:30.360 --> 0:51:32.640 do to like this the wall. 0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:36.520 Yeah, it's really interesting to see like what causes crypto 0:51:36.560 --> 0:51:38.560 people to turn on you, because it did happen in 0:51:38.600 --> 0:51:41.279 a much more limited way with Trump, where you know, 0:51:41.320 --> 0:51:44.480 the US crypto movement I guess that's not the right 0:51:44.520 --> 0:51:46.880 word for it, but the industry or the crypto world 0:51:47.440 --> 0:51:50.840 had really supported Trump very heavily, and you know, they 0:51:50.920 --> 0:51:53.640 had donated to him. But there was also this widespread 0:51:53.680 --> 0:51:56.560 belief among people who traded crypto that Trump was going 0:51:56.640 --> 0:51:58.239 to be good for crypto. He was going to cause 0:51:58.360 --> 0:52:00.839 crypto prices to go up, he was gonna to fix 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:03.520 all these regulations that they thought were holding the industry 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:06.160 back and all this stuff. And then when Trump came 0:52:06.200 --> 0:52:08.359 out and launched a meme coin, some of his most 0:52:08.440 --> 0:52:12.080 devoted fans among the crypto community were horrified by it, 0:52:12.800 --> 0:52:15.440 and they really responded in a way that I think 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:17.040 a lot of people didn't expect, which is, like, I 0:52:17.080 --> 0:52:20.480 can't believe he's doing this grifty meme coin. He's supposed 0:52:20.520 --> 0:52:23.840 to believe in crypto, not just use it to steal 0:52:23.920 --> 0:52:26.720 money from his supporters, and so like, there was actually 0:52:26.760 --> 0:52:30.480 this degree of shock that very briefly rattled the crypto 0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:33.279 world in the US as well. And so I think 0:52:33.320 --> 0:52:36.200 that's you know, sort of interesting to see, is that like, Okay, 0:52:36.280 --> 0:52:39.080 you're allowed to do scams and you know, run your 0:52:39.680 --> 0:52:42.200 government in a way that personally benefits you, as long 0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:45.320 as it's not reflecting poorly on us, and it's not 0:52:45.520 --> 0:52:48.040 taking money from us. But as soon as it starts 0:52:48.120 --> 0:52:51.239 to make people, you know, look at scance at meme 0:52:51.320 --> 0:52:53.720 coins or the crypto world in general, or it starts 0:52:53.760 --> 0:52:57.960 to affect crypto prices, then things turn bad somewhat quickly. 0:52:58.560 --> 0:53:00.960 Yeah, I wonder, I don't know. I'm interested in your 0:53:01.040 --> 0:53:03.280 take on this, Like how much of that is people 0:53:03.719 --> 0:53:09.400 who are in less meme coiny things who are worried 0:53:09.440 --> 0:53:11.759 about like their assets because they said at some point 0:53:11.880 --> 0:53:13.080 like have to be able to cash out. 0:53:13.719 --> 0:53:13.919 Yeah. 0:53:14.480 --> 0:53:16.560 I think that's a big part of it. Like there 0:53:16.600 --> 0:53:19.840 are factions in crypto where I sort of referred to 0:53:19.880 --> 0:53:22.200 this earlier when we were talking about Bichayley. But you know, 0:53:22.280 --> 0:53:24.640 there are bitcoiners who believe that bitcoin is the one 0:53:24.680 --> 0:53:27.600 true cryptocurrency and that everything else is a total scam, 0:53:28.280 --> 0:53:31.520 and so they are really upset when these meme coins 0:53:31.560 --> 0:53:34.080 come out because they feel like it reflects poorly on 0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:37.520 Bitcoin because people just sort of lump everything together. There's 0:53:37.560 --> 0:53:39.640 sort of a step down from that, which is people 0:53:39.680 --> 0:53:44.160 who think that there are more legitimate cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin, 0:53:44.400 --> 0:53:47.239 but meme coins are not them. And so there's been 0:53:47.280 --> 0:53:49.839 all this talk recently where they're like, look at all 0:53:49.880 --> 0:53:52.080 these meme cooin scams that are getting in the news. 0:53:52.320 --> 0:53:54.560 You know that there was like the Hawktua meme coin 0:53:54.680 --> 0:53:57.080 that totally like yeah, stole a news cycle for a 0:53:57.160 --> 0:54:01.000 minute there, and they're terrified that, you know, people are 0:54:01.120 --> 0:54:04.400 starting to think of crypto as meme coins. You know, 0:54:04.440 --> 0:54:06.560 it's just one and the same. And they're like, people 0:54:06.640 --> 0:54:08.720 are not going to think of all these wonderful, legitimate 0:54:08.719 --> 0:54:11.480 cryptocurrencies and all of their use cases if they're thinking 0:54:11.520 --> 0:54:14.239 about hactua coin and how they ripped off a bunch 0:54:14.280 --> 0:54:18.320 of people, which like, personally, I think that the reputation 0:54:18.480 --> 0:54:22.279 is perhaps somewhat deserved, but you know, there is this 0:54:22.480 --> 0:54:24.840 belief among some people that like, oh, this is not 0:54:25.080 --> 0:54:27.279 real crypto and it's giving the rest of crypto a 0:54:27.360 --> 0:54:30.600 bad reputation. And we're actually starting to see talk of 0:54:30.760 --> 0:54:33.600 that in some of the higher places where you know, 0:54:33.680 --> 0:54:36.440 I've been seeing reporting that people are talking about the 0:54:36.520 --> 0:54:39.960 Hawktua coin on Capitol Hill, you know, like when they're 0:54:40.000 --> 0:54:45.200 talking about shredding regulations to prevent people from running securities frauds, 0:54:45.800 --> 0:54:49.240 the opposition is like, well, do we want haktua coin everywhere? 0:54:49.360 --> 0:54:50.560 Like is this really what we want? 0:54:50.719 --> 0:54:53.960 And so it is, you know, affecting the public perception 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:58.560 and the perception in you know, Congress to some extent, 0:54:58.640 --> 0:55:01.480 which I think is what's really scary people, because they've 0:55:01.560 --> 0:55:03.840 just made these huge inroads with you know, all of 0:55:03.920 --> 0:55:07.920 these now crypto friendly politicians and friendly regulators, and now 0:55:08.400 --> 0:55:11.359 crypto is out here making a fool of itself right 0:55:11.560 --> 0:55:15.200 as you know, new legislation or regulation might be installed. 0:55:15.520 --> 0:55:16.799 Yeah, and this gets me too. I think the thing 0:55:16.840 --> 0:55:18.920 I want to close on, which is, you know, like 0:55:19.520 --> 0:55:22.560 we actually did successfully as a society kill the NFT. Yeah, 0:55:23.120 --> 0:55:24.920 Like we took that all the fucker out back at 0:55:24.920 --> 0:55:25.640 staded to death. 0:55:26.200 --> 0:55:26.399 Yep. 0:55:26.640 --> 0:55:28.680 And I'm wondering whether you think that like this is 0:55:28.760 --> 0:55:30.440 this is a moment where we can like use this 0:55:30.480 --> 0:55:32.560 as a wedge thing to try to like fucking kill 0:55:32.640 --> 0:55:35.320 this entire industry. And how how vulnerable they are to 0:55:35.440 --> 0:55:38.200 like the negative pr rattlings from. 0:55:38.120 --> 0:55:38.440 All of this. 0:55:39.640 --> 0:55:41.719 Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point that, 0:55:41.960 --> 0:55:45.040 like the NFT, even as crypto has had a resurgence, 0:55:45.080 --> 0:55:47.799 you know, Bitcoin crossed one hundred thousand dollars, NFTs are 0:55:47.920 --> 0:55:51.240 like nowhere to be found, you know, Like the NFT 0:55:51.360 --> 0:55:53.960 platforms are struggling there. A couple of them just went 0:55:54.000 --> 0:55:57.240 out of business, and I think it is largely thanks 0:55:57.280 --> 0:56:00.440 to the fact that NFTs became really cringe and you know, 0:56:00.640 --> 0:56:04.200 like everyone was like, oh, those stupid monkey pictures, and 0:56:04.280 --> 0:56:07.399 that had like a really devastating impact on this entire 0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:10.200 industry that was supposed to be like the future of 0:56:10.440 --> 0:56:12.960 art or whatever. And so I think there is that 0:56:13.080 --> 0:56:16.520 potential throughout other portions of the crypto world. I would 0:56:16.600 --> 0:56:21.000 not be shocked to see that happen to these memecoin platforms, 0:56:21.120 --> 0:56:25.479 where they sort of lose their novelty value and people 0:56:25.600 --> 0:56:28.160 just see them as big scams and there's really no point. 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:31.640 But unfortunately, I don't think that, you know, all of 0:56:31.760 --> 0:56:35.600 crypto can be undermined by the cringe factor or you know, 0:56:35.719 --> 0:56:39.319 the sort of societal distaste for it, because I mean, 0:56:39.840 --> 0:56:43.160 there are people who have bought bitcoin early, who have 0:56:44.200 --> 0:56:48.560 billions of dollars in crypto. In bitcoin, they are now 0:56:49.120 --> 0:56:51.560 working in the US government. You know, they have like 0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:57.680 very strong control over very powerful institutions, and so there 0:56:57.840 --> 0:57:02.680 is this countervailing force you keep crypto alive at basically 0:57:02.760 --> 0:57:07.800 any cost, and I think we're seeing them somewhat desperate 0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:11.279 to do that, as we're seeing calls for say a 0:57:11.320 --> 0:57:14.680 bitcoin strategic reserve, which is something that keeps coming up, 0:57:14.760 --> 0:57:18.480 the idea that like the US government should personally stockpile bitcoin, 0:57:19.080 --> 0:57:22.120 which you know, they make a couple of arguments as 0:57:22.160 --> 0:57:24.280 to why they should do that, which are not very 0:57:24.320 --> 0:57:26.320 convincing even to some of the people in the crypto world. 0:57:26.760 --> 0:57:30.840 But the sort of underlying thread through it is that 0:57:30.960 --> 0:57:33.640 if the US government holds a substantial amount of bitcoin, 0:57:33.840 --> 0:57:36.320 they won't be able to afford to let the bitcoin 0:57:36.400 --> 0:57:39.680 price collapse or to do anything that might threaten the 0:57:39.680 --> 0:57:42.080 cryptocurrency industry. And so I think that's why we're seeing 0:57:42.600 --> 0:57:46.000 the attempts to you know, sort of work crypto into 0:57:46.520 --> 0:57:52.360 government checkbooks, into the banking system, into traditional finance, you know, 0:57:52.560 --> 0:57:55.760 people trying to get bitcoin e ETFs into you know, 0:57:55.880 --> 0:57:58.600 your pension plans and your retirement funds and things like 0:57:58.640 --> 0:58:01.680 that is really to make it so oh endemic and 0:58:01.880 --> 0:58:05.040 so contagious. I guess to the rest of the financial 0:58:05.080 --> 0:58:09.000 world that it's almost like, you know, this this threat 0:58:09.120 --> 0:58:11.720 that they're holding against the government, which is like, all right, 0:58:11.760 --> 0:58:13.160 if you kill us, we'll kill you. 0:58:14.800 --> 0:58:18.280 Yeah, And I think it's this interesting thing of like, sorry, 0:58:18.280 --> 0:58:19.360 I know, I said we were going to close out, 0:58:19.480 --> 0:58:22.760 Like no, this is fun. There's this interesting way in 0:58:22.840 --> 0:58:25.080 which like this seems like the endgame for the entire 0:58:25.240 --> 0:58:28.600 like tech bubble economy is like you know, like none 0:58:28.640 --> 0:58:31.080 of these fucking companies have everybody able to make money, right, 0:58:31.520 --> 0:58:33.320 none of these fucking companies. But they all they all 0:58:33.600 --> 0:58:36.360 every like fucking like everything from like like fucking Uber 0:58:36.640 --> 0:58:40.680 to like fucking like Google and Amazon like hemorrhaged money. 0:58:40.880 --> 0:58:43.400 Uber will hemorrhage money until it eventually the bubble pops 0:58:43.440 --> 0:58:47.080 and it dies. Right, But like Amazon only really started 0:58:47.120 --> 0:58:49.080 making money, you know, Google was kind of making money, 0:58:49.160 --> 0:58:51.040 Like Amazon only started making money when they started getting 0:58:51.040 --> 0:58:53.520 government contracts for like their cloud computing shit. Yeah, and 0:58:53.600 --> 0:58:55.000 like that like looks like the endgame, Like you know, 0:58:55.040 --> 0:58:56.960 this is this is the thing with like Elon's like 0:58:57.160 --> 0:59:01.520 fucking electric armored vehicle content is like the only thing 0:59:01.560 --> 0:59:05.240 that can keep the bubble going is just pure standing intervention. 0:59:06.200 --> 0:59:08.040 But that also gives me a little bit of hope 0:59:08.120 --> 0:59:10.800 because I think the thing that's kept this giant bubble 0:59:10.840 --> 0:59:13.160 economy going for like over like a decade and a 0:59:13.200 --> 0:59:17.360 half now has been really really even under the original 0:59:17.360 --> 0:59:20.160 Trump administration, I mean, and the original administration kind of 0:59:20.160 --> 0:59:22.680 got bailed out by COVID to some extents, Like you know, 0:59:22.720 --> 0:59:24.880 I mean, like the the original Argentinian economic crisis was 0:59:24.920 --> 0:59:26.960 this there's this there's this huge wave of currency collapses 0:59:26.960 --> 0:59:29.720 in twenty eighteen where it was sort of contained, like 0:59:29.760 --> 0:59:32.080 the IMF did a bailout in while I was trying 0:59:32.080 --> 0:59:33.360 to do a bailout in Argentina, and it like it 0:59:33.440 --> 0:59:34.800 kind of got contained, but it set off a black 0:59:34.840 --> 0:59:37.680 wave uprisings. But like there's been this like really it's 0:59:37.760 --> 0:59:40.400 just taken this really careful financial management and like all 0:59:40.480 --> 0:59:43.760 of these like like like a trillion dollars of like 0:59:43.880 --> 0:59:46.720 overnight repo purchases like every day from the Treasury to 0:59:46.800 --> 0:59:49.160 like make sure there's enough liquidity in the banking industry 0:59:49.240 --> 0:59:51.200 to prevent like the kind of like two thousand and 0:59:51.240 --> 0:59:54.200 eight style collapses. And I think it it takes it's 0:59:54.240 --> 0:59:58.360 taken a really delicate hand, and you know, like I 0:59:58.360 --> 0:59:59.560 don't think it's a good thing. But on their hand, 0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:02.640 like these guys just fire the nuke police, like while 1:00:02.720 --> 1:00:06.160 they were moving a nuke, and I wonder if they 1:00:06.200 --> 1:00:08.720 can actually keep the dance going, or if they're just 1:00:08.800 --> 1:00:11.320 gonna if they're going to fuck up their bubble economy, 1:00:11.400 --> 1:00:14.560 just blow it all up, which might yeah, maybe nuke 1:00:14.600 --> 1:00:15.920 all of these people in the process. 1:00:16.800 --> 1:00:17.120 Maybe. 1:00:17.280 --> 1:00:20.240 I also think that, you know, if we're talking like accelerationism, 1:00:20.360 --> 1:00:22.560 I think that one of the most interesting things that 1:00:22.640 --> 1:00:25.480 we're going to be seeing now is that the crypto 1:00:25.560 --> 1:00:29.080 industry has long argued that they have all this potential. 1:00:29.480 --> 1:00:32.320 You know, they are just around the corner from reinventing 1:00:32.400 --> 1:00:36.280 the financial system to be wonderful and spectacular. And the 1:00:36.400 --> 1:00:41.080 only reason that they haven't you know, actually made true 1:00:41.120 --> 1:00:43.680 on that is because of those pesky regulators that are 1:00:43.720 --> 1:00:45.680 stopping them from doing all the stuff that they want. 1:00:45.800 --> 1:00:49.840 And so they've spent years now vilifying the regulators, claiming 1:00:49.880 --> 1:00:52.920 that the industry would be so wonderful if these regulators 1:00:52.920 --> 1:00:56.760 would just let them innovate. And now they've got the regulators, 1:00:56.800 --> 1:00:59.400 they're in a world where, you know, they basically own 1:00:59.480 --> 1:01:02.440 the regulation there, all of the enforcement cases against them 1:01:02.480 --> 1:01:05.080 are going to go away, you know, the friendliest possible 1:01:05.160 --> 1:01:09.680 regulations are going to be introduced. And now crypto doesn't 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:12.480 have that excuse anymore, right, they can't just say that 1:01:12.920 --> 1:01:15.520 the reason we don't do anything useful is because these 1:01:15.760 --> 1:01:19.000 stupid regulators won't let us lend you bitcoin or whatever. 1:01:19.520 --> 1:01:21.560 And so I think, you know, there is going to 1:01:21.640 --> 1:01:25.240 be this moment where people are like, okay, so do 1:01:25.400 --> 1:01:28.680 it now, you know, like do the innovation now, And 1:01:29.160 --> 1:01:32.800 it's going to expose a lot of the popsicle sticks 1:01:32.840 --> 1:01:35.760 and bubble gum that's holding up this crypto industry because 1:01:35.760 --> 1:01:38.800 they don't have that excuse anymore, which I think will 1:01:38.840 --> 1:01:41.480 be interesting. I just hope it doesn't take, like, you know, 1:01:42.160 --> 1:01:45.520 the economic collapse of an entire country to prove it. 1:01:46.200 --> 1:01:46.360 Well. 1:01:46.640 --> 1:01:49.200 My line on this is that like accelerationism as an 1:01:49.200 --> 1:01:51.560 ideology doesn't exist anymore because there's not there's nothing you 1:01:51.760 --> 1:01:54.680 can do to do the acceleration. Yeah right, like or 1:01:54.760 --> 1:01:57.440 the like left accelerationism like Trump and Elon Musk like 1:01:57.720 --> 1:01:59.840 just have their fucking foot hammering the pedal all the 1:01:59.840 --> 1:02:02.200 way down. We are accelerating as fast as we could 1:02:02.200 --> 1:02:04.880 possibly go, and all we have left is to like 1:02:05.200 --> 1:02:07.480 make sure what the fucking acceleration goes our way and 1:02:07.640 --> 1:02:08.080 up theirs. 1:02:08.520 --> 1:02:13.840 Yeah yeah, but I yeah, I guess, like you know, 1:02:14.280 --> 1:02:16.400 it's me trying to find a light in the darkness. 1:02:16.520 --> 1:02:18.280 You know, it's like, all right, well, I guess at 1:02:18.360 --> 1:02:20.520 least we might see the crypto industry fall apart. 1:02:21.520 --> 1:02:24.200 Yeah, well I look, look, they might bring down the 1:02:24.280 --> 1:02:26.080 first of arco capitalists president. 1:02:26.920 --> 1:02:28.000 So yeah, that's true. 1:02:29.400 --> 1:02:32.240 Yeah, I don't know today Argentina, tomorrow in the world. 1:02:32.760 --> 1:02:32.960 Yeah. 1:02:33.480 --> 1:02:35.640 Well, and I think also just like you know, it's 1:02:35.680 --> 1:02:40.400 interesting to see this uprising and sort of broad distaste 1:02:40.480 --> 1:02:43.960 formula and everything that he's doing when everything that he's 1:02:44.040 --> 1:02:47.880 doing is so clearly modeled after Donald Trump and his 1:02:48.160 --> 1:02:51.760 affection for Elon Musk, and so you know, to see 1:02:51.800 --> 1:02:54.280 people sort of turn on that is perhaps a little 1:02:54.280 --> 1:02:55.000 bit instructive. 1:02:55.280 --> 1:02:55.480 Yeah. 1:02:55.680 --> 1:02:58.440 And I think this is interesting kind of like bounce 1:02:58.480 --> 1:03:00.480 back thing too, because he's like, you know, somebody say 1:03:00.520 --> 1:03:03.680 he's modeling himself on Trump one, like the first trumpministration, 1:03:03.840 --> 1:03:06.919 but he got even weirder with it than like Trump wanted, 1:03:07.000 --> 1:03:12.760 and now Trump modeling itself back. Yeah, like slingshotting. But yeah, 1:03:12.840 --> 1:03:14.880 and and and and and and I don't know, hope, hope, 1:03:15.040 --> 1:03:18.240 hopefully the fucking rebound hits them too, and they also 1:03:18.280 --> 1:03:20.240 get the backlash to it, and we Yeah, I don't 1:03:20.240 --> 1:03:22.480 know we we don't all die when they actually set 1:03:22.480 --> 1:03:24.800 a nuke off because we've driven them out of power already. 1:03:25.480 --> 1:03:26.320 That would be nice. 1:03:27.800 --> 1:03:28.040 Yeah. 1:03:28.360 --> 1:03:30.760 Well, Mollie, thank you so much for coming on the 1:03:30.800 --> 1:03:35.880 show and for talking talking with us about this unhinged bullshit, 1:03:36.000 --> 1:03:39.160 and also just genuinely thank you, thank you for reporting 1:03:39.320 --> 1:03:42.160 on all of the ship because oh my god, it 1:03:42.280 --> 1:03:44.400 is not easy. I don't know how you stay sane. 1:03:46.160 --> 1:03:53.360 I don't pretend I do give in the madness. Yeah, yeah, well, 1:03:53.400 --> 1:03:54.120 thank you for having me. 1:03:54.400 --> 1:03:56.240 Yeah, and where where where can people find your work? 1:03:57.160 --> 1:03:59.640 You can find me at citation needed dot news. I 1:03:59.720 --> 1:04:01.560 also a run web three is going just great, which 1:04:01.600 --> 1:04:02.800 is web three is going great? 1:04:02.880 --> 1:04:03.320 Dot com. 1:04:03.680 --> 1:04:07.360 And then I'm on social media everywhere you'll find me 1:04:07.480 --> 1:04:08.960 from either of those websites. 1:04:09.280 --> 1:04:10.760 Yeah, we will put links to all of this in 1:04:10.840 --> 1:04:13.400 the description. Thank you again, and yeah, I don't know, 1:04:13.520 --> 1:04:17.040 go make crypto so uncool that these people have a 1:04:17.120 --> 1:04:18.040 terrible day in panic. 1:04:18.360 --> 1:04:19.160 I'll do my best. 1:04:41.760 --> 1:04:44.520 Hi everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here a 1:04:44.640 --> 1:04:47.400 podcast about things falling apart and the people putting them 1:04:47.440 --> 1:04:51.240 back together. And today Garrison and I are joined by 1:04:51.840 --> 1:04:55.840 Hailey and Dan, both Haley and Dan are gender affirming 1:04:55.920 --> 1:04:59.160 care providers in the Northeast, and they both work at 1:04:59.320 --> 1:05:02.920 federally qualit health centers. Welcome to the show, guys. 1:05:03.360 --> 1:05:05.160 Thank you so much and year. 1:05:06.080 --> 1:05:09.840 Okay. So for people who are not familiar, right, maybe 1:05:09.880 --> 1:05:13.040 they've been fortunate enough to have like really good health 1:05:13.080 --> 1:05:15.480 care the whole life, or fortunate enough to not live 1:05:15.480 --> 1:05:19.320 in the United States and have this bizarre like web 1:05:19.400 --> 1:05:22.440 of healthcare provision. Can you explain what a federally qualified 1:05:22.520 --> 1:05:23.400 healthcare center is? 1:05:23.800 --> 1:05:24.280 Sure? You matter? 1:05:24.280 --> 1:05:28.080 If I take this with Hailey, So I would start 1:05:28.120 --> 1:05:31.720 by saying that our industry, our advocacy arms would riot 1:05:31.880 --> 1:05:35.680 if they assumed that federally qualified health centers weren't good care. 1:05:35.920 --> 1:05:36.040 Right. 1:05:36.120 --> 1:05:37.840 So yeah, I dismissed with that to start. 1:05:37.920 --> 1:05:40.920 Oh, yeah, I get yeah, I guess good is a 1:05:41.000 --> 1:05:44.640 relative to Yeah. I've relied on federally qualified healthcare center 1:05:44.680 --> 1:05:45.400 for one and it was great. 1:05:45.440 --> 1:05:46.040 They were very nice. 1:05:46.320 --> 1:05:48.280 Actually, my prescriptions cost a lot less now than they 1:05:48.320 --> 1:05:50.600 do with my very expensive Eyheigh insurance. 1:05:50.960 --> 1:05:51.200 Yeah. 1:05:51.840 --> 1:05:54.480 So, around the nineteen sixties there was the sort of 1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:57.280 free clinic movement that got started, and what grew out 1:05:57.320 --> 1:05:59.800 of that became the federally qualified health center system in 1:05:59.840 --> 1:06:04.480 the United States, So there are roughly sixteen hundred unique 1:06:04.520 --> 1:06:07.760 federally qualified health centers all over the country, and we, 1:06:08.440 --> 1:06:13.480 as a sort of confederated set of health centers all 1:06:13.560 --> 1:06:17.200 across the country, are responsible for treating those most in 1:06:17.320 --> 1:06:21.040 need in the United States, so the Medicaid population, those 1:06:21.120 --> 1:06:23.400 without insurance. We cannot turn anybody away if you do 1:06:23.520 --> 1:06:27.080 not have insurance, people in rural areas where healthcare is 1:06:27.160 --> 1:06:30.960 very difficult to access and to get, undocumented folks, and 1:06:31.280 --> 1:06:33.800 really everybody in between. At the health center that I 1:06:33.880 --> 1:06:36.160 work at, we mostly treat folks on Medicaid, which is 1:06:36.200 --> 1:06:39.320 pretty typical, although you'll find in states with no Medicaid 1:06:39.360 --> 1:06:41.800 expansion it's a lot more uninsured and less Medicaid. But 1:06:42.800 --> 1:06:46.400 we are the nation's safety net healthcare provider, and without us, 1:06:46.640 --> 1:06:49.520 there are roughly one in ten Americans would not get 1:06:49.560 --> 1:06:50.120 their healthcare. 1:06:50.440 --> 1:06:53.920 Jeez, well, I guess people who are not in the 1:06:54.200 --> 1:06:56.560 United States, do you want to go and give us 1:06:56.600 --> 1:07:00.040 a go one minute speedrun of what Medicaid is medicare. 1:07:00.400 --> 1:07:03.960 Sure, So America does not have a nationalized insurance program. 1:07:04.160 --> 1:07:07.600 As we are very frustrated with most of the time. 1:07:08.200 --> 1:07:10.640 It's mostly commercial insurance that you mostly get through your job. 1:07:10.720 --> 1:07:12.680 But if you are not fortunate it's not the right word, 1:07:12.720 --> 1:07:15.400 but if you're not fortunate enough to get that. Medicaid 1:07:15.520 --> 1:07:17.520 is the system that gives health insurance to people who 1:07:17.600 --> 1:07:20.440 are living at or below the federal poverty line. With 1:07:20.760 --> 1:07:24.800 the Affordable Care Act or the Acabambacare, that level raised 1:07:24.800 --> 1:07:26.560 a little bit, so you could still get Medicaid if 1:07:26.560 --> 1:07:28.880 you were at above the federal poverty line. 1:07:28.880 --> 1:07:31.760 But this is mostly for the working poor. That's who 1:07:31.800 --> 1:07:32.480 gets Medicaid. 1:07:32.880 --> 1:07:33.080 Cool. 1:07:33.160 --> 1:07:36.440 Yeah, it's a great system. Let's talk about how this 1:07:36.560 --> 1:07:38.440 has funded them. And you said the US doesn't have 1:07:38.800 --> 1:07:42.240 like a single pair healthcare system, So how are these 1:07:42.320 --> 1:07:44.920 healthcare centers funded right now? Or maybe how were they 1:07:44.960 --> 1:07:46.360 funded like six weeks ago. 1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:50.120 Yeah, So most of the work that we do is 1:07:50.160 --> 1:07:51.960 fee for service. We're not a lot different than a 1:07:52.000 --> 1:07:53.760 lot of other places in that regard. Right, if you 1:07:53.840 --> 1:07:56.440 have Medicaid patients, we are a fee for service program. 1:07:56.520 --> 1:07:59.320 We give provision of care to them on a per 1:07:59.440 --> 1:08:01.560 visit base, same as anywhere else in the country. And 1:08:01.600 --> 1:08:04.240 how that works and we get reimbursed for it. What 1:08:04.400 --> 1:08:06.160 makes FQS different than everywhere else. 1:08:06.240 --> 1:08:06.760 Is two things. 1:08:06.880 --> 1:08:10.520 One, we get a special rate that is designated because 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:13.560 of our willingness to take on these more expensive, more 1:08:13.600 --> 1:08:16.599 complicated patients and to ensure that they are healthy enough 1:08:16.640 --> 1:08:18.680 to keep out of expensive. 1:08:18.280 --> 1:08:20.120 Systems of care like the emergency rooms and things of 1:08:20.160 --> 1:08:20.559 that nature. 1:08:21.040 --> 1:08:22.920 And two is that we have a grant called the 1:08:23.000 --> 1:08:27.120 FED three thirty And this is a sort of like large, 1:08:27.320 --> 1:08:30.080 sort of use it as you need to grant that 1:08:30.560 --> 1:08:34.360 depending on the agency, is anywhere from five to twenty 1:08:34.479 --> 1:08:36.840 five percent of your total annual funds and is meant 1:08:36.920 --> 1:08:39.160 to cover all of the folks who can afford care 1:08:39.200 --> 1:08:40.000 and are uninsured. 1:08:40.280 --> 1:08:42.240 Part of my funding also, I do a lot of 1:08:42.320 --> 1:08:45.720 work with HIV and HIV prevention, so a lot of 1:08:45.800 --> 1:08:49.000 my work is done via Ryan White funding. And there's 1:08:49.040 --> 1:08:52.480 some other kind of separate funding streams that's applicable specifically 1:08:52.560 --> 1:08:56.040 to gender firming care. However, it's all kind of messy 1:08:56.200 --> 1:08:58.439 and tied up in a lot of those other funding 1:08:58.520 --> 1:09:03.160 streams that Dan mentioned, and there's some specific limitations because 1:09:03.200 --> 1:09:07.720 of those funding streams. Again historically because who knows right now, 1:09:09.000 --> 1:09:11.920 but through something called the High Amendment, it means that 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:15.280 our funding would be at jeopardy if we provided abortion care. 1:09:16.280 --> 1:09:19.040 So there are some kind of limitations. A lot of 1:09:19.080 --> 1:09:22.120 what we do as an FQHT is providing really comprehensive, 1:09:22.320 --> 1:09:26.280 expansive care where kind of some of the few clinics 1:09:26.320 --> 1:09:29.760 that do everything that we do under one roof, But 1:09:29.840 --> 1:09:32.960 there have been some limitations, specifically abortion to that. 1:09:33.479 --> 1:09:36.360 Yeah, it's more of a a healthcare experience that I'm 1:09:36.439 --> 1:09:38.760 used to with someone from Europe, like going to one 1:09:38.800 --> 1:09:40.600 of these centers and like the American one where you 1:09:40.640 --> 1:09:43.120 get a referral and then yeah, get approves and blah 1:09:43.160 --> 1:09:44.000 blah blah, and like a. 1:09:44.040 --> 1:09:45.760 Lot of the ways that I talk to friends who 1:09:45.760 --> 1:09:48.120 live in other countries, Like, I feel like my role 1:09:48.200 --> 1:09:50.760 is kind of more similar to like a GP as 1:09:50.840 --> 1:09:53.720 a nurse partitioner. There isn't necessarily an equivalent, but I 1:09:53.760 --> 1:09:56.200 feel like a GP is kind of a very similar 1:09:56.720 --> 1:09:59.439 universal way to understand a lot of what I do. 1:10:00.120 --> 1:10:03.479 Yeah, that makes sense. So can you explain Ryan White funding? 1:10:03.520 --> 1:10:05.719 Like where does that come from? Why is it called 1:10:05.920 --> 1:10:06.439 Ryan White? 1:10:06.680 --> 1:10:11.639 So basically Ryan White funding was initiated in I believe 1:10:11.680 --> 1:10:15.960 the early nineties during the AIDS crisis and was a 1:10:16.080 --> 1:10:19.680 large government initiative. It's named after Ryan White, who was 1:10:20.360 --> 1:10:24.880 a patient who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion. 1:10:25.400 --> 1:10:26.760 Yeah, so Ryan White. 1:10:26.800 --> 1:10:31.880 Funding right now is a major source for funding things 1:10:32.040 --> 1:10:36.200 like PREP, which is medication for prevention for HAV as 1:10:36.280 --> 1:10:38.360 well as direct HIV treatment. 1:10:39.120 --> 1:10:43.120 Yeah, so a number of these things, right, gender affirming care, 1:10:43.600 --> 1:10:47.240 preps care for people with HIV, or preventing people from 1:10:47.240 --> 1:10:50.040 getting HIV through pre exposure prophylaxis. That you said, like 1:10:50.479 --> 1:10:52.960 these are things that have been like at the center 1:10:53.200 --> 1:10:58.320 of the culture war for the current government, right, Like 1:10:58.400 --> 1:11:01.840 that they're like the things that they point to is 1:11:02.920 --> 1:11:06.200 you know, whatever they're sort of like impacton's impacts in 1:11:06.240 --> 1:11:08.760 construction of fascism, he talks about moral decline, right, and 1:11:08.840 --> 1:11:11.360 this is their moral decline. That this is what they 1:11:11.520 --> 1:11:14.040 use when they're constructing their kind of we will save 1:11:14.120 --> 1:11:19.600 you narrative. What does that mean for funding? And like, 1:11:19.680 --> 1:11:22.040 what does that mean more importantly for your patients of 1:11:22.080 --> 1:11:24.400 people who come to you for these different types of care. 1:11:24.800 --> 1:11:27.320 I mean, I think it's terrifying. I think I'm more 1:11:27.360 --> 1:11:29.800 on the patient facing side. So a lot of the 1:11:29.920 --> 1:11:34.479 conversations I've been having are just about the uncertainty I'm 1:11:34.520 --> 1:11:38.880 a prescriber for a lot of trans youth adolescents and 1:11:39.000 --> 1:11:45.040 young adults, and so moreover, the uncertainty of just being 1:11:45.080 --> 1:11:49.439 able to you know, get their medication, the stress of 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:54.040 being publicly named and targeted in this culture war has 1:11:54.200 --> 1:11:59.360 just created a climate of fear. As my job, I 1:11:59.760 --> 1:12:02.479 want to be able to reassure patients that I am 1:12:02.560 --> 1:12:04.840 going to fight for them and do all that I can. 1:12:05.439 --> 1:12:06.439 But it's really scary. 1:12:06.760 --> 1:12:09.720 As Dan mentioned, a lot of our patients don't have 1:12:10.280 --> 1:12:13.200 financial safety net, they don't have a medical safety net. 1:12:13.760 --> 1:12:16.000 We're really the one option for them. 1:12:16.320 --> 1:12:20.000 And if our clinic does not continue to offer this 1:12:20.200 --> 1:12:22.360 type of care, these are our kids who are going 1:12:22.439 --> 1:12:26.519 to go without hormones. I prescribe puberty blockers. My work 1:12:26.560 --> 1:12:29.280 as a gender for maing care provider isn't just blockers 1:12:29.360 --> 1:12:32.760 and hormones, but those are medications that we know are 1:12:32.840 --> 1:12:36.280 life saving. We know that that unfortunately, kids will suicide 1:12:36.320 --> 1:12:39.720 if they don't have access to those medications. And so 1:12:39.960 --> 1:12:43.760 I think, you know, talking about funding, talking about kind 1:12:43.800 --> 1:12:49.040 of these bigger shifts politically, you know, are sayings that unfortunately, 1:12:49.120 --> 1:12:52.040 a lot of the conversations I'm having are really coming 1:12:52.160 --> 1:12:55.960 just down to safety and safety planning and figuring out 1:12:56.080 --> 1:12:59.320 support networks and talking about creative ways to get hormones 1:12:59.360 --> 1:13:01.120 if we can't prescribe them. 1:13:01.760 --> 1:13:04.840 Yeah, I think it's worth talking about the fact that, like, 1:13:04.960 --> 1:13:07.599 there are so many angles of attack on this. Right, 1:13:07.680 --> 1:13:09.599 there is the one that is just very clearly aimed 1:13:09.640 --> 1:13:13.520 at trans kids, right the EO that specifies like protecting 1:13:13.640 --> 1:13:18.000 children it's nonsense, but that is aimed at ending this 1:13:18.240 --> 1:13:21.360 care everywhere. Now are they going to be able to 1:13:21.400 --> 1:13:24.400 do it everywhere? I don't know, maybe, but not quickly. 1:13:24.840 --> 1:13:27.920 But they can end it for FQHCs all across the 1:13:27.960 --> 1:13:31.200 country by simply making it like the heighth Amendment. If 1:13:31.240 --> 1:13:34.360 we were to perform abortion services at the place that 1:13:34.439 --> 1:13:37.200 I work, then we would lose our FED three thirty 1:13:37.240 --> 1:13:39.479 funding and we would lose our FQ designation, which would 1:13:39.479 --> 1:13:42.240 cut our rate in half, and that would devastate the 1:13:42.320 --> 1:13:44.479 business and put us out and mean that we could 1:13:44.560 --> 1:13:47.800 not care for the thousands and thousands and thousands of 1:13:47.880 --> 1:13:51.000 other people that we care for besides those kids. 1:13:51.080 --> 1:13:51.200 Right. 1:13:51.760 --> 1:13:53.439 Then there are also just. 1:13:53.600 --> 1:13:57.760 The doze fuckery that is going to harm all of 1:13:57.840 --> 1:13:59.920 this and may create a lot of the same outcomes right, 1:14:00.040 --> 1:14:03.960 which is they turned off grants kind of just across 1:14:04.040 --> 1:14:06.360 the board. Yes, some of them were targeted on things 1:14:06.439 --> 1:14:09.479 like gender affirming, most of them were just like, it's 1:14:09.520 --> 1:14:12.439 a grant, we're turning it off. And then there was 1:14:12.520 --> 1:14:15.719 the tro but much of that funding has remained frozen. 1:14:16.080 --> 1:14:18.479 We have been told that the system is up and 1:14:18.560 --> 1:14:21.280 running and that they undid what they did, and the 1:14:21.360 --> 1:14:23.160 courts stepped in, and oh, don't we have the courts 1:14:23.240 --> 1:14:25.160 still here in the United States. Isn't that a good thing? 1:14:25.680 --> 1:14:28.200 But they just kept the funding off. Whether because they're 1:14:28.200 --> 1:14:31.320 incompetent or because they're actively defying the law doesn't really matter. 1:14:31.640 --> 1:14:34.080 And as a result, federally qualified health centers all across 1:14:34.120 --> 1:14:37.240 the country have laid people off. They have closed clinics 1:14:37.439 --> 1:14:40.680 and have entirely gone underwater in some cases. And then 1:14:40.840 --> 1:14:43.640 those people are not there to treat the community that 1:14:43.800 --> 1:14:47.160 needs them so badly. And all of these systems are 1:14:47.200 --> 1:14:50.519 grounded in their communities. So when you lose the clinic 1:14:50.600 --> 1:14:52.680 that's in LA that had to close its doors for 1:14:52.800 --> 1:14:55.840 the office that's on one side of town, the people 1:14:55.960 --> 1:14:58.879 there knew that place. It was part of their community. 1:14:58.960 --> 1:15:01.320 Part of their existence is grounded in that community and 1:15:01.439 --> 1:15:02.800 its community's needs, and. 1:15:02.920 --> 1:15:03.719 That's just gone. 1:15:04.280 --> 1:15:06.400 And this puts us in a very difficult position, and 1:15:06.680 --> 1:15:09.760 you know, leadership in the very difficult position of figuring out, well, 1:15:09.880 --> 1:15:12.920 do I worry about these trans youth and the fact 1:15:12.960 --> 1:15:15.400 that they might kill themselves, or do I worry about 1:15:15.439 --> 1:15:18.240 the impact that standing up on principle and saying I 1:15:18.280 --> 1:15:20.920 won't toss them to the wolves might have on the 1:15:21.000 --> 1:15:23.799 rest of the system. And it becomes a very difficult 1:15:23.840 --> 1:15:26.560 sort of situation for us as providers to navigate. But 1:15:26.920 --> 1:15:29.479 you know, in fairness to leadership, which I disagree with 1:15:29.800 --> 1:15:30.280 for them too. 1:15:30.760 --> 1:15:34.479 Yeah, that's tough. Can you briefly explain, like maybe lay 1:15:34.560 --> 1:15:36.960 out a timeline, because we talked about executive orders there, 1:15:37.000 --> 1:15:41.200 We talked about a tro like there was a large 1:15:41.280 --> 1:15:44.160 number of executive orders right in the last three weeks, 1:15:44.200 --> 1:15:46.240 so like maybe people miss them. Can you explain the 1:15:46.320 --> 1:15:49.400 pertinent executive orders? And then what's a tensat difference training order? 1:15:50.200 --> 1:15:53.640 Yeah, So on Trump's first day in office, on the 1:15:53.760 --> 1:15:57.120 day of his inauguration, so January twentieth, he signs one 1:15:57.240 --> 1:16:01.080 hundred some odd executive orders. The ones that are particularly 1:16:01.080 --> 1:16:05.479 of interest to us in healthcare. Were protecting children against 1:16:05.760 --> 1:16:08.760 chemical and surgical mutilation is the name of it, which 1:16:08.800 --> 1:16:10.280 is a disgusting and vile name. 1:16:10.520 --> 1:16:10.720 Yeah. 1:16:10.960 --> 1:16:15.360 And then protecting women something something something defending women. Yeah, 1:16:15.479 --> 1:16:20.720 defending women, which is similarly aimed at transgender individuals, and 1:16:20.840 --> 1:16:24.360 I think will be used after we are under attack 1:16:24.439 --> 1:16:26.719 for trans youth, to come after trans adults in federally 1:16:26.800 --> 1:16:31.360 qualified health centers as well. Those eos led to later 1:16:31.479 --> 1:16:35.519 that week, on Friday, we got emails to every PI, 1:16:35.640 --> 1:16:39.000 which is principal investigator on every federal grant that we had, 1:16:39.560 --> 1:16:43.760 that said, because of those two, and there was one 1:16:43.760 --> 1:16:47.080 about DEI, which is also in executive order, you are 1:16:47.120 --> 1:16:49.680 not allowed to use any of these grant dollars in 1:16:49.840 --> 1:16:53.000 service of anything in defiance of these three executive orders. 1:16:53.360 --> 1:16:54.880 So that was the first shot we got, and it 1:16:54.960 --> 1:16:58.439 came only four days later. It's threatening, but it wasn't 1:16:58.439 --> 1:17:01.040 specific right. It didn't specifically say we're going to do X, 1:17:01.160 --> 1:17:03.719 Y or Z, but it was here, here's a threat. 1:17:04.280 --> 1:17:08.920 The following Tuesday, dog is let loose and announces that 1:17:09.000 --> 1:17:12.960 they are freezing federal grant funding tied to anything that 1:17:13.200 --> 1:17:17.639 is in opposition to those things. If you actually looked 1:17:17.680 --> 1:17:20.920 at the excel file that they released with the actual grants. 1:17:21.240 --> 1:17:24.920 It froze everything. Like it was not just the stuff 1:17:24.960 --> 1:17:26.760 that they felt was in opposition to this, it was 1:17:26.880 --> 1:17:29.240 like everything. We have a ton of grants that were 1:17:29.280 --> 1:17:31.040 on that list at the agency that I work at, 1:17:31.479 --> 1:17:33.439 and boy, oh boy, oh boy, was there a lot 1:17:33.479 --> 1:17:38.400 of panic going around. Wednesday rolls around, and they get 1:17:38.680 --> 1:17:41.200 a judge to come in and sort of put a 1:17:41.280 --> 1:17:44.280 halt on it. And then later that day a press 1:17:44.320 --> 1:17:46.800 secretary says, oh, we're just going to find the memo. 1:17:46.880 --> 1:17:49.599 We're still going to freeze everything, and then the judge 1:17:49.640 --> 1:17:51.760 comes back and puts a temporary straining order. So in theory, 1:17:51.840 --> 1:17:53.640 what that should have meant is that all of that 1:17:53.760 --> 1:17:58.000 grant funding once again flows. And it did not importantly 1:17:58.040 --> 1:18:00.280 too for us, given how much Medicaid dollars we take 1:18:00.320 --> 1:18:02.840 in Medicaid portals, and all fifty states went down, so 1:18:02.960 --> 1:18:05.320 we could not get any of those dollars in service 1:18:05.439 --> 1:18:08.880 of what we were doing for twelve hours. But still 1:18:09.400 --> 1:18:12.280 it was this very concerning situation because bedicaid was not 1:18:12.400 --> 1:18:14.040 on their list of things that they were after, and 1:18:14.160 --> 1:18:17.280 yet we couldn't even access it on the state level. 1:18:17.960 --> 1:18:21.720 A few more weeks go by and there's news popping about, Hey, 1:18:22.439 --> 1:18:25.960 you said you unfroze stuff, but it's still frozen. Another 1:18:26.400 --> 1:18:30.000 judge issued an order saying that, like, no, for real, 1:18:30.040 --> 1:18:32.680 I meet at this time unfreeze everything. I know some 1:18:32.840 --> 1:18:34.599 of the grants that we had that we couldn't access 1:18:34.600 --> 1:18:37.479 seem to have come back online, but I don't know, 1:18:38.000 --> 1:18:39.519 you know, I think it would be an impossible thing 1:18:39.600 --> 1:18:41.960 to do an accounting of like every single one that 1:18:42.080 --> 1:18:44.280 might have been turned off that might might or might 1:18:44.360 --> 1:18:46.479 not be back on right now. But I am doubtful 1:18:46.520 --> 1:18:49.280 that at this point every single grant across the federal 1:18:49.360 --> 1:18:52.439 agency is potentially available for folks. 1:18:52.880 --> 1:18:53.800 Just seems unlikely to me. 1:18:54.439 --> 1:18:58.240 Yeah, we should pivot to advertisements here. So I'm going 1:18:58.280 --> 1:19:09.800 to do that and then we'll be right back. Okay, 1:19:09.880 --> 1:19:12.920 we are back. So you talked about like these grants 1:19:13.000 --> 1:19:16.400 being turned off or not coming. What does that mean? 1:19:16.720 --> 1:19:20.679 Does that mean people don't get cared? That mean providers 1:19:20.720 --> 1:19:23.360 don't get paid? Does that mean they can't access their prescriptions? 1:19:23.400 --> 1:19:24.640 Like what does it look like if I'm trying to 1:19:24.680 --> 1:19:26.519 access care through one of your clinics? 1:19:26.840 --> 1:19:28.760 So, yeah, I'll speak to that a little bit on 1:19:28.880 --> 1:19:33.000 the prescriber side, because I think, you know, having direct 1:19:33.040 --> 1:19:35.639 contact with someone who works in the administration is really 1:19:35.680 --> 1:19:38.120 the only way that I have really been able to 1:19:38.200 --> 1:19:41.080 get any updates. So as a healthcare provider, it's been 1:19:41.120 --> 1:19:45.839 out our chaos. Basically every day we've gotten different messaging 1:19:46.320 --> 1:19:50.559 around whether or not appointments can be scheduled, new patients, 1:19:50.600 --> 1:19:54.639 can you know, schedule intakes, whether or not we're able 1:19:54.720 --> 1:19:59.280 to prescribe these life saving medications, and no one knows 1:19:59.640 --> 1:20:04.840 exact eactly. Gender firming care is basically healthcare. There's nothing 1:20:04.880 --> 1:20:08.280 that separates it. There's no hardline, there's no clear distinction. 1:20:08.479 --> 1:20:14.840 It is medically indicated, evidence based care. So saying you 1:20:14.960 --> 1:20:18.120 can't do gender firming care, it literally doesn't make any 1:20:18.200 --> 1:20:21.800 sense in terms of, you know, what we do as prescribers. 1:20:22.640 --> 1:20:27.120 And on my end, I've been faced with intimidation. I've 1:20:27.160 --> 1:20:31.519 been faced with kind of whisper networks of misinformation coming 1:20:31.560 --> 1:20:35.200 from administration trying to get us to stop prescribing because 1:20:35.320 --> 1:20:37.520 they do see this type of care as a liability. 1:20:38.400 --> 1:20:42.960 I'm still prescribing. There is no state law in the 1:20:43.040 --> 1:20:46.320 state that I am in that prevents my ability to 1:20:47.040 --> 1:20:49.559 act us to the full extent of my scope. There 1:20:49.600 --> 1:20:53.200 are also no medical indications for me to stop prescribing, 1:20:53.800 --> 1:20:57.560 and I'm ethically bound as a nurse practitioner to do 1:20:57.680 --> 1:20:59.600 what I believe is best for my patients, which is 1:20:59.680 --> 1:21:02.280 to continue to provide them with a care that they need. 1:21:02.680 --> 1:21:04.559 But it's terrifying, I. 1:21:04.560 --> 1:21:07.200 Think importantly, Haley and I have the event of working 1:21:07.240 --> 1:21:11.000 for a more economically stable institution. There's a lot of 1:21:11.439 --> 1:21:14.160 health clinics out there that have a week's worth of 1:21:14.240 --> 1:21:16.720 working capital, right, so if all of a sudden they 1:21:17.400 --> 1:21:20.040 lose access to every grant dollar, it lose access to 1:21:20.080 --> 1:21:23.200 their three thirty. They were scheduled to draw down on 1:21:23.280 --> 1:21:24.880 a grant that was going to cover a whole bunch 1:21:24.880 --> 1:21:26.840 of upcoming expenses, but they haven't done it yet, and 1:21:26.920 --> 1:21:29.640 then they can't. Like in very real ways, that may 1:21:29.760 --> 1:21:31.920 mean that the doors are closed and the place goes 1:21:32.040 --> 1:21:33.840 under and that no one can get care there. 1:21:34.479 --> 1:21:36.120 And there is this real. 1:21:36.000 --> 1:21:39.240 Challenge of you know, how do we decide what is 1:21:39.360 --> 1:21:41.600 the best thing to do. But for me and what 1:21:41.760 --> 1:21:44.720 sort of started working with in our agency at least 1:21:45.160 --> 1:21:46.920 to organize around this, is that like this is an 1:21:46.920 --> 1:21:49.600 anti fascist practice. That is the right medical thing to do, 1:21:49.680 --> 1:21:51.160 it is the right ethical thing to do, but it 1:21:51.280 --> 1:21:54.320 is also our chance to take an anti fascist stance 1:21:54.479 --> 1:21:57.200 against this government, because if we don't stand now for 1:21:57.320 --> 1:21:59.920 the very first group they're coming for, then the next group, 1:22:00.080 --> 1:22:04.880 which is without question trans adults and undocumented people, then 1:22:05.280 --> 1:22:07.439 those groups will fall just as quickly, and then at 1:22:07.520 --> 1:22:10.400 some point we're doing the poem the first they came for, 1:22:10.479 --> 1:22:12.960 the socialist thing, and I just refused to be a 1:22:13.000 --> 1:22:13.360 part of that. 1:22:14.080 --> 1:22:19.120 Yeah, let's talk about what that means then. Like you said, 1:22:19.479 --> 1:22:23.880 it's difficult to get any response from administration right in 1:22:24.000 --> 1:22:25.720 terms what you can do, intens what you can't do, 1:22:26.680 --> 1:22:30.439 how odd stuff, and providers organizing to make sure that 1:22:30.439 --> 1:22:34.280 they're able to keep providing for their patients, So just to. 1:22:34.320 --> 1:22:36.200 Provide also like a little bit of a peek into 1:22:36.320 --> 1:22:39.280 kind of the broader landscape of this. Our clinic is 1:22:39.360 --> 1:22:42.040 not alone in their confusion on how they've been handling this, 1:22:43.560 --> 1:22:49.599 not only sqhcs, but also hospital affiliated clinics, academic medical 1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:54.320 clinics have basically, clinic by clinic, decided on their own 1:22:54.400 --> 1:22:58.280 plan on how to manage this, which is also incredibly confusing. 1:22:58.520 --> 1:23:00.519 For providers and for patients. 1:23:01.200 --> 1:23:04.080 But something that was really heartening was that NYU ling Go, 1:23:04.240 --> 1:23:07.000 and this was in the news recently, they canceled appointments 1:23:07.040 --> 1:23:11.000 for two kids, literally just two kids, which is more 1:23:11.080 --> 1:23:11.679 than enough. 1:23:11.720 --> 1:23:15.480 And it sparked this enormous outcry and protests. 1:23:16.240 --> 1:23:20.000 And so I think there's also, on my end, a 1:23:20.080 --> 1:23:23.120 lot of solidarity building with other providers who are doing 1:23:23.200 --> 1:23:26.120 this work, and a lot of inspiration. There are clinics 1:23:26.280 --> 1:23:29.960 out there, some who are FQHCs like us, who have 1:23:30.120 --> 1:23:33.240 stood firm and they've said our doors are going to 1:23:33.240 --> 1:23:36.040 stay open, We're going to keep providing this care. And 1:23:36.120 --> 1:23:39.680 so I think there are models out there, and I 1:23:39.800 --> 1:23:44.559 think that there are networks of healthcare providers who are 1:23:44.720 --> 1:23:48.400 committed to continue to advocate and just continue to do 1:23:48.520 --> 1:23:51.320 this right because a lot of what we're facing right 1:23:51.360 --> 1:23:55.320 now is intimidation. It's not actual legal. 1:23:55.120 --> 1:23:56.080 Threats as of yet. 1:23:56.560 --> 1:23:59.880 Yeah, I think the organizing side has been challenging but 1:24:00.040 --> 1:24:01.040 also hugely rewarding. 1:24:01.280 --> 1:24:01.400 Right. 1:24:02.120 --> 1:24:04.599 It became really obvious really early on that both from 1:24:04.880 --> 1:24:08.599 the federal government's perspective as well as from our organization's perspective, 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:12.320 that the uncertainty was where they wanted us all to 1:24:12.439 --> 1:24:13.000 live and die. 1:24:13.640 --> 1:24:16.160 That was the place that served them and their goals 1:24:16.240 --> 1:24:16.599 the most. 1:24:17.280 --> 1:24:20.479 And so how does uncertainty sort of foster Well, people 1:24:20.479 --> 1:24:22.400 don't talk to one another, right, like this is true, 1:24:22.479 --> 1:24:24.640 kind of an organizational sensus across the board. Right, if 1:24:24.680 --> 1:24:26.599 you're in a union, you don't talk about your salary 1:24:27.000 --> 1:24:29.400 doesn't benefit you, it benefits the boss. And so if 1:24:29.400 --> 1:24:32.280 we're not talking to one another about where our lines are, 1:24:32.360 --> 1:24:33.840 who we're going to treat, whether we're going to keep 1:24:33.880 --> 1:24:35.679 doing it, or listen to them what we're being told, 1:24:35.760 --> 1:24:38.720 we're not being told that were consulting lawyers, all these 1:24:38.720 --> 1:24:40.760 other kind of things, then we're all just alone in 1:24:40.840 --> 1:24:43.960 the dark kind of you know, trying not to scream 1:24:44.040 --> 1:24:46.360 and cry about the horrors that are happening around us. 1:24:46.800 --> 1:24:50.840 So we pulled together folks with conversation here, conversation there. 1:24:51.280 --> 1:24:54.360 Folks who before anything was going on internally, you know, 1:24:54.520 --> 1:24:56.679 made really bold statements about what they would and would 1:24:56.760 --> 1:24:59.400 not do around this kind of stuff. And now all 1:24:59.439 --> 1:25:01.840 of a sudden, there there's an internal network that's looking 1:25:01.920 --> 1:25:05.080 at well, Okay, so individually we can keep doing this 1:25:05.200 --> 1:25:07.360 care because it's the right thing to do. But as 1:25:07.400 --> 1:25:09.599 a group, if they start coming after us. 1:25:09.560 --> 1:25:11.240 We have a lot more power. There's a lot more 1:25:11.280 --> 1:25:11.840 that we can do. 1:25:12.600 --> 1:25:15.600 And I suspect, and you know, Hayley's getting at this 1:25:15.760 --> 1:25:18.479 point that like, there are probably a network of us 1:25:18.560 --> 1:25:21.600 across the entire country in these kind of settings that 1:25:21.720 --> 1:25:25.720 are not talking amongst ourselves at our workplace, but are 1:25:25.800 --> 1:25:28.559 really not talking about it amongst ourselves on a national level. 1:25:28.880 --> 1:25:30.600 And I think we have some power that could be 1:25:30.760 --> 1:25:33.200 used there to really make a difference in all of this. 1:25:33.360 --> 1:25:36.320 And I am optimistic that if we talk about this, 1:25:36.439 --> 1:25:38.960 we get this out there, we make sure everyone's communicating 1:25:39.040 --> 1:25:41.479 openly about it, that there's a real possibility that we 1:25:41.560 --> 1:25:44.479 can work together to prevent this from being the first 1:25:44.520 --> 1:25:45.639 of many dominoes to fall. 1:25:46.280 --> 1:25:49.280 And one thing that's interesting, I think is that with transscare, 1:25:49.360 --> 1:25:53.639 TRANTULSCA is inherently radical. Like Transtall's care is not something 1:25:54.160 --> 1:25:58.479 that came from the kind of medical hierarchy. This is 1:25:58.560 --> 1:26:02.960 by and large a field that was communal. Trans people 1:26:03.040 --> 1:26:06.840 were doing their own trans healthcare before it became kind 1:26:06.840 --> 1:26:11.080 of institutionalized into a lot of these spaces. So I 1:26:11.200 --> 1:26:13.920 think we also have a lot of providers who are 1:26:14.200 --> 1:26:18.280 willing to function up right, like the community and the 1:26:18.600 --> 1:26:21.560 providers are intertwined. And I do think there is a 1:26:21.680 --> 1:26:25.639 real kind of radical bent to this type of work, 1:26:25.880 --> 1:26:28.320 which is why I think a lot of us have 1:26:28.600 --> 1:26:34.120 been so easily able to collectivize and strategize and kind 1:26:34.120 --> 1:26:34.719 of come together. 1:26:34.800 --> 1:26:36.599 It's a pretty small world as well. 1:26:37.000 --> 1:26:39.640 We sat down on a call and talked about, you know, 1:26:40.200 --> 1:26:42.280 what are we going to do? And I made mention 1:26:42.400 --> 1:26:44.280 that like, oh, through my other organizing work, I've got 1:26:44.360 --> 1:26:47.240 a DIY connection for Estra dial. So that's a huge 1:26:47.360 --> 1:26:50.120 thing that will help us if we can't prescribe this anymore, 1:26:50.120 --> 1:26:52.880 if Medicaid stops covering it, Yah, YadA, YadA. I was like, 1:26:52.960 --> 1:26:54.920 but I don't have a you know, a DIY solution 1:26:55.080 --> 1:26:57.519 for tea. If anyone knows of anybody, that'd be great. 1:26:57.560 --> 1:27:00.400 And immediately someone's like, oh, yeah, absolutely, I do. It's tested, 1:27:00.439 --> 1:27:02.760 it's a ninety nine point nine percent pure we're ready 1:27:02.840 --> 1:27:04.840 to go. So now, like I wouldn't have done that, 1:27:04.920 --> 1:27:06.240 There was no way for us to know that that 1:27:06.360 --> 1:27:08.200 was the kind of radical work that people were doing. 1:27:08.280 --> 1:27:11.040 If not for coming together on this kind of stuff, Yeah, 1:27:11.640 --> 1:27:11.960 maybe we. 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:15.960 Should explain like the inherent risks like legally, and then 1:27:16.000 --> 1:27:19.880 then distinction between those two hormones legally, right, like if 1:27:19.920 --> 1:27:20.759 people are unaware. 1:27:21.280 --> 1:27:24.519 Yeah, so you know, as a medical provider again, I 1:27:24.640 --> 1:27:27.639 have to be a little bit careful here. But basically, 1:27:27.800 --> 1:27:31.559 because the stosterone has been used by mostly the cistmail 1:27:31.720 --> 1:27:36.560 community as an anabolic steroid and used you know, and 1:27:36.680 --> 1:27:40.839 somewhat would call like anabolic steroid misuse or steroid use disorder, 1:27:41.640 --> 1:27:45.840 it is a controlled substance. Estradial is not. They're both 1:27:45.920 --> 1:27:50.479 bioidentical hormones. Every human on this planet, their body makes 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:52.519 estrogen and testosterone E. 1:27:52.600 --> 1:27:54.280 And t estradyle and testosterone. 1:27:54.320 --> 1:27:59.799 However, in the United States, testosterone is considered a controlled substance, 1:28:00.240 --> 1:28:03.120 which makes it a little more tricky for folks to 1:28:04.080 --> 1:28:07.640 access without a prescription and also can put them at 1:28:07.760 --> 1:28:09.360 legal risk if they do so. 1:28:10.080 --> 1:28:12.559 Right, Like there's a built in legal consequence for people 1:28:12.600 --> 1:28:15.120 who are trying to manufacture there or who are trying 1:28:15.160 --> 1:28:17.960 to obtain it, like outside of the sort of prescription system, 1:28:18.400 --> 1:28:22.040 not that there aren't other probably legal threats coming down 1:28:22.080 --> 1:28:23.000 the pipeline, I guess. 1:28:23.320 --> 1:28:27.720 Also, testosterone is yes, it is a controlled substance. It 1:28:28.000 --> 1:28:33.320 does flow in the bodybuilding community. Ye, it's well controlled. Yeah, 1:28:34.200 --> 1:28:37.160 that is also like worth stating, because yes, if you 1:28:37.200 --> 1:28:38.439 go to your average gym. 1:28:39.560 --> 1:28:42.080 Oh yeah, you can walk across the borders to Tijuanner 1:28:42.120 --> 1:28:47.120 and see like gas stations have the prices like unleaded premium. Yeah, 1:28:47.200 --> 1:28:50.360 you can get testosterone prices like displayed in the same fashion. 1:28:50.640 --> 1:28:53.519 I mean, I'm sure you're you're huge fans of Joe Rogan. 1:28:53.920 --> 1:28:55.960 So many many. 1:28:57.320 --> 1:29:00.320 Of my other patients who are not trans have been 1:29:00.400 --> 1:29:05.320 influenced to purchase disasterone because of our good friends. 1:29:06.760 --> 1:29:06.920 Yeah. 1:29:07.120 --> 1:29:08.320 Yeah, fascinating self. 1:29:08.560 --> 1:29:10.840 Yeah, which is also gender affirm and care for whatever 1:29:10.920 --> 1:29:13.840 that's worth, like gender a firm in care too. 1:29:14.439 --> 1:29:17.240 Yes they do. It's a lot easier for them right now. 1:29:27.880 --> 1:29:32.720 So let's talk about like what this organizing looks like 1:29:33.160 --> 1:29:36.479 on the ground, right, Like if someone's working, maybe they're 1:29:36.520 --> 1:29:39.000 not in an f QHC, right, Maybe they're working in 1:29:39.000 --> 1:29:42.439 an academic health center. Maybe they're working, you know, in 1:29:42.560 --> 1:29:44.320 one of the many other places where you can access 1:29:44.360 --> 1:29:46.920 gender affirming care in this country, and they are feeling 1:29:47.080 --> 1:29:51.160 like alone or they're scared and they're not receiving any 1:29:51.680 --> 1:29:54.880 affirmation or help from their management, and they don't know 1:29:54.920 --> 1:29:58.599 who they can talk to among their colleagues, Like how 1:29:58.640 --> 1:30:04.360 are people connecting? Like what are people talking about? And 1:30:04.640 --> 1:30:07.400 like how can people who are because you know, the 1:30:07.640 --> 1:30:11.000 healthcare system is fast in this country because it duplicates itself. 1:30:11.040 --> 1:30:14.240 It's the nature of American privatized healthcare. Like, how can 1:30:14.320 --> 1:30:17.360 people who want to continue providing care for patients do that? 1:30:17.680 --> 1:30:19.759 How do they organize their colleagues? How do they contact 1:30:19.760 --> 1:30:22.000 people who are already organizing, Like, let's talk through that 1:30:22.160 --> 1:30:22.880 nuts and bolts of it. 1:30:23.160 --> 1:30:25.920 I mean, I think there's a lot of national orgs 1:30:26.040 --> 1:30:28.680 out there that are really doing the work. So if 1:30:28.680 --> 1:30:32.519 you're a medical provider, I would highly recommend to join GLAMMA, 1:30:32.600 --> 1:30:37.280 which is a gay lesbian medical association, because they have 1:30:38.000 --> 1:30:41.639 some lawsuits and as a member of GLAMMA, that could 1:30:41.680 --> 1:30:46.080 possibly give you some additional protection. Following other orgs like 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:51.639 Lambda Legal Stage, which is an organization for an elder gay, 1:30:51.760 --> 1:30:58.560 lesbian and queer folks, people have existed and have built organizations. 1:30:59.280 --> 1:31:02.280 A lot of those are organizations are fighting this on 1:31:02.400 --> 1:31:06.000 a national level, and some of those are more geared 1:31:06.040 --> 1:31:08.160 toward healthcare professionals. 1:31:08.240 --> 1:31:09.640 Like Gleamma, I. 1:31:09.640 --> 1:31:12.479 Would say, there's two conversations that we all need to 1:31:12.520 --> 1:31:15.599 be having. Like those external organizations are huge and necessary 1:31:15.640 --> 1:31:19.720 for direction within your own space, you have to talk 1:31:19.760 --> 1:31:22.360 to your colleagues in a way that's honest and talk 1:31:22.479 --> 1:31:24.960 to them about risk taking. Talk to them about where 1:31:25.240 --> 1:31:27.640 you will and will not budge on some of these 1:31:27.720 --> 1:31:30.200 kind of things. Talk to them about the value of 1:31:30.280 --> 1:31:32.280 the work that you all do because there's more of 1:31:32.360 --> 1:31:35.040 you doing it. Talk to your trans colleagues. They exist, 1:31:35.160 --> 1:31:37.560 they're out there, like they have very strong opinions on this, 1:31:37.720 --> 1:31:40.559 I am sure. And then talk to a lawyer. Talk 1:31:40.600 --> 1:31:45.680 to an employment lawyer, because your corporate attorneys have very 1:31:45.840 --> 1:31:49.240 different goals than you do. Their goal is simply to 1:31:49.400 --> 1:31:53.680 protect the company and its bottom line, and both they 1:31:54.160 --> 1:31:57.680 and the federal government and the sort of DOJ are 1:31:57.760 --> 1:32:02.439 spewing absolute bullshit. So don't let them flood the zone 1:32:02.600 --> 1:32:05.639 with nonsense. Get a lawyer who can tell you what's 1:32:05.720 --> 1:32:09.439 nonsense and stand firmly in that because it is. And 1:32:09.680 --> 1:32:12.800 then when you start thinking about as an organization, as 1:32:12.840 --> 1:32:16.720 a group, as a set of employees communicating with you know, 1:32:16.960 --> 1:32:19.400 leadership about these kind of things, Know that the law 1:32:19.520 --> 1:32:21.960 is actually not on their side, it's on yours. And 1:32:22.080 --> 1:32:24.600 let them know that they are exposing themselves to vulnerability 1:32:24.680 --> 1:32:28.880 for malpractice and for civil rights violations and any number 1:32:28.880 --> 1:32:30.600 of other things that they probably don't want to be 1:32:30.680 --> 1:32:34.040 on the hook for. This is the leverage that we've 1:32:34.120 --> 1:32:36.479 got right now. It seems to have slowed things down 1:32:36.520 --> 1:32:39.240 a little bit internally for us that they've had to 1:32:39.320 --> 1:32:43.360 confront like a very well pointed out legal opinion that 1:32:43.479 --> 1:32:47.000 said that like they were exposing their providers to civil 1:32:47.080 --> 1:32:49.599 lawsuits if they didn't do this, and that the FDCA, 1:32:50.120 --> 1:32:52.799 the Federal Tort Claims Act, didn't protect people under these guides. 1:32:53.320 --> 1:32:56.320 That has been really beneficial to us. The other thing 1:32:56.360 --> 1:32:58.599 I would say is like there's a real union sort 1:32:58.640 --> 1:33:01.000 of feel to a lot of this, and as we 1:33:01.160 --> 1:33:03.400 started coming together, a bunch of us realize, well, we 1:33:03.520 --> 1:33:06.960 all kind of had union conversations somewhere along the way, 1:33:07.479 --> 1:33:10.640 But corporate unions and like SEIU represents a lot of 1:33:10.840 --> 1:33:14.200 like individual sort of arms of companies, like the ones 1:33:14.240 --> 1:33:18.200 that we work at. They aren't interested in the politics 1:33:18.240 --> 1:33:20.599 of the work you do. They are interested in your benefits. 1:33:20.600 --> 1:33:22.840 They are interested in you as a worker but they're 1:33:22.880 --> 1:33:26.840 not interested in like your relationship to the work. And 1:33:27.080 --> 1:33:30.280 so we are approaching this not necessarily as a union, 1:33:30.680 --> 1:33:32.759 but from the perspective that if we need to strike 1:33:33.240 --> 1:33:36.640 on behalf of patients and their access to care, like 1:33:36.840 --> 1:33:38.840 that's a tool in our toolbox, and we don't have 1:33:39.000 --> 1:33:41.120 to do anything more than declare it to strike to 1:33:41.160 --> 1:33:43.040 be protected under the NLRB and some of these various 1:33:43.040 --> 1:33:45.840 different things. And we can do it for political reasons 1:33:45.880 --> 1:33:47.920 instead of for pay reasons, which means we could do 1:33:47.960 --> 1:33:50.360 it as a diverse group instead of as all the nurses, 1:33:50.520 --> 1:33:54.120 all the advanced practice providers, all of the psychologists and 1:33:54.160 --> 1:33:57.719 therapists and lcsws, where they break us apart by discipline 1:33:57.840 --> 1:34:01.799 instead of by you know what sort of managerial status 1:34:01.840 --> 1:34:02.080 you are. 1:34:02.760 --> 1:34:05.000 Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very good point. I 1:34:05.120 --> 1:34:08.280 read a book recently about how the long shoremen in 1:34:08.320 --> 1:34:12.720 San Francisco stopped weapons going to the Gilol salbad Or 1:34:13.240 --> 1:34:16.120 by striking and refusing to load weapons onto ships, and like, 1:34:16.520 --> 1:34:19.720 that's a union energy we could use right now. Yeah, Yeah, 1:34:19.720 --> 1:34:22.400 I think people be well advised to, Like I will 1:34:22.400 --> 1:34:24.439 say that they'd be well advised to check with federal 1:34:24.520 --> 1:34:27.479 and local law because like some state legal landscapes can 1:34:27.520 --> 1:34:31.280 be very different. Right. I want to end with like 1:34:31.880 --> 1:34:34.560 people are probably afraid of accessing care, right, Like, like 1:34:34.600 --> 1:34:38.080 people are probably afraid of going to see their providers, 1:34:38.200 --> 1:34:42.960 like understandably, like you said before, like especially kids or 1:34:43.000 --> 1:34:45.800 people under eighteen are like right in the center of 1:34:46.600 --> 1:34:48.439 the President of the United States called out a friend 1:34:48.520 --> 1:34:53.160 of mine personally by name recently. She's a trans athlete, 1:34:53.680 --> 1:34:56.479 and like they're really coming after people. I understand that 1:34:56.520 --> 1:34:58.680 people are afraid, Like what should they know if they're 1:34:58.720 --> 1:35:02.880 concerned about their whole moned supply or they're own puberty blockers? 1:35:03.000 --> 1:35:06.040 Right now, like people are listening, what would you Maybe 1:35:06.120 --> 1:35:09.559 they don't know where their provider stands, you know, Yeah. 1:35:09.720 --> 1:35:12.920 I mean I tell my patients this, But I'm in 1:35:13.040 --> 1:35:16.720 awe of them. They're incredible. And a lot of them 1:35:16.880 --> 1:35:21.400 are nerdy theater kids who love cats and they want 1:35:21.560 --> 1:35:25.240 to just exist. And some of them are also incredible 1:35:25.400 --> 1:35:31.479 outspoken activists. They are just amazing, And I will fight 1:35:32.479 --> 1:35:36.719 with everything that I've got for them, and I really. 1:35:36.560 --> 1:35:37.200 Hope they know that. 1:35:38.040 --> 1:35:40.439 I think one of the mantras I've been given to 1:35:40.520 --> 1:35:42.800 fellow colleagues as well, as to our leadership to like 1:35:43.040 --> 1:35:46.640 get their heads on straight. Is that like pascism is messy, right, 1:35:46.720 --> 1:35:50.240 Like it's a scary messy. There are a lot of 1:35:50.320 --> 1:35:52.960 throwing stuff with the wall and seeing what sticks. But 1:35:53.120 --> 1:35:56.960 the things that in theory are still in place, like 1:35:57.120 --> 1:36:00.080 when and if they fall. We have different problems the 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:02.960 ones we're facing now, right, So we still have in 1:36:03.080 --> 1:36:06.439 this country protections for your healthcare information. 1:36:07.040 --> 1:36:08.519 So if what you worry about. 1:36:08.320 --> 1:36:10.160 In going to the doctor is that someone will find 1:36:10.200 --> 1:36:11.840 out that your trends and put you on a list, like, 1:36:11.880 --> 1:36:13.960 I can't tell you that's never going to happen, but 1:36:14.040 --> 1:36:16.000 I can tell you that if it happens through your 1:36:16.040 --> 1:36:20.320 healthcare clinic, like, we have significantly changed the threat model 1:36:20.320 --> 1:36:22.839 that we're all living in because HIPPA doesn't matter anymore 1:36:22.840 --> 1:36:26.640 and doesn't exist. Your providers are spending enormous amounts of 1:36:26.680 --> 1:36:29.439 time thinking carefully about how they document, where they document, 1:36:29.720 --> 1:36:31.120 how much of a deal they want to make it, 1:36:31.360 --> 1:36:34.040 whether or not they can change the thing they're prescribing 1:36:34.320 --> 1:36:37.439 for you, and what diagnosis is for We are finding 1:36:37.600 --> 1:36:40.280 ways to sort of throw as much cover and shade 1:36:40.439 --> 1:36:44.120 and camouflage over this as we can, but you shouldn't 1:36:44.360 --> 1:36:46.960 not come get care. Your life matters. You being in 1:36:47.040 --> 1:36:49.920 the body that you were meant to have matters. Come 1:36:50.040 --> 1:36:52.360 talk to us, come ask for help. We're here to 1:36:52.479 --> 1:36:54.320 do it, and we're not going to stop until they 1:36:54.400 --> 1:36:57.560 make us. And right now they can't make us, and 1:36:57.760 --> 1:36:58.920 so we're going to keep doing it. 1:36:59.479 --> 1:37:03.200 And the mantra of trans people have always existed. Trans 1:37:03.280 --> 1:37:06.920 people exist, and personally, I'm going to do my best 1:37:07.000 --> 1:37:09.360 to make sure that for every single one of my 1:37:09.439 --> 1:37:12.800 patients that they continue to get what they need. 1:37:13.320 --> 1:37:15.640 However that looks like, then it is good to hear. 1:37:16.000 --> 1:37:19.360 I know a lot of trans people have essentially trauma 1:37:19.880 --> 1:37:24.800 with aspects of the medical community, establishment, whatever, and like 1:37:25.200 --> 1:37:28.519 you know, not not all practitioners maybe as much in 1:37:28.640 --> 1:37:32.000 our camp as maybe you are. And I would encourage 1:37:32.040 --> 1:37:34.280 people if they are, if they're still looking for care 1:37:34.479 --> 1:37:37.680 through like these these sorts of channels, you should you 1:37:37.720 --> 1:37:39.800 should try to find out where other trans people in 1:37:39.840 --> 1:37:44.080 your city are already going. There's certainly like clinics will 1:37:44.080 --> 1:37:46.000 have stuff on their website that indicate that they either 1:37:46.040 --> 1:37:49.760 specialize in this or they offer this as supposed to know, 1:37:50.000 --> 1:37:53.519 maybe just a general general practitioner who may not be 1:37:53.760 --> 1:37:55.800 you know, the greatest in this vein, and like this, 1:37:55.920 --> 1:37:57.680 this still happens. I've I've talked to a lot of 1:37:57.720 --> 1:38:03.600 friends recently who've spoken about having increasingly uncomfortable experiences with 1:38:03.880 --> 1:38:07.120 nurses or doctors, whether they're trying out like different clinics 1:38:07.360 --> 1:38:11.640 or different or different providers, university providers. So it is 1:38:11.680 --> 1:38:14.519 definitely worth doing some research beforehand so you know the 1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:17.720 place you're going is going to be like with you, 1:38:18.240 --> 1:38:20.679 which is just an unfortunate reality also of being trands. 1:38:20.760 --> 1:38:23.400 But that has been the case for a long time 1:38:23.479 --> 1:38:26.639 and it only continues to be a factor when considering care. 1:38:27.080 --> 1:38:31.080 Absolutely, it's really important to ask ask your friends. That's 1:38:31.160 --> 1:38:34.120 really solid advice, in part because whether I like it 1:38:34.240 --> 1:38:36.760 or not, a lot of organizations are taking the stuff 1:38:36.800 --> 1:38:40.040 that says, hey, we treat trans people down off their website, 1:38:40.120 --> 1:38:41.240 off their marketing materials. 1:38:41.320 --> 1:38:42.759 We are not trying to draw that attention. 1:38:43.000 --> 1:38:44.960 It doesn't mean we don't do it, doesn't mean we're 1:38:44.960 --> 1:38:47.919 not skilled and trained and educated and smart and passionate 1:38:47.960 --> 1:38:50.240 about it. It just means we don't really want to 1:38:50.360 --> 1:38:53.080 totally fly a trans flag on the roof right now, 1:38:53.320 --> 1:38:56.599 because it's just going to cause everybody harm. So talk 1:38:56.600 --> 1:38:58.519 to your friends, talk to people in your community. 1:38:58.760 --> 1:38:59.800 They know us, we know them. 1:39:00.280 --> 1:39:02.920 I have a lot of activism and experience outside of 1:39:03.040 --> 1:39:05.160 my work, and it's amazing how many of those people 1:39:05.640 --> 1:39:07.280 end up being the same people that. 1:39:07.400 --> 1:39:09.800 Are in this conversation because of the way that this 1:39:09.880 --> 1:39:10.320 all works. 1:39:10.520 --> 1:39:10.720 Yeah. 1:39:10.880 --> 1:39:12.599 Yeah, I was just going to say, I think, unfortunately 1:39:12.640 --> 1:39:15.840 it is the norm. An evidence shows that, like large 1:39:15.920 --> 1:39:20.679 evidence of studies show that trans people are treated pretty 1:39:20.920 --> 1:39:25.200 horribly by the healthcare system, and most of my patients 1:39:25.240 --> 1:39:28.000 have experienced that in some way or another. But like 1:39:28.080 --> 1:39:30.839 I was talking about before, a lot of trans healthcare 1:39:31.000 --> 1:39:34.519 kind of comes from a DIY community and there's a 1:39:34.600 --> 1:39:38.240 lot of really good community information about, you know, kind 1:39:38.280 --> 1:39:39.800 of who to trust and who you can go to 1:39:40.560 --> 1:39:42.919 in terms of finding an allied provider. 1:39:43.960 --> 1:39:46.920 Yeah. Yeah, and that's really good. I think that was 1:39:46.960 --> 1:39:47.360 really great. 1:39:47.400 --> 1:39:47.519 Guy. 1:39:47.560 --> 1:39:49.519 Thank you so much for your time and for your 1:39:49.960 --> 1:39:52.439 words for people. Is there anything else you want to share? 1:39:52.560 --> 1:39:55.599 Or perhaps if people want to support your efforts somehow 1:39:55.680 --> 1:39:57.960 or support people's access to care, that's an organization you 1:39:58.000 --> 1:40:00.679 could direct them to, or maybe like the way people 1:40:00.720 --> 1:40:02.960 coming shout out to you or I know a lot 1:40:02.960 --> 1:40:04.800 of people. There are people in my family who are 1:40:04.840 --> 1:40:09.120 healthcare providers who have substantially changed their outlook on the 1:40:09.200 --> 1:40:12.040 world and politics by how terribly their trans patients have 1:40:12.160 --> 1:40:15.439 been treated. So like, you know, like some of us 1:40:15.520 --> 1:40:18.519 have been organizing for a minute, some of us have 1:40:18.600 --> 1:40:21.760 been organizing for like literally a minute, And like, how 1:40:21.840 --> 1:40:24.599 do those people access these networks? Like how can people 1:40:24.600 --> 1:40:26.840 who are not in healthcare support you and what you're 1:40:26.840 --> 1:40:27.680 doing and reach out? 1:40:27.960 --> 1:40:31.840 The gender liberation movement is incredible. They're doing a lot 1:40:31.920 --> 1:40:36.680 of work, kind of public feasing to really get the 1:40:36.720 --> 1:40:40.000 point across on why this is so essential and also 1:40:40.280 --> 1:40:43.519 why everybody should have the right to their own bodily 1:40:43.600 --> 1:40:48.320 and gender autonomy. I think I mentioned earlier, but Lama, 1:40:48.640 --> 1:40:52.080 if you're on the healthcare side, and you know there 1:40:52.479 --> 1:40:54.920 are also kind of if you're in an academic setting 1:40:55.080 --> 1:40:59.800 looking to wpass the World Professional Association for Transgender how 1:41:00.720 --> 1:41:03.360 kind of going to the experts in this field and 1:41:03.840 --> 1:41:06.120 really following and mirroring what they're doing. 1:41:07.240 --> 1:41:11.240 I think if you're looking as a SIS person who 1:41:11.360 --> 1:41:15.040 gets your care somewhere that might get federal funding, but 1:41:15.200 --> 1:41:17.839 this is the thing that you care about, would encourage 1:41:17.880 --> 1:41:20.800 you to sort of make people get on record about 1:41:20.840 --> 1:41:23.640 this kind of stuff, right, it's been the most distasteful 1:41:23.640 --> 1:41:24.920 piece of all of this is the kind of like 1:41:25.080 --> 1:41:28.840 weasel hiding in all of this. So force them on 1:41:28.920 --> 1:41:31.800 the record, ask them. If they don't tell you, send 1:41:31.840 --> 1:41:33.880 them an email. If they don't know, respond to the email, 1:41:33.960 --> 1:41:37.040 send a follow up email. Like, make people get on 1:41:37.120 --> 1:41:39.559 the record about this so that we know where their 1:41:39.640 --> 1:41:41.519 values are. And if their values don't align with yours, 1:41:41.560 --> 1:41:43.559 take your business elsewhere. Because at the end of the day, 1:41:43.600 --> 1:41:45.760 helthcare is a business because the United States sucks, and 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:48.760 so we have to use those dollars in the ways 1:41:48.800 --> 1:41:50.920 that we can, and it matters in a lot of ways. 1:41:51.439 --> 1:41:53.840 I don't know that anyone will care to and I 1:41:54.040 --> 1:41:56.160 certainly don't want to present us as the people with 1:41:56.200 --> 1:41:58.439 all the answers here because we just like are figuring 1:41:58.479 --> 1:42:01.080 this as we go to But you can email us 1:42:01.200 --> 1:42:05.200 at Community Health Resistance at proton dot and maybe let's 1:42:05.200 --> 1:42:07.120 have a conversation. Maybe there's like a ton of people 1:42:07.160 --> 1:42:09.559 in the FQ world who want to do like an 1:42:09.720 --> 1:42:13.320 Amazon or a Starbucks like diy union project where we're 1:42:13.320 --> 1:42:15.479 all working on this together. For the politics rather than 1:42:15.560 --> 1:42:18.519 the pay as the primary sort of reason for it. 1:42:18.640 --> 1:42:21.519 Let's let's let's be a red union and get something going. 1:42:22.000 --> 1:42:22.760 I don't know that we can. 1:42:22.840 --> 1:42:25.320 I don't know that it's the right call, but I 1:42:25.439 --> 1:42:27.280 imagine there's more of us out there feeling this way 1:42:27.360 --> 1:42:27.600 than not. 1:42:27.800 --> 1:42:30.479 So Yeah, and like whatever it is, we're stronger together 1:42:30.520 --> 1:42:33.640 than we are apart. So like talking is how we 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:36.439 fix this. Thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate 1:42:37.040 --> 1:42:39.479 you being so open about this. And yeah, I hope 1:42:39.520 --> 1:42:41.519 that you succeed. You're able to keep taking care of 1:42:41.560 --> 1:42:42.280 people you can. 1:42:42.479 --> 1:42:43.120 We hope so too. 1:43:03.680 --> 1:43:06.640 I'm Michael Phillips. I wrote a history of racism in 1:43:06.720 --> 1:43:10.240 Dallas called White Metropolis, and have co authored an upcoming 1:43:10.320 --> 1:43:13.240 book on the history of eugenics in Texas called The 1:43:13.320 --> 1:43:14.320 Purifying Knife. 1:43:14.880 --> 1:43:19.000 And I'm Stephen Monticelli, an investigative reporter and columnist who 1:43:19.080 --> 1:43:22.600 covers extremism and far right movements for a variety of publications, 1:43:23.040 --> 1:43:25.559 including The Texas Observer and The Barbed Wire. 1:43:26.240 --> 1:43:30.120 School board meetings used to be boring. Board members typically 1:43:30.200 --> 1:43:35.760 spend hours discussing financial reports, land purchases, plumbing contracts, and 1:43:35.840 --> 1:43:40.639 other tedious topics, but Beginning in twenty twenty, Christopher Ruffo, 1:43:40.920 --> 1:43:44.320 a former documentary filmmaker and fellow at the right wing 1:43:44.439 --> 1:43:48.559 Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project twenty twenty five, 1:43:49.280 --> 1:43:52.880 launched a campaign to convince Americans that public schools have 1:43:53.000 --> 1:43:58.040 become communists and doctrination centers. Rufo falsely claimed that public 1:43:58.120 --> 1:44:02.160 school teachers were brainwashing school children with something called critical 1:44:02.280 --> 1:44:07.439 race theory or CRT for short. Adherents of critical race 1:44:07.520 --> 1:44:11.600 theory argue that racism has become so intrinsically entwined in 1:44:11.680 --> 1:44:16.559 American politics, law, and culture that anti discrimination laws typically fail. 1:44:17.760 --> 1:44:21.560 While CRT is studied in some graduate schools and law programs, 1:44:21.920 --> 1:44:24.519 it hasn't been taught at the grade school level where 1:44:24.560 --> 1:44:25.960 the outrage has been directed. 1:44:26.880 --> 1:44:30.480 That's certainly not the case in Texas, which influences curriculums 1:44:30.520 --> 1:44:33.679 across the nation due to its large population and purchasing 1:44:33.760 --> 1:44:39.720 power of textbooks. But precision wasn't the point of Rufo's campaign. Rather, 1:44:40.280 --> 1:44:44.320 it was to refashion CRT into a sort of political cudgel, 1:44:44.760 --> 1:44:47.400 something that Rufo admitted to in a series of tweets 1:44:47.520 --> 1:44:50.960 in twenty twenty one. The goal is to have the 1:44:51.040 --> 1:44:54.840 public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 1:44:54.960 --> 1:44:59.120 critical race theory, Rufo wrote, we have decodified the term, 1:44:59.520 --> 1:45:02.679 and will you codify it to annex the entire range 1:45:02.720 --> 1:45:06.240 of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans? 1:45:06.800 --> 1:45:07.280 End quote? 1:45:08.200 --> 1:45:11.919 On Fox News, Newsmax and other right wing media outlets, 1:45:12.439 --> 1:45:15.880 Rufo convinced parents that instead of teaching kids reading, writing, 1:45:15.960 --> 1:45:21.320 and arithmetic, public school teachers were using CRT to brainwash 1:45:21.479 --> 1:45:25.200 white children into hating themselves and goading black children into 1:45:25.240 --> 1:45:29.360 hating white people. Radical teachers and professors, Rufo warned, had 1:45:29.439 --> 1:45:33.559 launched a sinister campaign to destroy the American way of life. 1:45:34.960 --> 1:45:38.400 In a foundational paper called Whiteness's Property, the critical race 1:45:38.439 --> 1:45:42.679 theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing 1:45:42.760 --> 1:45:45.200 land and well from the rich and redistributing it along 1:45:45.320 --> 1:45:46.000 racial lines. 1:45:47.080 --> 1:45:50.800 Rufa's timing could not have been more perfect. The artificial 1:45:50.960 --> 1:45:55.639 CRT panic broke out during the COVID pandemic. Parents already 1:45:55.720 --> 1:46:00.200 felt frustration and fury about the hardships of campus closings, 1:46:00.640 --> 1:46:04.799 remote learning, and mass mandates, now convinced that their children 1:46:04.880 --> 1:46:07.479 were being taught to scapego white people for all the 1:46:07.520 --> 1:46:12.280 country's problems, parents across the country exploded in rage at. 1:46:12.240 --> 1:46:13.280 Local school boards. 1:46:13.840 --> 1:46:18.200 Reuters reported on one meaning that turned violent in Loudon County, Virginia. 1:46:21.600 --> 1:46:24.040 What had been planned as a typical school board meeting 1:46:24.120 --> 1:46:28.760 in Virginia's wealthy Louden County this week devolved into pandemonium, 1:46:32.840 --> 1:46:36.120 with hundreds of parents flooding an auditorium to accuse the 1:46:36.160 --> 1:46:39.839 school system of teaching their kids that racism in America 1:46:40.000 --> 1:46:43.840 is structural and systemic, something the school board denies is 1:46:43.920 --> 1:46:47.040 part of the curriculum. Things got so heated that the 1:46:47.080 --> 1:46:50.800 board members eventually walked out, leaving the police to deal 1:46:50.840 --> 1:46:51.960 with the unruly crowd. 1:46:52.479 --> 1:46:54.080 Two people left in handcuffs. 1:46:56.000 --> 1:47:01.960 First Louden Counties school Board has been roiled for months 1:47:02.120 --> 1:47:06.080 by accusations that it has embraced critical race theory, a 1:47:06.160 --> 1:47:09.320 school of thought that maintains that racism is ingrained in 1:47:09.560 --> 1:47:13.479 US law and institutions, and that legacies of slavery and 1:47:13.640 --> 1:47:17.920 segregation have created an uneven playing field for black Americans. 1:47:18.640 --> 1:47:22.439 The idea that CRT, as it's known, is infiltrating public 1:47:22.520 --> 1:47:26.640 schools has become a rallying cry for conservatives, who, like 1:47:26.800 --> 1:47:29.720 many in Louden, say it is being used to indoctrin 1:47:29.760 --> 1:47:32.519 eight children that America is a racist country. 1:47:32.840 --> 1:47:36.880 Critical race theory is anti white, and it's not American. 1:47:37.920 --> 1:47:40.600 Those within a year for historical rhymes may find this 1:47:40.840 --> 1:47:45.639 outcry familiar. Resistance to racial integration and the Civil rights 1:47:45.680 --> 1:47:49.080 era movements drue similar accusations of being hostile to whites 1:47:49.479 --> 1:47:53.200 and being a product of anti American communism, and those 1:47:53.240 --> 1:47:56.760 with experienced teaching students might chuckle at the accusations of 1:47:56.840 --> 1:48:02.240 ideologically motivated brainwashing and indoctrinaisation. A common joke posted by 1:48:02.280 --> 1:48:06.080 teachers online is that quote, if we could indoctrinate students, 1:48:06.160 --> 1:48:09.960 students would always read the syllabus. But that didn't stop 1:48:10.040 --> 1:48:15.200 panic over CRT expanding to include anti LGBTQ sentiment as well, 1:48:15.680 --> 1:48:18.880 with queer students and teachers who supported them being placed 1:48:18.960 --> 1:48:22.080 squarely in the crosshairs of a well funded national hate 1:48:22.160 --> 1:48:26.599 machine dedicated to ginning up fear among local parents. Here's 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:30.120 a clip from one speech I personally witnessed at the 1:48:30.240 --> 1:48:33.920 school board meeting of my hometown school district, grape Vine, Kullyville, 1:48:34.320 --> 1:48:37.320 from August twenty twenty two and bryce simple truths. 1:48:37.439 --> 1:48:40.320 There's only two genders and boys should go to boys rooms, 1:48:40.560 --> 1:48:42.840 girls should go to girls bressrooms. 1:48:43.160 --> 1:48:46.800 And guess what teachers should be forced to use your freaking. 1:48:46.560 --> 1:48:48.400 Made up fantasy pronouns. 1:48:48.720 --> 1:48:53.000 Find like hell, hold the line against the LGBT mafia 1:48:53.520 --> 1:48:54.080 and their. 1:48:54.080 --> 1:48:56.400 Dang pedo fans. 1:48:56.880 --> 1:49:00.439 Keith winning, you know what, keep the winnan, keep the 1:49:00.520 --> 1:49:01.360 monkey cocks. 1:49:01.840 --> 1:49:02.719 How's that working? 1:49:03.600 --> 1:49:06.040 That king rings so much? Will can come? 1:49:06.240 --> 1:49:06.519 You know what? 1:49:06.880 --> 1:49:08.400 We're gonna keck come so hard? 1:49:08.680 --> 1:49:11.160 The only thing these will cards have to figure out is. 1:49:11.200 --> 1:49:13.479 Spoilers all their face, back bone, thighs. 1:49:14.080 --> 1:49:16.000 Wow, it's all. 1:49:18.240 --> 1:49:20.920 As absurd as all this may seem, there was something 1:49:21.120 --> 1:49:24.640 to this national phenomenon that was rooted in reality. As 1:49:24.680 --> 1:49:28.160 of twenty twenty, the United States had become more culturally diverse, 1:49:28.600 --> 1:49:32.840 racially integrated, and accepting of LGBTQ people than ever before, 1:49:33.479 --> 1:49:37.559 and our education systems have increasingly reflected that reality. There's 1:49:37.600 --> 1:49:41.120 also a deep irony to this reaction. Prior to the 1:49:41.200 --> 1:49:44.120 advances of the Civil Rights era and beyond, schools in 1:49:44.160 --> 1:49:48.120 the United States have often been the centers of ideologically 1:49:48.200 --> 1:49:52.600 motivated education, but not the fantasy Bolshevik propaganda that outrages 1:49:52.640 --> 1:49:52.920 the right. 1:49:53.439 --> 1:49:55.160 In fact, it's usually been the opposite. 1:49:55.800 --> 1:49:59.480 For most of its history, American public schools have effectively 1:49:59.560 --> 1:50:04.880 advanced white supremacy, female subordination, and submission to capitalism. In 1:50:04.960 --> 1:50:07.320 this episode, we're going to look at what has actually 1:50:07.400 --> 1:50:10.000 been taught in American schools over the years, with a 1:50:10.120 --> 1:50:13.519 particular focus in Texas, and how what you learn about 1:50:13.560 --> 1:50:16.839 American history depends on where you live and how Christian 1:50:17.000 --> 1:50:21.160 supremacists are successfully inserting their theology into school curriculums in 1:50:21.280 --> 1:50:24.639 much of the country, with Texas playing a leading role. 1:50:25.640 --> 1:50:29.400 Textbooks before the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties Civil rights 1:50:29.439 --> 1:50:35.479 era were explicitly and astonishingly white supremacists. Schoolbooks in the South, 1:50:35.520 --> 1:50:39.160 for instance, portrayed Confederates as gallant gentlemen fighting for a 1:50:39.280 --> 1:50:43.400 noble loss cause. This influenced popular culture, as we see 1:50:43.439 --> 1:50:46.880 in films like Gone with the Wind. Meanwhile, school kids 1:50:46.880 --> 1:50:49.639 were taught that abolitionists who wanted to end slavery before 1:50:49.680 --> 1:50:53.439 the Civil War were terrorists who needlessly plunged the country 1:50:53.439 --> 1:50:56.799 into Civil war, and this too steeped into the public 1:50:56.840 --> 1:51:01.160 imagination of movies like Santa Fe Trail starring Van Heflin. 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:04.599 The Time is Coming when the rest of us are 1:51:04.640 --> 1:51:06.840 going to wipe you and you're kind off the face 1:51:06.920 --> 1:51:07.479 of the earth. 1:51:12.240 --> 1:51:15.160 According to the miss promoted first in schools, then echoed 1:51:15.200 --> 1:51:19.000 in mass entertainment, slavery would have gone away eventually if 1:51:19.040 --> 1:51:21.920 only white slave owning Southerners had been left alone to 1:51:21.960 --> 1:51:26.080 figure it out themselves. Screenplaywriters, how often echoed what they 1:51:26.160 --> 1:51:27.040 heard in the classroom. 1:51:27.160 --> 1:51:27.639 Is we see? 1:51:27.680 --> 1:51:31.080 In this scene from the nineteen forty film Santa Fe Trail, 1:51:31.840 --> 1:51:35.599 here Raymond Massey plays John Brown, a white abolitionist who 1:51:35.640 --> 1:51:38.640 tried to start a slave rebellion Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1:51:38.680 --> 1:51:44.320 eighteen fifty nine. Massey portrays them as a thoroughly crazed maniac, 1:51:44.920 --> 1:51:48.400 while Aero Flynn depicts future Confederate General J. E. B. 1:51:48.680 --> 1:51:50.559 Stewart as sweetly rational. 1:51:50.920 --> 1:51:53.479 Half the people in America believe in your theory, a 1:51:53.560 --> 1:51:56.200 lot of them, even Condonia methods that'll guarantee you a 1:51:56.280 --> 1:51:59.479 public trial, not. 1:51:59.560 --> 1:52:01.160 On trial, but the nation itself. 1:52:02.600 --> 1:52:05.160 Are you too stupid and blinded by a uniform to 1:52:05.200 --> 1:52:08.840 see what I see? A dark and evil curse laying 1:52:08.920 --> 1:52:12.400 all over this land. A kind will sin against God 1:52:13.840 --> 1:52:15.280 can only be wiped out in blood. 1:52:15.439 --> 1:52:18.599 But why in blood. The people of Virginia are considered 1:52:18.600 --> 1:52:21.559 a resolution to abolished slavery for a long time. They 1:52:21.680 --> 1:52:24.400 sensed that the tomorrow wrong and the rest of the 1:52:24.479 --> 1:52:27.760 South will follow Virginia's example. All I ask is time. 1:52:28.760 --> 1:52:32.800 From the eighteen eighties until the nineteen sixties, school books 1:52:32.800 --> 1:52:37.000 depicted the country's only brief experiment with multiracial democracy at 1:52:37.040 --> 1:52:40.600 the time, the Reconstruction period from eighteen sixty five to 1:52:40.680 --> 1:52:44.920 eighteen seventy seven, as a time of rampant corruption. These 1:52:44.960 --> 1:52:49.680 books often described emancipated African Americans as ignorant, lazy, and 1:52:49.880 --> 1:52:54.479 expecting government handouts, while their white allies were portrayed as crooks. 1:52:55.560 --> 1:52:59.040 American school children furthermore learned from their teachers that so 1:52:59.200 --> 1:53:03.280 called radical democracy was not a good idea, and sometimes 1:53:03.400 --> 1:53:07.600 dictatorship was the better option. The nineteen twenty four textbook 1:53:07.720 --> 1:53:11.480 Are World Today and Yesterday, a History of Modern Civilization, 1:53:12.120 --> 1:53:16.160 published two years after Mussolini's fascist government took over Italy, 1:53:16.640 --> 1:53:20.439 had nothing but praise for that nation's new dictator. The 1:53:20.600 --> 1:53:24.080 authors told the impressionable high school students the following about 1:53:24.080 --> 1:53:25.759 the world's first fascist leader. 1:53:26.280 --> 1:53:29.840 Mussolini has chosen a ministry made up of capable men 1:53:30.120 --> 1:53:33.880 and has straightened up the badly demoralized finances of the country. 1:53:34.360 --> 1:53:37.760 He and his followers are accused of suppressing liberty and 1:53:37.960 --> 1:53:43.120 downing the Communists by violence. Nevertheless, he has done much 1:53:43.360 --> 1:53:46.760 to do away with strikes and to re establish conditions 1:53:46.920 --> 1:53:51.559 as they were before the economic demoralization of World War 1:53:51.640 --> 1:53:54.120 One set in Again. 1:53:54.280 --> 1:53:57.400 School books reinforced an American culture in the nineteen twenties 1:53:57.479 --> 1:54:00.759 that responded to the horrors of World War One, labor unrest, 1:54:01.120 --> 1:54:03.800 and the impact of immigration by becoming not only more 1:54:03.880 --> 1:54:07.000 intolerant but also more anti democratic. 1:54:08.200 --> 1:54:11.680 All the while, Mussolini's propaganda machine churned out images of 1:54:11.720 --> 1:54:15.400 a thriving country and a VIAU leader Beluche stripped down 1:54:15.479 --> 1:54:18.679 for the camera book side by side with the peasants 1:54:19.240 --> 1:54:22.479 and wrestled wild animals, never mind that this one had 1:54:22.560 --> 1:54:28.320 no teeth. Nonetheless, it was working. Mussolini attracted fans worldwide, 1:54:28.680 --> 1:54:33.680 including Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, and Mohandas Gandhi. Here he 1:54:33.760 --> 1:54:36.440 speaks to as many supporters among Italian Americans. 1:54:38.360 --> 1:54:42.800 I tell it the Italians of America who I want 1:54:43.040 --> 1:54:44.440 to make America greed. 1:54:45.560 --> 1:54:48.800 Another textbook published in nineteen thirty five, The Record of 1:54:48.880 --> 1:54:52.520 America told Stins that the so called Founding Fathers like 1:54:52.560 --> 1:54:57.080 Alexander Hamilton were not big believers in democracy, an attitude 1:54:57.160 --> 1:54:59.880 the authors seemed to endorse. As the Record of the 1:55:00.000 --> 1:55:00.840 America put. 1:55:00.720 --> 1:55:03.800 It, the Founders had little faith in the ability of 1:55:04.000 --> 1:55:07.600 people as a whole to maintain self control and wisdom 1:55:07.680 --> 1:55:12.080 in government. They had no confidence in the man without property. 1:55:12.880 --> 1:55:16.200 A man who had failed to accumulate property would be 1:55:16.360 --> 1:55:21.360 regarded as shiftless, lazy, or incompetent, and not deserving a 1:55:21.480 --> 1:55:26.480 voice in the government of others. The Constitution was written 1:55:26.600 --> 1:55:30.160 to retain power in the hands of those who released 1:55:30.320 --> 1:55:33.879 radical and to set obstacles in the way of radical 1:55:34.000 --> 1:55:34.800 mob action. 1:55:35.520 --> 1:55:38.680 After the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties civil rights movements. 1:55:39.240 --> 1:55:42.480 History textbooks for the first time covered the horrors of slavery, 1:55:42.720 --> 1:55:46.560 the heroism of African American abolitionists like Surgeon or truth 1:55:46.560 --> 1:55:49.120 in Frederick Douglas, and the evils of the Ku Klux 1:55:49.160 --> 1:55:54.960 Klan with clarity. But the backlash was swift, particularly after 1:55:55.040 --> 1:55:58.320 the election of the first African American President, Barack Obama 1:55:58.880 --> 1:56:02.040 and the rise of the High Conservative Tea Party in response. 1:56:12.160 --> 1:56:15.320 In twenty ten, TEA Party supporters took control of the 1:56:15.520 --> 1:56:20.080 Texas State School Board, which has control over Texas school 1:56:20.120 --> 1:56:23.880 book curriculums. They felt that this reckoning with America's racist 1:56:23.960 --> 1:56:28.400 past undermined patriotism and demanded a rewrite of school lesson plans. 1:56:28.920 --> 1:56:32.320 In twenty fifteen, Ronnie Dean Baron got a text from 1:56:32.360 --> 1:56:35.640 her son, Kobe, who was glancing at a ninth grade 1:56:35.960 --> 1:56:39.040 geography textbook published by McGraw hill signed him by his 1:56:39.160 --> 1:56:43.480 high school in Perilyn, Texas, near Houston. He sent her 1:56:43.520 --> 1:56:48.040 a video highlighting a map in its shocking caption. Soon 1:56:48.240 --> 1:56:54.200 Burn posted her son's video online. That video, as KPRC reported, 1:56:54.320 --> 1:56:56.160 spread outrage across the nation. 1:56:56.480 --> 1:57:00.120 A video post on Ronnie dan Buren's Facebook page, I'm 1:57:00.120 --> 1:57:00.320 going to. 1:57:00.320 --> 1:57:02.680 Show you the book and then there's just an interesting. 1:57:02.600 --> 1:57:05.840 Section, went viral. Her video has been viewed more than 1:57:06.000 --> 1:57:09.320 one point eight million times and has forty eight thousand shares. 1:57:09.760 --> 1:57:13.000 To get to the topic of conversation, you literally have 1:57:13.120 --> 1:57:16.760 to turn through the pages of her son's geography textbook. 1:57:16.960 --> 1:57:18.920 The immigration in the United States can be divided in 1:57:19.040 --> 1:57:20.120 four district periods. 1:57:20.480 --> 1:57:22.840 Kobe, who's in the ninth grade, at Perlin High School 1:57:22.880 --> 1:57:25.480 was studying immigration when he read this in his textbook, 1:57:25.600 --> 1:57:29.560 a comment that referenced African slaves as workers. 1:57:29.400 --> 1:57:31.920 As if we worked our way up in America, as 1:57:32.000 --> 1:57:35.240 if we came here by choice for a better life. 1:57:35.840 --> 1:57:39.800 The offensive caption read, in full quote, the Atlantic slave 1:57:39.920 --> 1:57:43.000 trade between the fifteen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds brought 1:57:43.120 --> 1:57:47.200 millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States 1:57:47.280 --> 1:57:51.440 to work on agricultural plantations. The publisher of the book, 1:57:51.720 --> 1:57:56.560 simply titled World Geography later apologized for the euphemism, noting 1:57:56.640 --> 1:57:59.760 that it did not adequately convey that Africans were both 1:58:00.360 --> 1:58:04.040 into migration and to labor against their will as slaves. 1:58:04.680 --> 1:58:07.080 The company said it would revise the digital version of 1:58:07.160 --> 1:58:10.480 the text and future print versions, but it was unclear 1:58:10.520 --> 1:58:13.120 at the time when the new edition would be in students' hands. 1:58:13.760 --> 1:58:17.240 The caption wasn't an accident. McGraw hill had given the 1:58:17.280 --> 1:58:20.560 Stay of Texas what it wanted, rather than anything like 1:58:20.640 --> 1:58:24.080 critical race theory. The State Board of Education twenty ten 1:58:24.160 --> 1:58:28.440 adopted changes in Texas curriculum standards for public schools known 1:58:28.520 --> 1:58:32.960 as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills that imposed a whitewash 1:58:33.080 --> 1:58:37.720 of American slavery, raised doubts about human cause climate change, 1:58:38.120 --> 1:58:42.000 and imposed other right wing content. To be sold in 1:58:42.120 --> 1:58:45.280 Texas school textbooks had to meet the board's standards. 1:58:46.000 --> 1:58:49.000 Texas State Board of Education members are elected from districts 1:58:49.080 --> 1:58:51.600 that tilt the body towards rural parts of the state 1:58:52.080 --> 1:58:55.360 and serve four year terms, while the governor appoints the 1:58:55.480 --> 1:58:57.800 chair of the board. Since the beginning of the twenty 1:58:57.800 --> 1:59:01.640 first century, the board has been dominated by Christian right activists. 1:59:02.080 --> 1:59:04.760 As a twenty thirteen PBS report notts. 1:59:04.920 --> 1:59:08.160 Don McLeroy has three jobs and he loves them all. 1:59:08.920 --> 1:59:10.520 Good Morning, doctor mclroy's offices. 1:59:10.880 --> 1:59:15.760 Job number one, dentist, Job number two Sunday school teacher, 1:59:16.960 --> 1:59:20.480 and job number three member of the Texas State Board 1:59:20.520 --> 1:59:24.200 of Education, a seat he's held for the last twelve years. 1:59:25.640 --> 1:59:28.320 But it's that third job which has put this dentist 1:59:28.400 --> 1:59:31.920 and Sunday school teacher from Brian, Texas into a national 1:59:31.960 --> 1:59:35.280 debate over what kids are taught in school. Critics have 1:59:35.360 --> 1:59:40.280 accused McLeroy of injecting his religious conservative beliefs into the curriculum. 1:59:41.080 --> 1:59:44.520 About every ten years, the board revises the textbook standards 1:59:44.560 --> 1:59:48.040 for different subjects. Any books bought by the state must 1:59:48.120 --> 1:59:52.000 conform to these guidelines. The last big battle was over 1:59:52.240 --> 1:59:57.080 the science standards. This year he's tackling social studies. 1:59:58.000 --> 2:00:01.320 The demand's Texas makes of texts book publishers matter, as 2:00:01.400 --> 2:00:03.240 PBS reported a decade ago. 2:00:03.760 --> 2:00:07.680 According to publishing insiders, textbooks are often tailored to fit 2:00:07.920 --> 2:00:12.600 Texas's standards because Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks. 2:00:12.960 --> 2:00:16.200 That means the choices made here could determine books that 2:00:16.320 --> 2:00:19.160 other states will buy, and that's led to a school 2:00:19.240 --> 2:00:21.520 fight that has the entire country looking on. 2:00:23.080 --> 2:00:25.720 This is how Kobe Burn ended up with the World 2:00:25.800 --> 2:00:29.919 Geography textbook that used the word workers to describe chattel slaves. 2:00:30.960 --> 2:00:34.600 Kathy Miller of the anti censorship group Texas Freedom Network 2:00:34.760 --> 2:00:38.400 said quote, it's no accident that this happened in Texas. 2:00:39.000 --> 2:00:42.320 We have a textbook adoption process that's so politicized and 2:00:42.440 --> 2:00:46.880 so flawed that's become almost a punchline for comedians. Those 2:00:47.000 --> 2:00:48.880 serious about education aren't laughing. 2:00:49.000 --> 2:00:49.320 However. 2:00:49.880 --> 2:00:53.360 In twenty eighteen, the state board removed Hillary Clinton, the 2:00:53.440 --> 2:00:56.800 first woman to be presidential nominee of a major political party, 2:00:57.120 --> 2:01:00.320 from the list of major historical figures Texas students must 2:01:00.400 --> 2:01:05.120 learn about, a decision later reversed after embarrassing news coverage. 2:01:06.040 --> 2:01:09.160 In twenty ten, that board mandated that textbooks depict the 2:01:09.240 --> 2:01:13.320 Civil War as primarily a struggle over states' rights and 2:01:13.440 --> 2:01:16.400 not slavery, a choice that was later modified in twenty 2:01:16.480 --> 2:01:20.880 eighteen to return slavery as the primary cause, but still 2:01:20.960 --> 2:01:25.560 maintained that quote states rights and sexualism were key contributing factors. 2:01:26.520 --> 2:01:29.800 Approved books still tell students that segregated black schools and 2:01:29.840 --> 2:01:33.680 the Jim crow Eric quote had similar buildings, buses, and 2:01:33.800 --> 2:01:37.520 teachers as white schools, maintaining a hint of these separate 2:01:37.600 --> 2:01:43.160 but equal logics that upheld segregation. One textbook included cartoon 2:01:43.240 --> 2:01:45.720 in which a space alien lands on Earth and asks 2:01:45.720 --> 2:01:48.320 if he's eligible for affirmative action programs. 2:01:48.960 --> 2:01:52.560 Texas standards also misled students into thinking there was controversy 2:01:52.600 --> 2:01:55.960 about whether human activity has led to climate change and 2:01:56.080 --> 2:02:00.480 to quote consider all sides of scientific evidence regarding evolution, 2:02:01.160 --> 2:02:04.400 even though the scientific consensus in favor of fossil fuels 2:02:04.440 --> 2:02:08.720 trinking climate change and also the scientific consensus regarding evolution 2:02:09.360 --> 2:02:10.520 is nearly unanimous. 2:02:11.240 --> 2:02:15.640 Students can get dramatically different versions of American history based 2:02:15.680 --> 2:02:19.200 on which state they attend schools. A New York Times 2:02:19.240 --> 2:02:23.680 comparison textbooks used in California, Texas show that both versions 2:02:23.720 --> 2:02:27.320 of the same history textbook include an annotated Bill of 2:02:27.480 --> 2:02:31.680 Rights in reference to the Second Amendment. However, the California 2:02:31.760 --> 2:02:35.640 textbook notes that several federal court rulings have allowed regulation 2:02:36.160 --> 2:02:39.560 of gun sales and ownership. The Texas version of the 2:02:39.600 --> 2:02:44.040 same book replaces US commentary with a quote blank white space. 2:02:44.360 --> 2:02:45.640 As The New York Times. 2:02:45.520 --> 2:02:50.320 Reported, Texas and California textbooks both introduced students to African 2:02:50.360 --> 2:02:54.320 American authors during the Harlem Renaissance, but only Texas students 2:02:54.360 --> 2:02:58.400 are told that quote. Some dismissed the quality of the 2:02:58.560 --> 2:03:00.560 literature produced by. 2:03:00.560 --> 2:03:02.760 The Harlem Renaissance, as. 2:03:02.680 --> 2:03:05.000 The New York Times reported, The California version of the 2:03:05.080 --> 2:03:08.880 history textbook addressed the issue of white flight, the phenomena 2:03:09.200 --> 2:03:13.120 whereby parents moved from cities when schools became integrated and 2:03:13.240 --> 2:03:17.920 moved to overwhelmingly Anglo suburbs. The California textbooks said this. 2:03:18.600 --> 2:03:21.640 Some people wished to escape the crime and the congestion 2:03:21.840 --> 2:03:25.520 of the city. Movement of some white people from cities 2:03:25.680 --> 2:03:29.400 to suburbs was driven by a desire to get away 2:03:29.520 --> 2:03:34.640 from more culturally diverse neighborhoods. Others believed the suburbs offered 2:03:34.720 --> 2:03:36.880 better and more affordable living. 2:03:37.680 --> 2:03:40.640 The Texas version of the same textbook deleted the sentence 2:03:40.720 --> 2:03:43.600 referring to racism as a motive for white flight, but 2:03:43.760 --> 2:03:47.320 left the reference to a fear of crime, reframing what 2:03:47.440 --> 2:03:50.880 students learned about why suburbs grew so rapidly after World 2:03:50.920 --> 2:03:55.040 War Two. The Texas State Board also specifically asked one 2:03:55.080 --> 2:03:59.240 textbook publisher demphasized how many clergies signed the Declaration of 2:03:59.320 --> 2:04:03.480 Independence and to underscore the disposed importance of religion to 2:04:03.560 --> 2:04:07.600 the founders. These particular demands were the result of intense 2:04:07.720 --> 2:04:11.680 lobbying by Texas Christian nationalist David Barton. 2:04:12.360 --> 2:04:16.600 Barton, a seventy year old lifelong resident of Aledo, Texas, 2:04:17.240 --> 2:04:19.920 which is a small town just southwest of Fort Worth, 2:04:20.600 --> 2:04:23.720 has become a major influence on the Republican Party and 2:04:23.800 --> 2:04:27.560 its attitudes towards education, not just in the Lone Star state, 2:04:27.920 --> 2:04:32.120 but across the nation. While reporting on the Conservative Political 2:04:32.200 --> 2:04:35.200 Action Conference for Rolling Stone, I recall being given a 2:04:35.280 --> 2:04:39.160 copy of one of Barton's books, he calls himself a historian, 2:04:39.560 --> 2:04:43.440 although his only credential is a bachelor's degree in religious 2:04:43.520 --> 2:04:48.480 education from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A one 2:04:48.560 --> 2:04:51.280 time science and math teacher at a Christian academy in 2:04:51.360 --> 2:04:54.760 his hometown, Barton plunged into politics in nineteen eighty eight 2:04:55.120 --> 2:04:58.480 as a Republican activist with a penchant for homophobia. He 2:04:58.600 --> 2:05:02.160 declared that homosexuality is as evil as any deed Adolf 2:05:02.240 --> 2:05:05.600 Hitler committed, and said that the lack of cure for 2:05:05.760 --> 2:05:10.200 AIDS was God's punishment for a wicked community. Quote your 2:05:10.240 --> 2:05:12.480 sexual choice is not a God given right, he said 2:05:12.520 --> 2:05:13.240 on one occasion. 2:05:14.160 --> 2:05:18.440 In nineteen eighty eight, Barton founded Wall Builders, a nonprofit. 2:05:18.560 --> 2:05:22.959 The organization says dedicated to quote educating the nation concerning 2:05:23.080 --> 2:05:27.360 the godly founding of the nation. Barton believes that Americans 2:05:27.440 --> 2:05:29.680 have been deceived about the true meaning of the First 2:05:29.720 --> 2:05:33.720 Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares, quote, Congress 2:05:33.800 --> 2:05:37.200 shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion. 2:05:37.800 --> 2:05:41.880 The founders, Barton claims, only meant that Congress should pick 2:05:41.960 --> 2:05:46.960 a particular Protestant denomination as the national faith. Barton also 2:05:47.120 --> 2:05:50.280 argues that Thomas Jefferson meant that the wall of separation 2:05:50.440 --> 2:05:54.160 between church and state should operate only in one direction, 2:05:54.840 --> 2:05:57.600 that the government should not interfere with a religion, but 2:05:57.720 --> 2:06:01.120 that Christians should dominate the government. As Barton said in 2:06:01.160 --> 2:06:02.520 an interview, so. 2:06:02.880 --> 2:06:04.840 We've got to get away from from being scared to 2:06:04.840 --> 2:06:06.760 say we're a Christian nation. What we've got to do 2:06:06.880 --> 2:06:09.240 is define it the right way, define it the historical way. 2:06:09.520 --> 2:06:13.160 We can't let the left steal three hundred years of heritage. 2:06:13.360 --> 2:06:15.760 We can't let them wipe out three hundred core cases, 2:06:16.080 --> 2:06:18.600 wipe out what dozens of presents and governors have said 2:06:18.680 --> 2:06:21.640 simply because they don't like the term. We are a 2:06:21.720 --> 2:06:24.320 Christian nation. We have been a Christian nation, and that 2:06:24.440 --> 2:06:27.640 doesn't mean anything they think it does. We're not theocratic, 2:06:27.840 --> 2:06:31.320 we're not coercive. We believe in free choice. We don't 2:06:31.320 --> 2:06:33.280 believe in any of the others. And that's what we've 2:06:33.280 --> 2:06:34.720 got to get back to doing. We don't need to 2:06:34.760 --> 2:06:36.840 be ashamed at all that we're Christians and that we 2:06:36.960 --> 2:06:38.120 believe we have a Christian nation. 2:06:39.040 --> 2:06:41.960 The story is much more complicated than Barton says, and 2:06:42.080 --> 2:06:44.960 he gets the most important details wrong. Most of the 2:06:45.040 --> 2:06:48.680 generation that led the Revolution and wrote the Constitution, agreed 2:06:48.800 --> 2:06:51.880 with Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, 2:06:52.440 --> 2:06:56.600 that when church and state mix, both are harmed. Jefferson 2:06:56.640 --> 2:06:59.480 successfully established separation of church and state in his home 2:06:59.560 --> 2:07:03.040 state of Virginia in seventeen eighty six when it adopted 2:07:03.080 --> 2:07:06.920 the Statute of Religious Freedom he authored. The First Amendment, 2:07:07.000 --> 2:07:10.080 adopted in seventeen eighty nine, also banned Congress from quote 2:07:10.160 --> 2:07:13.720 establishing a religion, and most states embraced, to varying degrees, 2:07:14.160 --> 2:07:15.960 the doctrine of church state separation. 2:07:16.600 --> 2:07:20.440 There were some states that objected to this notion. The 2:07:20.520 --> 2:07:24.800 state governments of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for instance, initially interpreted 2:07:24.840 --> 2:07:28.320 the First Amendment as meaning only Congress could not establish. 2:07:28.040 --> 2:07:29.240 Religion, but states could. 2:07:30.040 --> 2:07:33.200 Citizens of those two states paid taxes that supported the 2:07:33.280 --> 2:07:38.440 Congregationalist Church, respectively until eighteen eighteen. In eighteen thirty three, 2:07:39.120 --> 2:07:42.200 for decades, some states had so called quote jew laws 2:07:42.640 --> 2:07:46.560 that prohibited non Christians from holding office or had similar 2:07:46.640 --> 2:07:50.480 bands on Catholics. Such laws were the exception, however, and 2:07:50.600 --> 2:07:53.400 fell by the wayside by the end of the nineteenth century. 2:07:54.080 --> 2:07:57.440 The Fourteenth Amendment adopted in eighteen sixty eight placed the 2:07:57.560 --> 2:08:00.400 same limits on state power. There are plaed on the 2:08:00.440 --> 2:08:04.520 federal government regarding the establishment of religion, a limitation upheld 2:08:04.560 --> 2:08:07.920 in the nineteen forty seven Supreme Court case. Ever since 2:08:08.040 --> 2:08:09.720 versus Board of Education. 2:08:10.120 --> 2:08:13.200 Artin has campaigned to overwrite that history with his own 2:08:13.320 --> 2:08:18.160 alternative narrative. Towards that end, he's collected approximately one hundred 2:08:18.240 --> 2:08:22.760 thousand primary documents written before eighteen twelve. Based on that 2:08:23.000 --> 2:08:27.560 selection of material, he argues that American leaders like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, 2:08:27.640 --> 2:08:30.960 and their peers wanted only Christians to lead the nation, 2:08:31.520 --> 2:08:34.160 and that American law should be based on the Bible. 2:08:34.720 --> 2:08:37.600 Art believes that not just the Bible, but also the 2:08:37.720 --> 2:08:43.240 original United States Constitution, which includes provisions protecting slavery such 2:08:43.280 --> 2:08:47.400 as the Three Fifths Compromise, were directly inspired by God. 2:08:48.200 --> 2:08:52.000 He asserts, again with no evidence and without defining terms, 2:08:52.520 --> 2:08:55.120 that fifty two of the fifty five signers of the 2:08:55.200 --> 2:08:59.080 Declaration of Independence were, in his words, quote orthodox or 2:08:59.640 --> 2:09:05.560 evenangelical Christians. In reality, the early leaders of America didn't 2:09:05.560 --> 2:09:08.960 speak with one mind regarding religion. Many were deists who 2:09:09.040 --> 2:09:12.160 saw God not as a deity, invested in the daily 2:09:12.320 --> 2:09:16.680 lives of humans, but as a dispassionate clockmaker who put 2:09:16.720 --> 2:09:20.040 the gears the universe together, wound it up, and let 2:09:20.080 --> 2:09:23.400 it run on its own. Their God didn't intervene in 2:09:23.560 --> 2:09:28.240 history or perform miracle healings at spiritual revivals. When Ben 2:09:28.320 --> 2:09:31.560 Franklin proposed opening the first session the seventeen eighty seven 2:09:31.640 --> 2:09:35.880 Constitutional Convention with a prayer, the proposal was voted down, 2:09:36.280 --> 2:09:39.840 with only four approving Franklin's motion, and a gathering that 2:09:39.920 --> 2:09:42.680 as many as fifty five attended on any given day. 2:09:43.680 --> 2:09:47.040 In their letters, many of the Founding Fathers scoffed at 2:09:47.040 --> 2:09:49.720 the accuracy of the Bible and the reliability of its 2:09:49.840 --> 2:09:53.840 myriad translations. As John Adams said of the Bible. 2:09:54.080 --> 2:09:59.760 In an age when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered 2:09:59.760 --> 2:10:06.600 as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians, 2:10:07.400 --> 2:10:09.320 what may not be suspected. 2:10:10.040 --> 2:10:14.080 Benjamin Franklin told his friend Ezra Styles that Jesus was 2:10:14.080 --> 2:10:16.960 a wise philosopher, but that he had personal doubts that 2:10:17.120 --> 2:10:20.080 Christ was the son of God. Franklin questioned whether the 2:10:20.160 --> 2:10:22.960 depiction of Christ's life or even his teachings as describing 2:10:23.040 --> 2:10:24.280 the Gospels could be trusted. 2:10:24.800 --> 2:10:28.680 As to Jesus of Nazareth, I think the system of 2:10:28.840 --> 2:10:32.320 morals and his religion as he left them to us 2:10:33.120 --> 2:10:36.320 the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see. 2:10:37.160 --> 2:10:42.160 But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and 2:10:42.280 --> 2:10:45.880 I have doubt with most of the present dissenters in 2:10:46.000 --> 2:10:50.600 England as to his divinity, though it is a question 2:10:50.800 --> 2:10:54.520 I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it. 2:10:55.560 --> 2:10:59.400 And Thomas Jefferson, who Barton insists believe that the American 2:10:59.440 --> 2:11:02.480 government should be based on Christian values, was even more 2:11:02.520 --> 2:11:06.040 blunt about a central Christian belief regarding Jesus and his 2:11:06.160 --> 2:11:06.760 virgin birth. 2:11:07.640 --> 2:11:12.640 Jefferson wrote, Jesus was a man of illegitimate birth, of 2:11:12.760 --> 2:11:17.360 a benevolent heart and an enthusiastic mind, who set out 2:11:17.520 --> 2:11:22.000 without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was 2:11:22.080 --> 2:11:26.320 punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the 2:11:26.440 --> 2:11:26.960 Roman law. 2:11:27.880 --> 2:11:31.400 Barton's books and speeches are filled with misquotes and statements 2:11:31.480 --> 2:11:35.440 attributed to historical figures that no credible scholars have been 2:11:35.480 --> 2:11:39.200 able to find. He cherry picks evidence to Bolster's claims 2:11:39.200 --> 2:11:42.960 about the founder's religious beliefs. Barton, for instance, made up 2:11:43.000 --> 2:11:46.280 a story that Jefferson started the practice of holding church 2:11:46.360 --> 2:11:50.760 services in the US Capital. More reputable scholars argue that 2:11:50.920 --> 2:11:54.080 while there's evidence that Jefferson attended one service held at 2:11:54.120 --> 2:11:58.160 the Capitol building, there's no evidence that he approved them officially. 2:11:58.960 --> 2:12:02.040 What's more, Jefferson and was far from an orthodox Christian 2:12:02.480 --> 2:12:06.160 or the sort of Christian that dominates conservativism today. He 2:12:06.360 --> 2:12:09.480 edited and published The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, 2:12:09.920 --> 2:12:13.160 commonly referred to as the Jeffersonian Bible, which is a 2:12:13.240 --> 2:12:16.120 condensed version of Jesus's teachings from the Bible that excludes 2:12:16.200 --> 2:12:20.200 all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, 2:12:20.680 --> 2:12:24.160 the resurrection, the raising of the dead, and so on. 2:12:25.280 --> 2:12:27.800 These sort of facts are the subject of Barton's twenty 2:12:27.880 --> 2:12:32.640 twenty two New York Times bestseller, ironically titled The Jefferson Lies, 2:12:33.160 --> 2:12:36.160 Exposing the Myths You Always believed about Thomas Jefferson. 2:12:36.800 --> 2:12:41.000 For instance, Barton depicted Jefferson as defining the United States 2:12:41.040 --> 2:12:44.200 as a Christian nation. Here's the real Jefferson. In his 2:12:44.440 --> 2:12:47.800 seventeen eighty five book notes on the State of Virginia. 2:12:48.240 --> 2:12:52.760 The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only 2:12:53.200 --> 2:12:56.400 as are injurious to others. But it does mean no 2:12:56.560 --> 2:12:59.560 injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty 2:12:59.640 --> 2:13:04.240 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor 2:13:04.320 --> 2:13:05.120 breaks my leg. 2:13:05.920 --> 2:13:08.360 Barton's book on Jefferson went too far for even some 2:13:08.520 --> 2:13:12.600 of Barton's fellow Christian Conservatives. The History News Network website 2:13:12.680 --> 2:13:15.680 derided the book as quote the least credible history book 2:13:15.760 --> 2:13:20.280 in print. Ten Christian conservative scholars so harshly criticized Barton's 2:13:20.320 --> 2:13:23.360 book that his publisher withdrew it from circulation because it 2:13:23.440 --> 2:13:27.120 had quote lost confidence in the book's details. Yet, in 2:13:27.200 --> 2:13:31.200 spite of the questions regarding its truthfulness, another evangelical publishing 2:13:31.240 --> 2:13:33.240 company eventually released a new version. 2:13:43.680 --> 2:13:46.520 In spite of his flexible relationship with the truth, Barton 2:13:46.640 --> 2:13:50.280 is a major player in Republican Party politics. On a podcast, 2:13:50.400 --> 2:13:54.080 Barton claimed that Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson consulted 2:13:54.120 --> 2:13:57.400 with him about staffing at the Capitol. Johnson made his 2:13:57.440 --> 2:14:00.120 speech at a wall Builder's event, telling the audience that 2:14:00.200 --> 2:14:04.480 the theocratic evangelists had quote a profound influence on me, 2:14:05.120 --> 2:14:07.520 my work, my life, and everything I do. 2:14:08.520 --> 2:14:12.040 Because of Barton's influence, the state of Texas recently okayed 2:14:12.040 --> 2:14:16.640 public schools teaching Bible stories to kindergarten children. Former Arkansas 2:14:16.720 --> 2:14:20.200 governor and Republican presidential candidate and Trump's choice to be 2:14:20.240 --> 2:14:24.040 ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, owns the company that designed 2:14:24.080 --> 2:14:24.920 those lesson plans. 2:14:25.600 --> 2:14:28.800 Huckabee has long produced so called history videos for school 2:14:28.880 --> 2:14:32.600 children that promote Christian nationalism and the idea that United 2:14:32.600 --> 2:14:35.680 States has a unique relationship with God, such as a 2:14:35.800 --> 2:14:38.960 series aimed at older children called One Nation Under God, 2:14:39.320 --> 2:14:43.800 which portrays a revolutionary war soldier and George Washington suggesting 2:14:43.920 --> 2:14:45.360 God was on their side. 2:14:46.560 --> 2:14:49.800 We will bring the plagues upon our British oppressors, just 2:14:49.920 --> 2:14:53.280 as Moses did in ancient Egypt, and we will win 2:14:53.400 --> 2:14:54.360 the same freedom. 2:14:55.800 --> 2:14:58.360 We fight for the idea that we can make something 2:14:58.520 --> 2:15:02.960 great here. Spirit compels us forward, and the. 2:15:03.120 --> 2:15:04.600 Times of writers upon us. 2:15:06.680 --> 2:15:10.080 This video series may not be shown to kindergarteners in Texas, 2:15:10.200 --> 2:15:13.240 but the lessons in the Huckabee design curriculum clearly favor 2:15:13.560 --> 2:15:17.040 a Christian worldview at the expense of other religions. The 2:15:17.080 --> 2:15:20.600 Scripture field lessons are not required by state law, but 2:15:20.720 --> 2:15:23.680 the state will reward school districts with extra tax dollars 2:15:23.760 --> 2:15:28.080 per student for teaching Huckaby's product. This is an attractive 2:15:28.200 --> 2:15:30.240 offer to the many school districts in Texas that are 2:15:30.320 --> 2:15:33.760 currently filing deficit budgets and struggling to raise revenue. 2:15:34.240 --> 2:15:38.480 Meanwhile, Barton's political and cultural influence has grown exponentially over 2:15:38.520 --> 2:15:42.480 the last decade. One of his political action committees played 2:15:42.480 --> 2:15:45.400 a major role in getting Ted Cruz elected to the 2:15:45.520 --> 2:15:49.040 United States Senate. He has close allies with Texas Lieutenant 2:15:49.120 --> 2:15:53.240 Governor Dan Patrick, who wields power typically held by governors 2:15:53.280 --> 2:15:56.480 and other states. Patrick said this at a twenty twenty 2:15:56.520 --> 2:16:00.360 two Conservative political Action convention in Dallas about who he 2:16:00.520 --> 2:16:02.440 thinks wrote the US Constitution. 2:16:02.880 --> 2:16:05.160 We were a nation founded upon not the words of 2:16:05.200 --> 2:16:08.960 our founders, but the words of God. Because he wrote 2:16:08.960 --> 2:16:11.280 the Constitution, he empowered them. 2:16:12.120 --> 2:16:15.240 We were a Christian state, and we've been blessed because 2:16:15.280 --> 2:16:15.480 of that. 2:16:15.560 --> 2:16:16.440 For so many years. 2:16:17.120 --> 2:16:20.200 In twenty ten, the Texas State School Board for the 2:16:20.280 --> 2:16:24.879 first time required that textbook publishers portray a particular Biblical 2:16:24.960 --> 2:16:29.760 figure as an honorary founding father. This supposed founder was 2:16:30.080 --> 2:16:34.199 famously portrayed in the nineteen fifty six box office smash 2:16:34.320 --> 2:16:38.039 by Charlton Heston, who later served as a five term 2:16:38.120 --> 2:16:40.599 president of the National Rifle Association. 2:16:41.400 --> 2:16:46.560 Woo unto the you're Israel, you have sinned a great 2:16:46.760 --> 2:16:51.279 sin in the sight of God. You are not worthy 2:16:51.400 --> 2:16:53.760 to receive these Ten Commandments. 2:16:54.840 --> 2:16:58.760 In Texas, regardless of a lack of evidence, textbook publishers 2:16:58.800 --> 2:17:02.359 are required to tell Stin that Moses, the prophet depicted 2:17:02.400 --> 2:17:05.720 in Judeo Christian scripture as well as the Qur'an as 2:17:05.800 --> 2:17:09.080 leading the Hebrews out of slavery, was a major influence 2:17:09.120 --> 2:17:13.359 on the authors of the Constitution. Furthermore, under Barton's influence, 2:17:13.440 --> 2:17:16.280 the state of Louisiana enacted a law in June twenty 2:17:16.360 --> 2:17:19.720 twenty four which requires every public school classroom in the 2:17:19.800 --> 2:17:23.640 state to prominently display a version of the Ten Commandments 2:17:23.680 --> 2:17:27.400 for the Book of Exodus, derived from Protestant translations of 2:17:27.480 --> 2:17:31.080 the Bible. This past November, a federal court issued an 2:17:31.080 --> 2:17:33.440 injunction barring enforcement. 2:17:33.000 --> 2:17:33.480 Of the law. 2:17:34.040 --> 2:17:37.680 With Barton's encouragement, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick fought to get 2:17:37.760 --> 2:17:40.640 a similar bill passed in Texas that would have required 2:17:40.720 --> 2:17:44.200 every classroom to feature a display of the Ten Commandments 2:17:44.240 --> 2:17:47.640 at least sixteen inches wide and twenty inches tall, and, 2:17:47.760 --> 2:17:50.320 as the law put it, quote, in a size and 2:17:50.440 --> 2:17:53.400 typeface that is legible to a person with average vision 2:17:53.560 --> 2:17:55.279 from anywhere in the classroom. 2:17:56.120 --> 2:17:57.359 The bill passed the state. 2:17:57.240 --> 2:18:00.520 Senate with unanimous Republican support, but died when didn't come 2:18:00.600 --> 2:18:03.400 before the Texas House in time for a legislative deadline. 2:18:04.280 --> 2:18:08.160 As KVUE in Austin reported, Patrick has vowed to continue 2:18:08.240 --> 2:18:09.960 his crusade in the coming months. 2:18:10.440 --> 2:18:13.680 Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick resurrecting a bill to force 2:18:13.760 --> 2:18:17.360 public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. 2:18:17.720 --> 2:18:21.760 That bill was originally proposed during last year's legislative session, 2:18:22.120 --> 2:18:24.520 but missed a key deadline and died in the House. 2:18:24.959 --> 2:18:29.400 Louisiana just passed a similar law this week, the Lieutenant 2:18:29.440 --> 2:18:32.920 governor posting on x saying, quote, Texas would have and 2:18:33.120 --> 2:18:35.920 should have been the first state in the nation to 2:18:36.040 --> 2:18:39.480 put the Ten Commandments back in our schools end quote. 2:18:39.800 --> 2:18:42.360 The Lieutenant governor says he will pass the bill during 2:18:42.560 --> 2:18:44.200 the next legislative session. 2:18:45.160 --> 2:18:48.360 Under the Ten Commandments bill, moral codes from other major 2:18:48.480 --> 2:18:51.520 world religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism would not be 2:18:51.640 --> 2:18:55.320 posted in classrooms, presenting a clear case of a state 2:18:55.400 --> 2:18:59.760 government violating the First Amendment. Princeton historian Kevin Cruz explained 2:18:59.760 --> 2:19:03.000 by such laws like those signed by Louisiana or Governor 2:19:03.120 --> 2:19:06.000 Jeff Landry, ignore the United States Constitution. 2:19:06.840 --> 2:19:10.240 There are three references to religion in the Constitution. All 2:19:10.320 --> 2:19:13.760 three are ones that keep religion at arm's length away 2:19:13.800 --> 2:19:16.920 from the state. There is no religious tests required for 2:19:17.000 --> 2:19:20.640 office forms, a remarkable revolutionary act at the time. The 2:19:20.680 --> 2:19:24.720 First Amendment says there will be no national religion established 2:19:24.920 --> 2:19:27.600 by the national government. Says that we will not interfere 2:19:27.720 --> 2:19:30.200 with your private right to worship or not worship as 2:19:30.200 --> 2:19:30.640 you see fit. 2:19:30.800 --> 2:19:30.920 Right. 2:19:31.240 --> 2:19:33.840 That is what the Constitution says. And so Landry says 2:19:33.879 --> 2:19:36.320 he wanted to put this up because Moses was the 2:19:36.360 --> 2:19:37.080 first lawgiver. 2:19:37.360 --> 2:19:37.640 He's not. 2:19:38.080 --> 2:19:42.000 The Code of Hamerabi predates Moses by four centuries or something. 2:19:42.879 --> 2:19:44.520 But also, if you want to look at the real 2:19:44.800 --> 2:19:47.680 law of the land, put the Constitution up on those walls. 2:19:47.760 --> 2:19:50.720 Let's students read what the real law of this country 2:19:50.800 --> 2:19:53.720 has to say about the proper role of religion in politics. 2:19:54.680 --> 2:19:58.520 The history of posting Ten Commandments signs or plaques are 2:19:58.600 --> 2:20:02.080 building such monuments public spaces over the last seventy years 2:20:02.480 --> 2:20:05.640 has an origin that might shock many right wing cultural 2:20:05.800 --> 2:20:11.160 warriors who associate Hollywood with godless liberalism. As Cruise points 2:20:11.160 --> 2:20:13.800 out in this book One Nation Under God, How Corporate 2:20:13.920 --> 2:20:18.520 America invented Christian America. The three hour, forty minute epic 2:20:18.640 --> 2:20:21.960 movie The Ten Commandments was a monster hit and wild 2:20:22.040 --> 2:20:26.039 audiences with its twenty five thousand member cast and advanced 2:20:26.080 --> 2:20:29.240 special effects. When it was released in nineteen fifty six, 2:20:30.240 --> 2:20:33.840 the movie grossed more than eighty five million dollars. The 2:20:33.920 --> 2:20:39.040 film's politically conservative subtext was unmistakable. The director Cecil B. 2:20:39.200 --> 2:20:42.080 De Mel hated the New Deal and testified to the 2:20:42.160 --> 2:20:47.000 House un American Activities Committee that communists exercised malign influence 2:20:47.040 --> 2:20:50.360 over unions, including those in Hollywood, that drove up the 2:20:50.480 --> 2:20:51.480 cost of filmmaking. 2:20:52.080 --> 2:20:54.440 The film can be read as a metaphor about the 2:20:54.520 --> 2:20:57.959 Cold War, with the oppressive Egyptians representing the Soviet Union 2:20:58.120 --> 2:21:01.040 and the freedom loving Hebrews standing out for the United States. 2:21:01.879 --> 2:21:04.760 At the beginning of the movie, Demil appears and calls 2:21:04.800 --> 2:21:07.560 the movie quote the story of the Birth of Freedom, 2:21:08.080 --> 2:21:12.160 the story of Moses. The movie also captures the racism 2:21:12.240 --> 2:21:15.480 and ironically, the anti semitism of a country that had 2:21:15.560 --> 2:21:20.160 not yet emerged from McCarthyism. The historian Alan Nadel tells 2:21:20.240 --> 2:21:23.560 a revealing story of two cast members in The Ten Commandments. 2:21:24.000 --> 2:21:26.760 According to the story, during the film's production, Charlton Heston's 2:21:26.760 --> 2:21:30.160 wife became pregnant. Demill then told Heston that if his 2:21:30.320 --> 2:21:32.680 wife gave birth to a boy, the child would be 2:21:32.800 --> 2:21:36.480 cast as the baby Moses. When Heston's wife gave birth 2:21:36.600 --> 2:21:40.480 to a son, Demill sent her a telegram saying congratulations, 2:21:40.680 --> 2:21:41.400 He's got the part. 2:21:42.240 --> 2:21:45.600 Meanwhile, an adult actor, Woody Strode appeared in the film 2:21:45.720 --> 2:21:49.800 in two markedly different roles. A former NFL star who 2:21:49.840 --> 2:21:53.480 broke the thirteen year informal NFL ban on African American 2:21:53.520 --> 2:21:56.160 players when he signed with the Los Angeles Rams in 2:21:56.240 --> 2:22:00.240 nineteen forty six, stro played both an Ethiopian king and 2:22:00.320 --> 2:22:05.040 the enslaved attendant of Moses's adopted Egyptian mother. Demill thought 2:22:05.080 --> 2:22:08.440 that the audiences could tell whether a swaddled white baby 2:22:08.600 --> 2:22:11.320 was a boy or a girl, but apparently assumed they 2:22:11.400 --> 2:22:14.000 wouldn't notice a black actor playing both a king and 2:22:14.080 --> 2:22:17.160 a slave because of the racist belief that all black 2:22:17.240 --> 2:22:21.120 people look alike. Meanwhile, a movie set in ancient Egypt 2:22:21.160 --> 2:22:25.400 and the Sinai Peninsula featured an almost entirely light skinned cast, 2:22:26.080 --> 2:22:29.560 even though Demill's mother was Jewish. The only Jewish actor 2:22:29.640 --> 2:22:32.080 to play a major role was Edward G. Robinson, who 2:22:32.160 --> 2:22:36.760 earlier became famous playing gangsters, and who won de Mill's favor, 2:22:36.879 --> 2:22:39.760 perhaps because he was a friendly witness before the House 2:22:39.800 --> 2:22:44.000 on American Activities Committee during the Communist witch hunts. Thus, 2:22:44.080 --> 2:22:47.840 the one prominent Jewish face in The Ten Commandments was 2:22:47.959 --> 2:22:51.160 cast as a bad guy, a Hebrew named Nathan who 2:22:51.200 --> 2:22:54.959 continually tries to undermine Moses and convince the escaped slaves 2:22:55.040 --> 2:22:56.920 to return to their Egyptian masters. 2:22:59.400 --> 2:23:02.400 You take too much upon yourself. 2:23:03.480 --> 2:23:05.279 We will not live by your commandments. 2:23:05.320 --> 2:23:05.800 We're free. 2:23:07.200 --> 2:23:09.720 There is no freedom without the law. 2:23:10.600 --> 2:23:11.320 Who's law? 2:23:11.400 --> 2:23:12.240 Most you yours? 2:23:12.959 --> 2:23:15.480 Did you call those tabolists to become a prince over us? 2:23:16.360 --> 2:23:21.680 As Cruz documents? When the Ten Commandments film was initially released, 2:23:22.040 --> 2:23:25.240 the Mill came up with an ingenious marketing strategy. He 2:23:25.360 --> 2:23:29.440 teamed up with a conservative anti communist organization, the Fraternal 2:23:29.600 --> 2:23:33.119 Order of the Eagles, to establish ten Commandment monuments across 2:23:33.160 --> 2:23:36.520 the country around the time that Southern States erected new 2:23:36.680 --> 2:23:41.280 Confederate monuments to protest desegregation. Ten Commandment monuments appeared at 2:23:41.320 --> 2:23:45.360 the county courthouse in Evansville, Indiana, the Milwaukee City Hall, 2:23:45.760 --> 2:23:49.039 and near the US Canadian border in North Dakota. Nearly 2:23:49.080 --> 2:23:52.440 one hundred and fifty such monuments were erected across the country. 2:23:53.000 --> 2:23:55.600 Momentum stalled during the Civil Rights era, to the extent 2:23:55.680 --> 2:23:59.440 that in Alabama, State Justice Roy Moore suffered ridicule when 2:23:59.480 --> 2:24:03.680 he placed without authorization, a self funded five thousand, two 2:24:03.760 --> 2:24:06.400 hundred and eighty pound monument in the rotunda of a 2:24:06.480 --> 2:24:09.880 judicial building housing State Supreme Court in two thousand and one. 2:24:10.560 --> 2:24:14.280 The monument was ordered removed two years later, but once 2:24:14.360 --> 2:24:17.760 fringe figures like more have moved closer to the American 2:24:17.800 --> 2:24:20.960 political mainstream because of the influence of people like Barton, 2:24:21.200 --> 2:24:23.240 Lieutenant Governor Patrick and their allies. 2:24:23.760 --> 2:24:28.640 The contemporary of session with festooning public spaces with religious 2:24:28.720 --> 2:24:32.600 artifacts has as much to do with malevolent nostalgia as 2:24:32.720 --> 2:24:38.160 with religious zeal men like anti CRT crusader Christopher Rufo, 2:24:38.879 --> 2:24:41.960 along with Barton and Patrick, want to return to the 2:24:42.080 --> 2:24:45.080 world that made The Ten Commandments film, a world in 2:24:45.120 --> 2:24:48.920 which white people are centered, the accomplishments of dark skinned 2:24:48.959 --> 2:24:53.360 people are erased or expropriated, and where America stands as 2:24:53.400 --> 2:24:56.480 an untainted beacon of freedom in spite of its history 2:24:56.480 --> 2:25:01.840 of enslavement, imperialism, and genocide. And now once again, advocates 2:25:01.879 --> 2:25:05.039 of historical amnesia have a friend in the White House. 2:25:05.520 --> 2:25:08.800 The time has come to reclaim our once great educational 2:25:08.920 --> 2:25:11.680 institutions from the radical left, and we will do that. 2:25:12.320 --> 2:25:17.440 Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system. It's 2:25:17.520 --> 2:25:21.800 called accreditation for a reason. The accreditors are supposed to 2:25:22.000 --> 2:25:26.119 ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers, 2:25:26.200 --> 2:25:29.200 but they have failed totally. When I return to the 2:25:29.280 --> 2:25:32.200 White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that 2:25:32.320 --> 2:25:37.840 have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs 2:25:37.879 --> 2:25:38.680 and lunatics. 2:25:39.560 --> 2:25:42.720 On January twenty ninth of this year, Trump issued an 2:25:42.760 --> 2:25:46.160 executive order mandating the withdrawal of federal dollars from any 2:25:46.200 --> 2:25:51.640 public school that allegedly imprints quote anti American subversive, harmful, 2:25:51.920 --> 2:25:55.840 and false ideologies on our nation's children. This can include 2:25:55.879 --> 2:26:01.360 teaching them about transgender identity, providing services to students, or 2:26:01.600 --> 2:26:06.720 educating students about America's long, bloody promotion of white supremacy, homophobia, 2:26:07.440 --> 2:26:11.440 or transphobia. The order also requires public schools to provide 2:26:11.640 --> 2:26:16.560 quote unquote patriotic education. Those like Trump, Barton and others 2:26:16.800 --> 2:26:19.600 who have clamored the loudest about schools as centers of 2:26:19.640 --> 2:26:24.040 indoctrination are now imposing their own form of propaganda, returning 2:26:24.160 --> 2:26:27.800 history classes from kindergarten to graduate schools to the days 2:26:27.879 --> 2:26:30.640 of the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties, when textbook 2:26:30.680 --> 2:26:33.760 writers praised fascist dictators for keeping unions in their place, 2:26:34.240 --> 2:26:37.040 and those willing to die to end slavery were painted 2:26:37.240 --> 2:26:38.040 as the bad guys. 2:26:38.760 --> 2:26:41.800 In the Civil Rights era, black and brown parents boycotted 2:26:41.840 --> 2:26:46.120 public schools that discriminated to undermine their funding, created their 2:26:46.120 --> 2:26:49.600 own freedom schools that provided lessons in black and brown history, 2:26:50.080 --> 2:26:54.000 and marched against the old Jim Crow laws. Parents who 2:26:54.160 --> 2:26:57.160 want their children receive an honest accounting of the nation's 2:26:57.200 --> 2:27:00.520 past will do well to learn from these pretas sessers 2:27:00.920 --> 2:27:03.840 and to disrupt the meetings of right wing school boards 2:27:03.879 --> 2:27:07.400 as loudly and enthusiastically as the parents who were conned 2:27:07.400 --> 2:27:11.320 into a frenzy about the phantom dangers of CRT. This 2:27:11.520 --> 2:27:12.959 is Michael Phillips and. 2:27:13.040 --> 2:27:16.320 This is Stephen Monticelli. Thanks to Betsy Freoff for reading 2:27:16.360 --> 2:27:19.840 passages from textbooks, and to Dan Glass for reading quotes 2:27:19.959 --> 2:27:21.000 from the founding fathers. 2:27:21.480 --> 2:27:23.920 Of course, thanks to you for listening. 2:27:45.560 --> 2:27:48.480 Hey, everybody, welcome to it could happen here. This is 2:27:48.640 --> 2:27:52.440 Robert Evans, and I have an episode for you. It's 2:27:52.440 --> 2:27:55.560 also an article I wrote for our substack, Shatter Zone, 2:27:56.040 --> 2:27:58.760 So I'm just going to get into that. Since February fifth, 2:27:58.840 --> 2:28:03.160 twenty twenty five, atum has been circulating among democratic parties, staffers, 2:28:03.520 --> 2:28:07.360 and liberal think tank experts warning about Curtis Jarvin and 2:28:07.480 --> 2:28:11.440 the Silicon Valley led coup to end US democracy. The 2:28:11.600 --> 2:28:14.960 document is titled the Imminent Neo Reactionary Threat to the 2:28:15.040 --> 2:28:18.360 American Republic. It opens with a statement that the brief 2:28:18.560 --> 2:28:22.720 was quote iteratively and collectively compiled by a broad, bipartisan 2:28:22.840 --> 2:28:26.600 and decentralized network of experts who wish to remain anonymous 2:28:26.680 --> 2:28:30.720 due to concerns about being targeted. The full document is here. 2:28:30.920 --> 2:28:34.439 The table of contents is split into three main areas, 2:28:34.840 --> 2:28:37.760 one the new shape of threats to the American Republic, 2:28:38.080 --> 2:28:40.800 two understanding recent events in the context of threats to 2:28:40.840 --> 2:28:44.440 the American Republic, and three a list of appendices. The 2:28:44.560 --> 2:28:46.880 title of the actual file when I received it was 2:28:47.040 --> 2:28:50.720 Evidence Brief for Journalists, and the introduction describes its aim 2:28:50.800 --> 2:28:53.840 as quote explaining the nature of the current political crisis 2:28:53.879 --> 2:28:57.600 to journalists who are attempting to inform the public. However, 2:28:57.760 --> 2:29:00.240 I spoke with two sources who are members of these 2:29:00.320 --> 2:29:03.080 groups and received the document. They told me that, to 2:29:03.120 --> 2:29:06.360 their knowledge, the document was not mostly spread to journalists, 2:29:06.760 --> 2:29:11.360 but instead among networks of think tank employees and DNC staffers, 2:29:11.760 --> 2:29:15.600 people you might refer to broadly as policy wonks. One 2:29:15.680 --> 2:29:18.280 source I interviewed explained it is a thing for think 2:29:18.360 --> 2:29:21.880 tanks to frame overviews for laypeople as briefs for journalists 2:29:22.000 --> 2:29:25.600 or congress see the IPCC reports. Part of me thinks 2:29:25.640 --> 2:29:28.560 the framing for journalists is just a shortcut for this 2:29:28.760 --> 2:29:33.080 is somewhat specialized knowledge broken down. The paper opens by 2:29:33.120 --> 2:29:36.600 acknowledging the scope of the executive power grap being perpetuated 2:29:36.720 --> 2:29:39.760 under President Trump, and that is stabilization wrought by Elon 2:29:39.920 --> 2:29:43.480 Musk and his doge team. It then notes the threat 2:29:43.600 --> 2:29:46.879 is an order of magnitude beyond just a presidential power 2:29:47.000 --> 2:29:49.680 grap It states that Musk is tied to a quote 2:29:49.760 --> 2:29:53.360 broader group of Silicon Valley tech elites, including Peter Thiel 2:29:53.480 --> 2:29:57.400 and Mark Andresen Curtis. Yarvin is labeled as a thought 2:29:57.520 --> 2:30:02.320 leader in this group quote called the neo reactionaries. I'll 2:30:02.360 --> 2:30:05.039 stop here to note that this summary is accurate enough 2:30:05.160 --> 2:30:07.560 for mass consumption, but I have some issues with it. 2:30:08.200 --> 2:30:11.720 Musk probably would not label himself a neo reactionary, and 2:30:11.800 --> 2:30:14.640 he doesn't have much of a history with Jarvin. Peter 2:30:14.840 --> 2:30:18.120 Teeal does, but it's more a relationship of patronage than 2:30:18.200 --> 2:30:21.560 mutual influence. It would be more accurate to say that 2:30:21.720 --> 2:30:24.840 Teal and Andreas and find Yarvin useful because of his 2:30:25.000 --> 2:30:27.600 success and spreading to a lot of young techy kids 2:30:28.000 --> 2:30:31.960 the idea that tech CEOs should run the world. Musk, 2:30:32.040 --> 2:30:35.040 I feel, has largely jumped on this bandwagon with the 2:30:35.120 --> 2:30:39.439 neo reactionaries because those tech kids are useful foot soldiers 2:30:39.879 --> 2:30:44.520 Jarvin's ideas about retiring all government employees and destroying the 2:30:44.640 --> 2:30:49.640 independent media and academia are convenient for Musk's own ambitions. 2:30:50.240 --> 2:30:54.640 This context may be unnecessary for explaining the overall danger 2:30:54.840 --> 2:30:58.280 of the neo reactionaries and Musk to regular people. But 2:30:58.320 --> 2:31:00.520 I also think it's a mistake to credit Jarvin with 2:31:00.600 --> 2:31:03.080 more power than he holds. The document refers to him 2:31:03.120 --> 2:31:06.840 as the leader of the neo reactionary movement, and I 2:31:07.000 --> 2:31:10.199 think that gets across kind of the wrong idea about 2:31:10.240 --> 2:31:13.880 how all of this works. That said, the document does 2:31:13.959 --> 2:31:16.199 do a pretty good job of summing up the threat 2:31:16.240 --> 2:31:19.800 that we face. Quote. The neo reactionaries have openly stated 2:31:19.879 --> 2:31:22.760 their aims to destroy the nation state and the constitutional 2:31:22.920 --> 2:31:26.200 order and replace them with a newly privately owned corporate 2:31:26.280 --> 2:31:30.120 state to be run by a CEO dictator. Citizens become 2:31:30.240 --> 2:31:33.840 subjects owned by the state state slaves in Yarvin's terms, 2:31:34.160 --> 2:31:38.080 because everything rots when it has no owner. Human beings included. 2:31:38.840 --> 2:31:42.119 That last quote is also one of Jarvin's. From here, 2:31:42.320 --> 2:31:45.080 the document argues that Musk and his team are attempting 2:31:45.120 --> 2:31:47.960 to bring about this dystopia by taking over the quote 2:31:48.080 --> 2:31:52.000 nervous system of the state. Another Jarvin quote These would 2:31:52.000 --> 2:31:55.280 be the data and communications systems that DOSE is trying 2:31:55.360 --> 2:31:59.520 to centralize in its unaccountable hands. Next, the authors of 2:31:59.560 --> 2:32:02.840 this docum document make a call to action. Quote the 2:32:02.920 --> 2:32:06.840 most dramatic reversals of democratic breakdown nineteen seventy seven, India 2:32:06.959 --> 2:32:09.920 twenty twenty two, Brazil twenty twenty three, Poland have been 2:32:09.959 --> 2:32:14.640 accomplished by radically large, tent cross ideological coalitions with little 2:32:14.680 --> 2:32:17.400 in common accept a desire for the continuation of a 2:32:17.480 --> 2:32:21.680 constitutional order. Evidence suggests that the present threat to American 2:32:21.760 --> 2:32:25.320 democracy is dire enough that such a broad tent approach 2:32:25.440 --> 2:32:29.280 focused on Musk and his associates may be required. And 2:32:29.400 --> 2:32:31.840 I think this is the most interesting and hopeful part 2:32:31.879 --> 2:32:34.200 of the whole document for me. For one thing, I 2:32:34.280 --> 2:32:37.560 believe it does accurately state what's needed in the present moment, 2:32:37.920 --> 2:32:42.039 a popular front against autocracy and dictatorship. I would add 2:32:42.120 --> 2:32:45.800 to their list of relevant examples of popular fronts the original, 2:32:45.879 --> 2:32:48.440 which is France from nineteen thirty four to nineteen thirty eight. 2:32:49.400 --> 2:32:52.720 So it's heartening to see evidence that this understanding has 2:32:52.760 --> 2:32:55.880 started to grow within D and C policy circles in 2:32:55.959 --> 2:32:59.560 the people around them. The source who sent me this document. 2:32:59.640 --> 2:33:02.720 In the first described themselves as a member of quote 2:33:02.800 --> 2:33:06.080 a few unofficial networks of climate activists who are high 2:33:06.160 --> 2:33:09.560 ranking in the government and policy think tank circles. They 2:33:09.680 --> 2:33:13.119 noted that these are normally quote very milk toast lib spaces, 2:33:13.240 --> 2:33:19.120 but quote they're being radicalized rapidly. Both sources I interviewed 2:33:19.200 --> 2:33:22.280 for this requested anonymity. The second person I talked to 2:33:22.360 --> 2:33:25.760 with gave an explicit reason. They stated, quote I've suspected 2:33:25.800 --> 2:33:27.760 for a while a lot more things in D and 2:33:27.840 --> 2:33:31.160 C stuff was compromised than people were comfortable with. In 2:33:31.240 --> 2:33:34.360 other words, they believe the Republican Party has spies within 2:33:34.440 --> 2:33:37.160 the DNC, and people they know have made statements to 2:33:37.440 --> 2:33:41.720 that effect. They were worried that these quote GOP moles 2:33:42.000 --> 2:33:45.000 might reveal their identity, but more so, they were worried 2:33:45.040 --> 2:33:48.000 that these moles might have planted the document itself and 2:33:48.120 --> 2:33:51.480 put false information inside it with the goal of provoking 2:33:51.520 --> 2:33:55.600 a reaction from Democrats that would be useful politically to Republicans. 2:33:56.280 --> 2:33:59.800 I do think this caveat is worthwhile it's certainly not impossible. 2:34:00.040 --> 2:34:02.960 I think the frank admission that the DNC likely has 2:34:03.040 --> 2:34:07.000 Republican spies inside it is also really worth stating. But 2:34:07.120 --> 2:34:09.440 I should note that when it comes to the actual 2:34:09.520 --> 2:34:12.640 accuracy of this document, I don't really see much to 2:34:12.720 --> 2:34:15.600 take issue with. I've spent more time than most people 2:34:15.680 --> 2:34:18.920 studying Curtis Jarvin and the neo reactionaries. I would not 2:34:19.040 --> 2:34:21.920 describe myself as a top expert in the matter, but 2:34:22.000 --> 2:34:23.720 I do have a good base of knowledge here, and 2:34:23.800 --> 2:34:26.040 nothing that I've read in this document struck me as 2:34:26.200 --> 2:34:30.240 obviously false or incorrect, nor did the overall tone seem 2:34:30.320 --> 2:34:34.360 hysteric or unreasonable. So I asked my sources if over 2:34:34.440 --> 2:34:37.480 the last month they'd seen more people talking about Jarvin 2:34:37.560 --> 2:34:40.080 in their daily lives within sort of the circles that 2:34:40.160 --> 2:34:43.000 they work in and around, because again, they communicate with 2:34:43.080 --> 2:34:47.680 a lot of DNC staffers and politicians. They said, respectively, No, 2:34:48.000 --> 2:34:50.400 and quote. That's kind of one of the odd things, 2:34:50.440 --> 2:34:53.200 to be frank, this guy Jarvin is being brought to 2:34:53.280 --> 2:34:56.400 big events in DC. He's been referenced by Bannon Advance. 2:34:56.520 --> 2:34:59.040 I have heard his talking points come from Republican mouths, 2:34:59.280 --> 2:35:03.600 but he's largely not tracked. That concern comports with some 2:35:03.720 --> 2:35:07.080 of fears that I had late last year about Jarvin 2:35:07.160 --> 2:35:10.120 and the neo reactionaries. Namely, I had believed for some 2:35:10.320 --> 2:35:13.760 time that Yarvin and the people kind of aligned with 2:35:13.920 --> 2:35:16.520 him largely, a lot of these Silicon Valley folks with 2:35:16.680 --> 2:35:20.360 money had become much more influential among Trump and his 2:35:20.959 --> 2:35:25.160 tight inner circle than was widely understood at the time. Ultimately, 2:35:25.240 --> 2:35:28.160 I wrote and researched two episodes of Behind the Bastards 2:35:28.520 --> 2:35:31.400 because I thought it was valuable to bring more attention 2:35:31.600 --> 2:35:34.480 to the subject. I really had kind of a gut 2:35:34.560 --> 2:35:37.080 feeling that this was going to become much more relevant 2:35:37.200 --> 2:35:39.360 very soon, which is why I picked it as the 2:35:39.400 --> 2:35:41.760 topic for the episode we did with Ed Helms, who's 2:35:41.879 --> 2:35:44.360 by a pretty good margin, the biggest celebrity we've had 2:35:44.440 --> 2:35:46.520 on the show so far, and I hope that that 2:35:46.560 --> 2:35:49.160 would help kind of get we were talking about out 2:35:49.200 --> 2:35:51.840 to a wider audience, and it did. The episodes did 2:35:52.000 --> 2:35:55.640 very well between YouTube and our downloads in the podcast 2:35:55.800 --> 2:35:58.360 were probably at something like a million listens for them 2:35:58.440 --> 2:36:02.040 at this point. Listener base is a mix of leftists 2:36:02.120 --> 2:36:06.520 and progressive liberals. Right their interests are not representative of 2:36:06.600 --> 2:36:10.800 the Democratic Party at large. It is noteworthy and perhaps 2:36:10.840 --> 2:36:14.400 even important that influential individuals in the policy space with 2:36:14.600 --> 2:36:18.040 connections to democratic politicians and the DNC as an organization, 2:36:18.600 --> 2:36:22.000 have started a grassroots effort to spread the word about 2:36:22.120 --> 2:36:24.960 Jarvin as a threat, and that's what this document represents. 2:36:25.440 --> 2:36:29.160 It's even more noteworthy that this document is unsparing about 2:36:29.200 --> 2:36:31.640 the danger and the fact that a clock is currently 2:36:31.760 --> 2:36:35.200 ticking over all of our heads. Here's another quote. If 2:36:35.280 --> 2:36:40.720 non governmental actors, by which we mean unelected, unratified, unvetted, untrained, unconstrained, 2:36:40.760 --> 2:36:44.519 and or unaccountable actors gain access to key digital infrastructure, 2:36:44.760 --> 2:36:47.400 they could seize control of critical functions of government in 2:36:47.520 --> 2:36:51.560 ways that will be difficult or impossible to reverse. And 2:36:51.760 --> 2:36:55.440 speaking of things that can't be reversed, my love for 2:36:55.840 --> 2:36:56.600 our sponsors. 2:37:07.000 --> 2:37:07.480 We're back. 2:37:07.959 --> 2:37:10.960 So to continue from this document, there's a section next 2:37:11.120 --> 2:37:15.640 titled national security, and the focus shifts from Jarvin and 2:37:16.000 --> 2:37:20.120 his neo reactionaries to Musk, who it claims, quote poses 2:37:20.200 --> 2:37:24.640 a uniquely significant security risk. This, in its argument, is 2:37:24.680 --> 2:37:28.920 because Musk and Doge espouse quote anti constitutional ideologies and 2:37:29.160 --> 2:37:33.040 quote are under the influence of America's principle foreign adversaries 2:37:33.280 --> 2:37:36.199 China and Russia. It goes on at some length about 2:37:36.280 --> 2:37:40.360 Musk's foreign business interests and how they might compromise him. Now, 2:37:40.360 --> 2:37:43.640 I don't disagree that Musk is compromised, but I see 2:37:43.720 --> 2:37:46.680 his actions as very much consistent with those of a 2:37:46.760 --> 2:37:50.800 man seizing power for himself. I do understand why people 2:37:50.920 --> 2:37:54.200 speaking to an audience that is largely you know, when 2:37:54.240 --> 2:37:56.760 it's bipartisan, it's folks who are kind of more on 2:37:56.840 --> 2:37:59.120 the centrist side of things in the policy space, and 2:37:59.160 --> 2:38:03.439 otherwise largely lot of like Democratic Party employees and politicians. 2:38:03.520 --> 2:38:06.920 I understand why you focus on the China and Russia 2:38:07.120 --> 2:38:09.680 of it all with them, But when it comes to 2:38:10.160 --> 2:38:13.000 both accurately stating the threat and getting a lot of 2:38:13.040 --> 2:38:15.680 people to care, I really don't think that's the right 2:38:15.760 --> 2:38:19.480 strategy to take. I think it's an issue to focus 2:38:19.640 --> 2:38:24.240 popular messaging around how this all empowers quote America's principle 2:38:24.320 --> 2:38:28.920 foreign adversaries, because most Americans don't really think that way 2:38:29.160 --> 2:38:33.280 or particularly care about that. And beyond that, the larger 2:38:33.400 --> 2:38:36.840 issue is that the primary adversary Musk has empowered is not, 2:38:37.000 --> 2:38:40.480 in fact the Russian or Chinese governments, it's himself, and 2:38:40.680 --> 2:38:44.480 he personally, as an individual, is currently a greater threat 2:38:44.560 --> 2:38:48.880 to every citizen of the United States than any foreign government. 2:38:49.360 --> 2:38:51.960 I think that's undeniable, and I think again, it's an 2:38:52.320 --> 2:38:55.720 error not to frame it that way. The next section 2:38:55.840 --> 2:38:59.480 of the paper lays out the definition of a coup quote. 2:39:00.000 --> 2:39:02.600 In essence, a coup is a number one rapid seizure 2:39:02.640 --> 2:39:05.560 of state power by unelected actors who acquire that power 2:39:05.640 --> 2:39:10.040 by two seizing critical government infrastructure, and three weaponizing it 2:39:10.160 --> 2:39:13.800 to neutralize legitimate government actors' efforts to stop them. The 2:39:13.879 --> 2:39:16.600 unelected actors then use this power to four remake the 2:39:16.680 --> 2:39:18.800 rules of the political game in a way that cannot 2:39:18.840 --> 2:39:22.920 easily be checked or undone through democratic processes. Now it 2:39:23.120 --> 2:39:26.400 argues convincingly that all four of these steps are underway now. 2:39:26.920 --> 2:39:29.080 One thing I found compelling is the way at which 2:39:29.160 --> 2:39:33.560 this document recognizes the threat that cryptocurrency represents right now, 2:39:33.800 --> 2:39:35.640 and how it can and will be used by the 2:39:35.720 --> 2:39:38.920 new regime to cement their power in ways that sidestep 2:39:39.040 --> 2:39:43.240 the present legal system quote without canceling elections. For example, 2:39:43.320 --> 2:39:46.880 cryptocurrency can be used to create informal but powerful new 2:39:46.959 --> 2:39:51.040 levers of political influence. Politicians can sell personal coins to 2:39:51.200 --> 2:39:54.360 unknown buyers who vote on public policy on the basis 2:39:54.400 --> 2:39:58.640 of their shareholder power shielded from public view. I think 2:39:58.680 --> 2:40:01.160 that's a real thing to be concerned with. I also 2:40:01.240 --> 2:40:04.920 think it's very clearly part of the goal of this project. Now, 2:40:05.200 --> 2:40:08.080 next we have a summary of the neo Reactionary Agenda, 2:40:08.240 --> 2:40:11.279 which lists some additional names among the Silicon Valley elde 2:40:11.320 --> 2:40:15.520 currently championing an overthrow of democracy. These include David Sachs, 2:40:15.840 --> 2:40:17.720 Blaji Shrinivasan, and JD. 2:40:17.959 --> 2:40:18.320 Vance. 2:40:18.720 --> 2:40:22.400 Also name dropped is a political theorist named Nick Land, 2:40:22.480 --> 2:40:25.680 who is in fact referenced twice in this paper. He 2:40:25.800 --> 2:40:28.240 is quoted directly as having said in his paper the 2:40:28.360 --> 2:40:32.360 Dark Enlightenment quote for the hardcore neo reactionaries, democracy is 2:40:32.440 --> 2:40:36.039 not merely doomed. It is doom itself fleeing it approaches 2:40:36.080 --> 2:40:39.440 an ultimate imperative. Land has had a huge impact on 2:40:39.520 --> 2:40:41.440 a lot of these guys, although he's not really a 2:40:41.560 --> 2:40:44.400 Jarvin like figure in he's not this kind of guy 2:40:44.440 --> 2:40:46.800 who sees himself as or I think, really wants to 2:40:46.879 --> 2:40:50.959 be a shadowy puppet master orchestrating the overthrow of democracy 2:40:51.040 --> 2:40:55.400 from behind the scenes. He's really someone stating what he 2:40:55.480 --> 2:40:59.080 believes to be kind of inevitable concepts and realities about 2:40:59.120 --> 2:41:02.560 our presentest historical moment that happened to comport with a 2:41:02.600 --> 2:41:05.480 lot of the things that these guys believe now. The 2:41:05.640 --> 2:41:09.720 author's next layout Jarvin's concept of the Butterfly Revolution, which 2:41:09.760 --> 2:41:11.720 is based on an essay he wrote in twenty twenty 2:41:11.760 --> 2:41:14.000 two in which he laid out how a full reboot 2:41:14.080 --> 2:41:15.960 of the US government could be accomplished. 2:41:16.440 --> 2:41:16.720 Quote. 2:41:17.000 --> 2:41:20.879 Jarvin's seven part Butterfly Revolution has been roughly summarized as follows. 2:41:21.040 --> 2:41:23.600 Number one, have Trump run for president on the platform 2:41:23.680 --> 2:41:26.720 of getting rid of an efficient system. Number two, once 2:41:26.760 --> 2:41:31.039 he wins, purge the bureaucracy, rage, retire all government employees. 2:41:31.520 --> 2:41:34.680 Number three, ignore the courts through declaring states of emergency. 2:41:35.040 --> 2:41:39.080 Number four, co opt Congress. Number five, centralize the police, 2:41:39.240 --> 2:41:42.240 federalize the national Guard, create a national police force that 2:41:42.320 --> 2:41:43.400 absorbs local ones. 2:41:43.800 --> 2:41:44.360 Number six. 2:41:44.760 --> 2:41:47.440 Shut down the elites, the media, and the universities who 2:41:47.480 --> 2:41:50.760 make up the cathedral. Number seven. Get people on the 2:41:50.879 --> 2:41:54.160 streets whenever there is any obstruction by a government agency. 2:41:54.720 --> 2:41:58.040 And obviously all of that we've seen Trump and his 2:41:58.120 --> 2:42:01.800 people make moves towards in the last couple of weeks, right, 2:42:02.320 --> 2:42:04.600 And that's in fact what the next chunk of the 2:42:04.760 --> 2:42:08.040 document is Subsequent pages summarize the first days of the 2:42:08.080 --> 2:42:11.360 Trump administration and DOJE activity, and they show how it 2:42:11.440 --> 2:42:14.560 comports with the Butterfly Revolution blueprint. Now, we've all lived 2:42:14.600 --> 2:42:16.920 that in real time, so I'm not going to summarize 2:42:16.959 --> 2:42:20.959 their arguments here. So the document ends with a section 2:42:21.240 --> 2:42:25.960 on actions and rhetoric to watch. Those are listed as 2:42:26.160 --> 2:42:30.120 quote government contracts which fund many of Musk's companies at present, 2:42:30.320 --> 2:42:33.760 and the next is Greenland and Mars quote. A core 2:42:33.879 --> 2:42:37.040 tenant of neo reactionary ideology is the replacement of nation 2:42:37.200 --> 2:42:42.480 states with network states, but states require territory. Technocracy Inc, 2:42:42.600 --> 2:42:45.320 a predecessor to the neo reactionary movement, whose one time 2:42:45.400 --> 2:42:49.920 director was Elon Musk's grandfather, proposed a North American Technate 2:42:50.240 --> 2:42:53.039 where the entire continent of North America would be united 2:42:53.160 --> 2:42:57.199 under one technocratic superstate. There is currently a Peter teelbacked 2:42:57.280 --> 2:43:01.520 network state project called Praxis in Greenland. Musk's public statements 2:43:01.520 --> 2:43:03.880 about colonizing Mars can also be read as part of 2:43:03.920 --> 2:43:08.760 a territorial project. Lastly, it lists crypto, which the authors 2:43:08.840 --> 2:43:12.480 primarily seem to fear, as a method of deniably bribing Trump. Now, 2:43:12.520 --> 2:43:14.640 I think most of this is pretty credible. Although I 2:43:14.680 --> 2:43:18.160 feel differently about musk talk about colonizing Mars. I think 2:43:18.200 --> 2:43:21.440 that's been more about pr than anything. I do think 2:43:21.480 --> 2:43:23.680 there's a good chance he's just delusional enough to think 2:43:23.720 --> 2:43:27.240 that that's something feasible on any kind of close end 2:43:27.360 --> 2:43:31.680 time frame, that we start building persistent colonies on Mars. 2:43:32.200 --> 2:43:35.160 I think the science suggests that if that ever happens, 2:43:35.240 --> 2:43:37.760 it won't be anytime soon, and I think he knows that. 2:43:38.080 --> 2:43:42.440 I think he's largely understands hype well and how to 2:43:42.600 --> 2:43:45.080 use it, and Mars has been an easy way for 2:43:45.200 --> 2:43:48.080 him to do that over the years. Overall, I'd say 2:43:48.120 --> 2:43:50.480 the document is fairly thorough, and it's layout of the 2:43:50.560 --> 2:43:54.920 neo reactionary ecosystem and the actual plan currently being acted 2:43:55.000 --> 2:43:59.000 to end US democracy. It includes a section that lists 2:43:59.000 --> 2:44:02.160 several of the earliest known DOGE employees, and it quotes 2:44:02.280 --> 2:44:06.760 extensively from Jarvin and somewhat less extensively from Land. The 2:44:06.840 --> 2:44:10.200 paper's ultimate conclusion is that Musk is using this moment 2:44:10.280 --> 2:44:13.120 to turn himself into the kind of unitary, all powerful 2:44:13.160 --> 2:44:16.880 executive that Yarvin longs for. This is an executive who 2:44:17.120 --> 2:44:21.480 rules alongside a largely ceremonial president, as well as courts 2:44:21.600 --> 2:44:26.840 and a legislative system that are equally ceremonial. After laying 2:44:26.879 --> 2:44:29.600 out the bulk of the actual threat, the article promises 2:44:29.680 --> 2:44:32.840 that quote Section three articulates what Congress and other actors 2:44:32.879 --> 2:44:35.960 can do in order to stop this threat. However, the 2:44:36.080 --> 2:44:39.160 document in its present form does not include any Section 2:44:39.360 --> 2:44:43.840 three or any comprehensive list of solutions Congress and other 2:44:44.040 --> 2:44:47.279 actors might carry out in order to stop the present 2:44:47.320 --> 2:44:51.720 assault on democracy. And perhaps there's a later version of 2:44:51.800 --> 2:44:54.520 the document that I don't have access to that includes that, 2:44:54.959 --> 2:44:57.600 perhaps this is just a statement that wasn't edited out. 2:44:58.120 --> 2:45:01.120 I have to say and heart as I find the 2:45:01.200 --> 2:45:04.040 way in which this document talks about the threat that 2:45:04.120 --> 2:45:06.359 we're facing, and the fact that I think it's overall 2:45:06.480 --> 2:45:09.680 good that people in positions of influence and around the 2:45:09.760 --> 2:45:13.360 DNC are talking about this stuff. It's also kind of 2:45:13.440 --> 2:45:16.360 perfect that at the end they're like, hey, you know, 2:45:16.680 --> 2:45:19.960 don't worry, We've included some tips on how to defeat 2:45:20.000 --> 2:45:22.680 these guys, and then they just don't. You know, if 2:45:22.720 --> 2:45:25.960 the situation weren't so dire, it would be a lot funnier, 2:45:26.120 --> 2:45:28.520 but unfortunately it is pretty dire. 2:45:28.840 --> 2:45:28.960 Now. 2:45:29.280 --> 2:45:30.520 If you want to take a look at the full 2:45:30.560 --> 2:45:33.080 document itself, it's quite a bit longer than what I've 2:45:33.160 --> 2:45:35.440 read to you now, but it is really worth reading, 2:45:35.640 --> 2:45:38.880 especially if you have been hearing about this Curtis Yarvin 2:45:38.920 --> 2:45:41.760 guy or the neo reactionarys and you kind of want 2:45:41.800 --> 2:45:43.520 to know how this all fits together with what Musk 2:45:43.680 --> 2:45:46.440 is doing in more detail, if you go to my 2:45:46.640 --> 2:45:50.200 substack at shatter Zone, the most recent article is the 2:45:50.320 --> 2:45:52.560 text of this and I include a couple of different 2:45:52.760 --> 2:45:56.120 points links to the full document which I have uploaded 2:45:56.160 --> 2:45:58.760 to scribed, and you can read the whole thing if 2:45:58.800 --> 2:46:01.680 you want. It is not been altered since I have 2:46:01.840 --> 2:46:05.360 received it. And again, yeah, I think it's worth getting 2:46:05.400 --> 2:46:08.800 out there and spreading to more people. So that's the episode. 2:46:08.879 --> 2:46:12.120 We will be back tomorrow with something else. Until then, folks, 2:46:13.520 --> 2:46:16.600 I don't know, keep an eye on this shit. 2:46:17.760 --> 2:46:18.000 Bye. 2:46:42.480 --> 2:46:43.480 This is it could happen here. 2:46:43.560 --> 2:46:47.480 Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the 2:46:47.640 --> 2:46:51.280 White House, Yes, the crumbling world and what it means 2:46:51.320 --> 2:46:54.920 for me and you. I'm Garrison Davis today. I'm joined 2:46:54.959 --> 2:46:57.879 by James Stout and Robert Evans. Yes, this week we're 2:46:57.959 --> 2:47:02.040 covering the week of February ninth, nineteen to February twenty sixth. 2:47:02.240 --> 2:47:05.640 Boy, if you thought we had ed before, do we 2:47:05.879 --> 2:47:10.240 have ed now? We still haven't got that Haym sponsorship, 2:47:10.280 --> 2:47:11.320 but will yeah crying. 2:47:11.160 --> 2:47:13.119 We're going to keep working at it. I'm also looking 2:47:13.200 --> 2:47:16.960 to get us a penis pump sponsorship. Speaking of penis pumps, 2:47:17.120 --> 2:47:22.240 let's talk about the Germans. So Germany had its election 2:47:22.720 --> 2:47:27.760 very recently after their most recent coalition collapsed. The way 2:47:27.840 --> 2:47:34.560 their government works is that periodically governments can't continue being governments, 2:47:34.600 --> 2:47:36.480 and so they have to have a very sudden election. 2:47:37.000 --> 2:47:37.600 I'm not going to. 2:47:38.040 --> 2:47:41.039 Explain it much more than that, but the actual results 2:47:41.120 --> 2:47:44.960 of the election were pretty interesting, right. The primary winner 2:47:45.240 --> 2:47:49.360 was off Day AfD Alternative for Germany would be kind 2:47:49.360 --> 2:47:52.959 of the mostest English translation of the name of the party. 2:47:53.480 --> 2:47:57.199 This is a far right party. It is primarily popular 2:47:57.480 --> 2:48:02.480 in East Germany now, but it has surged massively after 2:48:02.760 --> 2:48:06.240 years and years of being decidedly on the political fringe. 2:48:06.600 --> 2:48:08.280 One of the reasons it has always been on the 2:48:08.320 --> 2:48:13.800 political fringe is that German parties, both centrists conservatives and 2:48:14.080 --> 2:48:18.480 the left have had a tacit agreement since the end 2:48:18.560 --> 2:48:22.840 of World War Two called the Cordon sanitaire. It's not 2:48:23.120 --> 2:48:24.760 just Germany, this is the thing that used to be 2:48:24.879 --> 2:48:27.400 present in all of Europe. And basically the gist of 2:48:27.480 --> 2:48:31.119 the cordon sanitaire is you don't form a coalition because 2:48:31.160 --> 2:48:34.840 these are parliamentary democracies, right, so usually no one party 2:48:34.959 --> 2:48:37.800 has fifty percent or more of the vote. So you know, 2:48:37.840 --> 2:48:39.680 a party with twenty and a party with fifteen and 2:48:39.760 --> 2:48:42.440 a party with eight and they form a coalition government. 2:48:42.640 --> 2:48:47.880 And the norm for up until now, and thankfully is 2:48:47.959 --> 2:48:49.640 still the normal we'll talk about that is that you 2:48:49.720 --> 2:48:53.000 don't coalition with AfD, which is a part of why 2:48:53.080 --> 2:48:57.320 that and kind of lingering stigma about the Nazis kept 2:48:57.360 --> 2:49:00.360 them from being a major force in German politics until 2:49:00.840 --> 2:49:03.280 you know, over the last eight or so years they 2:49:03.360 --> 2:49:07.800 have grown substantially to the point where in this recent 2:49:07.879 --> 2:49:10.640 election they doubled their support from around ten percent to 2:49:10.680 --> 2:49:14.880 a little over twenty percent. This makes them they're not 2:49:15.080 --> 2:49:19.959 the largest single block in the German in the Reichstag, 2:49:20.320 --> 2:49:23.160 they're number two though, right they are number two, I believe, 2:49:23.360 --> 2:49:24.520 which sucks. 2:49:24.959 --> 2:49:25.720 Yeah, it's not great. 2:49:25.920 --> 2:49:31.640 Yeah, the CDU is still significantly larger, although not like 2:49:32.000 --> 2:49:38.040 overwhelmingly larger, to be clear. So basically, right now, the CDU, 2:49:38.200 --> 2:49:41.000 which is the centrist party and it's kind of like 2:49:41.160 --> 2:49:43.920 center right, a little center right, has two hundred and 2:49:43.920 --> 2:49:46.720 eight seats in the Reichstag. AfD has one hundred and 2:49:46.840 --> 2:49:50.320 fifty two, the Social Democrats have one hundred and twenty, 2:49:50.720 --> 2:49:53.600 the Greens have eighty five, and the Left Party has 2:49:53.720 --> 2:49:59.080 sixty four. So AfD is a minority in the government 2:49:59.240 --> 2:50:02.040 compared to all of the people who didn't vote for AfD, 2:50:02.560 --> 2:50:05.560 but the rate at which they're increasing is a serious problem, 2:50:05.680 --> 2:50:10.120 especially since most Germans list immigration as their primary voting concern. 2:50:10.240 --> 2:50:15.080 Right now, this most recent election had unusually high voter 2:50:15.280 --> 2:50:19.000 turnout twenty twenty one election, seventy six percent of the 2:50:19.040 --> 2:50:21.240 country or so voted. More than eighty two percent of 2:50:21.280 --> 2:50:24.840 the country voted in this most recent election. So the 2:50:24.920 --> 2:50:28.760 fact that like you have record high turnout and AfD 2:50:29.040 --> 2:50:33.440 doubling its support is deeply chilling. Now, it's not one 2:50:33.520 --> 2:50:37.680 hundred percent bad news because one of the other stories 2:50:37.760 --> 2:50:40.840 here is the new Left Party, well not super new, 2:50:40.920 --> 2:50:43.039 but the Left Party, which is kind of came out 2:50:43.240 --> 2:50:48.240 of East Germany's Communist Party massively increased their support too, 2:50:48.440 --> 2:50:52.519 and they actually for the first time, like very significantly 2:50:52.640 --> 2:50:55.520 increased their share of the vote, which had been under 2:50:55.560 --> 2:50:59.080 this kind of five percent threshold before and is now 2:50:59.120 --> 2:51:02.760 at about eight point eight percent. So they went up 2:51:03.400 --> 2:51:06.360 by an amount. Actually it's not like as much as 2:51:06.440 --> 2:51:08.960 AfD went up, but like in terms of a percentage 2:51:09.000 --> 2:51:13.440 of their prior vote, it's a similar increase. So there's 2:51:13.600 --> 2:51:17.440 another party that had significant gains in this and it's 2:51:17.480 --> 2:51:19.720 kind of a newer party called the BSW, which is 2:51:20.560 --> 2:51:22.280 you could say they do a little bit of like 2:51:22.360 --> 2:51:26.360 a Red Brown Alliance kind of thing, where there's some 2:51:26.520 --> 2:51:29.040 like left wing messaging in what they're saying with they're 2:51:29.040 --> 2:51:33.880 also like super anti immigrant and they're not, you know, 2:51:33.959 --> 2:51:35.880 it's not kind of like to the extent that the 2:51:36.040 --> 2:51:39.960 AfD is. But when they came on to the scene, 2:51:40.400 --> 2:51:44.160 they were expected by some people to pull votes away 2:51:44.480 --> 2:51:48.840 from the AfD this selection, and that's really not what happened. 2:51:48.879 --> 2:51:51.120 And in fact, a lot of the votes they pulled 2:51:51.160 --> 2:51:55.360 were from Social Democrats and the left parties, so that 2:51:55.600 --> 2:51:58.320 was one of the you know, it's because the way 2:51:58.360 --> 2:52:01.800 the parliamentary system works, which is more rational than our system. 2:52:01.920 --> 2:52:05.800 This didn't like hand the whole election to off day again. 2:52:05.879 --> 2:52:08.879 This is the benefit of a system like the Germans had, 2:52:08.879 --> 2:52:11.560 which is pretty explicitly set up to make it a 2:52:11.680 --> 2:52:13.280 lot harder or a right. 2:52:13.240 --> 2:52:14.920 Wing dictator to get in again. 2:52:15.520 --> 2:52:18.320 But it is interesting to me that that kind of messaging, 2:52:19.040 --> 2:52:21.680 I mean, it's further kind of evidence of what's been 2:52:21.720 --> 2:52:26.200 happening everywhere, which is when your party positions itself to 2:52:26.400 --> 2:52:30.040 try to win over far right votes by kind of 2:52:30.120 --> 2:52:32.240 mixing in Well, okay, what if we did some sort 2:52:32.320 --> 2:52:35.280 of you know, liberal lefty policies, but we also got 2:52:35.360 --> 2:52:39.600 really racist. You don't take votes from the far right, 2:52:40.000 --> 2:52:42.840 but you do wind up pulling the worst people from 2:52:42.879 --> 2:52:47.680 the left. Yeah, and yeah, I guess that's kind of 2:52:47.840 --> 2:52:51.600 like the broad strokes. Now, like this is bad, although 2:52:51.640 --> 2:52:55.760 it's also not comprehensively a nightmare. One of the things 2:52:55.800 --> 2:52:58.120 that's kind of I don't know, positive may not be 2:52:58.200 --> 2:53:00.640 the right. Wait, but interesting to me is if you 2:53:00.840 --> 2:53:04.720 looked at the twenty twenty one election maps of the 2:53:04.879 --> 2:53:08.480 strongest party by constituency in the twenty twenty one election, 2:53:09.080 --> 2:53:11.959 and I've found a good article German election results explaining 2:53:12.040 --> 2:53:14.640 graphics on DW dot com. If you just google that, 2:53:14.720 --> 2:53:18.760 you'll find it. In twenty twenty one. Off Day obviously, 2:53:19.000 --> 2:53:23.800 like the whole northeast was you know, their territory, but 2:53:23.920 --> 2:53:27.760 they also had strong inroads into the northwest parts of 2:53:27.840 --> 2:53:30.640 the country, right, you know, primarily like rural areas and 2:53:30.680 --> 2:53:32.480 the like. But like there was a there was a 2:53:32.560 --> 2:53:35.280 lot of red on that map in the northwest portion 2:53:35.440 --> 2:53:40.200 of Germany. In the new election, that's all black, which 2:53:40.320 --> 2:53:46.400 is the CDU right, Which means while off Day's representation 2:53:46.520 --> 2:53:49.880 in the Reichstag and like number of voters increased substantially, 2:53:50.000 --> 2:53:54.680 their geographical reach has been kind of cauterized. Yeah, would 2:53:54.680 --> 2:53:56.120 be in a fair way of saying it, which is 2:53:56.240 --> 2:53:59.119 which is interesting to me, hard to say too much, 2:53:59.240 --> 2:54:01.240 Like does that mean, you know, I think some of 2:54:01.360 --> 2:54:04.879 what has happened here, because it's important both to note 2:54:04.920 --> 2:54:08.880 that this is bad. It's bad that the Nazis doubled 2:54:08.920 --> 2:54:11.560 their share of the vote, but also it was expected 2:54:11.640 --> 2:54:14.880 to be a little worse than it was. You know, 2:54:14.959 --> 2:54:18.520 there's some evidence that after jd Vance made his speech 2:54:18.640 --> 2:54:23.520 introducing AfD, their pollings started to like freeze a little bit, 2:54:24.040 --> 2:54:25.640 and it may be the fact because a lot of 2:54:25.720 --> 2:54:29.400 older voters came in and they seem to have primarily 2:54:29.520 --> 2:54:32.840 gone with the CDU, with this sort of center right party. 2:54:33.440 --> 2:54:36.240 So one story here is you can maybe look at 2:54:36.280 --> 2:54:39.840 it as a lot of older, more conservative Germans who 2:54:40.720 --> 2:54:43.199 are also old enough to really not like the idea 2:54:43.240 --> 2:54:47.440 of the AfD, came out and voted for, you know, 2:54:47.680 --> 2:54:50.200 the center right party in order to kind of cut 2:54:50.280 --> 2:54:53.960 off their power. The other thing, though, that's kind of 2:54:54.160 --> 2:54:57.600 a lot less optimistic, is that AfD is most popular 2:54:57.760 --> 2:55:01.800 among people under thirty who don't view it as an 2:55:01.840 --> 2:55:06.039 extremist party, which is deeply, deeply concerning. 2:55:06.200 --> 2:55:09.040 And AfD won the majority of like working class, unemployed 2:55:09.120 --> 2:55:10.680 and male votes. 2:55:11.080 --> 2:55:12.560 Yes, yes, pretty substantially. 2:55:13.400 --> 2:55:14.240 Yes, they did. 2:55:14.400 --> 2:55:18.600 Extremely well with young men an unemployed young men in particular, 2:55:19.280 --> 2:55:22.920 and that's all deeply concerning. So, you know, there's a 2:55:23.040 --> 2:55:25.760 few things going on here, all of which are very 2:55:25.879 --> 2:55:29.040 interesting to me. But the power off Day continues to 2:55:29.120 --> 2:55:33.879 have with younger, really young Germans is frightening. That said, 2:55:33.959 --> 2:55:39.320 there's also some evidence here that the situation in the 2:55:39.480 --> 2:55:43.040 United States has galvanized a chunk of the German voting 2:55:43.120 --> 2:55:46.720 populace to attempt to stop off Day and kind of 2:55:46.760 --> 2:55:48.760 one of the positive things that came out is prior 2:55:48.840 --> 2:55:51.240 to this election, there was a lot of talk about 2:55:51.320 --> 2:55:55.440 whether or not the CDU would choose to coalition with 2:55:55.560 --> 2:55:59.600 the AfD and thus into the Cordon Sanitaire, And to 2:55:59.680 --> 2:56:02.000 make a long story short, they're not going to do that. 2:56:02.160 --> 2:56:06.240 They're looking to coalition with the Social Democrats, which is 2:56:06.680 --> 2:56:08.600 a good thing. You know, it doesn't mean no one 2:56:08.600 --> 2:56:11.160 will do that in the future. And unfortunately a majority 2:56:11.320 --> 2:56:15.359 of German voters suspect AfD will be in a coalition 2:56:15.520 --> 2:56:19.840 by twenty thirty, but it hasn't happened yet. And that's 2:56:19.879 --> 2:56:22.440 as good as things get right now. And that's what 2:56:22.520 --> 2:56:23.600 I got to say about Germany. 2:56:24.160 --> 2:56:26.000 Yeah, I mean, and people frame these results is like 2:56:26.040 --> 2:56:31.120 slightly better than expected, slightly. Previous pulling showed AfD being 2:56:31.640 --> 2:56:35.560 being slightly better in results, and that dipped for vance 2:56:35.680 --> 2:56:40.320 and Musk started really trying to push AfD, both in 2:56:40.440 --> 2:56:44.000 person and digitally, so you saw a slight dip there. 2:56:44.320 --> 2:56:46.880 Yes, And this is the other thing that's kind of 2:56:46.959 --> 2:56:50.880 worth noting that kind of like red Brown Party, in 2:56:50.959 --> 2:56:55.840 addition to being kind of pro social programs, anti immigration, 2:56:55.959 --> 2:56:57.920 they're also very anti United States. 2:56:58.320 --> 2:57:04.840 Okay, so uh, that may explain some of that too. Yeah, 2:57:05.040 --> 2:57:06.720 it does seem like things are changing a lot. And 2:57:06.760 --> 2:57:08.680 one of the things that we've seen, like les we've 2:57:08.680 --> 2:57:11.160 spoken aboutfore, like not just in Germany, being Canada, was that, 2:57:11.360 --> 2:57:15.520 like people hate Musk and Trump so much in the 2:57:15.600 --> 2:57:18.160 rest of the world that like their endorsement could be 2:57:18.200 --> 2:57:20.199 something of a kiss of death electorally. 2:57:20.440 --> 2:57:20.680 Yeah. 2:57:20.840 --> 2:57:23.280 Yeah, Like the Conservative Party in Canada has been growing 2:57:23.320 --> 2:57:26.360 pretty exponentially in terms of like popular support the past 2:57:26.440 --> 2:57:29.160 few years as the Liberals have like tanked, and now 2:57:29.320 --> 2:57:32.440 those trends that actually started to reverse. The Canadian like 2:57:32.600 --> 2:57:35.480 Liberal polling is up ten points, the Conservative pulling is down. 2:57:35.879 --> 2:57:38.640 Conservatives might not even be able to control Parliament in 2:57:38.680 --> 2:57:41.760 the next election as they were like expected to. And 2:57:42.000 --> 2:57:43.920 it'll be interesting to see like if this if this 2:57:44.080 --> 2:57:47.840 anti like far right United States trend continues to more 2:57:47.879 --> 2:57:51.800 countries beyond like Germany in Canada. But I'm still still eagerly, 2:57:52.120 --> 2:57:54.520 eagerly waiting for the next Canadian election. 2:57:55.080 --> 2:57:56.840 And this is part of the story that is really 2:57:56.920 --> 2:57:58.880 interesting right now. Where we've talked a lot about the 2:57:59.040 --> 2:58:03.800 transnational fascist coalition. You know the fact that Trump and 2:58:03.959 --> 2:58:07.480 his people have had the quasi dictator of Hungary, you know, 2:58:07.760 --> 2:58:10.200 over at mar A Lago, and have repeatedly cited him 2:58:10.240 --> 2:58:13.400 as an inspiration for how to take and centralized power. 2:58:13.879 --> 2:58:17.320 You know how close Polsonyaro was in the last Trump administration. 2:58:17.560 --> 2:58:22.080 Like you know, obviously the Republican parties increasing closeness and 2:58:22.240 --> 2:58:26.560 embrace of Putin's Russia. But what also is happening right 2:58:26.640 --> 2:58:31.360 now is people like countries that had been heading in 2:58:31.400 --> 2:58:37.000 a very more authoritarian right wing direction turning around in 2:58:37.240 --> 2:58:40.880 part due to the war in Ukraine and turning away 2:58:41.360 --> 2:58:45.359 from kind of the international right wing movement, as Poland 2:58:45.440 --> 2:58:49.160 being the best example right whereland. Polish politics have changed 2:58:49.200 --> 2:58:53.119 substantially in the last several years, and a big part 2:58:53.160 --> 2:58:55.560 of that is the war in Ukraine and a lot 2:58:55.640 --> 2:58:57.800 there are a lot of Poles who I think otherwise 2:58:57.800 --> 2:58:59.560 would have been more on board for a lot of 2:58:59.560 --> 2:59:02.480 the social conservative shit who are like, well, but all 2:59:02.520 --> 2:59:07.240 these fuckers are pro Russia and we're pulling it, like no. 2:59:10.360 --> 2:59:13.720 All right, let's go on a break and return to 2:59:13.760 --> 2:59:18.240 talk more about the crumbling world. And you said, yeah, 2:59:30.800 --> 2:59:33.960 all right, we are back I'm gonna throw to James 2:59:34.120 --> 2:59:37.599 to do a segment on USAID. 2:59:38.280 --> 2:59:40.480 Yeah, we are back. And before I talk about USAD, 2:59:40.560 --> 2:59:42.040 I do want to talk about something else that has 2:59:42.120 --> 2:59:45.440 been advertised along with whatever products and services support this show. 2:59:46.080 --> 2:59:49.240 That is the Gold Card. So the Gold Card if 2:59:49.240 --> 2:59:51.480 You're not Familiar, is something that Trump floated this week 2:59:51.720 --> 2:59:55.680 to replace the EB five investor visa. Trump suggested that 2:59:55.920 --> 2:59:59.160 the Gold Card it would require a five million dollar 2:59:59.360 --> 3:00:03.320 investment investment. I think it's just a charge, right, You're 3:00:03.360 --> 3:00:06.160 just giving the money to the United States government, and 3:00:06.240 --> 3:00:10.199 in return you will receive a Green card plus privileges, 3:00:10.920 --> 3:00:13.800 and it will be not a green but a Gold card. 3:00:14.360 --> 3:00:14.960 So that's great. 3:00:15.160 --> 3:00:17.480 That is the EB five vs Or if You're not 3:00:17.520 --> 3:00:21.320 familiar required you Since twenty twenty two, it's been one 3:00:21.440 --> 3:00:25.040 million and fifty thousand dollars investment and the creation of 3:00:25.160 --> 3:00:28.640 ten jobs. So it had some kind of like it 3:00:28.760 --> 3:00:31.120 trickled down economics. It's not a real thing. It's a 3:00:31.240 --> 3:00:33.880 lie that they tell you, but it had some idea 3:00:33.959 --> 3:00:37.400 that these rich people would create jobs in the US 3:00:37.520 --> 3:00:40.280 people who are less wealthy. The Gold card seems to 3:00:40.360 --> 3:00:42.480 not have that. You just have to be rich right. 3:00:42.760 --> 3:00:45.520 So that's a that's an interesting change to the immigration system. 3:00:46.200 --> 3:00:48.520 The other thing I want to talk about today is 3:00:48.560 --> 3:00:52.360 a United States Agency for International Development, better known as USAID. 3:00:53.360 --> 3:00:56.080 It's been a target of like the anti work right 3:00:56.520 --> 3:01:00.320 for some time because they fundamentally don't understand what Joseph 3:01:00.360 --> 3:01:03.360 Nia would have called soft power, right, their power to persuade, 3:01:03.879 --> 3:01:06.440 the power to influence outcomes around the world with things 3:01:06.520 --> 3:01:08.120 other than tanks and bonds. 3:01:08.120 --> 3:01:12.160 Oh and again, if your power is soft right now, 3:01:12.680 --> 3:01:16.760 you might consider trying Hymns or one of our other sponsors. 3:01:17.120 --> 3:01:19.800 Gyms is not a sponsor. Sorry, Jams, we needed to 3:01:19.920 --> 3:01:22.760 do that, but I have been diverted by returning to 3:01:22.879 --> 3:01:28.480 my topic. Yeah, the agency has been massively impacted by 3:01:28.760 --> 3:01:33.359 DOGE and Trump administration cuts right. The Trump administration suspended 3:01:33.480 --> 3:01:36.000 all foreign aid in January via executive order on the 3:01:36.040 --> 3:01:38.400 twentieth of January in order to assess if it was 3:01:38.520 --> 3:01:43.199 quote serving US interests. The State Department then issued guidance 3:01:43.320 --> 3:01:45.760 that seemed to go beyond the executive order and cut 3:01:45.920 --> 3:01:49.960 nearly basically all USAI the expensive on the thirteenth of 3:01:50.040 --> 3:01:52.720 this month, that's February if you're listening. Later, A judges 3:01:52.720 --> 3:01:57.000 shoed a temporary restraining order. This TIERRO didn't really stop 3:01:57.080 --> 3:02:00.400 them from doing what they were doing, because it told 3:02:00.440 --> 3:02:03.640 them to continue with existing contracts. And what the State 3:02:03.720 --> 3:02:07.320 Department claims that it's doing is implementing clauses that are 3:02:07.360 --> 3:02:09.680 already in the contract so that the contracts will have 3:02:09.760 --> 3:02:12.199 some kind of kill clause, right, and that they claim 3:02:12.240 --> 3:02:15.840 that they're implementing that, so they think they've found a 3:02:15.920 --> 3:02:19.199 fun work around. Rather than talking extensively about court battles, 3:02:19.200 --> 3:02:21.200 I want to talk about what this means. These are 3:02:21.280 --> 3:02:23.960 cuts made by the richest man in the world that 3:02:24.120 --> 3:02:26.800 have had a direct, tangible, and devastating impact on the 3:02:26.879 --> 3:02:30.720 poorest people on the planet. In Sudan, eighty percent of 3:02:30.800 --> 3:02:34.120 emergency kitchens have been closed. That means that close to 3:02:34.240 --> 3:02:38.440 two million people will go without food. Local groups organizer 3:02:38.520 --> 3:02:42.560 kitchens are running out of money. The way this works 3:02:42.760 --> 3:02:48.000 is that even when Rubio issued a communication talking about 3:02:48.040 --> 3:02:51.960 continuing food aid, it's unclear exactly what that means, because 3:02:52.000 --> 3:02:55.200 in this case and in other cases, USAID is sending 3:02:55.280 --> 3:02:58.760 them money in order to provision themselves locally, as opposed 3:02:58.800 --> 3:03:02.280 to sending them food as an in kind donation. Right, 3:03:02.760 --> 3:03:07.120 whatever he communicated, these people are not getting food an 3:03:07.120 --> 3:03:09.440 as a result, the people who run these mutual aid 3:03:09.520 --> 3:03:14.000 kitchens it's a mutual aid coalition of Sudan are facing 3:03:14.040 --> 3:03:16.160 the horrible decision of having to turn people away it 3:03:16.320 --> 3:03:19.680 or deciding who to feed, which is pretty bad. On 3:03:19.879 --> 3:03:22.600 the border between Thailand and Myanmay, a place where Robert 3:03:22.640 --> 3:03:24.840 and I have been to report, I've heard that people 3:03:24.879 --> 3:03:27.359 are having babies right now outside a lot of clinics 3:03:27.920 --> 3:03:30.160 and life support machines have been removed for it, so 3:03:30.240 --> 3:03:32.800 people who were relying on those life support machines obviously, and. 3:03:32.879 --> 3:03:35.160 At least one person has died, yeah. 3:03:35.280 --> 3:03:37.760 And I'm sure many many more people than that have done. 3:03:37.840 --> 3:03:38.000 Yeah. 3:03:38.040 --> 3:03:41.440 I mean that's just what's reported. Like it's a lot 3:03:41.480 --> 3:03:43.560 of most of what happens there does not get out. 3:03:44.080 --> 3:03:44.280 Yeah. 3:03:44.440 --> 3:03:47.800 I will try in not too long to be there 3:03:47.840 --> 3:03:50.840 and report on that. But it's pretty devastating right now 3:03:50.879 --> 3:03:52.400 that Robert and I have met the people who run 3:03:52.480 --> 3:03:54.160 some of these clinics, and they are some of the 3:03:54.400 --> 3:03:58.920 most incredible people doing amazing work. And yeah, they relied 3:03:59.000 --> 3:04:02.040 on USAA funding, as lots of other places do, and 3:04:02.520 --> 3:04:06.920 that's not happening now. The State Department has exempted quote 3:04:07.080 --> 3:04:11.520 life saving humanitarian assistance programs from the cuts, but no 3:04:11.600 --> 3:04:13.240 one really knows what that means. 3:04:13.440 --> 3:04:13.560 Right. 3:04:13.680 --> 3:04:17.400 The order reads, quote life saving humanitarian assistance applies to 3:04:17.600 --> 3:04:23.040 core life saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance, 3:04:23.320 --> 3:04:26.480 as well as supplies and reasonable administrative cost as necessary 3:04:26.560 --> 3:04:30.040 to deliver such assistance. As I mentioned before, the mutual 3:04:30.040 --> 3:04:33.640 AIDS who are in coalition was receiving financial assistant to 3:04:33.720 --> 3:04:36.040 help it provision itself, right, which is much better than 3:04:36.080 --> 3:04:40.240 the US going through all the infrastructure spending of being 3:04:40.280 --> 3:04:44.720 able to deliver that aid itself or through USAID contractors. 3:04:45.240 --> 3:04:49.360 Other contractors implementing partners of USAID are still owed money 3:04:49.640 --> 3:04:52.560 for work that they completed before January, before the stop 3:04:52.600 --> 3:04:55.640 Work Order stopped payment to them. For work to begin 3:04:55.760 --> 3:04:59.080 again on any of these contracts, they need the contract 3:04:59.200 --> 3:05:01.280 officer to sign up on it, and it's at a 3:05:01.400 --> 3:05:03.920 lunclear exactly how many of these contract offices are still 3:05:03.920 --> 3:05:08.680 employed at USAID because of the federal employment cuts, So 3:05:09.640 --> 3:05:14.039 essentially USAID has stopped all over the world. In addition 3:05:14.160 --> 3:05:17.920 to this, in this country, four hundred and ninety million 3:05:18.080 --> 3:05:21.720 dollars worth of US grown food, which is in the 3:05:21.840 --> 3:05:24.840 USAID pipeline to go to people who very desperately needed food, 3:05:25.000 --> 3:05:28.520 is currently at risk of spoilage according to USAID. So 3:05:29.000 --> 3:05:31.160 it's not just that people are starving, it's that we 3:05:31.280 --> 3:05:35.760 are allowing food to go bad here while people starve 3:05:35.920 --> 3:05:39.160 in other places, which is pretty bleak. I will just 3:05:39.280 --> 3:05:42.080 really briefly hear plug the Mutual AIDS Sudan Coalition. If 3:05:42.080 --> 3:05:44.880 you'd like to help, you can direct to them directly, 3:05:44.959 --> 3:05:47.720 and it's Mutual AIDS Sudan Dorg. If you'd like to 3:05:47.760 --> 3:05:49.360 do that. It'll be in the show notes too if 3:05:49.400 --> 3:05:50.320 you're driving or whatever. 3:05:51.200 --> 3:05:55.360 And there is like ongoing legal fights over this issue. 3:05:56.040 --> 3:06:01.519 On Tuesday, February twenty fifth, another ordered the Trump administration 3:06:01.680 --> 3:06:06.519 to resume hundreds of million dollars of funding towards USAID, 3:06:07.360 --> 3:06:11.160 and there's no indication Trump's going to follow that order. 3:06:11.720 --> 3:06:17.400 They're already planning to appeal again. They have already appealed before. 3:06:18.200 --> 3:06:22.160 And like we've seen them continually deny court orders from judges, 3:06:22.360 --> 3:06:26.280 fine loopholes, fine workarounds, and Musk and Trump continue to 3:06:26.360 --> 3:06:29.000 just openly float like defying the order of the Court. 3:06:29.440 --> 3:06:35.080 Representative Andy Ogles introduced articles have appeachment against a specific 3:06:35.760 --> 3:06:39.039 quote unquote activist judge. This will go nowhere. They don't 3:06:39.080 --> 3:06:41.840 have nearly enough numbers to make anything like this happen. 3:06:42.720 --> 3:06:45.959 It's a frontal assault on the separation of powers. It's 3:06:46.000 --> 3:06:49.320 what he's proposed, right, And like they don't have their 3:06:49.360 --> 3:06:50.080 numbers yet. 3:06:50.520 --> 3:06:53.000 Yes, well, and then they have openly floated just like 3:06:53.120 --> 3:06:56.480 defying orders because they are they're interpreting the actions of 3:06:56.520 --> 3:07:00.480 the judges as like themselves, unlawful. But must have himself 3:07:00.560 --> 3:07:04.240 called to impeach judges who violate the law. And I 3:07:04.360 --> 3:07:10.760 believe his his most recent pinned pinned x posts reads 3:07:10.879 --> 3:07:15.440 quote if any judge anywhere can block every presidential action everywhere, 3:07:15.640 --> 3:07:17.959 we do not have a democracy. We have a tyranny 3:07:18.080 --> 3:07:19.119 of the judiciary. 3:07:20.360 --> 3:07:24.080 So what a great legal mind shit we were saying, 3:07:24.200 --> 3:07:25.760 and back in twenty twenty three. 3:07:27.400 --> 3:07:29.040 So this, this will continue. 3:07:29.080 --> 3:07:32.400 I mean, I'm really really waiting for a final showdown 3:07:32.480 --> 3:07:36.320 between Trump Elon and you know, maybe the Supreme Court, 3:07:36.720 --> 3:07:39.360 and you know, seeing seeing if they will actively defy 3:07:39.480 --> 3:07:42.120 a ruling from the Supreme Court, if they indeed rule 3:07:42.160 --> 3:07:44.960 against Trump and Musque. But until then, I feel like 3:07:45.000 --> 3:07:48.840 we're just kind of all chugging along as the Trump administration, 3:07:49.000 --> 3:07:52.520 you know, very very unconstitutionally defies the authority of the Court. 3:07:53.600 --> 3:07:56.920 In some related news, last week, President Trump signed in 3:07:57.000 --> 3:08:01.720 executive order stating that the president can change law erroneously, 3:08:01.920 --> 3:08:04.880 citing Article two, which only calls for the presidents to 3:08:05.280 --> 3:08:07.360 quote faithfully execute the law. 3:08:08.200 --> 3:08:09.400 I'm to quote from the. 3:08:09.480 --> 3:08:12.280 Order, the President and the Attorney General, subject to the 3:08:12.320 --> 3:08:16.240 President's of supervision and control, will interpret the law for 3:08:16.400 --> 3:08:22.119 the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations. 3:08:22.840 --> 3:08:26.880 The next section is titled reigning in independent Agencies. It 3:08:27.000 --> 3:08:30.840 reads the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and 3:08:31.040 --> 3:08:35.000 Securities and Exchange Commission have exercised enormous power over the 3:08:35.040 --> 3:08:39.040 American people without presidential oversight. These agencies issue rules and 3:08:39.080 --> 3:08:43.320 regulations without the review of the democratically elected president. They 3:08:43.400 --> 3:08:46.560 also spend American tax dollars to set priorities without consulting 3:08:46.600 --> 3:08:49.560 the President. Voters and the President can now hold all 3:08:49.760 --> 3:08:53.880 federal agencies, not just cabinet departments, responsible for their decisions, 3:08:54.240 --> 3:08:59.280 as the Constitution demands, unquote. This is absurd. This is 3:08:59.400 --> 3:09:02.520 like extreme, seemly dangerous, one of the most like blatant 3:09:02.640 --> 3:09:06.280 like attempts at power that we've seen since Dick Nixon. 3:09:06.800 --> 3:09:09.800 Like this is gonna get litigated, but this is crazy. 3:09:10.040 --> 3:09:12.360 The the fact that that we have that we have 3:09:12.440 --> 3:09:15.320 a president saying that he has the ability to interpret 3:09:15.360 --> 3:09:18.119 the law something that specifically he cannot do. That's why, 3:09:18.160 --> 3:09:21.000 that's why we have three branches of government, just like 3:09:21.120 --> 3:09:25.199 openly openly claiming that power is like very worrying. Again, 3:09:25.240 --> 3:09:28.040 like I feel like every episode on Executive Disorder I 3:09:28.160 --> 3:09:30.920 say that, you know, I'm very worried. I'm very concerned, 3:09:31.200 --> 3:09:32.840 but that does continue to be the case. 3:09:33.360 --> 3:09:36.200 Yeah, it is very concerning. I don't know what more 3:09:36.320 --> 3:09:39.640 to say, because it's mad, like we're watching a coup 3:09:39.680 --> 3:09:43.480 happen on the timeline while everyone just continues to go 3:09:43.600 --> 3:09:46.879 shopping and stuff like it's it's it's pretty weird. 3:09:47.080 --> 3:09:50.360 Speaking speaking of shopping, I just got a fantastic Swedish 3:09:50.560 --> 3:09:54.040 M ninety feel jacket. It looks great, it fits tight. 3:09:54.480 --> 3:09:57.000 I'm very happy, incredible. Garrison's becoming a mill sup. 3:09:57.360 --> 3:10:00.959 We will go on break once again to come back 3:10:01.000 --> 3:10:03.800 to talk about the Navy and the FBI. 3:10:15.800 --> 3:10:17.160 All right, we are back. 3:10:18.640 --> 3:10:22.160 Let's now talk about the Navy, arguably one of the 3:10:22.240 --> 3:10:27.000 gayer branches of the military, besides the besides the drone operators. 3:10:27.280 --> 3:10:32.320 Oh you're you're really missing out on the Marine. As 3:10:32.480 --> 3:10:35.840 multiple Marine veterans have told me, the US Marine Corps 3:10:35.879 --> 3:10:39.080 is the gayest place I've ever been. The Marines are 3:10:39.160 --> 3:10:41.520 like part of the Navy, right, come on, they are, 3:10:41.680 --> 3:10:44.240 they are, they are, and they hate it when you say. 3:10:44.160 --> 3:10:47.920 Oh, well, wait, wait, go cry about Daddy Trump. 3:10:47.959 --> 3:10:48.400 I don't care. 3:10:49.600 --> 3:10:50.600 It's a lot of fun. 3:10:51.080 --> 3:10:52.160 It's a lot of fun. 3:10:52.760 --> 3:10:56.440 So meanwhile, there's a shakeups in the Navy and the 3:10:56.520 --> 3:11:00.480 Marines relating to Trump's anti trans executive orders. And we 3:11:00.560 --> 3:11:03.199 have obtained an al NAVE memo directed to all Navy 3:11:03.280 --> 3:11:07.480 units and Marine Corps from February twenty fifth that outlines 3:11:07.520 --> 3:11:10.320 the Department of Navy's guidance on how to implement the 3:11:10.320 --> 3:11:13.720 anti trans executive orders. Now, this includes ending programs and 3:11:13.760 --> 3:11:17.480 policies related to quote unquote gender ideology all across the Navy, 3:11:18.120 --> 3:11:21.040 as well as only using assigned sex at birth on 3:11:21.160 --> 3:11:27.840 official documentation. I will quote from the statement quote don 3:11:28.040 --> 3:11:31.880 entities will review policies for quote unquote intimate single sex 3:11:32.000 --> 3:11:35.240 spaces and take appropriate action to ensure such spaces are 3:11:35.280 --> 3:11:39.800 designated by sex and not gender identity on installations, facilities, ships, 3:11:40.080 --> 3:11:43.080 and any other infrastructure under the jurisdiction of the Department 3:11:43.120 --> 3:11:47.760 of Navy unquote. So this will force women into bathrooms 3:11:47.879 --> 3:11:51.480 and barracks with men. It's in line with the stuff 3:11:51.520 --> 3:11:53.800 that Trump's been talking about and the stuff that he's 3:11:53.840 --> 3:11:56.640 been signing. But we are slowly getting more and more 3:11:56.680 --> 3:11:59.959 of these implementation guides getting sent around to various department 3:12:00.080 --> 3:12:01.039 and James. 3:12:01.600 --> 3:12:05.840 Yeah, and like, just to clarify that to people, most 3:12:05.879 --> 3:12:08.360 of these bases are pretty full, right, These are pretty 3:12:08.360 --> 3:12:12.080 crowded places. So this will mean women sharing rooms with 3:12:12.240 --> 3:12:16.560 young marines, right. This will meet them sharing non stalled 3:12:16.680 --> 3:12:21.160 bathrooms with young sailors and marines, right. This will force 3:12:21.240 --> 3:12:24.840 them into very confined spaces together on board ships. Like 3:12:25.040 --> 3:12:29.519 this isn't like some kind of sort of minor inconvenience 3:12:29.640 --> 3:12:31.320 or whatever like this, this will put these people a 3:12:31.879 --> 3:12:37.600 demonstrable risk for assault, for bullying, which is a serious 3:12:37.680 --> 3:12:40.200 thing and an issue in lots of militaries, including the 3:12:40.280 --> 3:12:43.080 US one. But like and many of these people, I 3:12:43.080 --> 3:12:46.440 should add, like have had that they're like post surgery, right, 3:12:47.200 --> 3:12:50.880 and not that it matters hugely, but they're people who 3:12:50.959 --> 3:12:53.959 might pass as women or men, and they're now forced 3:12:54.000 --> 3:12:58.000 to live according to their gender assigned at birth. Pretty 3:12:58.560 --> 3:12:59.280 fucked up. 3:13:00.160 --> 3:13:00.720 It's not great. 3:13:00.920 --> 3:13:04.760 I'm going to wait before I do reporting on the 3:13:05.520 --> 3:13:08.480 implementation guides for visas. I know there's been a lot 3:13:08.560 --> 3:13:11.640 of articles in the Guardian and a few trans journalists 3:13:12.000 --> 3:13:16.120 have conflicting interpretations of a few Department of State cables 3:13:16.480 --> 3:13:22.560 regarding the issuing of visas to people who are trans Specifically, 3:13:22.640 --> 3:13:25.960 I think the main cable that we've seen allows the 3:13:26.040 --> 3:13:31.120 continued issuance of visas, but that would only match what 3:13:31.320 --> 3:13:34.760 the the the case officer or like the whoever whoever 3:13:34.879 --> 3:13:38.000 is like handling the actual these information whatever they determined 3:13:38.000 --> 3:13:40.040 to be the assigned gender at birth to be. Yeah, 3:13:40.280 --> 3:13:42.800 that's that's how it would get issued. But I'm going 3:13:42.840 --> 3:13:45.480 to wait to report on kind of the rest of 3:13:45.560 --> 3:13:50.680 the nitty gritty details, because there is conflicting information from 3:13:50.840 --> 3:13:54.360 like from like these like policy wonks, lawyers and journalists 3:13:54.360 --> 3:13:56.360 themselves who are trying to figure out kind of what 3:13:56.480 --> 3:14:00.120 the full implications of those cables are, but we are 3:14:00.120 --> 3:14:02.640 aware of them. We've been talking about them in our chat. 3:14:03.120 --> 3:14:05.840 Yes they are bad, but I don't necessarily want to 3:14:05.920 --> 3:14:09.600 like overblow the scope of some of these things just 3:14:09.680 --> 3:14:12.800 to like induce panic when really this is all kind 3:14:12.840 --> 3:14:16.000 of vary in line with Trump's earlier orders to only 3:14:16.120 --> 3:14:20.440 have male and female documentation that matches a signed gender 3:14:20.520 --> 3:14:20.880 at birth. 3:14:21.160 --> 3:14:24.840 Yeah, I would say. Also, like, if you are soldier, 3:14:24.959 --> 3:14:29.200 sailor em and a person marine whatever, and like these 3:14:29.400 --> 3:14:32.680 these gexty voters are affecting you, you can email us 3:14:33.240 --> 3:14:35.520 at cool Zone, tips at proton dot me. I know 3:14:35.640 --> 3:14:38.320 trans folks tend to serve at a higher rate than 3:14:38.400 --> 3:14:41.640 cisgender folks, so its a good number of people who 3:14:41.640 --> 3:14:45.200 will be affected by this. And like, for whatever it's worth, 3:14:45.320 --> 3:14:46.640 if you want to talk to us, you can reach 3:14:46.680 --> 3:14:47.080 out to us. 3:14:47.800 --> 3:14:50.880 I'm also going to note we obtain information on the 3:14:51.080 --> 3:14:55.720 Department of Defense removing travel coverage for abortion. On January eighteenth, 3:14:55.760 --> 3:14:58.400 the Department of Defense Travel Management Office Room of Dissection 3:14:58.520 --> 3:15:02.240 from their joint travel Regulations that outlined travel allowances for 3:15:02.480 --> 3:15:06.920 quote non covered reproductive healthcare quote meaning like abortion and 3:15:07.120 --> 3:15:12.080 assisted reproductive technology like IVF. Now this change was directly 3:15:12.160 --> 3:15:15.680 in compliance with Trump's executive order to enforce the High Amendment, 3:15:15.920 --> 3:15:18.560 which Mia has talked about lots before on the show. 3:15:19.000 --> 3:15:22.440 And then on February fourth, they actually re established coverage 3:15:22.560 --> 3:15:26.800 for assisted reproductive technology, so probably just IVF, but abortion 3:15:27.080 --> 3:15:29.000 was not re established, so. 3:15:29.080 --> 3:15:34.360 That means travel cover for abortion related medical care reproduct 3:15:34.440 --> 3:15:39.560 health care is no longer there. Correct. Correct. 3:15:40.120 --> 3:15:42.760 For our last main story, I'd like to talk a 3:15:42.879 --> 3:15:46.679 little bit about updates to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 3:15:47.200 --> 3:15:50.840 Trump goon rap producer and children's book author Cash Patel 3:15:51.200 --> 3:15:55.040 has been confirmed as FBI director, and Patel is joined 3:15:55.480 --> 3:16:00.960 by far right podcaster and conspiracy theorist Dan po Gino, 3:16:01.879 --> 3:16:03.879 who has been appointed deputy director. 3:16:04.080 --> 3:16:06.920 Ah God, and I look, I gotta say it. I'm 3:16:06.959 --> 3:16:09.280 just glad there's an adult in the room now, you know. 3:16:09.760 --> 3:16:11.199 This is thank God again. 3:16:11.320 --> 3:16:13.640 Like I don't want to just be talking about how how, 3:16:13.760 --> 3:16:16.160 you know, kooky everything is in this new administration. 3:16:16.480 --> 3:16:18.240 But this is wild yet. 3:16:18.240 --> 3:16:21.880 This is no, no, no, Garrison. I disagree, and that's 3:16:21.959 --> 3:16:27.000 because I have professional solidarity. Anything that's good for podcasters 3:16:27.080 --> 3:16:33.760 in general, you know, is good for the country's. 3:16:31.959 --> 3:16:35.920 So not great, not great. 3:16:37.240 --> 3:16:39.800 Last week, Patel told senior officials he wants to relocate 3:16:39.879 --> 3:16:43.520 upwards of fifteen hundred employees from DC to fuel offices 3:16:43.520 --> 3:16:47.279 around the country, and in a statement on last Friday, 3:16:47.600 --> 3:16:52.520 which is February twenty first, Patel said, quote, anyone that 3:16:52.680 --> 3:16:54.520 wishes to do harm to our way of life and 3:16:54.600 --> 3:16:57.480 our citizens here and abroad will face the full wrath 3:16:57.560 --> 3:17:00.520 of the dj and the FBI. If you seek to 3:17:00.600 --> 3:17:03.480 hide in any corner of this country or planet, we 3:17:03.520 --> 3:17:06.320 will put on the world's largest man hunt, and we 3:17:06.320 --> 3:17:10.119 will find you, and we will decide your end state unquote. 3:17:10.879 --> 3:17:13.840 Agents and government employees have warned that under Patel, the 3:17:13.879 --> 3:17:16.800 Bureau will be on course to refocus efforts away from 3:17:16.959 --> 3:17:20.880 far right street fighters and accelerationists and towards the nebulous 3:17:21.040 --> 3:17:26.400 BLM Antifa. In related news, on Tuesday, a far right 3:17:26.440 --> 3:17:30.880 extremist named Joe Kent was confirmed as director of the 3:17:31.040 --> 3:17:34.959 National counter Terrorism Center. Kent is a former Special Forces 3:17:35.000 --> 3:17:38.640 and CIA operative. He's described himself as an American first 3:17:38.760 --> 3:17:42.080 populist and has strong ties to the Proud Boys and 3:17:42.240 --> 3:17:46.480 Patriot Prayer. Kent has praised Joey Gibson for standing up 3:17:46.480 --> 3:17:50.160 to Antifa and Kent himself employed a proud Boy to 3:17:50.440 --> 3:17:54.640 consult on a failed congressional campaign in twenty twenty two. 3:17:55.120 --> 3:17:58.400 Kent has historically advocated that the FBI refocus their efforts 3:17:58.480 --> 3:18:02.400 to target Antifa. And this is like all amidst a 3:18:02.520 --> 3:18:06.000 report from The Guardian suggesting that the Nazi cocelerationist group 3:18:06.120 --> 3:18:09.800 the Base, has had a decent resurgence in activity and 3:18:09.959 --> 3:18:14.960 recruitment efforts inside the United States. That's good, so not 3:18:15.160 --> 3:18:19.120 cool stuff happening, read the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I 3:18:19.160 --> 3:18:21.920 guess i'll close unless we have any other thoughts on 3:18:22.120 --> 3:18:26.119 Kent or Patel or our podcaster deputy director. 3:18:26.959 --> 3:18:29.160 What are you supposed to say? All right? 3:18:30.120 --> 3:18:32.480 I mean, I do think it's funny that because of 3:18:32.520 --> 3:18:35.600 the number of podcasters that have been hired, there have 3:18:35.680 --> 3:18:38.440 been statements by people in the administration that like, there 3:18:38.480 --> 3:18:41.959 aren't going to be any more conservative podcasters because we're 3:18:41.959 --> 3:18:43.440 giving them all government jobs. 3:18:44.800 --> 3:18:48.600 Well, that's more hymns advertising dollars for. 3:18:48.760 --> 3:18:50.360 Us, that's right, that's right. 3:18:50.440 --> 3:18:52.200 I feel like this is going to be huge for US. 3:18:53.120 --> 3:18:58.040 I would like to close on three more funny news 3:18:58.160 --> 3:19:01.320 moments from the past week. On Musk danced around with 3:19:01.440 --> 3:19:04.520 a chainsaw at sea pack while multiple of his ex 3:19:04.600 --> 3:19:07.520 wives and baby Mama's pleaded for him on Twitter to 3:19:07.600 --> 3:19:13.920 respond to emergencies regarding his children, including that including that 3:19:14.080 --> 3:19:17.600 weird far right journalist and Babylon Bee contributor who's who's 3:19:17.760 --> 3:19:19.840 had an increasing spat with Musk and I now I 3:19:19.920 --> 3:19:23.040 believe has filed for complete custody of their child. 3:19:23.560 --> 3:19:26.320 Yeah, well, I mean that's good luck. I guess, like, 3:19:26.680 --> 3:19:30.160 I guess good luck. I can't think of a worse 3:19:30.240 --> 3:19:33.040 situation to be and than Elon Musk being one of 3:19:33.160 --> 3:19:35.680 your legal parents. So like, for the sake of that child, 3:19:35.760 --> 3:19:36.879 I hope that she succeeds. 3:19:37.680 --> 3:19:41.800 Tesla stock is down nearly thirty percent this month. There's 3:19:41.840 --> 3:19:44.080 been a real pressure on him because people in Europe 3:19:44.080 --> 3:19:46.840 are refusing to buy Tesla's in a boycott, you know, 3:19:47.040 --> 3:19:49.280 upset at him for doing the whole Nazi salute and 3:19:49.440 --> 3:19:53.960 being a Nazi thing. And finally, in some very sad news, 3:19:54.640 --> 3:19:59.600 a crypto trader killed himself live on a Twitter space 3:20:00.440 --> 3:20:03.680 in order to start a sorry sorry on an x 3:20:03.879 --> 3:20:08.240 space in order to start a meme coin. How do 3:20:08.320 --> 3:20:09.879 we feel about this, folks? I know it's a dark 3:20:09.959 --> 3:20:10.840 time for our community. 3:20:11.879 --> 3:20:13.039 They did start the meme coin. 3:20:13.240 --> 3:20:15.800 Multiple meme cooins actually were started. 3:20:15.560 --> 3:20:18.400 So well, well done for the people cashing in on 3:20:18.520 --> 3:20:20.680 the guy shooting himself in the head and then bleeding 3:20:20.720 --> 3:20:24.520 out for thirty minutes on stream. You are vampires, I 3:20:24.560 --> 3:20:27.280 don't know, not the cool kind. No, yeah, not the 3:20:28.160 --> 3:20:32.800 not the cool kind, the evil kind, vultures. Vultures can 3:20:32.840 --> 3:20:34.360 be cool as well. I guess it depends. 3:20:34.560 --> 3:20:38.520 Yeah, well, I think that's it for us. We reported 3:20:38.600 --> 3:20:39.600 the news again. 3:20:42.000 --> 3:20:42.920 We reported the news. 3:20:47.240 --> 3:20:50.400 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:20:50.480 --> 3:20:52.359 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:20:52.959 --> 3:20:55.400 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:20:55.640 --> 3:20:58.640 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:20:58.760 --> 3:21:02.280 coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:21:02.400 --> 3:21:05.920 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:21:06.000 --> 3:21:08.280 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 3:21:08.360 --> 3:21:10.640 in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.