WEBVTT - We Continued Reading Ben Shapiro's Terrible Racist Novel 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:04.720 There comes a time in the life of every podcaster 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.160 when he has to introduce the show that he's doing, 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.440 and this is that moment for me. Robert Evans, host 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.800 of Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we talk about 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.880 terrible people. Normally, this is a show where we give 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.040 it a tail history of an awful person's life. But 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.720 today we're doing something special. Today, due to the massive, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:31.040 outrageous clamoring popular demand, we are continuing with our investigation 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:38.360 into True Allegiance, the fictional novel debut of one Benethan Shapiro. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.760 Here with me today to talk about this this opus 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.879 are my co hosts, Cody Johnston and Katie Stole. Hello everybody, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:53.360 how are you doing to that? Hello? Hello, thrilled to 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.560 everybody out there in radio. I took a more serious 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.680 tact with the intro because I think it's important to 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.080 really he set the tone of the gravity that that 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.920 this book demands from the reader. Oh yeah, we're serious 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.600 people delving into a very serious book by a very 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.080 serious person. You've covered a lot of serious, serious bad 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.840 guys in your time on the show, but I don't 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.520 think there's anything more serious than what we're about to 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.120 embark on. No, no, and I think that, Uh, you know, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:29.080 I've I've read a lot of books about human conflict 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.560 and war. You know, books by people like Kurt Vonneguet, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.560 who would would what what experience did Kurt Vonnegut have 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.560 to write about any of this stuff? He survived a 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.040 bombing or something. Ben Shapiro is the man that I 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.640 want to hear talk about the serious issues because I 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.160 know when Ben talks about, for example, the war in 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:52.200 Afghanistan or the crack trade in Detroit, Michigan, that he 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.280 is writing from a position of deep personal understanding and 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:03.240 authority exactly exactly and empathy and empathy. Yeah, he Uh, 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.840 He's had a lot of harrowing experiences getting ratioed online. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.840 So he has a lot of getting ratioed online was 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:15.040 his Afghanistan And Afghanistan was the war that he suggested 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.960 people killed children in. Uh. He did that when he 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.520 was eighteen. Someone let him write write a fucking column 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.560 where he said, why do we care about civilian casualties 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.040 in Afghanistan? So I'm very excited to see where this 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.320 book goes. I love precocious kids. Yeah, they say the 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:35.440 wildest thing we talked. I think a tiny bit about Lavan, 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.440 who is the one of the two villains. The two 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.040 villains of the of the of Ben Shapiro's book are 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:46.839 the president who wants everybody to have a job and uh, 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.440 and that makes the president of Nazi. And then of 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.760 course there's Levi on Um who is uh the black 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.480 character and is also of course a crack trading gang dealer. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.280 Um oh, wait is um is the president in this 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.440 not black? No? No, he's not. No. That would have 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:07.600 been two on the sneaky seat with fiction, Cody. You 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.040 gotta separate some things. So you have a black president 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.520 who you don't like and trust, you separate him into 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.120 a white president you don't like and trust and a 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.600 crack dealer in Detroit. Yeah, the duality of man. It's 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:30.040 basic storytelling rules, classic storytelling rules, Chekhov's racism. Okay, so um, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.519 now we open. I noted that Levan's chapter first chapter 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.640 opens up with Detroit was a ship hole, but it 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:37.720 was his ship hole. So you know that right away. 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.480 You're coming from the perspective of somebody who understands the 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.600 place he's talking about. Don't like the Detroit shade is 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.120 gonna put it out there, don't like it now, of course, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:53.000 Levan's neighborhood includes eight Mile Road because Ben Shapiro saw 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.400 the movie eight Mile and literally the only thing he 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.200 knows about Detroit is that it includes eight Mile Road, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.280 and it is the not have as much money as 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:07.880 other places. Great soundtrack. Oh, I'm do you think he 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.280 has memorized all the words to lose yourself? Yes? Yes, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.840 does it in the mirror? Yeah, that's Ben Shapiro has. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.000 Like when he I can imagine him getting up in 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.880 the morning and like drinking a bunch of raw eggs, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.960 and like putting on like a hoodie, a sleeveless hoodie, 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:25.880 and like going out to hit a boxing bag. Is 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.320 like that song starts to really pump and then he 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.960 punches it once and he starts crying because he's hurt 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.520 his little fist. Well, I see it punching it and 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.200 it swings back and hits him. But you're right, maybe 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.280 both things happen one of the two. So yeah. Quote 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.120 from Benny. The stores dotting at Mile Road itself formed 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.920 a steady depressing pattern. Liquor store, auto part store, burned out, 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.160 hulk boarded up shop, hair salon, repeat, adfinitum. Every once 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.200 in a while and Otto Lot broke up the monotony, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.599 or perhaps a music store, but that was about it. 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:58.520 What idiot would open up in one of the least 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.920 police streets in America, leve On would. And of course 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.800 the shop he's opened up sells crack. Um. Yeah, oh, 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:06.680 it sells crap. That's where you don't get your crack 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:11.960 is us. It's a barbershop where mostly filled with older 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:17.799 black men. Uh barbershop, you say, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.119 And then the back room is where he sells crack. 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.000 I'm just waiting for like him to like I have 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.440 expected when he's saying, like, I'm from Detroit, I live 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:32.080 in Harlem, in Compton, in Detroit. Yes, he's just like like, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:38.600 yes he lives. He lives in the neighborhood of yeah, Compton, Detroit. Yeah, 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.559 Jesus Ben Okay. So there's a little line here about 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.880 since he and he live on and his crew shuttle 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:46.800 crack cocaine that drugged gout out of style. In the 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.440 mid nineties things to the federal crackdown on crack dealers, 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.760 Black politicians had been the biggest advocates of putting crack 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.320 dealers on a different footing than powder cocaine dealers at 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.760 the time, nobody wanted to deal crack anymore, but Levon 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.279 care due to a select population. So number one, that's 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.240 actually just just not true. The evidence suggests that a 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.760 lot of white people stopped doing crack so much is 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.680 that crack is really really toxic on your body, And 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.480 younger people watched what it did too older people, to 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.640 people who were older than them, to their older brothers 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.520 and stuff, and we're like, nah, I don't want that, uh, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.120 because that's has more of an impact that just throwing 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.960 people in prison. But I I don't expect Ben to 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.040 have that take on things, so I did. Yeah, We're 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.839 about a page and a half into the Bonds chapter 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.880 when Ben describes how big Levan is. It's six ft 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.560 three and two pounds of shredded muscle. Levon cut an 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.560 imposing figure. Walking into other stores on the block, they 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.160 immediately when quiet when he came in. When he told 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.479 them he'd graduated from the U of M, they got 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.720 even quieter. This kid was brutal and smart. They knew, Um, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:56.280 I'm just that's excellent. That's excellent. Then I'm I'm reminded 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.240 of um. Weirdly, the word articulate for some reason comes 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:04.200 to Yeah, oh boy, here's Al Sharpton. Um, not Al Sharpton, 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.960 he's the Reverend Jim Crawford, but he's Al Sharpton. Yeah God, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:14.240 come on man, Yeah, yeah, he's in he's in Levin's barbershop. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:19.120 Um to talk to him about a deal. Um yeah, okay. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.760 So he meets with this Al Sharpton character, and it's 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.240 clear that like the Al Sharpton character wants to partner 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.040 with him on some sort of complicated and cunning political 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.560 scheme because of course that's what um, all of the 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.920 black leaders in America have secret connections to crack dealers, um, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.160 and and want to work with them on. Yeah. Uh. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.720 And then we get to a really a real fun 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.600 moment here. So leave on and this guy are talking, 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.080 and leave on. Quote Shakespeare. He says there is nothing 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.800 either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. And 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.560 of course, uh at the Al Sharpton standing doesn't recognize 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.480 this quote, and so leave on. The educated, brutal guy says, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.520 it's Shakespeare. It means you'll learn to trust me. And 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.400 then the al sharp and guy laughs and says, quit 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:08.520 quoting or quoting dead honkeys. You'll be useful yet. Yeah, 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.480 so that's good. I think it's good too. Yeah, that's fun. Um, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.920 I was just listening and not Ben's white, so it's 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.640 okay for him to write the word honky. Yeah. And 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.400 I'm I'm not sure if this is bad formatting or 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.800 just Ben is bad at writing a book. But in 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.680 the chapter that is le chap. Yeah, so this is 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.000 Levan's chapter, right, And what you do if you're writing 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.720 a book where every chapter takes the perspective of a 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.280 different character, you expect that each of those chapters will 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.280 be about a different like from the perspective of that character. 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.560 But midway through this chapter, actually right after the line 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.439 quoting dead honkys, you might be useful yet we switch 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.200 perspective without switching chapters to a completely different character. A 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:56.040 local cop named Ricky O'Sullivan. Yeah, that's cool. That's bad 0:08:56.040 --> 0:09:00.520 writing and bad formatting. Yeah. Yeah. So he's hanging out 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.760 at an abandoned packard plant that looks like something out 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.720 of Mad Max. Uh been Been describes it um, which 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.679 is a known drug hangout, So that's why uh he's 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.800 he's hanging out there as a cop, and I think 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.160 he's about to shoot a black kid, that's the feeling 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.280 I get. Um. Yeah, he gets a ten thirty one 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:25.480 in progress sign uh and he rolls over. Grass had 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.480 pushed its way through the cement of the lot. Graffiti 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.679 marked the station, illiterate bubble letters. Oh. Sullivan had given 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.839 up on trying to decode that ship long ago. And 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.120 the lights on the street flickered eerily. So he gets 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.960 into this scary situation. He shows up for a call, 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.720 and then some kid called says, hey, Pig. The voice 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:43.400 wasn't deep. It was the voice of a child. And 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.280 the kid stood outside the door of the quick mart 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.800 leg spread arms hanging down by his sides, a cute 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.079 black kid wearing a Simpsons T shirt and somebody's old 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.240 Converse sneakers and baggy jeans on his hips. Stuck in 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.520 those baggy jeans was a pistol. It looked like a 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.040 pistol anyway, but A Sullivan couldn't see clearly. The light 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.440 wasn't right. He could see the bulge, but not the object. 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:02.880 A Sullivan put his flashlight back on his belt and 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.040 put his hand on his pistol, the greasy handles still 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.160 warm to the touch. Stop right there, pig, the kid 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.040 said his hand began to creep down towards his waistband a. 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.160 Sullivan pulled the gun out of his holster, leveling it 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.280 at the kid. Put your hands above your head, do 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.040 it now, fuck you, honky. The kids shot back, Get 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:24.000 the funk out of my neighbor. Boy. Yeah, I feel 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.960 like Ben really has his finger on the pulse on 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:34.120 you know how black people speak. Yeah, So this goes on, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.319 and the kid says, you ain't gonna shoot me, pig, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.240 and the cop, who's clearly a nice guy, does everything 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.280 he possibly can to try to avoid Oh jesus um, 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.760 just like how that works in real life. This is 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.080 a depiction of how how it happens. Yeah. In the 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.520 retraining sessions at the station, they told officers to remember 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.520 the nash nasty racial history legacy of the department, be 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.600 aware of the community's justified suspicion of police. Right now, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.880 all Sullivan was thinking about was getting this kid with 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.760 the empty eyes to back the funk off. The empty eyes, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:11.160 empty eyes, Oh my god, empty eyed kid. Yeah, and 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.280 this is like, this is an eight year old Oh 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:18.600 my god, Ben, No, oh no, oh god. I turned 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:24.560 the page. Okay, I'm gonna read for a spell. Here y'all. Suddenly, 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.000 Oh Sullivan's head filled with sudden clarity, his brain with 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.520 a pretter natural energy. He recognized the feel of the 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:31.760 adrenaline hitting. He was going to get He wasn't. He 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.640 wasn't going to get shot on the corner of Iowa 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.760 and Van Dyke, outside a shitty convenience store and a 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.920 shitty town by some eight year old bleed out in 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:39.960 the gutter of some city the world left behind. He 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.680 had a life too. The gun felt alive in his hands. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.199 In his hand, the gun was life. The muzzle was 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.160 aimed dead at the kid's chest, no way to miss 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:49.280 with the kid this close, just ten feet away, maybe 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:51.720 still cloaked in the shadow of the gas station overhang. 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.800 And then yeah, they have another interaction where he says 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:56.760 get on your knees and the kid says, fuck you, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.480 and this is like the third time that's happened. And 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.000 then the kid says, I'll cap your ass, and then 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.199 he shoots the kid. There is that We're getting at 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.600 a couple of things. The first sentence. Suddenly, his head 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.000 was filled with a sudden energy or something like that. 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:15.920 It's writing one a one. You don't use the same 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:22.959 word twice in the same sentence. Jesus christ Man. Also, 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.400 I love going from you know, the idea this is 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:32.200 a nice guy too. You know, clearly this character just 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.400 wants to kill the kid. Yeah, the character wants to 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.520 kill the kid. Ben doesn't understand what it's like to 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.840 have adrenaline hit you in a situation like this. I 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.959 can tell you if this, Yeah, it's not it's not 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:46.560 like that. Um, it's it's not a sudden clarity for sure. 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.600 That's also like a less charitable picture of cops. Then, Yeah, 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:56.079 I think he would want to have like just describing 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.400 it as a moment of confusion and panic would be 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:04.520 uh and more relatable than life. Yeah. Like I'm like, 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.000 I'm making a very deliberate choice with my very alert 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.040 brain right now. Yeah. Also, I love just the whole 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.680 the weird passage about like I'm not going to die 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.760 here in this place that I've chosen to live, in 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.280 this job that I've chosen to have, and like what 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.560 like he had no option but to be a Detroit 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:27.400 cup Like excuse me, oh god. I also like just 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.480 the idea that like the kids like a eight years 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.760 old apparently and saying I'm going to cap you and 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.120 that's what makes him pull the trigger. Yes, and it's 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.400 it's there's a lot that's wrong with this, but there 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.880 is one, one, one thing I think actually been does 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.960 get right. And I think he gets it right by accident. UM. 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.679 But one of the honestly, anything gets right is always 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.160 an accident. One of the big problems that we have 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.000 with UM policing in the United States right now is 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.160 that increasingly often the police in large cities do not 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.079 live in those cities, like in the city of Portland, Oregon, UM, 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.960 with the police regularly use excessive force on protest or 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.720 something like two thirds to three quarters of the police 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.040 in Portland don't live in the Portland city limits, like 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.080 they live in a suburb or a town outside of 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.839 Portland or something like that, UM, which is increasingly common 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.640 all around the country and leads it reinforces the attitude 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.280 that like, the police are separate from the community. UM. 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.200 And that is a problem. And I think accidentally you 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.240 do see the result of that is this guy instead 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:27.720 of saying like, oh, this kid is a member of 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.120 my community and I need to like to like talk 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.160 with him and work it out, he's like, I'm not 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:37.800 going to die in this ship the whole town. Yeah, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.480 so O'Sullivan murders an eight year old um and then realizes, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.080 uh that the gun in his waistband was a toy 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.560 gun with an orange plastic tip. For a brief moment, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.520 Sullivan couldn't breathe. When he looked up, he saw them coming, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.160 dozens of them, the citizens of Detroit, coming out of 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.680 the darkness, congregating. He could feel their eyes. Oh no, 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:03.800 they're dead eyes all there. Everyone, everyone in the neighborhood's 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.800 dead eyes staring at me articulately. Yeah. Uh, sorry to 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.640 the cop. Yep, sorry to the cop. And I think 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:15.720 from what other things I've read about this book that 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.400 the kid was sent out there as part of a 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.400 plot by Al Sharpton and uh the crack dealer in 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.240 order to set up Yeah, it's a BLM type thing, right. 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.920 BLM like sets these things up where by members of 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.640 their community get murdered so that they can justify protests 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.920 against the police. Been watched fourteen seconds of the Ferguson 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.920 protests and decided he knew what was going down. That 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.760 that's that's where that chapter came from. Uh so, yeah, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.160 next chapter is a character named Ellen and It starts 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.880 with a dead kid who was murdered and the US 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.960 Mexican border by coyotes. Um, so that's cool, just another 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.560 fact fighting mission along the rio. Grand oh god, I 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.120 love I just love that, like knowing everything we know 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:07.040 about Ben and um knowing like his opinions, his demeanor. Um, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.360 I love that every single sentence of this needs to 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.720 be read like this. Yeah, yeah, and it it okay. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.200 So yeah. Over the last year had seen an up 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.600 sudden upsurge in the number of children attempting to cross 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.440 the border without papers. Not all we're children. A surprising 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.360 number of the unaccompanied miners were of gang age, somewhere 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:31.400 between fourteen gang agee. Well, no, actually, Cody Ben Ben, 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.240 being a great writer, immediately tells us that it's between 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:43.520 fourteen and seventeen. That's what. So is that exclusive? So 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.920 I'm I'm too old to join a gang? Then yeah? Yeah, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.600 gangs kick you out at a j teen. Yeah, then 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:55.160 you gotta go work with Al Sharpton. Yep, well, okay, okay, okay. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:00.400 What are you gonna do when your kids reach gang age? Yeah? Yeah, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.320 you gotta really watch out for those kids when they 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.399 hit gang age. Those gangs are going to come for him. 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.160 It gets more ridiculous. So after he says that gang 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.720 ages is somewheretween fourteen seventeen, some had tattoos, many were 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.560 missing fingers, eyes, ears. Law enforcement thought the smugglers had 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.200 mut mutilated the kids and sent their body parts back 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:27.520 to their parents for ransom. Uh what's this book about again? Uh? 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:33.880 Everything that has been hates, which so far is not 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:39.320 white people on borders in the inner cities. Do we 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.240 have any liberals on Twitter yet? Uh? Good lord, I 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.040 bet we'll get there. I bet there will be comments 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.760 about social media. See Been understands is a great author 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:49.760 that you want your book to be timeless, so you 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.120 keep it vague by just saying social media or something. Um, yeah, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.040 you know, that's That's the way you make a worktime. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.760 Everyone logging into the website dot com, the site dot com. 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.040 That's it. Do you know what won't killed children on 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:15.520 the US Mexican border? Well, exactly. Yon guarantees that when 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.960 they killed children on borders, there aren't enough left of 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:23.520 those kids to ransom. That's the Raytheon guarantee. I'm on 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.440 board again. Thank you, Cody. I knew I could trust 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.560 on you to be ethical. Thank you Raytheon, Thank you Raytheon. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:40.680 We're back, We're back. We still haven't figured out who 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.440 Ellen is. I don't think she's been introduced yet. She's 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.800 just doing some sort of fact finding mission on the border, 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.720 but I don't yet. Really. No, Ellen is a daytime 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.439 talk show host that everyone loves but turns out is 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.040 maybe unlikable. Yeah, this is not that Ellen, um, but 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.200 I don't think she will be likable. Yeah, she's probably like, um, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:05.960 you know, and intrepid Breitebart type. That's great. Um, okay, 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:11.480 so Ellen is. Ellen is the wife of UH combat 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:18.520 General Brett Hawthorne. There, yeah, the standing for Ben. Yeah, 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:24.600 so Ellen's his wife, lucky lady, and she's angry because 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:30.840 the governor of Texas Bubba Davis. Oh now that part 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.919 proves that Ben has some understanding of Texas because Bubba 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.520 Davis would do great in a Texas state classic. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.320 it's like, is this is this actually a screenplay for 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.879 Slither like where Bubba Davis sounds like a sausage company? 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:50.480 Yeah it does, and actually really start your day with 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.680 a Bubba sausage? Such a day with a Bubba sausage? Yeah, yep. 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.000 So Bubba Davis had asked the President for help, and 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.320 the President had refused to take the governor's calls, which 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.240 doesn't sound like anything that's happened recently that Ben hasn't 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.240 complained about. Well, did Bubba try being nice to the president? Well, 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.440 there we we go, exactly. Uh. So the President didn't 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.120 talk to the governor about helping him with this problem 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.360 of all these kids getting murdered on the border, which 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.840 is the real problem of of of Uh, the US 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.439 Mexican border is all the kids that get murdered on it, 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.080 not anything else. That's that's the issue, um, is that 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.720 these kids keep being murdered by these evil people smugglers. Uh. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:34.960 And the President refused to talk to the governor of 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.560 Texas about this. He just talked on TV about how 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.760 anyone who wanted to deport these children was racist. Uh. 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.359 That bullshit didn't surprise Ellen one bit. She knew what 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.800 Prescott would do to push forward his agenda. Her husband 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.520 was stuck in Afghanistan and her marriage was a public joke. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.640 That was proof positive of that little proposition. I don't 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:56.920 know why her marriage is a public joke. What I 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.240 couldn't tell you could not it seems like a like 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:05.560 a power couple, right, Like that's the whole point. Yeah again, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:11.880 bad writing. Oh, I keep forgetting that part. So she 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.680 drives away from this dead kid that they're taking notes 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.520 on for some kind of pretty unclear reason. And then 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.960 dead kids in this book already Ben loves dead kids. 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:23.640 I don't know if you were aware of that. Yeah, 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.920 I've seen his tweets, so yeah, yeah, so he realized. 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.520 She realizes that she drives away from the real Grand 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:36.280 after leaving. Yeah. Ellen first noticed the helicopter following her 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.880 truck a few minutes after leaving the Rio Grand. Okay, yeah, 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.280 and then to the water buddy. Yeah. Yes, Yeah, it 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:46.680 wasn't a news helicopter. Ellen knew it was too decrepit 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.080 for that obviously in nineteen eighties Model Cheap Black. She 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.800 could see it through her window her review of mirror 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.120 in the distance, and it was gaining. So she's being 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:57.760 followed by There's another helicopter shows up, and soon it 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.800 becomes clear that she's being uh falled by the evil 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.200 news and then she gets it looks like she gets 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.520 kidnapped by men with guns. Yeah. One of the men 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:12.080 shouted something in Spanish at Ellen she held up her hands, 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.600 just look non threatening. She told herself, Oh my god, 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:23.200 she doesn't say hands up, don't shoot, does she? Yeah? Yeah, okay, 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:29.280 So uh they they expect her Ellen's friend um, and 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:39.800 then kidnapped them. Uh dang it. Yepkay, yeah, so it 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.200 looks like she's been kidnapped by the cartel. Um. So 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:48.840 that's cool and this is good m hmm yeah, so great. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:50.919 So she drives off and manages to escape, and then 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.160 we're back in Kabul, Afghanistan with another chapter about combat. 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:59.920 General Bret Hawthorne Yeah yeah, it was shortly after midnight. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.639 The muddy puddle at his feet ran red with his blood. 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.600 All he could think about was Ellen Ellen living there. 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.400 This is a lot more fun if you think about 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:13.880 it as the TV show host Ellen. I'm yep, he's 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.399 never met her either. It's not like they're even acquaintances. Like, 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.480 I'm just thinking of the TV show host Ellen. She 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.480 would do that bit where she like trips over the 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:26.840 sidewalk and looks back like don't trip over that, And 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:28.919 that's how she she would charm her way out of 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.480 this situation. It's like guess what I'm getting at, yeah, yeah, 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.959 or like he's not even thinking of like modern day Ellen, 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.560 like the famous dance. She's like thinking of like her 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.000 sitcom with Jeremy thinking of he's thinking of Ellen that 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.480 came out on TV. Yeah. Yeah, that's Brett Hawthorne, wounded 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.639