Speaker 1: Alson media.
Speaker 2: This is it could Happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 2: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by James Stout, Na Wong and Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: Yes, happy to be back once again stretching the definitions
Speaker 1: of the word.
Speaker 2: Here across time, space and the Internet. We have gathered
Speaker 2: to discuss the news, and this episode we are covering
Speaker 2: the week of April eighth to April sixteenth. James, you
Speaker 2: want to start us off with some short news items.
Speaker 3: Yep, I got quite a few this week, so lock in.
Speaker 3: There have been two Turkish school shootings this week. One
Speaker 3: killed ten people, the other wounded at least sixteen. Since then,
Speaker 3: there have been one hundred and sixty two arrests for
Speaker 3: either sharing footage of the shooting or suggesting that similar
Speaker 3: attacks might happen at other schools. One suspect, according to BBC,
Speaker 3: made references to us mascular Elliott Roger on his WhatsApp profile, which, yep,
Speaker 3: not great. Just yeah. I do find it somewhat frustrating
Speaker 3: when people say this stuff only happened in the United States.
Speaker 1: No, no, it doesn't. Now it is a fair point
Speaker 1: to note that like most foreign mass shootings these days
Speaker 1: are inspired and influenced by American mass shootings. We are
Speaker 1: foundational to global shooter culture. But it ain't just us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not just us. Unfortunately, like culture is global
Speaker 3: and this is part of that, we also have like
Speaker 3: your regular terrorism, but this is not that. This is
Speaker 3: part of that culture. Secondly, SOUTHCOM, the United States military
Speaker 3: command responsible for, among other things, the Eastern Pacific as
Speaker 3: it calls it, has announced four strikes on small boats
Speaker 3: again this week, killing at least eleven people according to
Speaker 3: the totals I added up from their announcements. It's probably
Speaker 3: worth noting that this either suggests that they are not
Speaker 3: striking drug boats, or that their strikes on drug boats
Speaker 3: are so spectacically unsuccessful that they are still coming across
Speaker 3: in such volumes as SOUTHCOM as having to kill people
Speaker 3: at this continuing rate.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Either way, it doesn't point to a successful operation. Next,
Speaker 3: the Nigerian military seems to have doubled down on striking Jili.
Speaker 3: If people haven't been paying attention to this, Jilli is
Speaker 3: a place where a market was bombed. They claim that
Speaker 3: the market contained Boko Haram fighters. More than one hundred
Speaker 3: people were killed in this strike.
Speaker 4: And I want to mention what happened recently at Jili
Speaker 4: to tell them that now our new strategy is anybody
Speaker 4: a friend of a tief is a chief. I've said that,
Speaker 4: so really, anybody that is doing any trading, any support
Speaker 4: to them, we find you together with them. We're going
Speaker 4: to deal with you like the bandit, like the terrorists.
Speaker 4: So people should know, if you don't want to be harmed,
Speaker 4: please avoid where those terrorists are. I'm going to give
Speaker 4: them any support.
Speaker 3: The suggestion here is that being present in a market
Speaker 3: where these people who are terrorists will also justifies to
Speaker 3: targeting them. Yeah, it's worth noting the US has been
Speaker 3: supporting this campaign, right, and this is not the first
Speaker 3: instance in which civilians have been killed over intten about
Speaker 3: the SMA news letter and appeals court in the DC
Speaker 3: Circuit has prevented Judge Boseberg from continuing an investigation into
Speaker 3: whether Trump officials sent migrants to Ol Salvador. Despite his order,
Speaker 3: DC Judge Raw wrote, the government has a clear and
Speaker 3: indisputable right determination of this judicial investigation because it is
Speaker 3: premise on an order that is insufficiently clear and specific
Speaker 3: to sustain a charge of criminal contempt. A long time
Speaker 3: court interpreter, the only one for several South Asian languages
Speaker 3: in Texas, has been detained by ICE in airport. She
Speaker 3: has withholding of removal to India, but with third country
Speaker 3: removals now increasingly on the table, that is presumably what
Speaker 3: they intend for her. Finally, in court news, another DOJ
Speaker 3: attorney has been fined for missing deadlines in a habeas case,
Speaker 3: and once again that attorney cited a crushing caseload is
Speaker 3: the reason why they'd missed those deadlines.
Speaker 2: This week, both the House and the Senate failed to
Speaker 2: advance a war powers resolution compelling the President to cease
Speaker 2: military action in Iran. The House vote in particular was
Speaker 2: very close, with two hundred and thirteen votes to two
Speaker 2: hundred and fourteen, with only one Democrat, Jared Golden, voting
Speaker 2: against it, while one Republican, Thomas Massey, voted in support.
Speaker 2: On Monday, the Trump administration agreed to restore the Pride
Speaker 2: flag to the Stonewall National Monument as a part of
Speaker 2: settling a lawsuit over its removal. This weekend, President Trump
Speaker 2: got into a fight with the pope over the statements,
Speaker 2: again the US and Israel's war in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: The president truth that the Pope was quote weak on
Speaker 2: crime and terrible for foreign policy quote, before sharing an
Speaker 2: AI image of himself depicted as Jesus Christ. The next day,
Speaker 2: Trump claimed quote, I thought it was me as a
Speaker 2: doctor unquote.
Speaker 3: Great stuff, great stuff. Just a briefly fact check. He
Speaker 3: is neither of those things.
Speaker 2: No, as far as I'm a west or a doctor.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Legally, I think it is notable and very funny that
Speaker 5: this has now shifted sniff. No, I'm not a significant
Speaker 5: but it shifted a discourse on the right to whether
Speaker 5: or not Trump is the Anti Christ, with the enemy
Speaker 5: of the Show Rob Dreer saying quote, he's giving off
Speaker 5: anti Christ energy. So incredible things are happening for Donald
Speaker 5: Trump among his nominal base.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Franklin Graham thinks it was an honest mistake. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure he does. Yeah.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, police responded to a bomb threat at the
Speaker 2: Illinois home of one of Pope Leo's brothers, about forty
Speaker 2: miles southwest of Chicago. No explosive was found.
Speaker 1: So Congress is in the process of deciding whether or
Speaker 1: not to reauthorize section seven oh two of the Foreign
Speaker 1: Intelligence Surveillance Act or FAIZA. It's going to sunset on
Speaker 1: April twenty. We're recording this on the sixteenth, so in
Speaker 1: four days if Congress does not reauthorize it. Section oh
Speaker 1: two is what lets intelligence agencies in the US collect email,
Speaker 1: phone and text communications from foreign nationals outside of the
Speaker 1: United States, which often leads to communications of American citizens
Speaker 1: being caught for obvious reasons right as well, they get
Speaker 1: kind of swept up in that big net. The FBI
Speaker 1: once has asked for and has gotten some permission to
Speaker 1: like look into that database to get information on American citizens.
Speaker 1: Congress puts some limitation on that in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: but it remains very controversial and basically like one of
Speaker 1: the big debates over this is and there was a
Speaker 1: vote in twenty twenty four as to whether or not
Speaker 1: to require intelligence agencies to get a warrant before accessing
Speaker 1: American communications, and that failed to pass by a single
Speaker 1: vote in the House two twelve to two twelve split
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. So right now, you know, there's
Speaker 1: both the question of is this going to get reauthorized
Speaker 1: by Congress, in which case is like the FBI is
Speaker 1: certainly going to use it to go after like the
Speaker 1: communications of quote unquote antifa, right of like people who
Speaker 1: have been caught because they've been naming foreign groups, anti
Speaker 1: fascist groups, like foreign terrorist organizations. That's very obviously like
Speaker 1: one of the things this is going to be used for.
Speaker 1: It's kind of unclear like what is going to happen
Speaker 1: here where Congress is going to land. I did find
Speaker 1: there's an interesting article in Just Security where they're very
Speaker 1: worried that because of how very obvious it is that
Speaker 1: that federal law enforce horsement will abuse this section seven
Speaker 1: h two will just kind of go away entirely, and
Speaker 1: the useful aspects of it as they see it will
Speaker 1: no longer be possible. That's not my primary concern, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting to read someone being like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: if these guys go so crazy, like if they keep
Speaker 1: refusing to allow warrants to be entered into the process
Speaker 1: and keep insisting on going after like anti fat like
Speaker 1: left wing domestic terrorists, they're going to lose our ability
Speaker 1: to like surveil foreign nationals entirely. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: concern from a lot of security people anyway. Just probably
Speaker 1: good that you're aware of that. So, probably the biggest
Speaker 1: international piece of news this week that we're covering is
Speaker 1: the defeat of Victor Orbon, who was often considered to
Speaker 1: be like a quasi dictatorial figure. I mean, he arose
Speaker 1: to power in Hungary legally, but his party like as
Speaker 1: soon as he took power more than a decade ago,
Speaker 1: he's basically been cracking down on the ability of counter
Speaker 1: parties to like organize. There's been like massive crackdowns on
Speaker 1: the like ability of uh, like it's a lot of
Speaker 1: prototype Trump stuff. Like they went after professors, they went
Speaker 1: after colleges, they went after like public funds to educational institutions,
Speaker 1: to libraries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he pioneered the modern tactics of undermining liberal democracy
Speaker 2: via the legal system.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it's like him and Aired Wanner sort of
Speaker 5: like yeah.
Speaker 1: Two, you went after the LGBT community, tried to criminalize
Speaker 1: like criminalize like pride events and stuff. And also like
Speaker 1: in a big a big part of like Orbon was
Speaker 1: obviously very anti migrant, like anti we don't want to
Speaker 1: take in you know, uh, particularly during the Syrian refugee
Speaker 1: crisis that was like a big moment for them. But
Speaker 1: he was also really anti EU. You know, Hungary is
Speaker 1: a part of the EU, but Orbond's party was very
Speaker 1: E like the Fidez party was super EU critical And
Speaker 1: in the last decade and change that they've been in power,
Speaker 1: the fides Party has been massively corrupt and in fact
Speaker 1: has kind of turned the Hungarian government to the extent
Speaker 1: like you know, there was corruption before obviously, but he's
Speaker 1: woven his party into the very workings of the government,
Speaker 1: primarily as a way to collect money from people and
Speaker 1: to distribute government funds to like these right wing pet
Speaker 1: projects that they had, which we'll I'll talk about a
Speaker 1: little more in a second. But this started to piss
Speaker 1: people off and hungry, particularly because the government wasn't doing
Speaker 1: a good job of governing, Like the Hungarian economy remained
Speaker 1: one of the worst in Europe. Unemployment remained high. Like
Speaker 1: none of the promises that like, well, if we're if
Speaker 1: we kind of push the EU away, and if we
Speaker 1: keep all if we keep these migrants out, the economy
Speaker 1: will get better. What really happened was Fidez robbed everyone
Speaker 1: blind and Orbond robbed everyone blind and put his cronies
Speaker 1: in positions of power in the hope that he would
Speaker 1: never be forced out. Now, Orbon's an interesting figure in
Speaker 1: part because he got his start as a pro democracy
Speaker 1: figure during the latter years of communism in Hungary. He
Speaker 1: was a liberal like democratic activist and in fact, the
Speaker 1: guy who just beat him, Peter Magyar, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: his name also in a second, grew up with like
Speaker 1: a poster of Orbon on his bedroom wall because Orbon,
Speaker 1: you know again, communism was coming to an end. Everyone
Speaker 1: was very excited. All the young people were very excited
Speaker 1: about democracy, and Orbon was like a figure and I
Speaker 1: think he was still. He was never like a leftist
Speaker 1: figure when I say liberal, but he was a figure
Speaker 1: of like democratizing values. Now Magyar himself is an odd guy.
Speaker 1: He's forty five years old and the party that he
Speaker 1: ran with, the Tisa Party Tisza, was a party before him,
Speaker 1: but like not a living one really, like it had
Speaker 1: been a political party and it had basically died out
Speaker 1: to irrelevance. I think they had a couple of dudes
Speaker 1: kind of kicking around. It's almost like if there were
Speaker 1: still a tiny wig party that like four five guys
Speaker 1: met in like twice a year to like have their
Speaker 1: little wig meeting the bull coming back. That some guy
Speaker 1: who's like a Barack Obama level political mind in terms
Speaker 1: of his skill in organizing and charisma came in and
Speaker 1: turned that party into a fucking electoral powerhouse that completely
Speaker 1: annihilated the previous leading party in an election. Like that's
Speaker 1: basically what happened in Hungary. It's a very weird story.
Speaker 1: And Magyar is definitely brilliant in terms of he is
Speaker 1: someone who is objectively very intelligent when it comes to
Speaker 1: how to build power in a political organization and how
Speaker 1: to win elections and how to message to people. He's
Speaker 1: very good at all of that stuff. Now, this is
Speaker 1: not like a leftist or a progressive like hero type figure,
Speaker 1: and he has not pretended to be, to be very clear,
Speaker 1: that's not how he built himself at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: in some ways he's more conservative than his party. That
Speaker 1: tis a party is like even like Orbon at least
Speaker 1: had like a guest worker program and stuff, and Maggar's
Speaker 1: against even a lot of that stuff, Like he is
Speaker 1: actually more hostile to having like like immigration but he's
Speaker 1: not anti EU and he's not. What's interesting is like
Speaker 1: he's really kind of hedging in between, like hedging his
Speaker 1: I don't know entirely how to describe this. He's like
Speaker 1: writing a very weird line because he is not anti Ukraine,
Speaker 1: but he's also against Hungary sending weapons ay directly to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But his old attitude is like I'm not super pro
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing, but I'm not gonna fight
Speaker 1: anything in the EU Parliament. Hungary's going to stop. Hungary
Speaker 1: has been like a spoiler in EU politics for a while,
Speaker 1: where they would just kind of vote to fuck with
Speaker 1: whatever their EU wants to do, especially used to regards
Speaker 1: aiding Ukraine and Magyar's whole thing is like I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna stop, like I'm not gonna ful throatedly support the
Speaker 1: stuff you guys want. I'm just gonna stop being an
Speaker 1: anchor playing you down, which is enough like for the
Speaker 1: EU to be excited about this. Yeah, like, finally this
Speaker 1: guy Hungary is not going to be and it's Hungary
Speaker 1: is a weird history of acting like an anchor on
Speaker 1: other polities. Sometimes that's kind of what was going on
Speaker 1: in the Austro Hungarian Empire and like the pre World
Speaker 1: War One era where Hungary saw itself as very separate
Speaker 1: from the Austria Hungary aspect of things and would vote
Speaker 1: to like fuck with the military because they wanted their
Speaker 1: own military to get more powerful. It's not entirely the same,
Speaker 1: it's just interesting the level of like contrarianists that's kind
Speaker 1: of baked into a lot of Hungarian politics. I mentioned
Speaker 1: something about Peter's name, So the mag Yards are like
Speaker 1: the original like nomadic horse warrior people of the area
Speaker 1: we know is Hungary today, the name Magyar just means
Speaker 1: Hungarian now, but it came from the most powerful of
Speaker 1: these tribes of nomadic warriors. And someone had made a
Speaker 1: point of this on I waside of Twitter or Blue
Speaker 1: Sky around the election that like Peter Maggar is basically
Speaker 1: if a guy was named Johnny American, right like that
Speaker 1: that's like literally like his name could not be more patriotic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Adolf Hitler defeated by Amy Yeah in Germany.
Speaker 1: Like and Maggar became a force on the political stage
Speaker 1: in Hungary very suddenly. He wasn't really a major figure.
Speaker 1: He was kind of actually connected to a lot of
Speaker 1: because again he was a supporter of the Fadez Party.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of friends who were members of
Speaker 1: Orbon's government. One of his buddies was Orbon's chief of staff.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, he married a woman, Judete Varga,
Speaker 1: who was the Minister of Justice for the Fadez Party
Speaker 1: under Orbon right. And he'd worked as like a diplomat
Speaker 1: in Brussels, so he's like a guy who's part of
Speaker 1: this government apparatus that Orbon puts into place. But in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty fours there's this huge scandal where the Ministry
Speaker 1: of Justice and like his wife by which I mean
Speaker 1: his well now his ex wife because they split, and
Speaker 1: then his ex wife pardons a man who had gotten
Speaker 1: convicted for covering up a sex abuse scandal at children's home,
Speaker 1: and Magyar becomes like one of the most visible figures
Speaker 1: on the backlash, being like this entire party is corrupt,
Speaker 1: this is super fucked up, and he's coming from a
Speaker 1: position of and I was a part of it, so
Speaker 1: I know, like I'm an insider who's broken from the
Speaker 1: group because how corrupt and bad this is, and there's
Speaker 1: some messed up stuff in there. Magyar does attack orbon
Speaker 1: and fidez because his ex wife gets fired along with
Speaker 1: another woman when this scandal becomes a problem, and he
Speaker 1: accuses the government of like hiding behind women's skirts. But
Speaker 1: he's also got he's an odd per. There's some uncomfortable
Speaker 1: not damning or anything, just some like uncomfortable realities about him.
Speaker 1: And I want to read a quote from an NPR
Speaker 1: article that came out recently that talks about some of this.
Speaker 1: Magyar has blamed the end of his marriage to Varga,
Speaker 1: at least in part on political disagreements, notably, just months
Speaker 1: before the divorce was finalized in twenty twenty three, he's
Speaker 1: secretly recorded one of their conversations, and it was talking
Speaker 1: about an attempt by government aids to interfere in a
Speaker 1: corruption case. Magart released a recording in the wake of
Speaker 1: the pardon scandal the following year, which only added fuel
Speaker 1: to the fire and credence to his corruption claims, and
Speaker 1: his wife resigns from public life altogether after this. She
Speaker 1: has accused him of verbal and physical abuse, including like
Speaker 1: locking her in a room, And obviously, like the whole
Speaker 1: recording account, there's a lot of there's some uncomfortable stuff
Speaker 1: about this guy. But that said, she's also super corrupt
Speaker 1: and like doing a lot of really, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: and no one really does. If you read a lot
Speaker 1: about this guy. One of the things people point is
Speaker 1: that we don't evenly know a lot about him other
Speaker 1: than he's really good at whipping a party into shape
Speaker 1: and winning an election. Right Like, he proved that much,
Speaker 1: But we don't know much about him. Even Orbond has
Speaker 1: made anti LGBTQ writes a big part of his platform,
Speaker 1: especially as his his position has gotten weaker. He's tried
Speaker 1: to like supercharge that as a way to hold on
Speaker 1: to power. Magyar's not pro queer rights, but he's not
Speaker 1: anti queer rights. He has criticized the urban government from
Speaker 1: going after LGBTQ people and says that they're doing it
Speaker 1: to distract citizens from the issues, which is true. He
Speaker 1: said that he supports the right to assembly, he has
Speaker 1: not said that he supports LGBTQ rights. That said, if
Speaker 1: going from a guy who's like, I actively want to
Speaker 1: prosecute people for being queer to a guy who's like,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to talk about it is probably
Speaker 1: an improvement.
Speaker 2: It's worth, noting that in his victory speech he did
Speaker 2: make two references to LGBTQ rights, saying that quote, everyone
Speaker 2: can live with whoever they love, as long as they
Speaker 2: do not violate laws or harm others, and also said quote,
Speaker 2: we want to make a country where no one is
Speaker 2: persecuted because they think differently, or because someone loves in
Speaker 2: a different way to others. Unquote.
Speaker 1: This is again broadly a good thing, and it's also good.
Speaker 1: It's good in Hungary, it's also good worldwide because Hungary
Speaker 1: has been for years not just a major supporter of
Speaker 1: far right groups. One of the things Magyar pointed out
Speaker 1: as soon as he won election is that there's evidence
Speaker 1: that they have found that the Fidez party was using
Speaker 1: Hungarian governmental funds to support a couple of number one
Speaker 1: to support SEAPACK because they help hold like a foreign
Speaker 1: SEAPAC gatherings in Hungary. So like SEAPAC has been getting
Speaker 1: money from the Hungarian government, and Magear said, like, that's
Speaker 1: not fine, We're not okay with that. I think that's
Speaker 1: actually illegal. And he has also noted that that government
Speaker 1: money was going to support the Matthias Corvinus College or MCC,
Speaker 1: which was receiving funds from the Orbanne government and that
Speaker 1: that is going to stop now. The MCC is both
Speaker 1: like it. It's an organization in Hungary, but they also
Speaker 1: have a bunch of like foreign They've got one in
Speaker 1: like Romania, there's one in Brussels. They have like a
Speaker 1: bunch of foreign branches, and they use the MCC and
Speaker 1: fund it in order to fund the far right in
Speaker 1: other European countries. Right, like the MCC supports like the
Speaker 1: one in Brussels supports in Brussels local fire right groups
Speaker 1: and it's been very a fairly effective way of funding
Speaker 1: some of these like and oftentimes like Nazi adjacent organizations,
Speaker 1: and that money is looking to go away. And there's
Speaker 1: an interesting Politico article about some of this that talk
Speaker 1: to the MCC Brussels people like the offshoot of this
Speaker 1: in Brussels. For its part, MCC Brussels said that Sunday's
Speaker 1: election result will have no bearing on its work in
Speaker 1: the city. As an independent organization. We will continue to research,
Speaker 1: analyze and advocate around our core concerns and continue to
Speaker 1: hold the European Union institutions to account. That's the communications manager,
Speaker 1: and the article goes onto note mcc Brussels gets almost
Speaker 1: alledge cash ninety nine percent, coming to just over six
Speaker 1: million euros according to its listing in the last financial
Speaker 1: year as part of a grant from Matthias Corvinus Collegiate,
Speaker 1: which received a ten percent stake in Hungary's lucrative oil
Speaker 1: and gas company MOL from Orbn's government in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: That's certainly going away too. This is a major blow
Speaker 1: to far right organizing in Europe and in the United States.
Speaker 1: And it's more than just losing money, losing a space
Speaker 1: to gather, it's losing a proof of concept.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Orbon was the guy they pointed to, is like, this
Speaker 1: is what we want to do in America, not just America,
Speaker 1: but very directly, and Orbon just flamed the fuck out
Speaker 1: because he sucked at governing. Now, what happens next is
Speaker 1: going to depend on whether or not Magyar prosecutes Fede's
Speaker 1: party members prosecutes Orbon and his cronies. He said he's
Speaker 1: going to, so we'll see, and that's all I gotta
Speaker 1: say for now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's worth noting that, like in Europe,
Speaker 3: we had this somewhat with Donald Tusk in Poland, right,
Speaker 3: and what we have seen there, for instance, on immigration,
Speaker 3: has been a continued movement to the right right, like
Speaker 3: Tusk has been like talking about not complying with EU
Speaker 3: immigration rulings. And I think that's probably something that people
Speaker 3: who are interesting which way this might go should look at.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. That
Speaker 3: all that is out now that Aubank conceded, right, Like,
Speaker 3: he had multiple US politicians, including the Vice president, campaigning
Speaker 3: for him, and he lost, and he admitted he lost,
Speaker 3: and that is a very good sign.
Speaker 1: Part of why he conceded is he thinks that he's
Speaker 1: got enough people in the woven end of the government
Speaker 1: that he can return to power, or at least his
Speaker 1: party can so Meg again, Magyar's big challenge is going
Speaker 1: to be making sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and whatever else. I think it's very very
Speaker 5: unlikely that Magyar is going to be doing shit like hey,
Speaker 5: we're going to use face We're going to threaten to
Speaker 5: use facial recognition on everyone who shows up to a
Speaker 5: Pride protest and a Pride march and arrest them, so
Speaker 5: you know, hopefully getting better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, he was willing to wire tap his wife.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that he takes like pleasure in fucking
Speaker 1: with people like that doesn't seem to be as vibe,
Speaker 1: so hopefully not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, should we take a break?
Speaker 2: We shall, all right, then we will be back for
Speaker 2: more news.
Speaker 5: So one of the other pieces of news coming out
Speaker 5: of the right wing sphere is this really incredibly staged
Speaker 5: photo op that Donald Trump had where he like got
Speaker 5: this really well photographed like fake door dash order and
Speaker 5: then tipped the woman one hundred dollars that was supposed
Speaker 5: to be a promotion for his note taps on tips thing.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of stuff going on here. There's been
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of stuff because people immediately figured out
Speaker 5: that this person is someone who's been basically used to
Speaker 5: lobby for this policy a bunch. She shows up all
Speaker 5: over the place, like testifying in front of congressional committees
Speaker 5: and stuff about no tax for tips and like or
Speaker 5: like legislatures all over the country. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of kind of funny stuff where she gets asked if
Speaker 5: she would vote for Trump and whether she supports trans athletes,
Speaker 5: and she's just like eh. There's also a whole story
Speaker 5: about sort of door Dash's pr person just having a
Speaker 5: crash out and getting extremely mad online.
Speaker 1: Mia, don't don't put it in the newspaper that they
Speaker 1: got mad.
Speaker 2: It's really amazing.
Speaker 5: But I think the actual story here is about no
Speaker 5: tax on tips as a political project, and I think
Speaker 5: the actual most egregious part of this whole event was
Speaker 5: the White House. They operate like fifty five Twitter accounts.
Speaker 5: One of them, the Guardian points out, it's this like
Speaker 5: rapid response thing, and it posts this video where that's
Speaker 5: captioned about how this woman said she saved eleven thousand
Speaker 5: dollars in taxes on tips. That's not true. It can't
Speaker 5: be true. It's just mathematically a lie. The actual policy
Speaker 5: and the Guardian's doing some good work on this lays
Speaker 5: out quote. But the no tax on tips policy is
Speaker 5: only a temporary deduction of up to twenty five thousand
Speaker 5: dollars in tips for eligible workers annually. Tipped workers still
Speaker 5: have to report their tips as income. So there's a
Speaker 5: lot of things going on here. One this is all
Speaker 5: all of the tax on tips off is temporary. We
Speaker 5: talked about this when it came out. It was designed
Speaker 5: to sort of phase out the moment Trump leaves office
Speaker 5: or supposed to leave office, and b DoorDash also later
Speaker 5: had to say, oh no, no, no, no, she did not
Speaker 5: save eleven thousand dollars in tax money on tips. They
Speaker 5: were like, no, no, no, she made eleven thousand dollars
Speaker 5: in tips and didn't have to pay taxes on it.
Speaker 5: But first off, she did not make eleven thousand dollars
Speaker 5: on tips. Like, you can't make eleven thousand dollars in
Speaker 5: tips doing DoorDash delivery. It's basically impossible. And I'm very
Speaker 5: sure that she didn't do this because also if you
Speaker 5: look at and the Guardian with you or not the Guardian,
Speaker 5: I'm ink with you some of the earlier you know, interviews,
Speaker 5: because she's been on a PR circuit about this for
Speaker 5: a while. She was on Fox News, and on Fox
Speaker 5: News she claims that she'd saved three to four thousand
Speaker 5: dollars and then eventually that like number amount of money
Speaker 5: that she'd saved eventually gets bumped up to eleven thousand.
Speaker 5: I think though, what happened is that she maybe got
Speaker 5: she's claiming originally that she got like three thousand dollars
Speaker 5: in tips. There's also another issue here, which is at
Speaker 5: like eleven thousand dollars. It's like not clear if that's
Speaker 5: even enough money to qualify as having to pay income
Speaker 5: taxes in Alaska. Like this is all, this is all
Speaker 5: basically just a nightmare. And but the reason this is
Speaker 5: all actually happening is that the note tax on tips
Speaker 5: thing is this giant pr campaign that door Dash, particularly DoorDash,
Speaker 5: but also some of the other uh, some of the
Speaker 5: other companies have been doing as basically a propaganda thing
Speaker 5: in order to avoid there being attention on the fact
Speaker 5: that they just don't pay their workers a living wage
Speaker 5: and what so. One of the really important things that's
Speaker 5: almost never talked about with DoorDash and with with all
Speaker 5: of these sort of like these these delivery apps, right,
Speaker 5: is that if you are a restaurant worker and you're
Speaker 5: making something for a DoorDash order, and this is particularly
Speaker 5: like you know, for example, if you work at a coffee shop, right,
Speaker 5: you don't get tips on door dash orders. So when
Speaker 5: when when when when these things? When these orders started
Speaker 5: coming through in like sort of the past like five six,
Speaker 5: eight years, right, what happened was that this was basically
Speaker 5: a giant everyone who's working like in a restaurant or
Speaker 5: in a in like a cafe or whatever you're getting
Speaker 5: it from. Those people all had massive speed ups where
Speaker 5: they just don't get and they don't and they don't
Speaker 5: get paid the regular tips that they would you know,
Speaker 5: be relying on to even sort of have a living
Speaker 5: wage wage. Right, So these people all got speed ups.
Speaker 5: And then on top of that, right, so you are,
Speaker 5: if you're ordering from one of these sites, right, you're
Speaker 5: probably are paying a tip. But that tip money has
Speaker 5: basically been you know, it's been extracted from the restaurant workers.
Speaker 5: But then now it's being used as a way to subsidize, right,
Speaker 5: as a way to subsidize door dash not paying actual
Speaker 5: fucking wages. And so what this entire project is is
Speaker 5: is it's this It's this giant attempt to basically continue
Speaker 5: this process and solidify this process and stop all of
Speaker 5: the organizing campaigns that have been happening against door dash
Speaker 5: to get them to like actually fucking pay people. And
Speaker 5: what's happening instead is that they're trying they're trying to
Speaker 5: shift everyone's focus to like, oh, hey, we can give
Speaker 5: you like no tax on tips, even though what these
Speaker 5: tips are and what the system that they've built is
Speaker 5: is a is it system to basically exploit both restaurant
Speaker 5: workers and also specifically to make sure they don't ever
Speaker 5: have to fucking pay their workers any amount of money.
Speaker 5: And that's the actual that's the actual political ramifications of
Speaker 5: what's happening here beyond guy has funny crash out in
Speaker 5: social media, and I think it's very bleak that there's
Speaker 5: been basically no coverage of the sort of totality of
Speaker 5: what this is doing to people.
Speaker 2: To circle back to the potentiality of the new Prime
Speaker 2: Minister of Hungary prosecuting the former corrupt administration, let's turn
Speaker 2: to California. The former front runner in the California governor's race,
Speaker 2: Eric Swalwell, dropped out of the election last week and
Speaker 2: subsequently resigned from Congress amid sexual assa allegations from multiple women.
Speaker 2: The new front runner is billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran
Speaker 2: for president back in twenty twenty. You might remember him
Speaker 2: from the Yeah, Good, Okay clip of where he tried
Speaker 2: to talk to Bernie Sanders as Bernie and Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 2: were beefing on stage after a presidential debate.
Speaker 5: Is she is she the guy who had the story
Speaker 5: about killing someone in Vietnam? Or was that? Was that
Speaker 5: another one of the unhinged guys.
Speaker 2: That the Spire wasn't super unhinged. He was a little
Speaker 2: bit boring, but nominally one of the more progressive people
Speaker 2: in that overstuffed race despite being a billionaire. A lot
Speaker 2: of his poll is talking about we should tax billionaires
Speaker 2: like me more. I know, I'm a billionaire. I'll be fine.
Speaker 2: That's kind of his that's kind of part of his stick.
Speaker 1: Look, my opinion is as a former Californian and just
Speaker 1: someone who's voted in California in the long grand history
Speaker 1: of California governors, he would be one of the better
Speaker 1: options that California's fat, which is the bar really low bar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the race this year is just shite.
Speaker 1: It's it's again like Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor and
Speaker 1: like firmly middle of the pack.
Speaker 3: Absolute bollocks. Now, like sorry, I know I'm saying words,
Speaker 3: but it is upsetting to it.
Speaker 2: Is ready to describe the California governor's racist bollocks.
Speaker 1: It's bollocks. Times.
Speaker 3: I have to live here, I have to pay taxes
Speaker 3: to these clowns.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's California, baby, like, You're gonna periodically have
Speaker 1: governor raises that are just like shit shows, largely to
Speaker 1: provide content for the media.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Now. This week, Stier released part of his immigration platform
Speaker 2: titled how California Can Put Ice in Jail, echoing cries
Speaker 2: that activists have been trying to circulate into popular consciousness
Speaker 2: for the past year. Now, Stier doesn't just advocate for
Speaker 2: ICE to be abolished, which he does, but says in
Speaker 2: this new platform released on substack, quote, it's not enough
Speaker 2: for Democrats to simply engage in rhetoric and quote unquote
Speaker 2: stand against Ice or Trump. California must build a system
Speaker 2: that fights fire with fire to stop this authoritarian takeover.
Speaker 2: We must counter Ice head on and go after both
Speaker 2: their agents on the streets and their leadership within the DHS.
Speaker 2: How do we do this the same way we took
Speaker 2: on the mob, put ICE agents and their leadership in
Speaker 2: jail for their crimes, because that's how you take on
Speaker 2: a violent extremist group and win. Stire promises to do
Speaker 2: five things as governor to build this strategy to take
Speaker 2: on Ice. First, passing aggressive legislation building on current California statutes,
Speaker 2: to outlaw any law enforcement agency from profiling based on race, ethnicity, language, occupation,
Speaker 2: or location. This directly takes on the Kevanagh stops which
Speaker 2: were approved last fall.
Speaker 3: And a lot of other Supreme Court decisions of for instance,
Speaker 3: Boord Patrol operates under.
Speaker 2: Then, Stier says he'll grant the state Attorney general authority
Speaker 2: to hold ICE's leadership accountable for violence by pursuing quote
Speaker 2: unquote supervisory liability. Stier writes that quote this body of
Speaker 2: law empowers the California justice system to criminally prosecute and
Speaker 2: imprison not just the ICE agents who are committing these crimes,
Speaker 2: but the leadership directing them to do so. Unquote. Stier
Speaker 2: promise is to appoint and fund a special investigative unit
Speaker 2: that's specifically tasked with enforcing these California laws quote, including
Speaker 2: laws related to the conditions at detention facilities. This unit
Speaker 2: will collect the evidence the Attorney General can use to
Speaker 2: prosecute offenders and their leadership. Quote. That's how he plans
Speaker 2: to take on ICE and leadership at the DHS and
Speaker 2: to prosecute crimes committed by ICE agents. Now, Stier also
Speaker 2: says that he will quote bring those detained and kidnapped
Speaker 2: by Ice back home by expanding the immigration legal defense
Speaker 2: infrastructure in the state of California, including funding for quote,
Speaker 2: more attorneys, investigators, and accredited representatives, as well as legal
Speaker 2: aid and law school programs to assist and help those
Speaker 2: who have been imprisoned without due process unquote.
Speaker 3: This is the one that I'd like. So there are
Speaker 3: counties in California the fund that we had an episode
Speaker 3: about this about two years ago, right, that there will
Speaker 3: fund legal defense for migrants. Traditionally this has been Ice
Speaker 3: works around this by moving people who have that legal
Speaker 3: representation out of the state as quickly as they can
Speaker 3: and then refusing or making it very hard for WebEx
Speaker 3: motions for their attorneys to attend their hearings remotely. And
Speaker 3: what that does is effectively like bleeds to program, right,
Speaker 3: because then this attorney has to fly to Texas for
Speaker 3: a fifteen minute hearing about rescheduling or something similar. I
Speaker 3: would need to There's a lot of other stuff here,
Speaker 3: like law school programs that's interesting. I don't know what
Speaker 3: those would be. There needs to be something that stops
Speaker 3: them doing that, because that is what they did under
Speaker 3: Biden too. This is a This is not a Trump
Speaker 3: era thing. This is very much something that happened to
Speaker 3: under Biden, and it will happen again if the state
Speaker 3: of California does this on a statewide level. I will imagine,
Speaker 3: I would imagine, especially like let's entertain the idea that
Speaker 3: we have an election in twenty twenty eight, we have
Speaker 3: a Democrat president, I still has a massively expanded detention capacity.
Speaker 3: It could very easily move people out of California very quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so we need, like there need to be awareness
Speaker 3: of that. I would also say that, like, one of
Speaker 3: the tools that I don't see mentioned here that I
Speaker 3: think should be mentioned is SB fifty four in California,
Speaker 3: SB fifty four. They're obviously there were different SB fifty
Speaker 3: four when I'm talking about a California Values Act here,
Speaker 3: the one that prohibits law enforcement cooperation except for certain
Speaker 3: exemptions with immigration authorities. That already exists. It's already there.
Speaker 3: And like this is his statements, pretty brief for his PDFs,
Speaker 3: only three pages. It might not go into all this detail.
Speaker 3: I would like to see that flagged, at least in
Speaker 3: in further detail or when he's speaking about this, right,
Speaker 3: because SB fifty four prosecutions of cops are important, right
Speaker 3: because there are California agencies which appear to be flouting
Speaker 3: California law in order to comply with Trump's immigration goals.
Speaker 3: And if we don't do that first, then I have
Speaker 3: a lot less faith that any of this other shit
Speaker 3: is going to matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously, funding legal representation for immigrants regardless,
Speaker 2: like is a good thing, but it but the effect
Speaker 2: that it could have could be curtailed by Ice and
Speaker 2: as James is said, by moving people quickly out of state.
Speaker 2: And it's it's unclear if Styer is also talking about
Speaker 2: trying to help trying to help residents of California.
Speaker 3: Is it people who Is it people who reside in
Speaker 3: California and have been taken by Ice? Or is it
Speaker 3: people who are in iced attention in California California? Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like those are different categories, right, Like anyone or any
Speaker 3: other people in immigration's attention broadly in California, to include
Speaker 3: anyone who would cross the southern border and then be detained. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: this is all stuff that I'd like to see fleshed out.
Speaker 3: Maybe it will be. I am going to email his
Speaker 3: office and ask some of these questions.
Speaker 2: The last thing that Stire has in this five list
Speaker 2: of promises is promised to launch a statewide no Your
Speaker 2: Rights public education and public awareness campaign and styre writes
Speaker 2: quote backed by expanded protections against racial profiling. Legal representation
Speaker 2: empowers detained individuals to report ISS crimes to the Special
Speaker 2: Investigator and Californi's Attorney General and take the agents to
Speaker 2: court unquote. So he sees all these things like working
Speaker 2: in conjunction together to prosecute ICE agents and give immigrants
Speaker 2: legal representations so that this so that the investigative unit
Speaker 2: can be aware of certain crimes by ICE agents. It's
Speaker 2: the most that I've seen any politician like put down
Speaker 2: as like an actual plan to go after ICE. Like
Speaker 2: some other people have employed this sort of this sort
Speaker 2: of rhetoric, but in terms of actually producing a plan
Speaker 2: to go about this, this is the most detailed that
Speaker 2: I've seen. And as James said, it'll be good to
Speaker 2: learn more about how he envisions this actually going into
Speaker 2: effect and those certain details that it would be nice
Speaker 2: to have more detail on. But as as as rhetoric
Speaker 2: and as an actual policy proposal, this is like the
Speaker 2: most advanced thing I've seen on actually trying to prosecute
Speaker 2: ICE and DHS.
Speaker 3: All right, so let's talk a little bit more about immigration.
Speaker 3: Things are on the topic first and foremost in this
Speaker 3: what I want to talk about is this court filing
Speaker 3: by the ACLU and associated groups pertaining to the South
Speaker 3: Flow and a soft sided Facility South aka Alligator Alcatraz. Right.
Speaker 3: The court filing has some really disturbing stuff and it
Speaker 3: basically details what they claim to be the continued abuse
Speaker 3: of detainees despite a court order that should have prohibited
Speaker 3: some of this or prevented it. Rather, in their finding,
Speaker 3: their alleged attorneys were prevented from meeting with their clients,
Speaker 3: forced to make appointments, and we've seen some reporting on
Speaker 3: the physical abuse. I have not seen as much discussion
Speaker 3: of this, which I think is extremely concerning. Attorneys have
Speaker 3: been asked to submit copies of legal documents that they
Speaker 3: are bringing or to go over with their clients right
Speaker 3: like this would be a very clear violation of their
Speaker 3: attorney client privilege right that those communications should be private
Speaker 3: between the attorney and the client, and the facility denied
Speaker 3: detainees access to phones. This was part of the previous
Speaker 3: court order they were to have access to phones and
Speaker 3: communications with their attorneys, as well as smile stuff. They
Speaker 3: had to be advised their rights posters explaining some of
Speaker 3: this stuff. This resulted in demands and the parts of
Speaker 3: the detainees to restore their access to phones. I want
Speaker 3: to quote at length from the filing here just so
Speaker 3: I don't make any false representations. Quote. After not having
Speaker 3: access to phone calls all day, people in their cages
Speaker 3: were getting frustrated with the situation, as these phone calls
Speaker 3: are the only way people can contact loved ones, speak
Speaker 3: with and secure an attorney. Detained individuals in mister Morphia
Speaker 3: and mister Hernandez Galband's cage began complaining loudly about the
Speaker 3: phones not working. Mister Morphia and mister Hernandez Galband both
Speaker 3: reported that several guards who worked for CRS at the
Speaker 3: entity managing the facility came to the cage and were
Speaker 3: taunting the detained individuals inside. Detained individuals began raising their
Speaker 3: voices in protests. The guards got more aggressive and were
Speaker 3: yelling and threatening to enter the cage. Mister Hernandez Galband
Speaker 3: went to the guards to try and de espiate the
Speaker 3: situation and advise the guards not to enter the cage
Speaker 3: at that time, fearing it would lead to violence. Mister
Speaker 3: Morphy and mister Hernande's galband both reported that another detained
Speaker 3: individual then went to the guards and an officer punched
Speaker 3: that person. Then the officers targeted mister Morphy. Neither mister
Speaker 3: Morphy nor mister Hernande's garband know why they targeted mister Morphy.
Speaker 3: The guards threw mister Morphy to the ground and severely
Speaker 3: beat him up. An officer came in and punched mister
Speaker 3: Morphy in his right eye and began to beat him.
Speaker 3: He was taken out the cage and thrown to the
Speaker 3: ground and beaten by multiple guards. He suffered injuries to
Speaker 3: his shoulder and arm, and was kicked in the head.
Speaker 3: A guard placed their knee on his neck when the
Speaker 3: guard was trying to restrain him. Mister Morphy does not
Speaker 3: know which guards are involved, as they do not wear
Speaker 3: id badges, but he believes he would recognize them. The
Speaker 3: officers beat several other people during this incident and broke
Speaker 3: another detained individual's wrist. The officers then pepper sprayed everyone
Speaker 3: in the cage. A detained older gentleman passed out as
Speaker 3: he could not breathe. That's pretty horrific.
Speaker 2: Like, this is just one day in one detention center.
Speaker 3: This what I was going to say. This is one
Speaker 3: cage on one day in one facility. And like if
Speaker 3: these people had not been brave enough to speak out,
Speaker 3: then we wouldn't know. Or if these people had been
Speaker 3: deported before they could speak out, we wouldn't know. Right,
Speaker 3: they didn't even have telephones to report this, if they
Speaker 3: hadn't had attorneys, we wouldn't know. Yeah, this is an
Speaker 3: insight into what's happening in this facility, and it is horrific.
Speaker 3: There are images that go with this, if people want
Speaker 3: to look them up. You can see some very clearly
Speaker 3: injured people, or you can see at least one very
Speaker 3: clearly injured person.
Speaker 2: Let's go on an ad break and then talk about
Speaker 2: Iran and some all the top patails.
Speaker 3: Or right, we are back and in our final segment
Speaker 3: of today's show, we're going to talk about the ongoing
Speaker 3: war with Iran. Right this past weekend, jd Vance and
Speaker 3: Jared Kushner's what a Steve Witcoff master negotiator? A guy
Speaker 3: who doesn't know the difference between a tweet that is
Speaker 3: public and a DM that is privatelredible. They flew to
Speaker 3: meet an Iranian delegation in Pakistan, which serves to mediate
Speaker 3: and host ceasefire talks between the United States and Iran. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: this did not result in an enduring agreement between the
Speaker 3: US and Iran, and as a result, the United States
Speaker 3: has begun blockading Iranian ports. So far, several vessels have
Speaker 3: been turned around by the US blockade, and at least
Speaker 3: one that tried to run it was eventually turned back,
Speaker 3: even though it attempted to hug the Iranian coastline in
Speaker 3: order to avoid consequences. The US Navy has also issued
Speaker 3: instructions which seemed to suggest that it could target shadow
Speaker 3: fleet vessels globally as part of the blockade if they're
Speaker 3: carrying a number of contraband items, which includes basically Iranian
Speaker 3: oil all its derivatives, weapons, some metals, and industrial supplies.
Speaker 3: It's a very broad list of contraband. In the thirteen
Speaker 3: claimed instances of ships being turned around so far, I
Speaker 3: have not seen any in which it was a physical interdiction.
Speaker 3: It seems that the United States ships contacted them by
Speaker 3: radio advising them of the blockade. The blockade has not
Speaker 3: currently stopped some types of cargoes entering Iran. The notice
Speaker 3: a mariner suggests that humanitarian supplies can enter, but those
Speaker 3: vessels are subject to inspection. If this causes a cooling
Speaker 3: effect or just a reduction in the ability of Iran
Speaker 3: to bring in more food, this could cause serious food shortages.
Speaker 3: There's always been There's already been massive food price inflation
Speaker 3: the war. Brigan and Iran had previously tried to work
Speaker 3: around this, but a complete blockade would make that hard.
Speaker 3: It does seem that negotiating between the US and Iran
Speaker 3: or ongoing. We're recording this on Thursday, and the latest
Speaker 3: thing that I had seen has suggested that Iran is
Speaker 3: saying it might allow traffic through the Strait if its
Speaker 3: assets are unfrozen. This hinges on the idea that Iran
Speaker 3: gets to decide who goes through the strait. Right, the
Speaker 3: strait is wider than twelve twelve miles is generally the
Speaker 3: territorial waters, right just so it is international waters. So
Speaker 3: the idea that Iran controls it. If the US signs
Speaker 3: some kind of deal which implies or outright says, that
Speaker 3: would be a massive victory for Iran, right at least
Speaker 3: in that area. Meanwhile, the United States is amassing a
Speaker 3: massive naval force in the region, with three carrier strike
Speaker 3: groups either there or heading there. That is approx. Many
Speaker 3: of the usas Navy. Interestingly, the George H. W. Bush
Speaker 3: is going around Africa to go there.
Speaker 2: The ship, not the man, that's correct.
Speaker 3: George H. W. Bush himself swimming is h he's going
Speaker 3: to wet to No, Yes, the United States ship George H. W.
Speaker 3: Bush is going around the southern tip of Africa. Geography
Speaker 3: understanders will notice that that is the long way. The
Speaker 3: short way would be through the Suez Canal.
Speaker 5: Right, Oh, no, they're doing They're doing the Russia, the
Speaker 5: research Japanese war thing that always goes great for the imperial.
Speaker 3: Power moving because yeah, I'm guessing they're doing it because
Speaker 3: they don't want to get hit by yea many groups
Speaker 3: right going through the Red Sea, And that seems to
Speaker 3: be the only explanation I can think of. Two Avenger
Speaker 3: class mine countermeas ships also left Singapore. They will also
Speaker 3: likely be headed to the region right for d minor
Speaker 3: the straight Meanwhile, it's worth noting that this ceasefire has
Speaker 3: not been universal, where bombing has not ceased in Kurdistan.
Speaker 3: This week a peschemerger of the Commala of the Toilers
Speaker 3: of Kurdistan, Ghazal Molan, a young Kurdish woman, died after
Speaker 3: sustaining injuries in a strike on Tuesday. It seems that
Speaker 3: it was very hard for the Kammala to find medical
Speaker 3: care for her. I'm going to quote from a peace
Speaker 3: by the Hannah human rights organization here quote. She then
Speaker 3: required urgent, higher level treatment, including advanced imaging, specialist trauma care,
Speaker 3: and intensive care support. Hannah has received serious allegations that
Speaker 3: the necessary treatment was not provided, and that the subsequent
Speaker 3: efforts to secure admission or transfer to other hospitals were
Speaker 3: delayed or refused. The central allegation under review is that
Speaker 3: once the case was understood to be connected to a
Speaker 3: drone strike and to carry political sensitivity, non medical considerations
Speaker 3: may have affected decisions concerning her admission and treatment. That's
Speaker 3: pretty bleak if it's true, relative that this person could
Speaker 3: have survived, but hospitals either feared political consequences or being
Speaker 3: struck themselves, they decided. And there's a you can look
Speaker 3: at the show notes right that they link, and they
Speaker 3: talk about a number of hospitals that they basically drove
Speaker 3: her around trying to find care. It's really heartbreaking. Again.
Speaker 3: Other strikes have hit civilian facilities, including refugee camps sort
Speaker 3: of associated with the rogulati groups in Kurdistan, and that
Speaker 3: seems to be that there is no cease fire for
Speaker 3: the Kurds. Right. It's the long and the short of it.
Speaker 3: A run around is taking this time of peace negotiations
Speaker 3: to kind of reorganize its military and to reassess its supplies.
Speaker 3: Even they have dug out some missiles and anti air
Speaker 3: systems that were buried but not destroyed by rites, and
Speaker 3: so they will be preparing for whatever comes next. If
Speaker 3: people want to know more about this, I made a
Speaker 3: whole episode which would have come out the day before
Speaker 3: this in the same feed, so you can listen to
Speaker 3: it there.
Speaker 2: This morning, also Trump announced a ceasefire deal for ten
Speaker 2: days between Israel and Lebanon. We'll see if that turns
Speaker 2: out to be real, if Israel will abide by this.
Speaker 2: But that is like as of for like an hour
Speaker 2: ago while we record Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's worth noting there were literally thousands of
Speaker 5: violations with the last use fire that are on It's
Speaker 5: supposedly agreed to you with Lebanon, so Israel.
Speaker 3: Sorry, yeah, yeah yeah. Trump had said that it was
Speaker 3: a quote separate skirmish in Lebanon and thus didn't it
Speaker 3: wasn't included in the ceasefire, which is a hell of
Speaker 3: a way to describe what's happening there.
Speaker 2: For our last story, let's talk about Sam Altman. Last week,
Speaker 2: a twenty year old college student named Den Moranogama traveled
Speaker 2: from Texas to San Francisco, California, and at three point
Speaker 2: thirty am on April tenth, allegedly threw a molotov cocktail
Speaker 2: toward the home of open AI CEO Sam Altman. The
Speaker 2: molotov hit the top of the security gate on the
Speaker 2: driveway leading to Altman's residence. Then, at around five am,
Speaker 2: Moranogama arrived at the open AI headquarters and tried to
Speaker 2: use a chair to break into the building through the
Speaker 2: glass doors, but was stopped by security. According to security
Speaker 2: personnel on site, Moranogama stated that he came to the
Speaker 2: headquarters to burn it down and kill anyone inside. A
Speaker 2: federal affidavit alleges that after detaining Miranogama, officers recovered quote
Speaker 2: incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and
Speaker 2: an ANTIAI document unquote. This document was a three part
Speaker 2: manifesto apparently authored by Moranogama. The first part was tied
Speaker 2: quote your Last Warning, and allegedly states that Maranogama quote
Speaker 2: killed slash attempted to kill Sam Altman, also writing quote,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to advocate for others to kill and
Speaker 2: commit crimes, that I must lead by example and show
Speaker 2: that I am fully sincere in my message. The document
Speaker 2: then listed the names and addresses of investors, board members,
Speaker 2: and executives of AI companies. The second part of the
Speaker 2: document was titled some More Words on the Matter of
Speaker 2: Our Impending Extinction. This section discussed the purported risk AI
Speaker 2: poses to humanity. The third part of the document was
Speaker 2: a letter addressed quote to Sam Altman, if you make
Speaker 2: it and read some part quote, if by some miracle
Speaker 2: you live, then I would take this as a sign
Speaker 2: from the divine to redeem yourself quote. Maranogama's Instagram user
Speaker 2: name was but larryan G. Hottist, in reference to the
Speaker 2: crusade against AI in the Dune novels.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This account had a collection of Instagram stories saved about
Speaker 2: the existential threat of AI. Now, we don't have a
Speaker 2: copy of this three part manifesto in full, but his
Speaker 2: sub stack is still online and it contains other writing
Speaker 2: about his belief that AI poses this existential threat to humanity.
Speaker 2: In this writing, his opposition to AI is not based
Speaker 2: on fears of disruptions to the economy, loss of jobs,
Speaker 2: or labor rights, but the belief that AI will become
Speaker 2: a superior race and wipe out or enslave humanity. In
Speaker 2: a post from January sixth, twenty twenty six, he writes
Speaker 2: that AI will quote lead to human extinction because of
Speaker 2: the quote rapid progress in artificial intelligence unquote, as well
Speaker 2: as that AI models are not aligned with humanity's interests.
Speaker 2: To quote this essay, ignore for a second these models
Speaker 2: current limitations or questions on how truly intelligent or conscious
Speaker 2: these models may actually be. The truth is all of
Speaker 2: these nuances are completely irrelevant to my argument. There are
Speaker 2: only two questions we should be concerned about at this moment.
Speaker 2: Is it willing to kill to preserve itself? And is
Speaker 2: it capable of doing so? Signs indicate that AI is
Speaker 2: willing and becoming potentially capable of doing both these things,
Speaker 2: and that is all that matters. We are dead if
Speaker 2: we do not act now unquote. He recommended that people
Speaker 2: read Eliezer Yudkowski's book If Anyone builds It, Everyone Dies,
Speaker 2: and other posts on his substack also mentioned Yudkowski's work.
Speaker 2: Who's one of the four fathers of quote unquote rationalism
Speaker 2: rationalist thought, and writes a lot about Ai like doom.
Speaker 2: AI will bring apart the end of humanity.
Speaker 1: This is very much a normal like less wrong kind
Speaker 1: of mindset, right, Like, this guy's not normal. He's clearly
Speaker 1: suffering from some disordered thinking and is not like. This
Speaker 1: guy does not represent the average person who uses those things.
Speaker 1: But his justifications for what he did, and his media
Speaker 1: diet is clearly all like less wrong stuff, all rationalist stuff,
Speaker 1: all Yudkowski stuff. So he's been kind of marinating in that,
Speaker 1: and you know, this is what somebody who's not like
Speaker 1: this is, unfortunately kind of the logical extent of Yodkowski's ideas,
Speaker 1: Like he would say he doesn't want anyone doing stuff
Speaker 1: like this, but his literal contention is that this is
Speaker 1: going to kill everyone and everything like and it will
Speaker 1: inevitably do it unless stopped and if you really do
Speaker 1: believe that, you're kind of like left to act like
Speaker 1: these guys do. I think the responsible thing is for
Speaker 1: there to be an anti AI movement that's not rooted
Speaker 1: in nonsense, which is again why we do the stuff
Speaker 1: that we do, because I'm very much against a lot
Speaker 1: of this shit. Not because it's going to create a
Speaker 1: god that kills everybody, but because it makes the the
Speaker 1: Internet a lot worse and makes human thinking a lot worse,
Speaker 1: and it puts a lot of money into shitty people's hands,
Speaker 1: and is just often unnecessary in many of its applications
Speaker 1: and outwardly like making some things worse, and that's not great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And like you know, if you want to talk
Speaker 5: about like oh this is actually going to like end humanity,
Speaker 5: it's like, well, yeah, it's also intensifying climate change, the
Speaker 5: thing that you would think these people would care about,
Speaker 5: but yeah.
Speaker 1: Not, I mean sure, yeah, it's like that's the that
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't tend to focus on the fucking
Speaker 1: water use aspects of people complaining about AI because there's
Speaker 1: so many things we do that are like horrible in
Speaker 1: those terms.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean also just like like the the energy,
Speaker 5: like the yeah, like the.
Speaker 1: Energy costs thing is massive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and like that is like we're just resources
Speaker 5: for but like scam bots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just useless and a lot of like a
Speaker 1: lot of what it's being used for is pointless. Like
Speaker 1: if you're able to, you know, create machines that are
Speaker 1: more accurately able to like scan for cancers or whatever, fine,
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with that, but like we
Speaker 1: don't need to be burning the resources that we're burning
Speaker 1: to replace like people writing local news articles with slop advertisements,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's not a benefit to society. And
Speaker 1: I'm really angry at it, and it's frustrating to see
Speaker 1: people getting radicalized to it literally attack AI people for
Speaker 1: bullshit reasons like and honestly, Altman's partly to blame for this.
Speaker 1: He's one of the people who has fanned the flames
Speaker 1: of we might be making an evil god.
Speaker 2: Yes, because that is really good for investors because it
Speaker 2: makes her feat seem actually impressive, But it's like.
Speaker 5: World changing, this is their preferred opposition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you are getting rich by saying I might
Speaker 1: be making Skynet, somebody stop me. Someone might stop you, Sam,
Speaker 1: you know, like realistically, don't do that.
Speaker 2: This substack also contains writing on pseudo spiritual philosophy, fee
Speaker 2: about the quote tree of ultimate reality, the operation of man,
Speaker 2: the genealogy of being, and the warrior and the martyr.
Speaker 3: Unquote sure man, a little too much Internet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff there. But I want
Speaker 2: to briefly touch on this other essay about political extremism,
Speaker 2: where the writer Moro on Gama describes himself as a consequentialist,
Speaker 2: defends discrimination, and advocates for quote ending mass migration and
Speaker 2: initiating mass deportations. He proposes a system of IQ or
Speaker 2: merit based nationalism, basically a country where citizenship is determined
Speaker 2: by IQ, and a program to advance quote ethical eugenics
Speaker 2: in the third world to promote IQ growth genetically unquote.
Speaker 3: Geez.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's also that's like amazingly, this is one of
Speaker 5: these This is one of those sort of like you
Speaker 5: look at the Hong Kong protests and it's like they're
Speaker 5: a maoists on both sides where both of like both
Speaker 5: him and his enemies also believe this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is a certain strain of like rationalists.
Speaker 2: Post rationalist is really into this sort of like IQ
Speaker 2: merit based yeah, and intelligence and meritocracy yeah.
Speaker 5: And they're like and so are like a bunch of
Speaker 5: the tech people who are but in the AI stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, this essay specifically is very disordered in its thinking.
Speaker 2: I do not think a lot of other rationalists would
Speaker 2: would take some of the sort of beliefs and statements
Speaker 2: made in this essay at face value, or like, would
Speaker 2: not agree with the way that he would not agree
Speaker 2: with the way that Monogama like writes, writes about these
Speaker 2: sorts of like policies or ideas. It's very self contradictory.
Speaker 2: He writes both kind of in favor and not in
Speaker 2: favor of like I Q to vote or to become
Speaker 2: a citizen. It's all very kind of confused. And on
Speaker 2: Tuesdayagama's public defender set in court that he has quote
Speaker 2: a history of autism and mental health illness, and that
Speaker 2: his actions quote appear to have been driven by an
Speaker 2: AQ to mental health crisis.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, two days after the Molotov cocktail attack, Sanltman's home
Speaker 2: was apparently targeted again in a drive by shooting. A
Speaker 2: man and a woman in their mid twenties have been
Speaker 2: arrested connected to that and on Tuesday morning, a Molotov
Speaker 2: cocktail was thrown at the entrance of a Teslas sales
Speaker 2: office in New Orleans, igniting a fire at the front door.
Speaker 2: No arrests have been made connected to that incident. I
Speaker 2: think I should also just briefly mention the warehouse fire thing,
Speaker 2: which I did a full episode on earlier this week
Speaker 2: that you can listen to, but kind of in short,
Speaker 2: just as for midnight on April seventh, a twenty nine
Speaker 2: year old warehouse worker named Schammel abdul Kareem allegedly set
Speaker 2: a toilet paper warehouse on fire in Ontario, California, leased
Speaker 2: by the company Kimberly Clark. Abdul Kareem allegedly filmed himself
Speaker 2: igniting three pallets of paper products on fire while saying aloud,
Speaker 2: if you're not going to pay us enough to fucking
Speaker 2: live or afford to live, at least least pay us
Speaker 2: enough not to do this shit. All you had to
Speaker 2: do was pay us enough to live. There goes your
Speaker 2: inventory unquote. According to the DOJ, this fire caused over
Speaker 2: half a billion dollars in damages. That's five hundred million
Speaker 2: in profit and one hundred million in infrastructure. In the
Speaker 2: days after the fire, people started sharing viral clips of
Speaker 2: other warehouse fires across the country, asserting that a wave
Speaker 2: of copycat incidents were occurring where underpaid employees were setting
Speaker 2: their workplaces on fire. Now none of these subsequent warehouse
Speaker 2: fires have yet been deemed arson. Most are still under investigation,
Speaker 2: but some do have suspected accidental causes, such as electrical failure,
Speaker 2: exploding lithium ion batteries, and improperly mixed waste. At least
Speaker 2: one fire was at an abandoned warehouse, so there was
Speaker 2: no disgruntled worker setting his workplace on fire in that instance.
Speaker 2: Most certainly, and warehouse fires themselves, are actually pretty common.
Speaker 2: A report from the National Fire Protection Association found that
Speaker 2: from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, an average of
Speaker 2: four warehouse fire occurred per day. The idea that the
Speaker 2: number of warehouse fires has suddenly increased is an instance
Speaker 2: of selective reporting, where a big national news story causes
Speaker 2: people to share local reports that appear connected even if
Speaker 2: there is no direct connection. This happens a lot with
Speaker 2: aviation incidents, where after news of an accident involving a
Speaker 2: big commercial airliner, people will share local news reports of
Speaker 2: plane crashes, even if these just involve small private planes
Speaker 2: which crash much more frequently. Now. I wrote about the
Speaker 2: warehouse fire story and the viral misinformation associated with it
Speaker 2: because I've been pretty consistent about the need to have
Speaker 2: an accurate understanding of the world in order to change it.
Speaker 2: But also, even if viral claims of copycat fires are unfounded,
Speaker 2: the memes and the reactions to the story, like Luigi Mangioni,
Speaker 2: do demonstrate a form of class consciousness and do show
Speaker 2: an act of willingness to rally behind such action. The
Speaker 2: toilet paper arson story specifically, is really compelling because this
Speaker 2: is just an everyday worker. This isn't like a maoist
Speaker 2: bombing plot, this isn't an anarchist affinity group. It's not
Speaker 2: hard to grasp the motivation and politics of a worker
Speaker 2: saying all you had to do was pay us a
Speaker 2: living wage. That said, passive engagement with content promoting individuals
Speaker 2: to venturism can serve as a cathartic substitute for taking
Speaker 2: political action, including the relatively tedious and difficult work of
Speaker 2: union organizing. Memes like this warehouse fire trend can have
Speaker 2: a positive outcome. If the sort of energy that's channeled
Speaker 2: through this direct action and associated content could then be
Speaker 2: utilized towards actually building a labor movement instead of just
Speaker 2: being a way for influencers to attract engagement, which is
Speaker 2: why a lot of this story has kind of perforated
Speaker 2: through Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and blue sky and Twitter. So
Speaker 2: that's kind of why I talked about the story the
Speaker 2: way I did in that episode. And if you want
Speaker 2: more details about this viral meme, you can check our
Speaker 2: that episode from a few days ago. Let's see. I
Speaker 2: think that's everything.
Speaker 3: There is no more news left.
Speaker 2: We did it. We did all the news, all right,
Speaker 2: We reported the news.
Speaker 1: Goodbye.
Speaker 3: If you want to email us, you can do so
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Speaker 3: cool Zone Tips at proton dot me. If you want
Speaker 3: to email us with your marketing or to suggest that
Speaker 3: your boss be a guest on our podcast, just don't
Speaker 3: we reported the news. It could happen.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.