Speaker 1: Alzon Media.
Speaker 2: This is it could Happen here Executive Disorder, our usually
Speaker 2: weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the
Speaker 2: crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrisondeo's Dam,
Speaker 2: joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Sophie Lichterman. This episode,
Speaker 2: we're covering the events from the end of December to
Speaker 2: the first week of January.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the events are not good.
Speaker 4: Did not start off to a slow start whatsoever, did
Speaker 4: not ease into the new year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this might be the worst just the worst first
Speaker 3: week of a year I can remember it. I remember
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Oh worst year ever potentially maya.
Speaker 2: I long for.
Speaker 3: The halcyon days in which twenty twenty was the worst
Speaker 3: year we'd ever experienced.
Speaker 1: I started twenty twenty cycling around Rwanda, and I had
Speaker 1: great start twenty twenty. This has not been a great
Speaker 1: start it.
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, let's talk about the event that happened several
Speaker 3: hours before we started recording this. We were recording this
Speaker 3: again on Wednesday, January seventh, so I don't think there's
Speaker 3: gonna be any new information about this. But yeah, hours
Speaker 3: before we started recording Ice shot and killed a woman
Speaker 3: in her car at a routine anti ICE action in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3: From the videos, these protests are identical to thousands of
Speaker 3: other small scale protests against ICE raids, where pissed off
Speaker 3: locals blow whistles and scream at the ICE agents who
Speaker 3: carry off their friends and family in the dead of night.
Speaker 3: The video shows ICE agents approaching a stopped car. One
Speaker 3: agent tries to open the front car door elle screaming
Speaker 3: get the fuck out, while another walks in front of
Speaker 3: the car as it backs up to pull away from
Speaker 3: the scene. As the vehicle pulls forward to drive away,
Speaker 3: the ICE agent pulls out his gun and shoots the
Speaker 3: dry This is the agent's immediate response. There is no
Speaker 3: verbal warning. He simply pulls out the gun and shoots.
Speaker 3: There are videos out there you will see. I have
Speaker 3: seen three angles of it so far. The videos are
Speaker 3: graphic and gut wrenching, as we'll get into in a second,
Speaker 3: so be warns if you are trying to watch them,
Speaker 3: you are just going to see ICE murder a woman.
Speaker 3: The agent, I can fairly definitively say, was in absolutely
Speaker 3: no danger. Again, he simply steps aside from the slow
Speaker 3: moving vehicle. He has enough time to take a shot
Speaker 3: and then step aside and take two more shots. The
Speaker 3: video is just heart wrenching. The closest angle we have,
Speaker 3: the woman recording the video is screaming no as the
Speaker 3: agent pulls out his gun and shoots. There's another video
Speaker 3: that shows there is a passenger inside of the van
Speaker 3: and it just so starts sitting on the ground, sobbing
Speaker 3: and saying, they killed my wife. I don't know what
Speaker 3: to do. It is one of the most heart wrenching
Speaker 3: things I have ever seen. Having watched the videos of both,
Speaker 3: it is eerily similar to ICE's murder of Silvero Viegas
Speaker 3: Gonzalez in Chicago in September, who was also killed while
Speaker 3: attempting to drive away from ICE agents, and who the
Speaker 3: DHS has likewise accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism
Speaker 3: by attempting to ram agents. It is clear from both
Speaker 3: videos that is not what was going on. Both these
Speaker 3: people were simply trying to pull away from the ICE agents,
Speaker 3: the other shooting that this is very similar to that
Speaker 3: I think has been getting more press comparisons, even though
Speaker 3: in terms of what actually happens in the video that
Speaker 3: we have, I think it's closer to the actual murder,
Speaker 3: but it is also very, very similar to an incident
Speaker 3: in Chicago last year where Border patrol agents hunted and
Speaker 3: then shot Mary mar Martinez, who thankfully survived but was
Speaker 3: charged by the federal government for domestic terrorism, a case
Speaker 3: which thankfully completely collapsed after, among other things, the contents
Speaker 3: of a group chat were released in which Charles ExHAM,
Speaker 3: who's the agent who shot her, was bragging about shooting
Speaker 3: the woman in Chicago. So that's I think a valuable
Speaker 3: insight into the mindset of these people is that when
Speaker 3: one of these went to trial, we got a group
Speaker 3: chat where the agent who shot a different woman in
Speaker 3: a very similar situation was bragging about it. In the
Speaker 3: immediate wake of this Trump post, untrue social that the
Speaker 3: driver in Minneapolis quote willfully and viciously ran over the
Speaker 3: ice officer who seems to have shot her in self
Speaker 3: defense end quote. And then he then links to a
Speaker 3: video which is a bad angle of the shooting that
Speaker 3: also does not show what he claims at all, because
Speaker 3: he is simply from the video footage we have available,
Speaker 3: this is simply a lie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, after the person was shot, that vehicle continued moving
Speaker 1: forward and struck a parked car. That is not unusual
Speaker 1: in the case when somebody's shot driving a vehicle, right,
Speaker 1: like when you jump forward onto the pedals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's two things I want to emphasize here. One
Speaker 3: is that the DHS always releases statements. This is the
Speaker 3: third shooting like this that we've had since these massive
Speaker 3: immigration rays began. Every single time they release a statements
Speaker 3: where they accuse the driver of intentionally attempting to ram
Speaker 3: the agent, it has never been true. We have seen
Speaker 3: three attempts of this, We have seen the videos and
Speaker 3: three attempts of this. It has been false every single time.
Speaker 3: Major media outlets continue to just post the statements without
Speaker 3: any of the context. That these people have been lying
Speaker 3: about this every single time. And that. The second thing
Speaker 3: that I want to emphasize about this is how normal
Speaker 3: of a protest this was. This is just a completely
Speaker 3: ordinary ice action. It looks like every other anti ice
Speaker 3: action I have ever seen. It wasn't a particularly large one.
Speaker 3: It was just a group of people who were on
Speaker 3: the street. In the video where the woman is sobbing
Speaker 3: about her wife, she says that they pulled up to
Speaker 3: film the ICE agents. Yeah, it's heart wrenching. There have
Speaker 3: been lots of protests. Greg Bavino, whose influential word patrol
Speaker 3: officer we have talked about many times on the show,
Speaker 3: was at the scene. And it's also work noting this
Speaker 3: comes within twenty four hours of the White House announcing
Speaker 3: their giant operation in Minneapolis to deploy two thousand federal agents.
Speaker 2: This was specifically a new surge that started on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: January sixth, and Yeah, literally less than twenty four hours
Speaker 2: after this surge, Ice killed a woman. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thing I want to end on in the of
Speaker 3: the immediate analysis, if we talk a bit about the
Speaker 3: protests that have been happening, is that absolutely hauntingly, today's
Speaker 3: murder took place less than a mile away from where
Speaker 3: police officer Derek Schauvin murder George Floyd, which is Yeah,
Speaker 3: it is as clear a demonstration of the continuity of
Speaker 3: the violence of the American state as can pop possibly
Speaker 3: be produced. Yeah, And I think the other pattern that
Speaker 3: we've seen specifically in these protests is pulling weapons on
Speaker 3: people constantly, even more so than normal police would. And
Speaker 3: you know, I remember a lot of people I've talked
Speaker 3: to in Chicago. One of the things that they said,
Speaker 3: is that, Yeah, this is if they're eventually going to
Speaker 3: shoot someone. They've now shot a third person in the
Speaker 3: course of these operations, and presumably as long as they're
Speaker 3: allowed to continue, they will probably shoot more people. Because
Speaker 3: one of the things that's the best apparent from this
Speaker 3: video is that this is the sort of muscle memory
Speaker 3: reaction that they have to being in front of a
Speaker 3: car that's moving towards them. There's no thinking, there's no thought.
Speaker 3: They just pull out the gun. Shoot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean he's shooting the same time he's moving sideways
Speaker 2: out of the way of the of the car. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He just as easily could have not fired, and it
Speaker 2: would have had the same result. He just chose to fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A little over an hour after the shooting, Mayor Jacob
Speaker 2: Afray of Napolis gave a press conference where he said
Speaker 2: this to Ice.
Speaker 5: There's little I can say again that'll make this situation better.
Speaker 5: But I do have a message for our community, for
Speaker 5: a city, and I have a message for Ice to Ice,
Speaker 5: get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want
Speaker 5: you here. Your stated reason for being in this city
Speaker 5: is to create some kind of safety, and you are
Speaker 5: doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt, Families are
Speaker 5: being ripped apart. Long term Minneapolis residents that have contributed
Speaker 5: so greatly to our city.
Speaker 2: To our culture, to our.
Speaker 5: Economy are being terrorized. And now somebody is dead. That's
Speaker 5: on you, and it's also on you to leave. It's
Speaker 5: on you to make sure that further damage, further loss
Speaker 5: of life and injury is not done. We're going to
Speaker 5: be working towards justice as quickly as we possibly can
Speaker 5: right now, and justice is what we've all got to get.
Speaker 3: Fray, I think is just is reflecting the sentiments of
Speaker 3: the city right now. There are immediate protests in I
Speaker 3: mean within minutes of the shooting. There are people showing up.
Speaker 3: Protests have been intensifying.
Speaker 2: Crowd's have got tear guest like thirty minutes after the shooting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and Bovino is there are pictures
Speaker 3: of him on scene while these protesters are sort of
Speaker 3: ramping up. So we will see what happens in Minneapolis
Speaker 3: in the coming days.
Speaker 2: Solidarity protests have already been announced in Portland and Philadelphia. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure more cities will follow in the coming hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, We'll give an update next week if more
Speaker 3: information becomes available. I think the events themselves are fairly clear,
Speaker 3: but we will see what the federal reaction to this
Speaker 3: is going to be and what the reaction on the
Speaker 3: ground is, and we will keep you updated.
Speaker 1: That's and sabmads here, and we'll be back to talk
Speaker 1: about Venzuela. We are back with the second wild story
Speaker 1: of this week, which is that the United States supposed
Speaker 1: to be United States Special Forces radio Caracas last week
Speaker 1: and kidnapped President Maduro, who was the president of Venezuela
Speaker 1: and his wife. We covered the details of this in
Speaker 1: a whole episode, so I'm not going to go over
Speaker 1: any great detail here, and that's already out. Trump kidnaps
Speaker 1: Venezuelan President Maduro is the name of that episode, so
Speaker 1: you should be able to find out.
Speaker 2: The feed he danced too close to the sun.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure the dancing was the fact of it.
Speaker 1: I will only update that to say a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, we know that there were in excess
Speaker 1: of fifty Venezuelan casualties, right, I should say there were
Speaker 1: in excess of fifty casualties.
Speaker 2: Some of those would probably cubed sebecurity for.
Speaker 1: US Uban nationals year in a military advice kind of
Speaker 1: a prestige posting, but military advisor kind of role, and
Speaker 1: that there were injuries to US troops we didn't hear
Speaker 1: about first, So US troops and US helicopters did sustain
Speaker 1: some damage, but there were no people killed on the
Speaker 1: United States side. And Donald Trump has truth that I'm
Speaker 1: just going to read this one. I think, God, we
Speaker 1: can do our best to understand it. I am pleased
Speaker 1: to announce that interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning
Speaker 1: over between thirty and fifty million barrels of high quality,
Speaker 1: sanctioned oil to the United States of America. This oil
Speaker 1: will be sold at its market price, and that money
Speaker 1: will be controlled by me, as President of the United
Speaker 1: States of America, to ensure that it's used to benefit
Speaker 1: the people of Venezuela and the United States. I have
Speaker 1: asked Energy Secretary Chris Right to execute this plan immediately.
Speaker 1: It will be taken by storage ships and bought directly
Speaker 1: to unloading docks in the United States. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump, President of
Speaker 1: the United States of America.
Speaker 3: You know I distinctly remember the days the halcyon days
Speaker 3: when I was a child, when saying no war for
Speaker 3: oil was a provocative political statement because the leaders of
Speaker 3: our country insisted that the wars were not in fact
Speaker 3: for oil.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all that has dropped and we do not give
Speaker 2: a single duck anymore.
Speaker 3: No, it were just openly doing the thing they were
Speaker 3: doing before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wild to think of the Bush era of
Speaker 1: a golden age of at least pretending it is extraordinarily vague. Right,
Speaker 1: how much this oil is it being turned over over
Speaker 1: what period of time? It's Venezuela. They were expected to
Speaker 1: extract and refine the oil then hand it over, or
Speaker 1: it's going to give you as companies the right to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: They don't have much of the processing facilities. There's like one,
Speaker 3: I think American processing facility that can process the kind
Speaker 3: of crew that comes out of Venezuela. But it's difficult.
Speaker 3: We talked about this more in the other episode. But
Speaker 3: it's de Venezuela and oil sucks. It's difficult to refine,
Speaker 3: it's no.
Speaker 1: High qual What are you talking about here in the
Speaker 1: post Man, I don't know, I don't know. I've been
Speaker 1: hearing the truth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the truth.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Garrison. That really does make it
Speaker 1: sound like I'm reading from the Bible at church and
Speaker 1: think that God, we'll say the oil is not sanctioned.
Speaker 1: That's not how sanctions work. Sanctioned countries and people, not things.
Speaker 1: Bizarre center structure is Yeah, it's doing a lot for me. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I talked about the Rodriguez option in the last show,
Speaker 1: and I guess this is kind of confirming a lot
Speaker 1: of what we get speculated about there.
Speaker 3: That's assuming this happens. By the way, I will say
Speaker 3: that there was some dip in oil prices today over
Speaker 3: the exact plication of this is real. But I don't
Speaker 3: know how well connected those people are, either quite frankly,
Speaker 3: or how much of an understanding anyone has over whether
Speaker 3: this is going to happen or not. We don't know.
Speaker 3: He just says things, and sometimes they happen and sometimes
Speaker 3: they don't, and there's no actual way to tell which
Speaker 3: ones are going to come true and which ones are
Speaker 3: just him posting.
Speaker 2: From Trump's mouth to Rubio's ears.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Riba said something different in an interview.
Speaker 1: Trump says it again, and then yeah, there we go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does look like they are attempting to pursue the
Speaker 1: strategy which you spoke about, which isn't The only thing
Speaker 1: getting liberated in Venezuela is the oil. Right that they
Speaker 1: will allow the regime to continue. They will not be
Speaker 1: any attempt at regime change. They just want a puppet
Speaker 1: version of the old regime which they can manipulate purely,
Speaker 1: apparently for their own financial benefit with oil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also worth noting that Trump is claiming that
Speaker 3: he personally is going to be controlling the money after
Speaker 3: it's sold at market price, a sentence that any other
Speaker 3: time in American history would be the most dictatorial thing
Speaker 3: you've ever seen, but pales in comparison to the fact
Speaker 3: that he is claiming to be running a country after
Speaker 3: a war that he unilaterally started without congress.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, is it even accurate to call it
Speaker 2: a war? It seems like it's like a single military action.
Speaker 2: Now it's it's like an act of war, I guess, right.
Speaker 3: But okay, if you combined the blockades, which are an
Speaker 3: active war, and we'll get to blockades more in a second,
Speaker 3: and this, I think this is just a war.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I went to the protest in New
Speaker 2: York the morning after the action, and you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of chance for about you know,
Speaker 2: no war in Venezuela, you know, no more bombs in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: And like it looks like they're kind of done. They
Speaker 2: they're kind of done with the bombs. They're kind of
Speaker 2: done with the war.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing though, So Trump has also said that
Speaker 3: if the current government of Venezuela refuses to comply, he
Speaker 3: will do.
Speaker 1: More strikes WHOA than he did mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's always kind of difficult to parse exactly
Speaker 3: what's going on there, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a potential for more US action, definitely because
Speaker 1: it seems like right now they are paid to have
Speaker 1: got roughly what they wanted. And then like there's also
Speaker 1: the potential for this do you any number of ways? Right,
Speaker 1: Like things could continue to deteriorate for the regime there, Like,
Speaker 1: like what does it mean for their ability They have
Speaker 1: previously had the ability to use various kind of nefarious
Speaker 1: reflaggings of boats, which mean is going to talk about
Speaker 1: a second here to obtain some income, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: they're not even able to do that, it's get even worse. Right,
Speaker 1: And the economic situation in Venezuela could very easily get worse.
Speaker 1: I know everyone I've spoken to there is out trying
Speaker 1: to stock up on nonperishable food and they don't know
Speaker 1: what the future holds to them. Plus you now have,
Speaker 1: as we saw earlier in this week, very trigger happy
Speaker 1: pro government militias will probably be the best way to
Speaker 1: describe it. Like in this case, so they were shooting
Speaker 1: at a drone up in the air. But I think
Speaker 1: there's very clearly still a lot of tension in the country.
Speaker 2: So on Saturday morning, after the military action in Venezuela,
Speaker 2: I went to the protest in New York, like like
Speaker 2: I previously mentioned, and I've put together this little audio
Speaker 2: report that I recorded at the protest that takes you
Speaker 2: through about like an hour's worth of protest activity. And yeah,
Speaker 2: give it a give it a lesson. It is Saturday,
Speaker 2: January third, two fifty four pm. I am in Times
Speaker 2: Square with I would say two hundred to three hundred
Speaker 2: people protesting US action in Venezuela as well as Iran
Speaker 2: and the genocide in Palestine. Kind of a mix of causes,
Speaker 2: but mostly talking about Venezuela and the military extradition of
Speaker 2: President Maduro. Like The organizational structure at this protest seems
Speaker 2: to be mostly propped up by various communist organizations. There's
Speaker 2: a revolution Communist Party tabling. There's the BOB, a vacant
Speaker 2: refuse fascism organization with a lot of banners and signs.
Speaker 2: PSL has a bunch of banners and signs, as well
Speaker 2: as the Kuney Internationalist student group, which is tied to
Speaker 2: the New York City Public University system. They have some
Speaker 2: homemade signs, the only signs actually drawn on paper probably
Speaker 2: this morning, versus all of the PSL signs, which appear
Speaker 2: pre printed and pre prepared. A rotating selection of speakers
Speaker 2: have given speeches for the past hour, and now at
Speaker 2: three pm, this relatively small crowd for a New York
Speaker 2: protest is leading a march south. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 2: not alive. The march is taking up probably about one
Speaker 2: city block just outside of Times Square on forty third
Speaker 2: and eighth, turning on to eighth Avenue. Now after about
Speaker 2: ten minutes of marching and why hed bikes at the
Speaker 2: front of the march as well as on foot officers
Speaker 2: on either side of the crowd not like a huge presence.
Speaker 2: I've maybe seen cumulatively one hundred or so cops, which
Speaker 2: is actually not that much for New York, especially based
Speaker 2: on how spread out they are, because maybe like two
Speaker 2: dozen cops on either side of the march, just walking
Speaker 2: walking on the sidewalk, and then maybe another another two
Speaker 2: to three dozen in the front and more in the back,
Speaker 2: so between fifty to one hundred. A little over fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes into the march. They have now moved up to
Speaker 2: forty seventh Street. At this point, there's been zero conflict
Speaker 2: with the police. They mostly facilitated the traffic around the
Speaker 2: march as people continue to chant and walk north. The
Speaker 2: crowd has been marching for over thirty five minutes and
Speaker 2: now are arriving at what I assume is their destination,
Speaker 2: Columbus Circle up at fifty eighth Street and Broadway. No
Speaker 2: scuffles with the police. There was like two guys in
Speaker 2: mega hats, kind of I'm trying to antagonize the side
Speaker 2: of the crowd. For the past fifteen minutes, nothing really happened.
Speaker 2: One random dude came out of a convenience store yelling
Speaker 2: fuck ro Duro, trying to agitate some people in the crowd,
Speaker 2: but everyone just moved on and now they are approaching
Speaker 2: Columbus Circle.
Speaker 5: The decent people in this country needs to answer.
Speaker 6: The people of the hole. What are we gonna do?
Speaker 6: This is not a time for protract the usual.
Speaker 3: There needs to be a full regime, not a minute
Speaker 3: failing for right here in the US country.
Speaker 6: Oh my, guys, got interest in.
Speaker 2: Police are now very lightly directing people into Columbus Circle,
Speaker 2: onto the plaza and off of the street. Some groups
Speaker 2: are hacking up their protests signs and bags and starting
Speaker 2: to peel off. So as expected, this protest was done
Speaker 2: by a coalition of anti imperialist leftist, socialist communist organizations.
Speaker 2: You have the Party for Socialism and Liberation PSL and
Speaker 2: all of these other like communist groups who are all
Speaker 2: primarily either trying to grow their membership roster or sell
Speaker 2: their newspapers. Sell there are magazines, and this is what
Speaker 2: most of the protest actually is. They have tables set
Speaker 2: up while people are giving speeches. They have people walking
Speaker 2: around handing out pamphlets and flyers. And this protest was
Speaker 2: not very big, Like I said, it was relatively small,
Speaker 2: maybe two hundred and three hundred people because there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of public buy in for this sort of thing,
Speaker 2: because at this point, if anyone's been around, they know,
Speaker 2: based on the flyers that get posted, what kind of
Speaker 2: protest this is going to be. This is going to
Speaker 2: be socialist communist organizations trying to grow their membership. It's
Speaker 2: not a representative sample of the people of New York.
Speaker 2: It is. It is people trying to sell magazines and
Speaker 2: newspapers and books. And the fact that the entire proto
Speaker 2: secret system for stuff like this is fully captured by
Speaker 2: these sorts of organizations makes it really hard to grow
Speaker 2: a genuine movement because people know that it's going to
Speaker 2: be walking for thirty minutes and then people are going
Speaker 2: to be shoving pamphlets in in their hand, and that's
Speaker 2: the extent to what you are protesting. It is that
Speaker 2: it's walking along a path led by the NYPD to
Speaker 2: on this circle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm to this happening in almost every city in
Speaker 1: the US, right, Like I saw a fly for one
Speaker 1: in San Diego. Personally couldn't be asked to attend because,
Speaker 1: as you say, like I knew what was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and like the person in a high verse and a
Speaker 1: clipboard was going to try and get my email address.
Speaker 3: I will say that the thing, the thing that did
Speaker 3: hearten me a little bit was that there were a
Speaker 3: few protests, I mean just out in the Chicago suburbs,
Speaker 3: which is not a place you normally have these that
Speaker 3: weren't by these groups that were just pretty spontaneous on
Speaker 3: the morning of the demonstration. But the sort of issue, yeah,
Speaker 3: that you're fraying two Garrison is that like even these
Speaker 3: spontaneous protests, the energy just gets captured by like the
Speaker 3: PSL and these organizations that fundamentally don't want to do
Speaker 3: anything other than grow their organization. And yeah, that was from.
Speaker 1: In order to co opt the anger that's happening right now,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to find out that anger and a
Speaker 1: useless direction that burned people out on actimism. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: change anything from the PSL.
Speaker 3: And I mean, and this is this has been what
Speaker 3: the American anti war movement has looked like since the
Speaker 3: Rock War demonstrations. Yeah, right, this was this was one
Speaker 3: of the battles that happened inside of the Rock War
Speaker 3: protests and it's one of the reasons why they didn't work.
Speaker 2: And like, this is a very serious thing, Like this
Speaker 2: is a very serious military action that should warrant massive
Speaker 2: public outcry. But protesting taps into a finite resource that
Speaker 2: people have, and when you have an inclination that the
Speaker 2: protests are going to go this way, people might not
Speaker 2: want to expend their personal resource because it is not
Speaker 2: seriously putting pressure on anyone making decisions in the government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very serious thing that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: under play for a second that like the United States
Speaker 1: had done something which is completely illegal, right, which is
Speaker 1: an act of war against a cerfin country. And like
Speaker 1: me saying this doesn't mean I'm like amduro Stan. Anyone
Speaker 1: who has listened to any portion of my work will
Speaker 1: understand that. But it is incredibly serious to the US
Speaker 1: and attempting to set a precedent that it could just
Speaker 1: black bag heads of state. Whether or not the US
Speaker 1: considers a legitimate right, their argument that the duor is
Speaker 1: not legitimate, it doesn't matter. If they can just send
Speaker 1: due to in helicopters to black people around the world,
Speaker 1: then that is a very scary precedent.
Speaker 2: All right, I am going to head out and re
Speaker 2: turned to the CEES show floor. I will say for
Speaker 2: the if you're doing a tariff talk segment. There has
Speaker 2: been discussion of tariffs at CES that I have not
Speaker 2: mentioned on the CES episodes so far two thumbs down
Speaker 2: to two thumbs down on the tariffs from the Consumer
Speaker 2: Electronics showcase. Now they're coming out with the bold stands
Speaker 2: that they don't like the tarf.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I think Ivanka Trump was giving a keynote of dress
Speaker 1: at the last CES that I attended.
Speaker 3: Rock incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1: Well related news. I've stopped attended.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to keep attending now because the Secretary
Speaker 2: to the US from Estonia was was googling me for
Speaker 2: thirty minutes yesterday, so I might be getting a new passport.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, speed, I.
Speaker 1: F the AI prebanalyzing toilet for me, Garrison, I will
Speaker 1: do so.
Speaker 3: One of the questions that we had at the very
Speaker 3: beginning of this operation was what is going to happen
Speaker 3: to the US oil blockade on Venezuela, And the answer
Speaker 3: is that it appears to still be in a fact,
Speaker 3: the evidence of which is the US interdicting to oil tankers,
Speaker 3: one of which they've been chasing for about a month
Speaker 3: a few weeks, which is really funny if you know
Speaker 3: how large an oil tanker is, that you've fit in
Speaker 3: a boat chased with an oil tanker.
Speaker 1: It's like, I guess it's just so big they can't
Speaker 1: make it stop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: Apparently the demonstration is claiming that the coast Guard had
Speaker 3: attempted to board it, and they refuse to allow the
Speaker 3: Coastguard to board. But the only thing I can think
Speaker 3: of is, you know those those giant vehicles they use
Speaker 3: to move rockets around at JPL or like like from JPL,
Speaker 3: like on the launch site where they have They can
Speaker 3: only move like five miles an hour, and they're the
Speaker 3: size of a rocket because you have to have a
Speaker 3: standing rocket on it.
Speaker 2: That's what it's like.
Speaker 3: They're chasing an empty oil tanker the Atlantic. That's also
Speaker 3: worth noting that one of the very weird parts of
Speaker 3: this is that I'm gonna quote quote from writers here.
Speaker 3: Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the
Speaker 3: ship's crew had made quote frantic efforts to avoid apprehension,
Speaker 3: which again, I cannot emphasize this enough. This is an
Speaker 3: oil tanker, Like, this is not a speed This is
Speaker 3: like the largest, like one of one of the largest
Speaker 3: and most unwieldly craft that humanity has ever produced in
Speaker 3: its entire history, Like, how are you getting frantically the tanker? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know an oil taker evasive maneuvers And this
Speaker 3: is this is also from the Raiders thing end quote
Speaker 3: failed to obey coast Guard orders and so faces criminal charges,
Speaker 3: which sucks. But also I like, if you're getting evaded
Speaker 3: by an oil tanker, that is a skill issue, Like
Speaker 3: you can there are websites where you can track these things.
Speaker 3: They have transponders, like when this thing was captured, ITAs
Speaker 3: transponder was on. So this skill issue. I good lord.
Speaker 3: On a more serious note, this is this is part
Speaker 3: of that initial oil blockade of sanctioned Venezuela and oil
Speaker 3: that began last year. The US government has been saying
Speaker 3: that this ship and the other ship that the other
Speaker 3: oil tanker that they've seized are basically ghost chips, which
Speaker 3: we talked about another episode. I don't if you want
Speaker 3: to explain again what that is, James, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're often old ships that are either reflagged, or
Speaker 1: the ships that have been retired and are returned, or
Speaker 1: the ships have been scraped and someone has taken their
Speaker 1: name and it's using it so that they pay elect
Speaker 1: ships you know, coming back from the dead. But often
Speaker 1: they will reflag or rename halfway through their trip, and
Speaker 1: it's a bunch of boat law stuff to avoid sanctions,
Speaker 1: is what they tend to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so that's the US's justification for seizing two
Speaker 3: more oil tankers, which again I also kind of emphasize
Speaker 3: enough that this also is an active work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, were they flagged as Venezuelan.
Speaker 3: No one of them was flaged as Russian, and I
Speaker 3: haven't seen anything about what the other ship was flagged as.
Speaker 3: China has protested the seizures of these boats, but there
Speaker 3: hasn't really been anything other than diplomatic noise so far
Speaker 3: from the Chinese government. Who if there was a government
Speaker 3: on the world stage who was going to do a
Speaker 3: serious protest about this, I think it would have been
Speaker 3: either Russia or China, And we haven't really seen anything
Speaker 3: more significant than the diplomats being annoyed. So we will
Speaker 3: continue to see how this oil blockade plays out and
Speaker 3: the effects that it has on people in Venezuela. I
Speaker 3: wish I had a better adput for this, but I don't.
Speaker 3: So here's ads.
Speaker 1: Well, they liked oil tankers, may they just rumble along
Speaker 1: and you can't stop. We've been unable to interdictment.
Speaker 3: We are back from our failed ad intradiction. Do you
Speaker 3: want to talk about Syria, James, Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is James Grim the rest of the world segment.
Speaker 1: And because a lot of bad stuff is happening and
Speaker 1: some of it's not going to punch into like your
Speaker 1: mainstream US news media diet. So right now, pretty serious
Speaker 1: fighting has broken out in a leper right. Syrian Transitional
Speaker 1: government forces are shelling and attempting to enter the Kurdish
Speaker 1: enclave shikmuk Sud. Shipmunk Sud is like an area in
Speaker 1: where Curdish and other people right there with Christian people.
Speaker 1: There is ZD people who live there have this enclave
Speaker 1: has remained right despite the the regime taking over of
Speaker 1: the Syrian traditional government taking over the rest of them read,
Speaker 1: they didn't take over the areas. Area has remained under
Speaker 1: the control of the aa n S the Autonomous Administration
Speaker 1: of North and East Syria AKA or Java, but they
Speaker 1: have demilitarized it. And what that means is that there
Speaker 1: are only internal security forces who are called sash in
Speaker 1: Kurdish in this region, but piers that what happened was
Speaker 1: that an SDF drone unit struck an STG vehicle with
Speaker 1: a drone. STG Syrian Transitional Government, right, that's the Jiulani
Speaker 1: al Shara government, and of course they have another acronym
Speaker 1: just yeah yeah, the acronyms we over yeah, they're yeah
Speaker 1: good always more so, they hit this std Veglan dat Hafa,
Speaker 1: and then the STG seemed to respond by dropping grenades
Speaker 1: into Ship Maksoud from drones, and then the SASH responded
Speaker 1: with drones and conflict began.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What's different from then There has been conflict on and
Speaker 1: off in shipmak Sud for a long time, but in
Speaker 1: the last year, right since HTS moved from Aleppo to
Speaker 1: seize most of the country. HTS Tolio alf Sham a
Speaker 1: group that was formerly on the Foreign Terrorist Organization that's
Speaker 1: the United States, but no longer is what we have
Speaker 1: seen here is not only shelling of the ship mac
Speaker 1: Suden neighborhood and shalling in response or mortify and respond
Speaker 1: for the SACH don't have heavy weapons, that's not their role.
Speaker 1: The STG has also attempted to enter Ship Maxu to
Speaker 1: seize it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This has obviously prompted thousands of people to flee because
Speaker 1: they are worried very reasonably about groups that were previously
Speaker 1: known under the banner of the SNA or the Turkish
Speaker 1: f SA, who have previously conducted ethnic cleansing of Kurdish
Speaker 1: people in areas that they have managed to take control of. Right,
Speaker 1: who have murdered civilians, who have executed women in Kurdish politics.
Speaker 1: There's every reason for the civilian interfere that are happening again,
Speaker 1: right because the Syrian Transitional Government has too often just
Speaker 1: rebadged SNA units with a long and storied history of
Speaker 1: war crimes and not done anything to stop them doing
Speaker 1: it again. But also, some of these are not SNA units.
Speaker 1: Some of these are Syrian Transitional Government units from other
Speaker 1: parts of Syria. Nonetheless, like there's this attempt and incursion
Speaker 1: into the neighborhood is remarkable, it's different. As I write this,
Speaker 1: the SDG appeared to be staging to enter the neighborhood again.
Speaker 1: Very amusingly, they took a video showing this, which also
Speaker 1: revealed the position of all their armor on telegram.
Speaker 3: Classic classic serience of a war stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone loves to be revealing their position on telegram.
Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe when I when I reopened telegram, those
Speaker 1: guys would have been wiped out by a bunch of
Speaker 1: your owns.
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 1: But yet it continues to be a flashpoint. And this
Speaker 1: is the most serious flare up we've seen in a
Speaker 1: long time. Right, there was supposed to be an agreement
Speaker 1: for the integration of the SDF into Syrian Transitional Government
Speaker 1: Ministry of Defense. That has failed. They haven't come to
Speaker 1: an agreement. Various sources are reporting various things about what
Speaker 1: they wanted or specifically what the SDF wanted for YPG.
Speaker 1: Who are the Women's Defense Forces and there are that
Speaker 1: is a definite red line for them. They won't disband that.
Speaker 1: The other women won't put down their death right and
Speaker 1: for very reasonable reasons. We don't know exactly if the
Speaker 1: starting transitional government refuse to accept them in any way.
Speaker 1: They have said they wouldn't do that, They have said
Speaker 1: they would accept them, but we don't really have like
Speaker 1: a very clear picture of the last round of negotiations.
Speaker 1: Talking of Kurdish armed groups, let's go from Jaba to Roja,
Speaker 1: that right across Kurdistan from west to east. Just looking
Speaker 1: at the little compass in my head. In Iran, protests
Speaker 1: have grown around the country. These protests began largely because
Speaker 1: of the decreased purchasing power of people's money.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: Of course, the protests have further reduced that and people
Speaker 1: are really feeling that nomic bite right now. This time.
Speaker 1: What is different is that armed groups have come out
Speaker 1: in support. I saw Lead, the name translates as People's
Speaker 1: Revolutionary in Front had assassinated a car breather. It's like
Speaker 1: a drive by Pak so Pak, one of the smaller
Speaker 1: Kurdish paramilitary groups. I made an episode I think it
Speaker 1: was called what does Bombing Mean for Freedom in Iran
Speaker 1: last year with Gordain and I will try and get
Speaker 1: back with Gordy soon to talk more about this. But
Speaker 1: if you're wondering who are all these groups? What are
Speaker 1: all these acronyms, that's the episode you need to go to.
Speaker 1: So Pak, Peshmoker have been killed, right, which is a
Speaker 1: significant change. There have been armed elements in these protests
Speaker 1: and there has been a unity statement both from the
Speaker 1: different Kurdish armed groups. I think it was Piak Pak
Speaker 1: and Kamala who made this statement, right, and then also
Speaker 1: from coalition of Kurdish means organizations. It's organization from across
Speaker 1: that political spectrum, but in that part of the world,
Speaker 1: coming together to denounce the actions of the regime, which include,
Speaker 1: for instance, in Alarm Province riot police storming a hospital.
Speaker 1: I don't know people will have seen that video, but
Speaker 1: it was extremely surving.
Speaker 3: Has there been any movement from the blushy independence groups, Yeah,
Speaker 3: sure there has, Yeah, but I know, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: it was a VOLUSI group. I remember in the twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen protests, the most military goal was I think a
Speaker 3: blueshy group like fired at RPG at a police track point,
Speaker 3: but it never really sort of spread beyond that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. There are different Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: a number of like volutions groups. I'm not aware of
Speaker 1: their involvement. There have definitely been like police repression there
Speaker 1: like there was everywhere else. Right, Yeah, absolutely, I will
Speaker 1: try and probably cabin it in a whole episode next week.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of time to prepare on that
Speaker 1: with all the craziness. I did see that this morning,
Speaker 1: So we're on the seventh again. The armed forces attack
Speaker 1: protesters in the Grand Bazaar and Tehran, which if you're
Speaker 1: not aware has a tremendous significance right from their seventy
Speaker 1: nine revolution there, and Trump has thrown twentyvene as he
Speaker 1: always does.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, exactly perfectly what the regime wants. There's a
Speaker 3: lesson to portray themselves as defenders of Iranian sovereignty, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Acainst American imperialism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, America grade satan. Moving on, let's talk about Israel.
Speaker 1: Israel has threatened to withhold I believe it has now
Speaker 1: withheld registration to operate in Gaza from MSFIER OXPAN and
Speaker 1: a number of other aid organizations. MSF, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to quote from them called it a cynical and calculated
Speaker 1: attempt to prevent organizations from providing services in Gaza in
Speaker 1: the West Bank, which is a breach of Israel's obligations
Speaker 1: under international humanitarian law. It's just them trying to further
Speaker 1: starve people to death. Right, there's no other Reasonably's has
Speaker 1: made the claim that these groups have been infiltrated by militants.
Speaker 1: That is a barkable conjecture, Like it's a bad joke,
Speaker 1: Like I've worked with MSF and OXFAM all over the world. Right,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of criticisms of them. I would
Speaker 1: make one of them is not that they have been
Speaker 1: infiltrated by shocking on us like you're having a laugh.
Speaker 1: I want to do a hard episode on this.
Speaker 2: But like.
Speaker 1: When Brian talks about two plus two weekals five in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, this is where that gets us, right,
Speaker 1: when you can just say something that is blatantly false
Speaker 1: and force people to agree that it is true. That
Speaker 1: is the project of genocide because it first has to
Speaker 1: destroy the truth to justify what it is doing. And
Speaker 1: we are seeing that happening. And a very brief migration update. Finally,
Speaker 1: in the case before George Bosberg regarding the Alien Enemies
Speaker 1: Act that we've brought about before, the Trump administration asked
Speaker 1: for a delay because of the changing situation in Venz Whaler, right,
Speaker 1: I don't think there wasnt for delay so they can
Speaker 1: be like, oh, it's not safe for people to go back,
Speaker 1: we'd better keep hold of them and treat them nicely.
Speaker 1: It is nice suspicion that any agreement they come to
Speaker 1: with the Rodrigez the regime will include that it must
Speaker 1: accept people back. And as I said in the other episode, right,
Speaker 1: these people are going back to a country which is
Speaker 1: deeply paranoid about American spies, and they have lived in America.
Speaker 1: This is not going to be good for them. And
Speaker 1: the City of San Diego has sued the Trump in
Speaker 1: administration for damage to city property on Marin Valley Road
Speaker 1: or as father complaint today to do so. I'm glad
Speaker 1: of doing it. It's also deeply hypocritical. Right Mayor Tod
Speaker 1: Glauria was out there asking for more border security finding Underbiden,
Speaker 1: the defunded the office in the city which would welcome
Speaker 1: refugees and migrants, like, is it just a publicity thing?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 1: These people don't care. Right when migrants were being held
Speaker 1: in the open air in San Diego County, in San
Speaker 1: Diego City, these people weren't there and still glad's happening.
Speaker 1: But don't for one second believe the people get a
Speaker 1: single shit about but migrates they don't and don't for
Speaker 1: one second. Thing they're voting for them is voting to
Speaker 1: be kind to migrants, because it's not told. Laurier is
Speaker 1: a liar and just like everything else, he is using
Speaker 1: this an opportunity to promote himself and he's a terrible person.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in this case they are suming for trespassing
Speaker 1: and placing the razor wire on city property. It's city property.
Speaker 1: This way outside of where you would think the city
Speaker 1: of San Diego is. It's just adjacent to o turn
Speaker 1: Out and wilderness. But I think they have it there
Speaker 1: for water rights reasons or something.
Speaker 3: Brief teriff update, not tariff news. This week, however, Comma
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court is expected to roll on the giant
Speaker 3: case over a wide swath of Trump's tariffs this Friday.
Speaker 3: So next week we will explain what happened there on
Speaker 3: the Fallout. As you're listening to this episode, that decision
Speaker 3: might have already been released. Have fun and put a
Speaker 3: transferl on your.
Speaker 1: Couch, and if you would learn to email us, you
Speaker 1: can do so cool Zone tips at prodon don't me.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to be encrypted, you should use a
Speaker 1: proton mail address as well.
Speaker 4: And uh, you know, we reported the news.
Speaker 2: We reported the news.
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