Speaker 1: Colson 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
Speaker 2: world of what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by James Stout and Robert Evans.
Speaker 3: Hello, what's up? Everybody? Who's got ed us?
Speaker 2: You everybody, We're giving you ED this episode, we're covering
Speaker 2: the week of May twenty one to May twenty eight.
Speaker 2: It was a really busy news week for the latter
Speaker 2: half of that week, so we're going to be mostly
Speaker 2: catching up with that. Jesus, and let's start with the
Speaker 2: biggest news from late last week, domestically the shooting of
Speaker 2: two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC. The shooting took
Speaker 2: place around nine pm on Wednesday, May twenty first, outside
Speaker 2: of event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. Prior to the shooting,
Speaker 2: the suspect was seen pacing outside of the building. According
Speaker 2: to witnesses and surveillance video, a thirty one year old
Speaker 2: man named Elias Rodriguez approached a group of four people
Speaker 2: leaving the event. As he walked past them, he turned
Speaker 2: to face their backs and shot two people and continued
Speaker 2: to fire as they felt the ground. One of the victims,
Speaker 2: a twenty six year old woman, tried to crawl away
Speaker 2: after being shot. Rodriguez followed her and fired again Jesus
Speaker 2: while he was reloading, She sat up, and then Rodriguez
Speaker 2: shot her several more times before throwing his gun into
Speaker 2: a bush. He ran into the museum after the shooting.
Speaker 2: Security let him in thinking that he was a victim.
Speaker 2: Witnesses say he appeared traumatized and in shock. People from
Speaker 2: the museum event brought him water, and when they asked
Speaker 2: him if he was okay or if he was injured,
Speaker 2: Rodriguez requested the police. When cops arrived, he allegedly admitted
Speaker 2: to shooting, and, according to witnesses, quote, grabbed a red
Speaker 2: cafea out of his pocket and started free Palestine chance
Speaker 2: quote there is only one solution, Antifada revolution unquote. While
Speaker 2: being arrested and taken out of the building, he chanted free,
Speaker 2: Free Palestine. Israel's ambassador to the US claimed that the
Speaker 2: two victims were deliberately targeted as Israeli embassy employees, and
Speaker 2: that Rariguez mingled with attendees at the reception earlier that
Speaker 2: evening before raising suspicion and being asked to leave. Although
Speaker 2: the organization who put on this event, the American Jewish Committee,
Speaker 2: disputes this account. They say that Rodriguez tried to register
Speaker 2: for their event but was denied entry following a background check.
Speaker 2: Rodriguez is a lifelong Chicago resident. He got an English
Speaker 2: degree at the University of Chicago, legally bought a gun
Speaker 2: in Illinois and flew with it to d S the
Speaker 2: night before the shooting. This event was as an American
Speaker 2: Jewish Committee access DC Young Diplomat's Reception. The description for
Speaker 2: the event reads quote, this special event brings together Jewish
Speaker 2: young professionals age twenty two to forty five and the
Speaker 2: DC diplomatic community for an evening dedicated to fostering unity
Speaker 2: and celebrating Jewish heritage. Join us for heavy appetizers, cocktails, conversations,
Speaker 2: and a special guest speaker. We are excited to introduce
Speaker 2: this year's theme, turning Pain into Purpose. Here from members
Speaker 2: of the Multi Faith Alliance and Israel as they delve
Speaker 2: into humanitarian diplomacy and have a coalition of organizations from
Speaker 2: the region and for the Region are working together in
Speaker 2: response to humanitarian crises through the Middle East and North
Speaker 2: Africa regions. The two victims were a young couple, Sarah
Speaker 2: Milgram and Ran Lisinski, twenty six and thirty, who met
Speaker 2: through their work at the embassy. Lisinski identified as a Christian,
Speaker 2: though he was born in Israel and moved to Germany
Speaker 2: as a kid, then returned to Israel and served in
Speaker 2: the IDF. There is an alternative claim that he was
Speaker 2: born in Nuremberg and then moved to Israel as a teenager,
Speaker 2: but most reporting says that he was born in Israel.
Speaker 2: In the aftermath of the shooting, politicians widely condemned this
Speaker 2: as anti Semitic violence. The acting US Attorney said that
Speaker 2: they are investigating the cases a hate crime and an
Speaker 2: act of terrorism. Dan Bongino, Deputy FBI director, said the
Speaker 2: shooting was a quote act of targeted violence. The Israeli
Speaker 2: Foreign Minister and net Yahoo have laid blame at college
Speaker 2: protesters and foreign government officials, including the leaders of France,
Speaker 2: Britain in Canada, accusing them of blood libel for talking
Speaker 2: about Israel's quote supposed genocide and crimes against humanity unquote,
Speaker 2: and calling such rhetoric critical of Israel. Quote unquote incitement.
Speaker 2: Natanyahu said, quote free Palestine is just today's version of
Speaker 2: Hyle Hitler Jesus Christ. They don't want a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to
Speaker 2: annihilate all Jewish people who have been in the left
Speaker 2: d of Israel for three thousand, five hundred years.
Speaker 3: This is, obviously, I think, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: the kind of thing net Yahoo has been waiting for,
Speaker 3: and probably the kind of thing that a number of
Speaker 3: folks in that Trump is put in federal law enforcement
Speaker 3: have been waiting for because it provides them with some
Speaker 3: opportunities to continue their push to criminalize student organizing and
Speaker 3: organizing against Israeli war crimes. Right. Like, the argument they
Speaker 3: want to be able to make is that just saying
Speaker 3: free Palestine is an active terrorism, And there was an
Speaker 3: act of terrorism here, right, Like shooting two embassy employees
Speaker 3: for the crimes of their government. Like that is a
Speaker 3: clear act of terrorism. Right. You can feel however you
Speaker 3: want to about it, but like that's the definition of
Speaker 3: what was done. But the things he was chanting were
Speaker 3: not part of the active terrorism. The fact that he
Speaker 3: shot people to death was the active terrorism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the murdering people, that's the terrorism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is already illegal, by the way, and
Speaker 3: quite heavily, I'll be interested. We don't seem to know
Speaker 3: much about where he got the firearm yet that I've
Speaker 3: come across.
Speaker 2: So he legally purchased it in Illinois.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he bought it in Illinois, which has like fairly
Speaker 3: strict gun laws. Yes, some of the strictest in the US.
Speaker 3: So it's one of those things where there's already quite
Speaker 3: a bit of regulation around everything that he did here.
Speaker 3: But fundamentally, if you're able to buy guns, which you
Speaker 3: are because this, you know, if there's an amendment, there
Speaker 3: will be people who carry out attacks like this. And
Speaker 3: I don't really know there certainly didn't seem to be
Speaker 3: outside of this guy's personal chats with his friends, a
Speaker 3: lot of evidence that would have set him on anybody's radar.
Speaker 3: He had been at like a PSL Party for Socialism
Speaker 3: and Liberation March in twenty seventeen or something, but like,
Speaker 3: this wasn't a guy who had a history of violence
Speaker 3: or anything like that. And quite frankly, that's just a
Speaker 3: reality of the country that we live in, is that
Speaker 3: when people like this decide to carry out shootings for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, the odds of catching them are extraordinarily low.
Speaker 2: It's very hard to flag for a guy specifically like
Speaker 2: like this because there's a lot of them out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and most of them don't do shootings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this active been widely condemned. Like pro Palestine commentators
Speaker 2: have said that this style of like adventurist terrorism does
Speaker 2: nothing to help the Palestine people and in fact only
Speaker 2: hurts them and plays into what like the Israel lobby
Speaker 2: and Natya who have been like wanting to happen for
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think kat Aboukazela, a Parastalian American woman he's running
Speaker 4: for office in Illinois.
Speaker 3: Worked it for media matters for years. Yeah. It does
Speaker 3: a lot of videos. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Anyway, I saw that she'd she had somethink about
Speaker 4: how like, yeah, this was something that evidently should be condemned. Right,
Speaker 4: that is wrong, and it's not advancing the cause of
Speaker 4: Palestinian freedom, Like I think adventurist terrorism is a good
Speaker 4: way to describe it. Geah, just getting pad and by
Speaker 4: people on the internet, which like I don't know people
Speaker 4: engaging with this like from a place it doesn't come
Speaker 4: from like it's bad when random folks get shot killed.
Speaker 2: No, people have have used the horrific genocide as a
Speaker 2: way to like channel their general societal frustration and find
Speaker 2: a way to like just act incredibly hostile like to
Speaker 2: actual Palestinians. Yeah yeah, yeah, who don't share the exact
Speaker 2: same like anti imperialist TM views that they might have. Right,
Speaker 2: it's just permission to abuse people online.
Speaker 4: Yeah, deeply, like verbally violent and like no psycho shit.
Speaker 2: And this guy engaged in that kind of stuff as
Speaker 2: well as well, as we'll see.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: Let's get a little bit into his background. So he
Speaker 2: has a manifesto that he posted on his Twitter account.
Speaker 3: And it's it's Kojent like in terms of it's not
Speaker 3: the ramblings of like a madman or something. There's nothing
Speaker 3: like it.
Speaker 2: It all has an English degree, he knows how to write.
Speaker 2: He has worked as a writer for like almost a decade.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean that in terms of, like
Speaker 3: it's very clear what he's trying to say. There's not
Speaker 3: any evidence here of like a disconnect or whatever. He's
Speaker 3: not doing this because he's blaming Israel for making the
Speaker 3: weather bad or whatever. Right right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The manifesto is title to Escalate for Gaza, Bring the
Speaker 2: War Home, and he attempts to explain the rationale behind
Speaker 2: his actions. He starts by discussing the unknown total scale
Speaker 2: of dead Palestinians, writing that quote atrocity is committed by
Speaker 2: Israelis against Palestine, defy description and defy quantification. He writes
Speaker 2: about how, despite protests and shifts in public opinion, the
Speaker 2: US government has continually refused to reign in Israel and
Speaker 2: instead moves to criminalize dissent. He talks about armed action.
Speaker 2: Quote an armed action is not necessarily a military action.
Speaker 2: It usually is not. Usually it is theater and spectacle,
Speaker 2: a quality it shares in many unarmed actions.
Speaker 3: Quote yeah, and I do find you know, one of
Speaker 3: the first things that happened when this attack was carried
Speaker 3: out was people started theorizing that this had been some
Speaker 3: Nazi who was using this to using the propouse and
Speaker 3: cost like camouflage as Nazism. And I don't think that
Speaker 3: the preponderance of evidence suggests that there are two weird things.
Speaker 3: One of them is that this guy's previous Twitter name
Speaker 3: was Habbo eighty eight and he was not born in
Speaker 3: eighty eight obviously whenever you see an eighty eight in
Speaker 3: the Native Curse Millennial. And the other is that the
Speaker 3: bring the war home reference in his manifesto, which is
Speaker 3: basically a reference to something that I believe was Louis Beam,
Speaker 3: who is a neo Nazi organizer, said about trying to
Speaker 3: get Vietnam veterans to essentially bring the war home to
Speaker 3: the United States in order to spark a race war.
Speaker 3: And those two little things are weird. However, the rest
Speaker 3: of this guy's fairly well documented history and background does
Speaker 3: not suggest anything like that, So I don't think that
Speaker 3: that's the credible thing to blame this on. Quite frankly, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll go over some of that background in brief.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He also talked about targeting government representatives quote the impunity
Speaker 2: that representatives of our government feel at a bedding, that
Speaker 2: this slaughter should be revealed as an illusion. He then
Speaker 2: tells the story of a man who tried to throw
Speaker 2: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara off a boat into the sea.
Speaker 2: He finishes with his thoughts on the quote unquote morality
Speaker 2: of armed demonstration, where he discusses this tendency to dehumanize
Speaker 2: the perpetrators of atrocities, as a method for us to
Speaker 2: cope with the monstrous evil that ordinary humans are capable of.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: This action would have been morally justified taken eleven years
Speaker 2: ago during Protective Edge, around the time I personally became
Speaker 2: acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine. But I
Speaker 2: think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible.
Speaker 2: It would seem insane. I'm glad that today, at least
Speaker 2: there are many Americans for which the action will be
Speaker 2: highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane
Speaker 2: thing to do unquote. It did find it interesting that
Speaker 2: on December fifth, twenty twenty four, Rodriguez posted on his
Speaker 2: Twitter account that quote eighty percent of the country applauds
Speaker 2: the targeted annihilation of a healthcare insurance EXECUTIVEUOTE. As for
Speaker 2: his political background, Rodriguez identifies as a Maoist, third worldiest yeah,
Speaker 2: and believes that the global seuth alone has quote unquote
Speaker 2: revolutionary potential. A friend of Rodriguez described his politics to
Speaker 2: journalist KNK Clippenstein like this quote. He was a big
Speaker 2: proponent of the emerging resistance axis of Russia, Iran Hesbula
Speaker 2: Assad Syria.
Speaker 3: How'd that go?
Speaker 2: He seemed pretty vocally in favor of Hamas for years,
Speaker 2: way before twenty twenty three. He'd always hated Israel and
Speaker 2: would call it quote the little Satan unquote.
Speaker 4: For fox sake, they Asad test are in supreme as. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a fucking ab test for someone having shitty politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by aside.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Asad who gaffed his own people who murdered
Speaker 4: little children.
Speaker 3: Including thousands and thousands of Palestinians by the way. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but again, you shouldn't expect coherence or particularly well informed
Speaker 3: opinions out of folks.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This His online presence mirrors what I would call like
Speaker 2: the typical like anti imperialist TM poster, where he's there
Speaker 2: is most of his frustration at the Democrats, sometimes at Republicans,
Speaker 2: but mostly yeah, posts about being pro Russia, Iran, Hesbala,
Speaker 2: pro Asade, and particularly the past few years, posting a
Speaker 2: lot of a Palestine right with explicit defense and like
Speaker 2: veneration of Hamas. The same friend that talked to Klippenstein
Speaker 2: and also said quote, it's driving me crazy that people
Speaker 2: are calling it a false flag. This development is shocking,
Speaker 2: but not completely out of character. Yeah, he always had
Speaker 2: strong political convictions. From the sound of the manifesto, he's
Speaker 2: the same as he was.
Speaker 3: Unquote Yeah, and I mean that seems true. Again, we
Speaker 3: still don't have a like, a perfect knowledge of all
Speaker 3: of this guy's you know, online life.
Speaker 2: No, this is just a week away.
Speaker 3: But based on what Kin's posted, based on this interview,
Speaker 3: that makes complete sense. Yeah, right, I like, I don't
Speaker 3: have any trouble believing that for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, this is this is not a false flag attack.
Speaker 2: That's that's conspiratorial nonsense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's this guy did a thing that
Speaker 3: he's sincerely believed in, and it seems like everything he'd
Speaker 3: been expressing in the year or two leading up to
Speaker 3: doing this, you know, was consistent with what he did now.
Speaker 2: Rodriguez was affiliated with the Chicago PSL Party for socialistm
Speaker 2: in Liberation back in twenty seventeen and spoke to the
Speaker 2: media on their behalf, though he would later regret his
Speaker 2: association with the group, telling friends quote, PSL sucks shit.
Speaker 2: I wish I had just done a misadventure with the
Speaker 2: Freedom Road Socialist Organization rather than the PSL lol YEA.
Speaker 2: Rodriguez remained somewhat politically active in Chicago. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: he posted video from a local pro Palestine march on
Speaker 2: his Twitter account. Clippenstein spoke with at least five friends
Speaker 2: of his, who all claimed that they never heard Rodriguez
Speaker 2: express anti Semitic sentiments. Now, one of Arigue's friends gave
Speaker 2: Clippenstein access to a years old private WhatsApp group chat
Speaker 2: that Rodriguez frequently posted in, including up to a day
Speaker 2: before the shooting. Clippenstein says, quote, the messages don't reveal
Speaker 2: any hatred of Jews per se, but they do portray
Speaker 2: an often bitter man who hated all sorts of other things,
Speaker 2: especially Israel and its Warren Gaza unquote. Yeah, and from
Speaker 2: what we conceived of the chats that kind has posted,
Speaker 2: this matches pretty well. A chat member wrote, quote, I'm
Speaker 2: almost surprised you're not anti Semitic elias. It usually goes
Speaker 2: hand in hand with the whole Stalin did nothing wrong, mantra.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and his response to this was like, Stalin ended,
Speaker 3: you know, among other things, Stalin ended the greatest anti
Speaker 3: Semitic state in history, which I've seen his evidence that
Speaker 3: he wasn't pro Stalin. He just supported Stalin, you know,
Speaker 3: defeating the Nazis. But he says like among other things,
Speaker 3: so he clearly got a number of reasons he likes Stalin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, from the exchanges with his friends, this guy's clearly
Speaker 2: like a like a tanky anti imperialist type.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, a million such examples.
Speaker 2: The only time he talked about race explicitly was the
Speaker 2: lambast white people quote. Lol, you probably would have to
Speaker 2: actually genified white people to make this a normal country.
Speaker 2: Like even a very targeted and selective rehabilitation program would
Speaker 2: probably have to lead to the lifetime imprisonments of tens
Speaker 2: of millions of white people.
Speaker 4: The uh, there's a Stalin did nothing really, Yeah, there's
Speaker 4: that gay brained type that we were looking for.
Speaker 3: Well, and again it's one of those things. We're talking
Speaker 3: about this because there's a bunch of guys who expressed
Speaker 3: similar views. This is the only one who's done as shooting.
Speaker 3: When we talk about this making sense, we're not talking
Speaker 3: about this like as evidence that like, oh, someone who's
Speaker 3: a fucking Tanky type is like is likely to commit
Speaker 3: a mass shooting right, they go hand in hand.
Speaker 2: No, this is the first time of take he's done anything.
Speaker 3: This is the first one of these I've heard of
Speaker 3: in quite quite a long time. Yeah, it's just this guy.
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of people who expressed similar things to
Speaker 3: this guy, right, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: On October seventh, he celebrated the Hamas attack. Quote. Just
Speaker 2: saw an incredibly gory video of the aftermath of Israeli
Speaker 2: troops trying to get dressed for the ambush, absolutely massacred
Speaker 2: by Hamas fighters. I am ao love checking back in
Speaker 2: with the news every few hours, Like, hmm, I wonder
Speaker 2: if Israel still exists. You don't often get to credibly
Speaker 2: wonder if Israel is over yet today or not?
Speaker 3: Unquote yeah, and again like that just kind of shows
Speaker 3: the general lack of knowledge.
Speaker 2: A level of political delusion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like a lot of kind of telegram propaganda
Speaker 4: consumption type worldview here.
Speaker 3: Yes, and can convince you that what's happening is different
Speaker 3: from the reality.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In this chat, he lmented to friends and expressed sorrow
Speaker 2: at the deaths of Hamas and has been of leaders
Speaker 2: and sometimes his ire was directed at other members of
Speaker 2: this leaked chat. At one point, going on an unhinged
Speaker 2: ablest rant, attacking one of his friends for being privileged
Speaker 2: after they discussed the challenges of having a brother with cazophrenia. Quote,
Speaker 2: why not just have him committed. You can't possibly be
Speaker 2: gaining anything from a relationship with a person like that.
Speaker 2: Just put him in a padded room and forget about him.
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: If there was a person you loved, he's gone, now
Speaker 2: let it go. Can you just chain him in the
Speaker 2: basement and slide meals under the door. I'm just tired
Speaker 2: of hearing about this guy. He's useless, we get it,
Speaker 2: Stop complaining and just dispose of him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4: I mean this goes with the people who I don't
Speaker 4: know aren't useful to me, are of no value? Right,
Speaker 4: that people don't have inherent value, and you know they
Speaker 4: don't agree with or are useful to him, then fuck them.
Speaker 4: They can die. Like I guess there's some kind of
Speaker 4: coherence there.
Speaker 2: Well, Robert, you want to mention the something awful?
Speaker 3: Yes, I do, Garrison. So the other thing that came
Speaker 3: out in Ken's article is that this dude was a
Speaker 3: poster Well. His friends described him as a dedicated poster,
Speaker 3: which is the worst thing you can be described as being,
Speaker 3: and noted that he had been there had been some
Speaker 3: when it came out that like his former Twitter user
Speaker 3: name had been like Habbo eighty eight. That was very
Speaker 3: clearly a reference to a game called Habo Hotel that
Speaker 3: if you're gen z, there's very good odds you don't remember.
Speaker 3: But it was a big thing for people who were
Speaker 3: on four Chan and who were on Something Awful. And
Speaker 3: Something Awful was the website that gave birth to four Chan.
Speaker 3: It's where I was raised on the internet, and many
Speaker 3: many years ago, around the turn of the millennium, I
Speaker 3: think I don't remember the exact year, but we started
Speaker 3: gathering on this game for children. It was like an
Speaker 3: MMO for little kids and like pretending to be members
Speaker 3: of a cult in order to like confuse small children.
Speaker 3: And then four Chan did their own version of that
Speaker 3: that was a bit more racist, which is often the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, many such cases, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Many such cases. Anyway, when this came out, there was
Speaker 3: a debate was this guy a channer or was this
Speaker 3: guy a goon you know, a member of the Something
Speaker 3: Awful forums, And a lot of people thought I called goon.
Speaker 3: A lot of people thought Shanner because of his age,
Speaker 3: he was a little bit young to have been a
Speaker 3: part of the something awful have a hotel things. I
Speaker 3: think it's actually likely or he did both. But his
Speaker 3: friends described him as somebody who was really into something awful, right,
Speaker 3: as somebody who had been influenced by that in particularly
Speaker 3: a subset of the something awful forms called FIAD, which
Speaker 3: stands for fuck you and Die, which kind of pioneered
Speaker 3: a lot of the most toxic aspects of online discourse.
Speaker 4: Apparently Jesus.
Speaker 3: Now, folks have found at least one of his accounts
Speaker 3: that doesn't have a lot of posts, although that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean much because number one, he could have deleted a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff, which many people did when they got older.
Speaker 3: Number Two, he could have had another account, which is
Speaker 3: also the case. The one account that people know was
Speaker 3: his was banned for shooting and killing two him to
Speaker 3: see employees. There's reasons given in the ever lengthening Something
Speaker 3: Awful ban list when somebody gets banned. Obviously, again, I
Speaker 3: don't think there's like a positive thing to him being
Speaker 3: like him being on something awful didn't cause him to
Speaker 3: shoot two people, but him being on Something Awful was
Speaker 3: a natural part of the progression that led to him
Speaker 3: being the kind of like toxic online asshole that he was.
Speaker 3: And sort of evidence of that is that one of
Speaker 3: the last things he had done online before the shooting
Speaker 3: was he had gotten briefly onto Blue Sky and then
Speaker 3: gotten in trouble for repeatedly harassing Will Stanzel, who's another
Speaker 3: annoying asshole on the Internet, who was also a Something
Speaker 3: Awful goon who was raised in this same chunk of
Speaker 3: the Internet, and who became a similar kind of asshole,
Speaker 3: just with wildly different politics. And these two hated each other,
Speaker 3: and Elias like threatened to murder him over the internet
Speaker 3: because he's like again that these guys, he's that type
Speaker 3: of guy. He's that type of guy, which doesn't mean again,
Speaker 3: which doesn't mean this is why he did a shooting
Speaker 3: or had anything to do with that, because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of this type of guy and almost none of
Speaker 3: them commit acts of terrorism. It just like his background
Speaker 3: makes complete sense for the kind of guy that we
Speaker 3: can see that he was online.
Speaker 2: The last thing I'll say about this is that you know,
Speaker 2: beyond this like senseless loss of life, which is like
Speaker 2: an issue in and of itself. Obviously, this also contributes
Speaker 2: to further loss of life in the way this plays
Speaker 2: into like media capture. Right now, we have a whole
Speaker 2: week were the news cycles dominated by two people getting
Speaker 2: murdered in the streets of DC, and this does not
Speaker 2: help the Palestinian people currently being killed by Israel. The
Speaker 2: exact same day that this happened, Wednesday, the twenty first,
Speaker 2: ninety three people were killed in Israeli attacks across the
Speaker 2: Gaza Strip and that type of stuff does not really
Speaker 2: get reported anymore because that's how media capture works. Americans
Speaker 2: are really good at getting desensitized to this in a
Speaker 2: large scale media environment, but stuff like this only serves
Speaker 2: as a distraction and fuels Israel's oone motivation for their
Speaker 2: continued actions.
Speaker 4: Talking of media capture, Garrison, we have been captured by
Speaker 4: the advertisers in this show.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 5: There you go, and we are back.
Speaker 2: Another big news item from last week was the passing
Speaker 2: of the big, beautiful budget bill in the House. We'll
Speaker 2: talk more about this bill as it turns through the Senate,
Speaker 2: but first our co host Mia Wong has a special
Speaker 2: report on how the bill targets trans healthcare.
Speaker 6: So we're going to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 6: budget bill that's currently working through a bunch of processes
Speaker 6: in the Senate, that's been passed by the House. I
Speaker 6: am Mia Wong, and with me to talk about how
Speaker 6: this budget specifically is unbelievably bad for trans people is
Speaker 6: Maddi Castikin from Mad cast and Mirror Levine from the
Speaker 6: Free Radical. Glad to have both of you to hear.
Speaker 6: You've both been doing a bunch of journalism about this
Speaker 6: stuff specifically and what people can do about it. First,
Speaker 6: can you can you explain what is going on in
Speaker 6: this budget with the ban on trans healthcare using Medicaid?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Absolutely So. The budget bill, also known as House Resolution one,
Speaker 7: is this year's reconciliation bill, which is Congress basically deciding
Speaker 7: next year's budget and how they're going to allocate it
Speaker 7: their funds. This time around, Republicans decided it would be
Speaker 7: a great idea to push through. So what it was
Speaker 7: at first was a intense limitation on what Medicaid cover,
Speaker 7: essentially just humongous Medicaid cuts. And this is what I
Speaker 7: began investigating first. Me and Mattie were talking about it
Speaker 7: a bunch she's the one who took me off to it.
Speaker 7: They started off by implementing huge cuts to Medicaid that
Speaker 7: would result in millions of people losing access to their healthcare,
Speaker 7: not even just trans people. Shortly after they announced these cuts,
Speaker 7: for instance, adapt a group of disabled activists. They are
Speaker 7: famous for being the ones who climbed up the steps
Speaker 7: of the I believe it was the Capital Building in
Speaker 7: the nineties to raise awareness and help get the American
Speaker 7: Disabilities Act passed. They staged a protest on the United
Speaker 7: States Capital during a hearing for this bill where Republicans
Speaker 7: were just talking about it and praising themselves. Multiple active
Speaker 7: got arrested. They're all fine now apparently apparently they weren't
Speaker 7: treated too bad either, which is good to hear. But
Speaker 7: what ultimately happened is more and more came out, and
Speaker 7: it came revealed that not only would disabled people be affected,
Speaker 7: but basically every marginalized group for people of course being
Speaker 7: what we were focusing on given the beat, but this
Speaker 7: will impact essentially everyone, especially if you're a low income,
Speaker 7: especially if you are a person of color, you are
Speaker 7: more likely to be impacted just by virtue of this bill,
Speaker 7: and how sweeping it is, and Republicans implemented a ban
Speaker 7: for gender ferming care for minors on it. It was
Speaker 7: a very milktoas ban that at the time was projected
Speaker 7: to pretty much get overturned in court right away if
Speaker 7: we were to pass.
Speaker 3: They didn't stop there, though.
Speaker 7: They quickly evolved it and they tried to implement it
Speaker 7: into a sweeping ban on gender firming care for all
Speaker 7: ages is on Medicaid and for any health insurance received
Speaker 7: through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. And ultimately this led to
Speaker 7: a lot of panic and a lot of people assuming
Speaker 7: that their care is going to be taken away immediately.
Speaker 7: That wasn't what's going to happen on the minimum effective
Speaker 7: date that's currently in the bill is twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 7: I'm telling people to prepare if it passes for twenty
Speaker 7: twenty six, because there's a decent change. Republicans will try
Speaker 7: to expedite it. Because it passed through the House, it
Speaker 7: passed through committees in the House, it was sent to
Speaker 7: the Senate, and I think that's what we'll give to Mattie
Speaker 7: to talk about kind of what next steps for that are.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so lake Man was saying there's a lot of
Speaker 8: really huge. As bill is tremendous, they could talk for
Speaker 8: hours about it, but focusing on the transparts, there's a
Speaker 8: ban on medicaid funding and there's also a ban on
Speaker 8: including trans cares and essential health benefit and ACA plans.
Speaker 8: And the thing about both of these provisions is so
Speaker 8: that normally with reconciliation bills, they're supposed to be focused
Speaker 8: on budget items, not policy items. So for example, you
Speaker 8: couldn't say, hey, weed is legal everywhere now or something
Speaker 8: like that, or raise the minimum wage, which Democrats tried
Speaker 8: to do in twenty twenty one and they failed because
Speaker 8: there are rules regarding how this process works. And so
Speaker 8: what we argued in an article was that there's a
Speaker 8: possibility that, you know, if activists and advocates reach out
Speaker 8: to their senators and advocated to point out that this
Speaker 8: part of the bill is completely against those provisions, against
Speaker 8: those procedural rules for the Senate Parliamentaria could rule against
Speaker 8: it and basically strike that portion of the bill without
Speaker 8: ever even becoming law. And you know, that would stay
Speaker 8: people a lot of stress and anxiety, and you don't
Speaker 8: have to worry about the court battles and what happens
Speaker 8: with Scremetti versus us, which is a Supreme Court case
Speaker 8: that's going to be ruled on on gender firming care soon.
Speaker 8: So what we've been telling people, and you know, including
Speaker 8: listeners for your show, is that people really need to
Speaker 8: reach out to their senators every single day, email call
Speaker 8: and ask them to vote no on this bill. On
Speaker 8: HR one and it specifically mentioned the trans healthcare aspects.
Speaker 8: And if you want, there's templates online on our website,
Speaker 8: or you can just you know, ask them, Hey, we
Speaker 8: don't think this bill is good.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 8: We want you to challenge specifically the parts that are
Speaker 8: attacking trans people. And I can confirm with you. I
Speaker 8: can't share too much information, but I can confirm with
Speaker 8: you that we are making real, legitimate progress on killing
Speaker 8: this provision. And the more people we have calling in
Speaker 8: every single day, the better our odds are. But there's
Speaker 8: still more ways to fight back. And I want Mara
Speaker 8: to pick up on how people can fight back on
Speaker 8: the ground.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So in addition to reaching out to your senators,
Speaker 7: of course, to that, there's an email template, Mattie wrote
Speaker 7: of a great one. It tells you everything you need
Speaker 7: to do. You can even leave a phone call to
Speaker 7: the script it takes like five minutes. But more long
Speaker 7: term is this is not going to be the only
Speaker 7: attack on gender affirming care. It's not going to stop here.
Speaker 7: This is just the latest attempt that they're trying to do. Ultimately,
Speaker 7: we cannot rely on the government to give us a
Speaker 7: central health care. We cannot rely on the government to
Speaker 7: protect us and give us what we need, because fundamentally,
Speaker 7: the government and the laws that it aims to uphold
Speaker 7: are about protecting the rich, protecting the powerful, protecting the wealthy.
Speaker 7: The law is functionally something that gives police power to
Speaker 7: act as essentially an occupying army on state and to
Speaker 7: persecute anyone who deviates from what those who are disproportionately
Speaker 7: rich and powerful decruity. And we need to start focusing
Speaker 7: on building long term solutions. Everything we can do with
Speaker 7: legislative activism is important, but ultimately it will not save
Speaker 7: us because there will be more attacks down the line,
Speaker 7: and they'll keep coming, and they only need to win once.
Speaker 7: We need to win that every time. But there are
Speaker 7: long term solutions. My beat at this point is essentially
Speaker 7: just telling everyone to get plugged into your local mutual
Speaker 7: aid network, get plugged into people doing work on the
Speaker 7: ground in your state, in your area, who are focusing
Speaker 7: on a plethora of different issues. A bit of a
Speaker 7: self plug here, but I wrote an article, for instance,
Speaker 7: last month, where I interviewed a seasoned activist in the
Speaker 7: Twin Cities who told me just a lot about the
Speaker 7: history of radical practice in the cities, especially in light
Speaker 7: of the George Floyd riots and especially in right of
Speaker 7: corporate pride, rango capitalism, whole nine yards. Recommend reading it.
Speaker 7: It's on the free radical dot org. Check it out.
Speaker 7: But beyond of course my own writing in my own interviews,
Speaker 7: there are so many people doing work that doesn't get
Speaker 7: covered because it either isn't pattalable to mainstream news audiences
Speaker 7: or it isn't seeking coverage for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 7: In every single major city this I can guarantee there
Speaker 7: are people doing work. Most of the time. It's not
Speaker 7: going to be publicly visible, but they are there. I
Speaker 7: would recommend that everyone who is not currently plugged in
Speaker 7: gets started with something that is much more entry level
Speaker 7: and something that is much more like meant to be
Speaker 7: kind of for everyone who may not be willing to
Speaker 7: do more in depth and more treesy type of stuff,
Speaker 7: food not bombs, is the great thing I recommend for
Speaker 7: everyone to check out. Not every city has one, most two,
Speaker 7: every state has one. Beyond that, there are plenty of
Speaker 7: local mutual aid groups in every single locality, and if
Speaker 7: there's not one directly by you, there's probably one in
Speaker 7: your nearest major city. I would specifically recommend I'm a
Speaker 7: bit biased here, but I would recommend focusing on ones
Speaker 7: that are decentralized and non hierarchical, ones that don't revolve
Speaker 7: around centralizing power and placing that power in the hands
Speaker 7: of people who are either good at smooth talking or
Speaker 7: who have a lot of money. Ultimately, the way forward
Speaker 7: for people of all different marginalized groups, not even just
Speaker 7: trans people. You know on document immigrants, blocking auditions, well
Speaker 7: of color, low income people, disable people, and so forth.
Speaker 7: The way forward is by recognizing that our issues affect
Speaker 7: all of us. Attacks on trans healthcare are not limited there. Inevitably,
Speaker 7: let's say they ban trance healthcare overnight, They're going to
Speaker 7: come for intersex people. Next, They're going to come for
Speaker 7: gay people. Next, they're going to come for everyone. So
Speaker 7: I would just say get involved in your local groups
Speaker 7: and reach out there. Are resources out there. If you
Speaker 7: need some, check out the free radical dot org. I
Speaker 7: recommend a ton of them.
Speaker 8: Thank you and yees. Our upside for Matti Metticast is
Speaker 8: m adycast dot com and you can find our templates
Speaker 8: for contacting your senators there. Thank you so much for
Speaker 8: helping yourself and helping your community.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you so much for that. I want to
Speaker 6: close on I want to read the route a real
Speaker 6: line for fucking Davix manifesto from and or. Remember that
Speaker 6: the frontier of the rebellion is everywhere, and even the
Speaker 6: smallest insurrection pushes our line forward. And one of the
Speaker 6: arguments that can make make sure that I think it's
Speaker 6: just true is that in order to maintain their holds,
Speaker 6: these people have to win one hundred battles across one
Speaker 6: hundred fronts, you know. But this means that there are
Speaker 6: so many different things that you can do to resist
Speaker 6: them and to make sure that this fucking budget they're
Speaker 6: trying to pass, to make sure that everyone in this
Speaker 6: country suffers, and specifically that trans people cannot use the
Speaker 6: health insurances that we need, use Medicaid, use Affordable Care
Speaker 6: Act to pay for stuff. This stuff can be resisted
Speaker 6: in so many different ways. You can, as we've talked about,
Speaker 6: you can call your senators, you can yell at them,
Speaker 6: you can make their lives miserable until they agree to
Speaker 6: not do this. And then also you can join your
Speaker 6: local mituway groups, you can join local activist groups. You
Speaker 6: can start, you know, getting a serious organized other ways
Speaker 6: you can. Again, like we've talked a lot about unions
Speaker 6: and the role of unions and trying to struggle on
Speaker 6: the show. We've talked of God, We've talked about so
Speaker 6: many things. I'm going to do a one second plug
Speaker 6: for the episode I wrote last year called you already
Speaker 6: know how to organize, because you do already know how
Speaker 6: to organize. And yeah, none of the things that are
Speaker 6: happening here are inevitable. They can be stopped and there
Speaker 6: are so many different ways for you to start stopping them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we're back and we're talking about Gavin Newsome
Speaker 3: and particularly the intersection of the governor of California and
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, which is a lot more shameful than you'd expect.
Speaker 3: So if you remember a little earlier this year, there
Speaker 3: was a big brujaha publicly because a California transgender high
Speaker 3: school athlete one at the woman's eight feet triple jump.
Speaker 3: This is an eleventh grade transgender athlete from Urupa Valley
Speaker 3: High School near Riverside, California, and she won the Division
Speaker 3: three girls long jump and triple jump and placed seventh
Speaker 3: in the high jump at her Southern Section championship a
Speaker 3: few weeks later. There's going to be I don't think
Speaker 3: it's happened yet a championship meet that she qualified for
Speaker 3: as a result of this. And when this happened, it
Speaker 3: was immediately left on by the Trump administration and by
Speaker 3: right wing media as evidence of this thing that they've
Speaker 3: been trying to push for forever, which is that trans
Speaker 3: athletes are a threat to women's sports. Right now, this
Speaker 3: is something that number one, there's just not a lot
Speaker 3: of And this is also something that like, I think
Speaker 3: something like two thirds of Americans when polled, say that
Speaker 3: they don't feel like trans athletes should be competing with
Speaker 3: you know, quote unquote naturally born women in women's sports.
Speaker 3: Right Like, this is a thing that the right has
Speaker 3: built a lot of support for because they have made
Speaker 3: this a political issue for so long, and they've been
Speaker 3: largely successful in that the State of California and California
Speaker 3: lawmakers have been pushing back against this. There have been
Speaker 3: state bills in order to allow these girls to continue
Speaker 3: to compete, but Gavin Newsom has not expressed the same
Speaker 3: degree of support. And this kind of largely came out
Speaker 3: earlier this month when he had a meeting with conservative
Speaker 3: personality Charlie Kirk on his new podcast. As Newsom said,
Speaker 3: Kirk pushed so hard on the topic that Newsom said
Speaker 3: he felt like he had to address it. Here's how
Speaker 3: Newsom characterized it, and then he asked me, tell me
Speaker 3: that's not fair. And I looked at him. I said,
Speaker 3: you're right, that's not And so it wasn't some grand design.
Speaker 3: And I know, I know that hurt a lot of people,
Speaker 3: but respectively, I just disagree with those on the other
Speaker 3: side of this. Now, this brought a backlash against Newsom.
Speaker 3: He was attacked for flip flopping because again, like the
Speaker 3: California Democratic Party's position on this has been to defend
Speaker 3: trans athletes, but Newsom kind of flipped as soon as
Speaker 3: he was in a room with Charlie Kirk. Now, Newsom
Speaker 3: will argue that he also tried to stick up for
Speaker 3: trans athletes to Charlie Kirk to be clear about that,
Speaker 3: this is exactly what he said to Charlie completely fair
Speaker 3: on the issue of fairness. I completely agree. So that's
Speaker 3: easy to call out the unfairness of that. There's also
Speaker 3: a humility and grace that these poor people are more
Speaker 3: likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression, and the
Speaker 3: way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is issue
Speaker 3: that I have a hard time with as well. So
Speaker 3: both things I can hold in my hand. How can
Speaker 3: we address this issue with the kind of decency that
Speaker 3: I think you know is inherent in you but not
Speaker 3: always expressed in the issue. And first of all, there's
Speaker 3: no decency inherent in Charlie Kirk. And second, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: also a humility and grace that these poor people are
Speaker 3: more likely to commit suicide. What does that? What that mean?
Speaker 3: What does that mean? Gavin?
Speaker 4: That's not a sentence? Also, like, just like I made
Speaker 4: my living exercising for most of my twenties, right Like,
Speaker 4: you're a professional athletes done sports?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like, and then I've done all kinds of other shit
Speaker 4: where I still got paid to race my bike, right Like? Yeah,
Speaker 4: sports are unfair. It fucking sucks. I coached people who
Speaker 4: worked way.
Speaker 3: Harder than me.
Speaker 4: They trained super hard, they slept well, they ate better. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, they were not able to get to
Speaker 4: the same level.
Speaker 3: That sucks.
Speaker 4: But like sport is inherently unfair. The idea that like
Speaker 4: the only difference is like this, like your xx x
Speaker 4: y chromosoonality is nonsense. Like, especially in high school sports,
Speaker 4: kids will develop at different times.
Speaker 3: That is unfair.
Speaker 4: Some kids will excel and then other kids will get better.
Speaker 4: The function of high school sports is not to find
Speaker 4: who can go like higher, faster, stronger. It's to teach
Speaker 4: people to play nicely with one another and to communicate
Speaker 4: inclusion and excluding trans kids is completely contrary to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's like, yeah, I think that's a great point, James,
Speaker 3: is that, like number one, this is all being entirely
Speaker 3: made about like who places how, which is always going
Speaker 3: to be based largely on things that like people can't control,
Speaker 3: because like people's bodies are different, you know, Yeah, and
Speaker 3: they developed differently.
Speaker 4: Like there are people who I beat by graces when
Speaker 4: I was a kid who have one stages at the
Speaker 4: Tour de France. Yeah, like if our bodies developed differently,
Speaker 4: that's completely normal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's this again. The thing that should matter
Speaker 3: here is not treating a community of people hatefully, which
Speaker 3: is the entire of the reason the right has made
Speaker 3: this an issue. It has nothing to do with fairness,
Speaker 3: it has nothing to do with sports. It's entirely about
Speaker 3: hurting a group of people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if these people gave a single shit about women's sports,
Speaker 4: said it being there when women weren't getting paid the
Speaker 4: same Did it been there when they didn't get the
Speaker 4: same TV covery? Did it there when they didn't get
Speaker 4: the same price money?
Speaker 3: And they were mostly making fun of women's sports at
Speaker 3: that point in time? Yea. Now, I do think one
Speaker 3: thing that's funny here is that when Newsom was when
Speaker 3: people asked, rightly, like when Californian legislators were pushing to
Speaker 3: protect trans athletes, why didn't you bring up that you
Speaker 3: felt this way? And his answer was, I didn't have
Speaker 3: a podcast, I wasn't having that conversation. I was out
Speaker 3: there on the campaign trail and the big blue bubble,
Speaker 3: on the big blue bus and the big blue crowds,
Speaker 3: having big blue conversations. And then he went on to
Speaker 3: say that basically the backlash to him agreeing with Charlie
Speaker 3: Kirk on this has convinced him. I always thought the
Speaker 3: right overstated how judgmental my party was, and I'll be
Speaker 3: candid with you, I have a deeper understanding now of
Speaker 3: that critique than I ever ever ever understood. It's like,
Speaker 3: now that people are angry at me, I believe there's
Speaker 3: a problem with my party being judgmental.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now that I've faced a consequence of my shit,
Speaker 4: I hate trans people even more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it must be so hard to be Gavin Newsome.
Speaker 2: It's gotta be tough and betray your constituents to get
Speaker 2: the approval of a millennial right wing podcaster who goes around.
Speaker 3: Who still hates you touring.
Speaker 2: College campuses to debate seventeen year olds. That must be
Speaker 2: so hard for you.
Speaker 3: It's gotta be tough. Gotta be tough, Gavin.
Speaker 4: He did say in his podcast his kid likes Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 4: not surprisingly. Maybe this is all just a ploy to
Speaker 4: be a cool dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not surprised he sucks at being a dad.
Speaker 4: Gavin usedomings you wants to be a cool dad, Emty,
Speaker 4: it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Reminds me that Jake Dapper just said his kid's not
Speaker 2: really into politics. He's just into World War two and
Speaker 2: gaming great part of World War two.
Speaker 4: Tapurious, curious many such cases.
Speaker 3: Doesn't his kid want to be a cop? Is that
Speaker 3: Jake Tapper? Yeah, that makes sense. That sounds like Jake
Speaker 3: fucking Tapper's kid. So look. Earlier this week on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: President Trump shared a truth social post, a truth threatening
Speaker 3: to yesa he retruthed a post threatening to withhold federal
Speaker 3: funding from California over the participation of this high school
Speaker 3: trans athlete in the upcoming California Interscholastic Federation State Track
Speaker 3: and Field Championships. Right, and he said that, under the
Speaker 3: leadership of radical left Democrat Gavin Nuskum, California continues to
Speaker 3: illegally allow men to play in women's sports. The governor
Speaker 3: himself said it is unfair. Trump wrote, first off, the
Speaker 3: fact that Gavin agreed with Charlie INA's podcast did nothing
Speaker 3: to change the rhetoric around him. He's still radical left
Speaker 3: democrat Gavin newscom because you can't make these people unhappy,
Speaker 3: because it's not about fairness, it's about hurting people.
Speaker 2: Right, you can fight this. The governor of Maine has been.
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about Maine. Yes, yeah, so Trump
Speaker 3: made this same threat to the state of Maine when
Speaker 3: the governor of Maine refused to stop allowing trans people
Speaker 3: to compete in women's sports, and the administration attempted to
Speaker 3: freeze funds intended for a main child nutrition program.
Speaker 2: No more food for your kids because woa, no more.
Speaker 3: Food for poor kids because woke. And in response, the
Speaker 3: governor made was like, all right, let's fucking go to
Speaker 3: the mat. And they filed a lawsuit against the US
Speaker 3: Department of Agriculture, and the Trump administration settled, like they
Speaker 3: they backed down. They agreed to stop freezing the funds
Speaker 3: if Maine dropped the lawsuit, right, Like, as soon as
Speaker 3: Maine sued, Trump backed down, right and rather than attempting
Speaker 3: to do that even though there's ample evidence that the
Speaker 3: administration backs down. And to be fair, and I think
Speaker 3: against Maine, California's got a lot more weight to throw around. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's the fifth largest economy on the planet. They have
Speaker 3: some they have some fucking hack behind them, and like
Speaker 3: news clearly has.
Speaker 4: No moral principle other than advancing his own career in
Speaker 4: personal iron wealth right now.
Speaker 3: But like, even if that is the case.
Speaker 4: It's so easy to be like, yeah, I'll fight him
Speaker 4: on this, I'll fight for the trans kids and get
Speaker 4: some like resist a points.
Speaker 3: But he's just too much of a fucking cow. The
Speaker 3: first rule of fighting these people is don't give them anything.
Speaker 3: Don't treat them like people. They're monsters, their scum. You
Speaker 3: fight them every step of the way, right, Like, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what you feel about the issue. You never
Speaker 3: give pieces a shit like this a win. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 3: that's just not the way you fight them.
Speaker 2: This is the problem with people like Evin, who just
Speaker 2: whose entire politics is just chasing the zeitgeist.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then when you interpret the zeitgeist as like swinging
Speaker 2: against your previously held progressive DEI woke LGBTQ plus values, Yeah,
Speaker 2: then you just go along with that swing and you
Speaker 2: actually don't even care about getting this getting this points
Speaker 2: anymore because you think the culture is going in a
Speaker 2: different direction. Sure, and all you care about is being
Speaker 2: in the cultural zeitgeist. Yeah, you don't actually stand for anything,
Speaker 2: like you're just you're just nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And everyone can see that as opposed to understanding
Speaker 3: what Governor Frey of main nderstands, which is that no,
Speaker 3: you stand there. You accept that the zeitgeist is a
Speaker 3: screen door and it's going to bounce off of you
Speaker 3: and back in enough for another direction if you stand
Speaker 3: for something, right, Gavin decided not to stand for something,
Speaker 3: and immediately after Trump made that tweet threatening to withhold
Speaker 3: funds from the state of California, and you know, the
Speaker 3: Department of Education has opened title for investigations in two
Speaker 3: leagues that have allowed trans athletes, including CIF, which is
Speaker 3: California's high school governing a sports governing body. Right after
Speaker 3: Trump made this most recent truth, the CIF released a
Speaker 3: statement saying that it had made the decision to pilot
Speaker 3: an entry process for the championship that's coming up that
Speaker 3: will alter the way they hand out awards. It will
Speaker 3: expand qualification opportunities for biological female student athletes. Is the
Speaker 3: exact way that they have phrased this. And basically what
Speaker 3: they're going to be doing is giving an award for
Speaker 3: biological men, biological women, and than trans competitors. Right, so
Speaker 3: there will be like three long jump awards.
Speaker 2: It's like a segregated scoring field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's some I guess you could say it's
Speaker 3: not as awful as trying to ban people. But also
Speaker 3: it's kind of like you're not even taking any kind
Speaker 3: of stance here. It's not it's just it's nothing. It's
Speaker 3: nothing now. Newsome spokesperson as a Garden says cif proposed
Speaker 3: pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex
Speaker 3: issue without compromising competitive fairness. That governor is encouraged by
Speaker 3: this thoughtful approach. And I should note here this has
Speaker 3: done nothing to actually calm the right or get conservatives
Speaker 3: to back down right.
Speaker 2: Now, because they don't want trans kids competing at all.
Speaker 2: They don't want trans kids in public life.
Speaker 3: They don't want tids existing. Yes, and so like the
Speaker 3: conservative Californians are still angry.
Speaker 2: You can't take them for their word for it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they don't care about fairness in sports. This is all
Speaker 2: about just eradicating trans genders from public life, like as
Speaker 2: as Michael Knowles said at Sea Pack like two years ago,
Speaker 2: Like that's yeah what they actually care about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's you know, there's been a bunch of
Speaker 3: statements some some Democrats and the legislative LGBTQ cock because
Speaker 3: it have been like well, Gavin's you know, otherwise been
Speaker 3: a good ally. You know for LGBTQ people, and I
Speaker 3: don't agree with this is something that an assembly member
Speaker 3: Chris Ward said basically, I don't agree with this particular move.
Speaker 3: But he's been a good ally for a long time.
Speaker 2: Has he though? Has he though?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean when it's convenient to him, I guess I prefer.
Speaker 3: Caucus member Alex Lee said that Newsom was quote just
Speaker 3: commenting on how he personally feels. He mentioned it on
Speaker 3: his dumb podcast. He never intended it to be a
Speaker 3: policy direction. Announced, Hell, yeah, it's a dumb podcast.
Speaker 4: Yea, yeah, I mean you should be concerned that he
Speaker 4: has a dumb pot cost what he deemed it. I
Speaker 4: just trans people like, yeah, he signed vetos all the time.
Speaker 3: Like again, I found a k c Ira add An
Speaker 3: article on this that quotes Publican assembly Woman Kate Sanchez,
Speaker 3: who wrote a bill that would have banned trans athletes
Speaker 3: from competing in girls high school sports earlier this year.
Speaker 3: This is what she said about cif's rule chains pilot policy.
Speaker 3: It's incredibly weak. We're angry, We're pissed at this. How
Speaker 3: every day that goes by and no one is protecting
Speaker 3: our girls. This is inexcusable. We need to have something done.
Speaker 3: Governor whoson needs to pick aside, do something, do the
Speaker 3: right thing. So again, this gets you nothing with them, right,
Speaker 3: it benefits you not at all. There's another quote I
Speaker 3: want to read here from State Senator Scott Weiner, who
Speaker 3: is the leader of the Senate Budget Committee and again
Speaker 3: a member of the LGBTQ Rights Caucus. Trump is now
Speaker 3: targeting California, just like he targeted Maine. Threatening to withhold
Speaker 3: federal funds of California doesn't follow as I legal edicts
Speaker 3: targeting transgender people. California law protects trans people. That won't
Speaker 3: change Main one in court. So will California. There's only
Speaker 3: one answer to a bully No, And as Main Governor
Speaker 3: Janet Mills said, see you in court. Sorry I got
Speaker 3: I don't know why I said Governor Fray earlier, but anyway,
Speaker 3: the point here is that you have Californian legislators saying
Speaker 3: the right thing, and then you have of fucking Newsome
Speaker 3: being like, no, no, no, actually we're totally going to
Speaker 3: cave and in a way that won't even make the
Speaker 3: Republicans happy. It's just frustrating to me that you do
Speaker 3: have Democrats trying to do the right thing here in
Speaker 3: California politics and Newsom absolutely having CIF do a run
Speaker 3: around on them out of pure cowardice. Anyway, that's what
Speaker 3: I got.
Speaker 2: Get him out of there.
Speaker 3: Get him out of there. Fuck Evin Newsom.
Speaker 4: We tried to. That was a recall, but it was
Speaker 4: not for the right reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the last time we recalled a California governor, it
Speaker 3: was a real mixed bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of a mixed bag, that's right, and we're back. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 2: James don want to finish us up here, I.
Speaker 4: Do, Garrison, I would like that very much. I want
Speaker 4: to talk about a couple of things. I'm going to
Speaker 4: try and keep this faster and know it's already been
Speaker 4: a long episode up with ice agents have been arresting
Speaker 4: people in immigration court around the country and placing them
Speaker 4: at expedited remove all proceedings. If you want to know
Speaker 4: more about exactly what they exploited remove all proceedings are
Speaker 4: and how they work, you can go back to our episode,
Speaker 4: which will have aired the day before you hear this,
Speaker 4: and that would explain And I talked to an immigration
Speaker 4: attorney there and explain a little bit more about how
Speaker 4: that works. This includes people whose cases were not dismissed.
Speaker 4: So Previously it was reported that ICE was dismissing cases
Speaker 4: of people who had arrived less than two years ago
Speaker 4: and placing them under two forty explanited remove all proceedings.
Speaker 4: Apparently they are also detaining other people. I am not
Speaker 4: sure how that works. I have not seen any justifications
Speaker 4: for this to give me an explanation for it. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure how much that matters anymore. These people are
Speaker 4: going to have to fight their removal from detention, which
Speaker 4: is obviously going to be a pretty unpleasant experience.
Speaker 3: Right. Detention in these.
Speaker 4: In these cour civic or geogroup facilities is pretty bad.
Speaker 4: I'm aware of cases where I misidentified the person being
Speaker 4: detained cuff the wrong person. And I'm aware that there
Speaker 4: are Spectrum Services who are an ICE detention officer provider officers,
Speaker 4: at least outside some of these facilities. I believe also
Speaker 4: inside Spectrum Services. I've noticed been posting a lot of
Speaker 4: job adverts recently. This is something I sometimes keep an
Speaker 4: eye on. Right like right before the end of title
Speaker 4: forty two, I saw they were advertising for ICE contractors
Speaker 4: to transport detainees. So this is sometimes a sign that
Speaker 4: bad things are a foot in the immigration world. I'm
Speaker 4: guessing in this case it's either this or a plan
Speaker 4: to further expand detention capacity, which also something the Trump
Speaker 4: administration has been talking about. Right, So they also have
Speaker 4: these various subjective orders authorizing more budget and the budget
Speaker 4: bill or threwting more budget for detaining migrants. Secondly, the
Speaker 4: South Sudan case rope we's covered this last week at
Speaker 4: ALVSUS Known.
Speaker 3: We also covered it earlier in this week.
Speaker 4: If you go back to our episode which aired on Wednesday,
Speaker 4: you can hear more about the sort of blow by
Speaker 4: blow of timeline of that case. In the South Studian case,
Speaker 4: Trump administration seems to have gone directly to the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court try and get an emergency stay on the injunction,
Speaker 4: which afforded due process rights to the migrants who are
Speaker 4: currently detained into booty. The administration asked for a stay
Speaker 4: of the court's injunction. The courts injunction had given them
Speaker 4: ten days to assert their reasonable fear of torture and
Speaker 4: then a further fifteen days to ask to reopen their
Speaker 4: case if the Department of Home Land Security determined that
Speaker 4: fear not to be credible. Justice Supreme Court Justice Jackson
Speaker 4: has given the plentiffs a week to respond to the
Speaker 4: United States the DOJ's call for a stay right, So
Speaker 4: in practices, people will still have that ten days from
Speaker 4: the injunction to make their play that they have a
Speaker 4: fear of torture. Right. South Sudan has said that if
Speaker 4: these people aren't South Sudanese, it will just return them
Speaker 4: to their country of citizenship. So if the United States
Speaker 4: can't return them there because they have a fear of torture,
Speaker 4: it just seems like the whole South Sudan thing is
Speaker 4: just an end run around the Convention against Torture right
Speaker 4: there their obligation not to return people to places where
Speaker 4: they will be tortured. Talking of returning people to places
Speaker 4: where they will be tortured. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has
Speaker 4: deported twenty people to Mianma. This is according to reporting
Speaker 4: in Meanma Now. I've also written about it on my
Speaker 4: page Patreon page. I've linked both of those in the
Speaker 4: show notes. But it should be noted that me and
Speaker 4: I Now broke the story and it's getting very little
Speaker 4: coverage in the United States. I can speculate as to
Speaker 4: why that you probably don't need to hear me to
Speaker 4: sort of join the dots there.
Speaker 3: This is atrocious.
Speaker 4: Robert and I have both spoken to people with extensive
Speaker 4: experience of detention in me m Aar, and like, when
Speaker 4: we talk about the worst attention conditions in the world,
Speaker 4: we get to a point where it doesn't really make
Speaker 4: any sense for us to say, like a is worse in.
Speaker 3: Right, right, that this is worse than Sednaia or whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's on like the level which was Assad's torture
Speaker 3: prison and Syria as.
Speaker 4: Sads butchery for human beings.
Speaker 3: Like we're talking about that level.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I mean things that I have heard. People
Speaker 4: have been electrocuted to death. People are water boarded, people
Speaker 4: have acid poured in their mouths. Bodies are found without organs,
Speaker 4: people are beaten to such an extent that their entire
Speaker 4: bodies are covered with bruises and contusions. Many times people
Speaker 4: will only know that their family member is detained when
Speaker 4: they disappear, and then a few days later they get
Speaker 4: a call telling them to pick up the body. Conditions
Speaker 4: in Burmese hunted attention facilities are atrocious. These people are
Speaker 4: currently being held at the on Tarpi Interrogation Center. It
Speaker 4: appears at seven, one of the earliest, but this has
Speaker 4: been happening since March. It appears that somebody these people
Speaker 4: have been released. The rest are being held by SAC.
Speaker 4: That's the Burmese hunter of military intelligence units, who will
Speaker 4: almost certainly torture them. Me and MA does have a
Speaker 4: temporary protected status, but I think I've seen a couple
Speaker 4: of posts about this, so I just want to clarify
Speaker 4: the TPS doesn't apply to people who entered after the
Speaker 4: TPS was granted, or to people who have committed certain crimes.
Speaker 4: We know that at least one of the men they
Speaker 4: returned had been convicted of a crime. Not all of
Speaker 4: these crimes are like particularly HENUS felonies. Right, you can
Speaker 4: do a certain number of misdemeanors and also be deported
Speaker 4: under a TPS. But I'm trying to find out who
Speaker 4: these people are. I know that you can't download our
Speaker 4: podcast in Meanma, which is a huge dub for us.
Speaker 4: But you know, I know a lot of Burmese people
Speaker 4: do listen, so you know, if you have an particular
Speaker 4: insight into this, you could reach out to us. We'll
Speaker 4: drop the email addressing a little bit here it does
Speaker 4: seem very unlikely that these people were given a chance
Speaker 4: to make a claim of fear of torture, right, because
Speaker 4: it would be a very easy claim to make, given
Speaker 4: every major human rights organization on the planet has documented
Speaker 4: torture of detainees in Meanma. I was just reading a
Speaker 4: report this morning about harassment of trans women in prisons
Speaker 4: in Myanmar. But the same thing goes for CIS folks,
Speaker 4: for straight folks, for everyone, right, no one, No one
Speaker 4: comes out of there the same they went in. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I can't believe that these people were given a chance
Speaker 4: to claim a credible fear because it would have been
Speaker 4: such an easy claim to make, yep, And they wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been returned there. So yeah, I wish the story
Speaker 4: was getting more reporting. I wish more people in the
Speaker 4: media in this country cared about me and Maa. But
Speaker 4: that's a drama I have been beating for four years now,
Speaker 4: and I don't think she's going to change anytime soon.
Speaker 4: So I guess all there is to say is that
Speaker 4: I really appreciate those of you who do, especially those
Speaker 4: of you who listen to the show and take an
Speaker 4: interest in all things Meanma. But yeah, if these people
Speaker 4: have been returned to a country that the US press
Speaker 4: was more familiar with, there'd be a lot more noise
Speaker 4: about this, but this is absolutely unconscionable.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these people will be tortured. It would not shock
Speaker 4: me if some of these people died.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, this is I mean, there have been cases
Speaker 3: so far. I think at least seven of the people
Speaker 3: that have been sent over previously in the last year
Speaker 3: or so by the US have been released from this prison.
Speaker 3: So it's not unnecessarily a death sentence, but for a
Speaker 3: good number of them it will be, right, Yeah, especially
Speaker 3: since there are also Rowhinga people who will be deported
Speaker 3: in the near future and presumably directly back to the
Speaker 3: same place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's documented that people deported from Thailand
Speaker 4: are immediately conscripted and yeah, sent me to the military. Right,
Speaker 4: So if they get out of prison, there's a good
Speaker 4: chance that, especially if they're men, that they will be
Speaker 4: Women do get conscripted too in Meanmar, but there's a
Speaker 4: good chance with that will happen too. They've been conscripting
Speaker 4: a lot of o Hinga people. So yeah, the outcomes of
Speaker 4: this will be very poor and U Yeah, the only
Speaker 4: way torture stops in Burma. Is is when the revolution
Speaker 4: succeeds and liberates to Britains. Like that, there is no
Speaker 4: reasoning with the Burmese hunter. Yep, it's about all I got.
Speaker 4: It's pretty fucked like.
Speaker 3: Speaking of fucked, let's listen to the tariffs song. There's
Speaker 3: no terriffs this week now, fuck it. Well, let's just
Speaker 3: listen to it and then have the end of the episode.
Speaker 3: Just gets a nice song. Let's just listen to it now.
Speaker 2: We don't have time to listen to it. This is
Speaker 2: the end of the episode.
Speaker 3: Wow, Garrison took it away from you and complained to
Speaker 3: them online.
Speaker 4: The constant agist attacks on the Clash have not stopped.
Speaker 2: Sorry, fellas, all that money for nothing?
Speaker 3: We reported the new.
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