It Could Happen Here Weekly 157

Summary

Behind the Bastards: It Could Happen Here Weekly 157 – A Detailed Summary

Release Date: November 24, 2024

Introduction

In episode 157 of Behind the Bastards, hosts Simone Boyce, James Stout, and Carl Cassarda delve into President Donald Trump's latest cabinet nominations for his anticipated administration. This episode, titled "It Could Happen Here," provides a critical examination of Trump's picks, highlighting their backgrounds, ideologies, and potential implications for the United States.

Trump’s Cabinet Picks: An Overview

Simone Boyce opens the discussion by addressing the controversial and unconventional nature of Trump's nominees. She emphasizes the "wacky" selections, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) for Health and Human Services and Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, setting the tone for a deep dive into each nominee's qualifications and controversies.

Mark Rubio as Secretary of State

The episode kicks off with Mark Rubio's nomination as Secretary of State, a seemingly restrained choice amid Trump's otherwise unorthodox picks. However, Rubio's past criticisms of Trump and his hawkish stance on China signal potential friction within the administration.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (04:31): “RFK will get his own future episode. But it's pretty safe to assume that RFK in control of Health and Human Services is pretty bad.”

Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense

Next, Pete Hegseth's nomination as Secretary of Defense raises immediate concerns. Hegseth, a former Army National Guard member and Fox News host, is criticized for his anti-vaccine stance and controversial tattoos symbolizing Christian nationalism.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (09:15): “He's advocated against divorce for families with kids until he was caught cheating on his second wife... He's just very chud coded.”

Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security

Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, is nominated for Secretary of Homeland Security despite lacking direct experience in law enforcement or the DHS. Her past actions, such as deploying the National Guard to the border with private financing, are scrutinized.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (12:44): “She wrote about it in her own fucking book, girl.”

Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence

The nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is met with skepticism due to her lack of intelligence background and alleged pro-Assad sentiments. Her history of spreading Russian disinformation and conspiracy theories raises alarms about her suitability for overseeing critical intelligence agencies.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (15:44): “She's an anti vaccine conspiracy theorist with a history of spreading Russian disinformation propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine.”

Matt Gaetz as Attorney General

Matt Gaetz's potential appointment as Attorney General is particularly contentious. Facing allegations of sex trafficking and ethical violations, Gaetz's confirmation process is fraught with controversy. The discussion highlights the potential for Gaetz to lead the DOJ in a manner aligned with QAnon ideologies, emphasizing political revenge over justice.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (20:54): “The end goal of the QAnon movement is just putting a pedophile in charge of the DOJ.”

John Ratcliffe as CIA Director

John Ratcliffe’s nomination revisits his brief tenure as Director of National Intelligence under Trump, emphasizing his loyalty to the former president. While more conventional than some nominees, his past role in defending Trump during impeachment adds complexity to his suitability.

Lee Zeldin as EPA Adviser

Lee Zeldin, a former congressman with no environmental background, is nominated as EPA adviser. His voting record against EPA initiatives and support for deregulation suggest a significant rollback of environmental protections under his guidance.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (13:00): “He votes to cut EPA funding... Ska point to like, more negative progress in the next four years.”

Tom Homan as Border Czar

Tom Homan, former ICE director, is appointed as the new border czar. Known for implementing the family separation policy, Homan’s expertise in aggressive immigration enforcement highlights a continuation of stringent border policies.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (15:44): “He was effective at getting that shit done... which is concerning.”

Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the UN

Elise Stefanik’s nomination as Ambassador to the UN underscores her strong pro-Israel stance and opposition to UN programs perceived as anti-Semitic. Her lack of diplomatic experience raises questions about her ability to effectively represent the U.S. on the international stage.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (32:47): “She’s going to be the UN Ambassador... has demonstrated fierce loyalty to Trump.”

Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and Evangelical Christian Zionist, is nominated as Ambassador to Israel. His extremist views, including opposition to a two-state solution and support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, signal a hardline approach to Middle Eastern policy.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (34:21): “He legitimately believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish people to the holy land of Israel to trigger the biblical apocalypse.”

Steve Witkoff as Middle East Envoy

Steve Witkoff, a Trump fundraiser and real estate developer with no foreign policy experience, is appointed as Middle East Envoy. His lack of expertise and business background suggest a diplomatic approach focused on personal interests rather than strategic policy.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Leading the DOGE Department

In a surprising and unconventional move, President Trump appoints Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This new agency aims to dismantle government bureaucracy but is met with skepticism regarding its feasibility and actual effectiveness.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (37:44): “Trump just can't create one out of thin air... and it's going with their little fun.”

Linda McMahon as Co-Chair of Trump’s Transition Team

Linda McMahon, former WWE CEO, serves as co-chair of Trump’s transition team. Despite her lack of political qualifications and ongoing lawsuits related to sex trafficking allegations, McMahon's role signifies the administration's willingness to overlook personal misconduct for loyalty.

• Quote: Simone Boyce (46:43): “Her appointment is evidence of Trump's centralizing power...”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary

Although RFK Jr. is slated for his own episode due to the extensive controversies surrounding him, his tentative nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services is briefly touched upon. His anti-vaccine stance and conspiracy theorist background threaten to undermine public health initiatives.

• Quote: Robert Evans (89:06): “We've just put probably the US's most famous anti-vaxxer in charge of all of these organizations.”

Notable Quotes and Key Points

Throughout the episode, several critical statements underscore the hosts’ concerns:

• Simone Boyce (09:15): “He’s just a guy that Trump sees on TV. This is just a TV host.”
• Carl Cassarda (14:53): “Miller is scary because he's actually very effective...”
• Simone Boyce (20:54): “The end goal of the QAnon movement is just putting a pedophile in charge of the DOJ.”
• Simone Boyce (34:21): “He legitimately believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish people to the holy land of Israel to trigger the biblical apocalypse.”

Analysis and Conclusions

The hosts collectively argue that Trump's cabinet picks reflect a strategy to centralize power within his administration while surrounding himself with loyalists who lack the necessary qualifications. This approach not only undermines institutional integrity but also paves the way for policies driven by extremist ideologies rather than expertise and effectiveness.

The nomination of figures like RFK Jr. and Matt Gaetz signals a potential rollback of public health measures and a politicization of the Department of Justice, respectively. Additionally, the unconventional appointment of Elon Musk to lead DOGE raises questions about the administration’s commitment to functional governance.

Closing Remarks

Behind the Bastards episode 157 serves as a stark warning about the possible consequences of Trump's cabinet selections. The discussion emphasizes the risks of prioritizing loyalty over competence, highlighting how such decisions can lead to dysfunctional governance and the perpetuation of harmful ideologies.

As the episode concludes, the hosts express concern over the future direction of the U.S. government under this administration, urging listeners to remain vigilant and critical of the evolving political landscape.

Key Takeaways:

1. Centralization of Power: Trump's nominations aim to consolidate authority, reducing departmental autonomy and increasing White House control.
2. Loyalty Over Competence: Appointees like Rubio, Gaetz, and Gabbard, despite controversies, highlight a preference for loyalty over expertise.
3. Extreme Ideologies: Nominees' extremist views, especially regarding immigration, public health, and international relations, pose significant risks to policy effectiveness and societal well-being.
4. Unconventional Appointments: The creation of DOGE and the inclusion of business figures like Musk indicate a departure from traditional governance structures.
5. Long-term Implications: The administration’s choices may lead to significant policy shifts, undermining public institutions and promoting divisive ideologies.

This episode underscores the importance of scrutinizing political appointments and understanding their potential impact on national and international policies.

Notable Time-Stamped Quotes:

• Simone Boyce (04:31): “RFK will get his own future episode. But it's pretty safe to assume that RFK in control of Health and Human Services is pretty bad.”
• Simone Boyce (09:15): “He's advocated against divorce for families with kids until he was caught cheating on his second wife... He's just very chud coded.”
• Simone Boyce (15:44): “She's an anti vaccine conspiracy theorist with a history of spreading Russian disinformation propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine.”
• Simone Boyce (20:54): “The end goal of the QAnon movement is just putting a pedophile in charge of the DOJ.”
• Simone Boyce (34:21): “He legitimately believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish people to the holy land of Israel to trigger the biblical apocalypse.”

Conclusion

Episode 157 of Behind the Bastards offers a comprehensive and critical analysis of Trump's cabinet nominations, highlighting the dangers of prioritizing political loyalty over professional qualifications. Through incisive discussion and notable quotes, the hosts illuminate the potential threats these appointments pose to effective governance and societal stability.

Transcript

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[James Stout]

Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you. But you can make your own decisions.

[Simone Boyce]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here.

[Chelsea Handler]

Oh, God.

[Simone Boyce]

We have survived another week and I'm joined today by Sophie and James to discuss Trump's Cabinet picks and the upcoming potential members of the Trump administration 2.0. I'm sure some of you have been following the news and there is some wacky picks in there. There keeps being even more wacky ones like rfk, which I didn't even have time to include because by the time he was announced, I basically already wrote too much. RFK will get his own future episode. But it's pretty, it's pretty safe to assume that RFK in control of Health and Human Services is pretty bad. You don't say. You don't say.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, people are saying it.

[Simone Boyce]

Not great to have the world's weirdest conspiracy theorist of the Kennedy family in charge of, you know, like vaccines and health mandates. And it's going to be bad. Bad enough that it's its own episode for the rest of the nominations, mostly like last week, right? This is going to be covering all the nominations from the week of the 11th to the 15th of November. We're going to kind of go through nomination by nomination and do a brief overview of each of these guys and why each one could be bad. And some of them just kind of point to like, more general, like neocon picks as well. Trump kind of started off with some more ordinary picks, honestly, you know, like Mark Rubio, Secretary of State. This is, this is kind of a restrained pick for him. Now, Rubio is still kind of converted into being a Trump loyalist like every single other person we're going to be talking about. And it is interesting that kind of among all of the Trump appointees, he has been the most open about his criticisms of Trump, especially during Trump's first term. The leaked 551 page VP vetting document produced by the Trump campaign outlines Rubio's anti Putin comments, support for the Mueller investigation, his acceptance of the 2020 election results, past comments that Trump is too dangerous to be trusted with nuclear codes, and his history of supporting NATO support of the Iraq war, and pro military intervention in Iran and Syria. So some of these positions now kind of bump up against what Trump's next term is going to be kind of defined by. And like, more recently, Rubio has moved on from his Tea Party free trade kind of roots and now advocates for, you know, more tariffs on China and calling the country, quote, the most advanced adversary America has ever faced, unquote. Basically, all of the kind of foreign policy guys are really big on China. They are all China hawks. That is kind of one continuous through line throughout all these nominations, I guess. James, do you have any thoughts on Mark Rubio for Secretary of State?

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, Marco Rubio. I have a lot of thoughts on Marco Rubio. I was expecting it all to be more along the lines of, heck, this, like, more to be like culture war commentators.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Like, at least Rubio, I will say, like, I probably disagree with him on almost everything, but he's, he's not going to probably abandon the YPG and the YPG and the SDF in Syria, which is a good thing. He's, he's pretty hawkish on that. He's not, not a big Erdogan fan. So, like, that's a good thing, I guess. Like, I think as Secretary of State under Trump, go like, it could have been fucking Tucker Carlson. Like, that's not out of the realm of possibility at this rate.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

And it's. Well, he spends all his time watching Fox News. Right. Like, as we've heard that he does. And it's not inconceivable that he thinks these people are experts because they're presented that way. And that is how he encounters and thus perceives the world. So I guess Rubio. And even amongst these picks, he's probably not the worst, which is wild to be saying.

[Simone Boyce]

So is the review on Marco Rubio could be worse? I mean, I guess so.

[Carl Cassarda]

I mean, that's the review on Marco Rubio's life, isn't it? That's pretty much how he's gone through the world.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I think his parents would agree with us.

[Simone Boyce]

Ouch. Rubio is no Pete Hegseth. Secretary of Defense. Yeah. Which was one of the first picks that, like, really started raising some eyebrows. Wild pick. Wild pick.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

What dude has an ACOG tattooed on his bicep?

[Simone Boyce]

Stop sending us that photo of him without a shirt on. Have seen it.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. Never send us any cabinet member shirtless. I don't care if it's rfk. I don't care if his headset don't want to see a nipple.

[Simone Boyce]

I saw it. I didn't like it. I don't need to see it again. Thank you so much. I feel like everyone's pretty well aware now that he has some very questionable Christian nationalist tattoos. Honey. Not. Not super uncommon. And you know, for this type of military guy, he got them all after he was out.

[Carl Cassarda]

He got them in his late 30s.

[Simone Boyce]

That also makes sense. That feels like a very midlife crisis. Oh, no. I'm a Fox and Friends weekend host now. Kind of move.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah. Better up my merlon larvae game.

[Simone Boyce]

Now. There's a lot to be said about Pete Hegseth. He's a Princeton and Harvard graduate who has also claimed that germs are not real. And he has never washed his hands in the last 10 years. Disgusting. Saying, quote, germs are not real. I can't see them, therefore they're not real. So that's. That's lovely.

[Chelsea Handler]

Gross.

[Simone Boyce]

You can't. What a fucking idiot. What an absolute moron.

[Chelsea Handler]

God.

[Simone Boyce]

He's advocated against divorce for families with kids until he was caught cheating on his second wife with his producer, fathered a child, and then divorced his wife to marry his co worker.

[Carl Cassarda]

Many such cases.

[Simone Boyce]

In general, he's just very chud coded.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Simone Boyce]

He has like. Yeah, he has like a grunt style fashion, Christian nationalist tattoos.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

He looks like the type of guy that I would have doxed for fun as a teenager, except he just serves on Fox and Friends weekend hosting team. He served in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan in the Army National Guard and has recently advocated that women should not serve in combat roles in the US Military.

[Michael Phillips]

I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.

[Stephen Monticelli]

It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't.

[Michael Phillips]

Made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

[Stephen Monticelli]

We've all served with women and they're great.

[Robert Evans]

It just.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Our institutions don't have to incentivize that.

[Michael Phillips]

In places where traditionally not traditionally over human history. Men in those positions are more capable.

[Carl Cassarda]

He has some wild takes on what should be happening in the military.

[Simone Boyce]

He sure does. I'm going to read a quote from his book, the War on Warriors. Big sigh. Fuck's sake. The Republican Party by default has become the only party of America. And if we don't crusade a holy war, a righteous holy war for freedom, we're not going to save America, unquote. In general, a lot of his rhetoric kind of is this similar Christian nationalist, crusade, holy war type stuff. This is like a lot of what he talks about on podcasts and TV appearances where he is not throwing a double sided ax at the penis of a West Point drummer on live tv.

[Carl Cassarda]

It was incredible. It was indirect fire. He arced it over the target straight to the dick chicken balls of the West Point drama.

[Simone Boyce]

I just feel like if he's gonna. It's like somebody tell him what a microscope is. Somebody just tell him what a microscope is.

[Carl Cassarda]

He must have used binoculars at some point in his service or some kind of magnified optic. Right. To learn to see things.

[Simone Boyce]

I mean, he hasn't.

[Carl Cassarda]

He has a magnified optic tattooed on his bicep, actually.

[Simone Boyce]

He sure does. Good lord. I mean, like, if you're gonna be Secretary of Defense, at least like, oh.

[Chelsea Handler]

Sir, wash your hands.

[Simone Boyce]

Arguably the most worrying part about Pete as Secretary of Defense is not the anti hand washing beliefs or the poor aim for ax throwing. It's that he's basically a lobbyist for war criminals.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yes.

[Simone Boyce]

And was a big part of the campaign to push Trump to pardon several convicted war criminals. People who like, tortured and murdered prisoners and ordered soldiers to shoot and kill random unarmed civilians.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

So especially with, with this Secretary of Defense role. That's not great that he's essentially pro war criminal and justifies it by saying like, people don't really understand what it's like to serve in combat. Sometimes you have to make decisions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All this random stuff. Not good. Sources within the government have called him the most unqualified person ever appointed to this position. Which I do, I do believe, because this is just a guy that Trump sees on tv. This is just a TV host. Yeah. This is one of the more shocking nominations.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Let's move on to Secretary of Homeland Security. Oh, this is another odd pick. Kristi Noem, the non border state governor of South Dakota who has no experience in the dhs, has never worked in law enforcement, though she does possess one trademark cop trait. Oh yes. Oh yes, she does. And what would that Be Gare, which is shooting and killing dogs.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yup.

[Simone Boyce]

Awful person. So that is one thing she might bond with our law enforcement community over, which we all know about, because she wrote about it in her own fucking book, girl.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. Incriminating herself. Another cop trait.

[Simone Boyce]

So true.

[Mia Wong]

So true.

[Carl Cassarda]

She did deploy the South Dakota National Guard to the border, and I think they used. They received private financing for, if I remember correctly. Yeah, like, that's her engagement. That one again, is troubling. So much power at the dhs.

[Simone Boyce]

It's such an odd pick. All of these picks we're talking about, some of them do seem odd, but not from the point of view that Trump is basically picking people that one are, like, in his constant orbit, like a guy on tv. But also people that are not, like, institutionalists. Right. These aren't, like, people who, like, worked their way up through these government departments to prove their, like, effectiveness, to prove their legitimacy. They're people that have proven their personal loyalty to Trump. Right. Trump's first campaign was kind of defined by a whole bunch of people defecting from him. Right. Everyone he's appointed eventually gotten to beefs with him. People left wrote books about how bad Trump is. Eventually, Trump faced all these prosecutions. Trump's main concern is loyalty right now. So he's picking people that just have proven their own loyalty. And from that point of view, all of his picks make sense. Almost everyone picked here, at least at some point, appeared on screen with Trump in his, like, 2024 campaign six part documentary. Like, all of these guys. So, like, they were around Trump's orbit from pretty early on in his campaign. Now, according to Politico, Christine Noem was recommended by 2016 Campaign chief Corey Lewandowski and his incoming border czar, Tom Homan. Lewandowski sucks. Yeah. Gonna give him a honorary. You suck Lewandowski. Her appointment is evidence of Trump's centralizing power and departmental influence tightly within the White House. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the far right center for Immigration Studies, has postulated that the immigration branches of DHS will largely be puppeteered by Stephen Miller and the new border czar, who has a lot of DHS experience.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

While Gnome could be more focused on overseeing fema, tsa, and Secret Service, another aspect of Trump just appointing these wildly incompetent people is that more of these departments can just be run out of the White House, specifically by his senior advisors and Stephen Miller. Right. Like, those are the types of people that are going to be largely overseeing the direction of these departments, while basically these Figureheads just to do their bidding.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, I had worried that he would appoint Stephen Miller directly to dhs.

[Simone Boyce]

I understand that fear. I think part of the fear is that he just doesn't have to.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes. Yeah, no, you're right.

[Simone Boyce]

In fact, Stephen Miller can have more power by having his mitts in more departments in his current role. Which we will get to later. But first, let's talk about Tulsi Gabbard. That's the appointed Director of National Intelligence, which is crazy.

[Chelsea Handler]

Crazy. Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Now, like, Noam Gabbard is shockingly unqualified and she would be overseeing 18 intelligence intelligence agencies, having never worked in the intelligence field or served on a congressional intelligence committee. Her nomination was first announced by Roger Stone on InfoWars, now owned by the Onion. RIP owned by the Onion. Ha ha ha. But. But that was like, that was how this news broke. So that kind of also tells you, but like what information channels are getting like, funneled down from Trump's team. If Roger Stone was the first guy to announce it before Trump even announced it in his like, truth socialing, it just. She's such a conspiracy theorist that it just, it does kind of make sense. She is an anti vaccine conspiracy theorist with a history of spreading Russian disinformation propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Gabbard was also openly pro Assad in 2015, secretly met with Assad in 2017, and then a year later, Gabbard peddled Syrian war crime denial, saying that she was quote, unquote, skeptical of intelligence findings that Assad carried out chemical weapons attacks while parroting Russian talking points. In February 2022, she blamed Joe Biden for the war in Ukraine for not alleviating Russia's fear of Ukraine. Possibly joining Naito. I'm going to quote from NBC News, quote. During her 2020 presidential bid, Russian state propaganda often portrayed Gabbard favorably while it denigrated the other Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden. According to research from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia based think tank, less than a month into her presidential campaign, there were at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow based, English language, affiliated or supportive of the Russian government, all of which celebrated her candidacy, unquote.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's very funny because 20 Gabbard stories is probably the net total that the entire US Media wrote throughout her run.

[Simone Boyce]

Like, it is widely speculated that Gabbard is a de facto Russian agent or at the very least is very comfortable just spreading Russian propaganda and spreading like pro Putin and pro Russian talking points.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, it could be one of those things. Where she's not actually. She's, like, too fucking glowing to be an agent. And she's, in fact, just doing this shit voluntarily by accident, like, it's certainly possible.

[Simone Boyce]

I mean, the Syrian war crime, denial and meeting with Assad stuff, yeah, that.

[Carl Cassarda]

Stuff is pretty glowing.

[Simone Boyce]

And Russia certainly has a vested interest in promoting Gabbard, right? So at the very least, even this isn't intentional on her part. Russia is very willing to jump on this and the fact that she's now going to be the head of all of our spy agency programs. Okay, cool. Sounds great. Cool. She also comes from a family of anti gay activists and is tied to an anti Muslim and anti gay cult called the Science of Identity. The leader has called Muslims and f slurs, quote, unquote, demons. In 2004, Tulsi herself accused the newspaper the Honolulu of being the mouthpiece for quote, unquote, homosexual extremists. Insert joke about mouthpiece homosexual. Anyway, now, Tulsi's family and campaign staff were all active members of the cult during her 2020 presidential campaign, during which she also produced a list of enemies that named prominent journalists who were against Tulsi's own history of war crime denial.

[Carl Cassarda]

Amazing.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, boy.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, sorry we got snubbed there.

[Simone Boyce]

Hey, I mean, it was 2019, right? You know?

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, I can dream of making.

[Simone Boyce]

We still have a chance of being put on their list of enemies.

[Carl Cassarda]

You know what, Garrison? If we are accused of crimes, how will we fund our defense through these.

[Simone Boyce]

Products and services that support this podcast.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's correct.

[Simone Boyce]

Okay, we are back. It's time to talk about who might be prosecuting a list of political enemies. And that would be the possible new Attorney General, Matt Gaetz. Oh, boy. So Matt Gaetz is one of these congresspeople who has built an outsized reputation through television appearances and TV news sound bites. He's always quick to jump to the defense of Trump and advocate for extreme positions within the party. His behavior displays a desperate need for attention and willingness to sacrifice his own effectiveness as a Congressman for simply going viral. This performative nature is made a little bit more uncanny by the bizarre fact that Gates grew up in the House from the Truman show, which his family still owns.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's in you. I did not know that.

[Simone Boyce]

I did not know that. But that is what. Yeah, it makes so much sense, though. Look at all of his, like, gambits and bits in Congress. And if you frame that within someone who was raised in the Truman show house, it makes perfect sense.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Wow.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

He is not necessarily a popular pick. Among kind of again, like institutionalists in the Republican Party or the famously liberal Wall Street Journal ran the headline, quote, matt Gaetz is a bad choice for Attorney General. He's a nominee for those who want the law to be used for political revenge. And it won't end well, unquote. Now, hours after this announcement, Gates suddenly resigned from the House. And Speaker Johnson said that he hopes to work with Governor DeSantis to fast track a special election to get the seat filled as early as January.

[James Stout]

I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately of Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was and he said, well, you can't have too many absences. So under Florida state law, there's about an eight week period to select and fill a vacant seat. People have asked me all day long, President Trump is poaching all of your talent. Yes, we have an embarrassment of riches here. The Republican Conference is full of talented people who are extraordinary leaders and have great expertise. And everyone in this Congress, in this conference could serve in a leadership position in the administration.

[Simone Boyce]

It's so bizarre. A little bit. But there's one little curious fact about, about Gates, a quick resignation. Oh, yes. Is that this happened just days before a House ethics investigation was set to vote on the release of a report looking into the sex trafficking allegations against Matt Gaetz. According to ABC News, the woman at the center of the DOJ's probe of Representative Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, to quote ABC quote. The woman's allegation regarding Gates became part of the investigation following claims by former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, a former friend of Gates who is currently serving an 11 year prison sentence after reaching a deal with investigators in May of 2021 in which he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking of the woman when she was a minor and introducing her to other, quote, unquote, adult men who also had sex with her when she was underage. The committee also obtained a sworn written statement by Gates ex girlfriend where she lists the Florida congressman as one of the attendees at a party in July 2017 where drugs were present and which was attended by the woman who Gates allegedly had sex with when she was a minor. Sub witnesses show Venmo payments that they allegedly received from Gates, unquote. So I guess the end goal of the QAnon movement is just putting a pedophile in charge of the doj. Serving as Attorney General over the entire country. Also, Gates made a really bad joke a few years ago responding to a Twitter post about how people can be, like, beautiful at any age.

[Carl Cassarda]

Oh, yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

And Gates responded by saying this should be Florida's state motto. And that tweet is still up.

[Carl Cassarda]

Wasn't it sexy at any age?

[Simone Boyce]

It is sexy. It was sexy. Oh, my God, it's worse.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's worse.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, that's so bad. But no, Gates isn't super popular even within, like, large parts of the party. It's reported from other congressmen that he would, like, walk up to them and, like, show them sex tapes he made with people he's, like, having sex with. He's a fucking creep. He's really icky. Ew, bro. There's arguments that, like, maybe he won't get past, like, confirmation, right?

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

And here's. Here's the thing. He might not have to. Trump is currently working with the speaker of the House as well as the new Senate Majority Leader to possibly just close Congress and push all these guys through in recess appointments. So they may not even have to get past the confirmation process. Now, this still remains to be seen. And as Matt Johnson said in the clip before, he's a little worried that Trump just keeps picking congressmen, which is slowly eating away at the House's slim Republican majority. Johnson said that he has, quote, unquote, begged and pleaded with Trump to stop couching House representatives to protect their majority. At this point, at least five congressmen have been tapped to serve in the Trump administration, with more expected. Now, Gates might have someone assisting him as Deputy Attorney General with a little bit more prosecution experience. That is Todd Blanche, who is Trump's personal defense lawyer, who earlier this year oversaw multiple indictments against Trump. So Trump just picked his own lawyer to be like, yeah, you're like the second guy in charge. Go help out Gates.

[Carl Cassarda]

I know a lawyer. This will be fine.

[Simone Boyce]

The White House Chief of Staff is Susie Wills, who's a very successful Republican campaign operator. She worked on Rick Scott's and Ron DeSantis's gubernatorial campaigns, as well as Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. She's kind of one of the few legacy establishment figures that Trump has tapped. Now Deputy Chief of Staff is Stephen Miller, the great replacement white nationalist and anti immigrant extremist will be returning to the White House as assistant to the President and a Deputy Chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security advisor. So he's not just the head of Homeland Security. He has his paws in multiple little departments and Also is like directly next to the President's ear. Now, in Trump's first term, Miller was the architect of the family separation policy, the Muslim ban, and the end of daca. Miller has advocated for denaturalization of American citizens and has called for the use of National Guard troops from Republican governed states to be deployed in blue states to carry out internment of migrants in military camps and deportations in states that are uncooperative with Trump's mass deportation plans. James, do you have any things to add here on Stephen Miller? This is kind of your department.

[Carl Cassarda]

Miller is scary because he's actually very effective at, like, so often these right wing kind of plots hinge on these bizarre legal theories. Right. Which are so far from accepted by mainstream kind of jurisprudence.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Miller did very well at finding antiquated laws that could stick their landing in the courts to do the evil shit.

[Simone Boyce]

He wanted to do like the Alien enemies Act of 1790 something, right?

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I mean, he did that with title 42, which is a law that's designed to stop people with tuberculosis just walking across the border. Right. And he successfully. And he planned this before the pandemic, he successfully used that to effectively allow Border Patrol to immediately deport people without giving them their right to claim asylum. And that was a policy that Trump did and that Biden continued till 2023. Right. Like, Miller is good. If we look at the last term, at finding ways to.

[Simone Boyce]

He's effective.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, he's effective. He's scarily effective.

[Simone Boyce]

To me, he's always been the scariest guy in Trump's orbit.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes. Yeah. Because he's competent and like, by far. And he stays out of the limelight for the large part and that allows him to not have to defend his evil shit and just get on with doing it.

[Simone Boyce]

When I watched that six part documentary on the behind the scenes of Trump's campaign, Stephen Miller was in almost every scene.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes.

[Simone Boyce]

He was always like in the background, always in the background, just saying things to Trump. He is a constant presence there. It's quite frightening. Now, moving on, the guy nominated for National Security Advisor is named Mike Walls. He's a neocon. He's an anti sadist, pro Ukraine. He's advocated to take the cuffs off Ukraine to allow them to make strikes further into Russia. He was also the former counterterrorism advisor to Dick Cheney when. When he was vp. Yeah, super pro Israel too. All everyone I list here is pro Israel.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, I think that's pretty much.

[Simone Boyce]

This is one of the most like, openly pro war guys, right? Right. You have someone like this guy who's historically kind of like the anti Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, yeah. Takes the opposite stance on almost every single issue. He's, he, he's a neocon, he's anti Assad, he's anti Putin.

[Carl Cassarda]

He's a member of the Kurdish Caucus in Congress, actually.

[Simone Boyce]

Interesting.

[Carl Cassarda]

Which, yeah, I mean, yeah, I hope he balances out some, some of those crazy. More like assadist sort of. Or just Trump's natural tendency to see a strongman in Erdogan and be like, yeah, you go for it, buddy.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah. He was the first Green Beret to serve in Congress and has advocated the use of military intel to combat drug cartels and co sponsor legislation to authorize the use of military force against cartels in Mexico. Great guy.

[Chelsea Handler]

Ugh.

[Simone Boyce]

Another kind of more standard establishment pick, still not good, but a little bit more standard is CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Briefly served as Director of National Intelligence near the end of Trump's first term and helped to defend Trump during impeachment hearings. He is more of like a standard pick, but like everyone else on this list, he has demonstrated fierce loyalty to Trump. EPA adviser Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman. No environmental or conservation experience, just an ordinary anti regulation conservative. After his announcement, Zelman wrote, quote, we will restore US Energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI, unquote, which does not point to much environmental protection. I'm going to quote from the New Republic. Zeldin voted to cut EPA funding, scrap its chemical risk assessment program, and block the agency from taking action to restrict carbon pollution. He missed the 2017 vote on whether to defund the EPA's criminal law enforcement program, but voted to prohibit funds from being used for this purpose the prior year, unquote, after going to the rnc. His emails were the worst email thread that I got added to. His emails are so unhinged. Truly the worst thing he's ever done. Yeah. Zeldin, worst, worst emails. So, which actually makes sense that he wants to be a global leader of AI. Yes, that's probably what all his emails were. I mean, it's pretty safe to assume that basically any progress that we have made on climate very minuscule will be immediately undone. Yeah. And we will just make negative progress in the next four years with someone like Lee Zeldin in charge of the epa, which already has very little regulatory power, but it's about to have a lot less. Let's discuss border czar Tom Homan, former ICE director. He oversaw the family separation policy in 2017 and is since said that American born citizens should be deported with their family to avoid separating families. He's advocated treating cartels like foreign terrorist organizations that Trump will use the full might of the US Special Operations to take out. He also wrote the border section of Project 2025. James, do you have anything to say on our new border czar?

[Carl Cassarda]

It's kind of troubling because again, you've got someone here who is competent, right, who has worked at high levels in government. He was an Obama appointee, right?

[Simone Boyce]

He's worked at ICE like forever.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like when Obama was setting records for deportations, Homan was doing it, which I think tells you everything about the shit that we forget about Obama. But yeah, like again, troubling because Hohman is a real hawk on this stuff and has previously been like, he was effective at doing family separation, right. And it wasn't particularly organized as we've seen. It's difficult for people to find and reunite the families. They've been doing it ever since Trump left office. But he was effective at getting that shit done. And that worries me in terms of deportations because I will need to scale up massively as we spoke about. And that will require someone with leadership experience and he has that. That is concerning.

[Simone Boyce]

Let's talk about some more diplomatic roles. For ambassador to the UN Trump has named Elise Stefanik, who has no diplomatic experience but has been extremely vocally pro Israel. She harshly interrogated university presidents amid campus protests against the genocide in Gaza and has consistently advocated against US Participation in the UN and now is going to be the UN Ambassador to quote from the New Republic, quote. In a statement last week, Stefanik heralded Israel's decision to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near east or unrwa, from operating in Israel, the West bank and Gaza, claiming that the 74 year old aid program, quote, instills anti Semitic hate in Palestinians and houses weapons for terrorists, unquote. She's also called on the United States to defund the refugee program, criticizing the Biden administration for issuing $1 billion to UNRA since 2021, unquote.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, this is like a typical talking point of like, right, Zionists, right, that the United nations is somehow an arm of Hamas and unrwa, the United Nations Refugee Welfare Agency is actively funneling weapons to Hamas and like, it's just not true. It's an, it's an excuse for targeting aid workers in Gaza.

[Simone Boyce]

The UN Already has such little control over any degree of, like, enforcement for, like, humanitarian.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Aid. And having this person be the US Ambassador to UN will make what little power they have even, like, diminished.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes.

[Simone Boyce]

Just last October, she called for, quote, a complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United nations, unquote, after calls from the Palestinian Authority to expel Israel from the UN for war crimes and human rights abuses. Now the ambassador to Israel is set to be Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and Evangelical Christian Zionist. Similarly, he has no diplomatic experience. I'm going to quote from the Atlantic, quote. He has led religious pilgrimages to Israel and visited the country dozens of times over the course of several decades. He also opposes a two state solution to the Israel Palestine conflict and says that, quote, there's really no such thing as a Palestinian, unquote. He is really bad. Mike Huckabee is really bad.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

[Simone Boyce]

He has also advocated for Israel to permanently annex and take control of the west bank. And he, like, legitimately believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish people to the holy land of Israel to trigger the biblical apocalypse resulting in the death of all Jews.

[James Stout]

My feelings personally, and I'm speaking only as a person, I think Israel would only be acting on the property it already owns. I think Israel.

[Michael Phillips]

Has title deed to Judea and Samaria.

[James Stout]

There are certain words I refuse to use.

[Michael Phillips]

There is no such thing as a West Bank.

[James Stout]

It's Judea and Samaria.

[Michael Phillips]

There's no such thing as a settlement.

[James Stout]

Their communities, their neighborhoods, their cities. There's no such thing as an occupation.

[Simone Boyce]

This is why he believes this. This isn't like out of care in his heart for Jewish people. It's that he wants to trigger the apocalypse. And to do this, he needs to both eliminate all Palestinians, give total control of the land to Israel, make all Jewish people live there so that Jesus can come again and do the wars and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. It's nasty.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

The last diplomatic pick here is Middle east envoy Steve Witkoff, who's a Trump campaign fundraiser and a real estate developer. He has no diplomatic or foreign policy experience pro Israel. He'll basically just be assisting in all of the bad things that everyone else I've already named is going to be doing. Wait, sorry, my brain just broke.

[Chelsea Handler]

So.

[Simone Boyce]

So the Middle east envoy is just like a real estate investor guy? Yep, yep. That seems, I mean, I mean, yeah. Is it, is it much better than Jared is going to do peace in the Middle east like last time.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Yes. You can look at this similarly to, like, Jared Kushner's proposals to, like, develop what once was Gaza. And just, like, viewing wars in the Middle east as a real estate development opportunity. Yeah, yeah. You can see a guy like this kind of in line with that side of, like, the Trump campaign. Jared's gotta handle it. And we're gonna handle these ad breaks. All right, we are back. It's time to discuss the elephant in the room.

[Mia Wong]

Doge.

[Carl Cassarda]

Doge.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, God.

[Carl Cassarda]

I've gotten about this. I genuinely blocked that out of my mind.

[Simone Boyce]

Are we doging? We are going full Doge. So I'm just going to read part of the statement from Donald Trump announcing this new government agency, doge. More on that later. Quote, I am pleased to announce that the great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency. Doge. Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies. It will become potentially the Manhattan Project of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a long time to drive this kind of drastic change. The Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of government and will partner with the White House and Office of Management and Budget to drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before. Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026. A smaller government with more efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, unquote.

[Carl Cassarda]

Jesus Christ, man.

[Simone Boyce]

So this is, this is the new quote, unquote, government agency, which is not real. Right? This is not a real government agenc. Trump just can't create one out of thin air. And in this statement, it does clarify that they will be providing advice and guidance from outside of government.

[Carl Cassarda]

That is pretty funny. This is the children's table. Like, they have the plastic cutlery.

[Simone Boyce]

It's the children's table, yes. He's. He's sending Musk and Vivek off to the side to have their little fun. They'll make like a blog post that talks about who to cut, you know, what programs to cut. Vivek specifically talked about, like ending health care for veterans, which I'm sure will go over very well. And they'll submit that to Trump. And then the people in charge of the Office of Management and Budget will probably just Throw it in the trash. But we will see. I mean, I don't want to understate Musk's general influence in, like, Trump's operations, because Musk right now does have a great deal of influence. I think this Doge thing isn't something to be too worried about, though. Now, as a, as a fun side note, to kind of demonstrate the nonsensical nature of this, I'm going to talk about something that Vivek has proposed. He has said that a way to cut down a government bureaucracy would be to make a list of all of the non elected government employees and fire the ones that have a Social Security number that starts or ends with an odd number. This way you can automatically cut 75% of the workforce without having to worry about racial, gender or political discrimination. The Vex says, quote, not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American, unquote.

[Carl Cassarda]

I don't think that's going to work that way.

[Simone Boyce]

This is proposing cutting like 2 million people. Talking to a friend of the pod, Lex Friedman, he framed this as a thought experiment, not necessarily a policy proposal, and said that a more complicated form of this idea could select to save people with, quote, the greatest commitment and knowledge of the Constitution, unquote. This is goofy. Like, this is fake. Like, this isn't. This isn't real. He's not going to cut 75% of the workforce. You should be more concerned about Schedule F, a policy that Trump will reinstate that gives him power to remove government employees at will, to select for people that align with him more ideologically. Like, that's the real thing to be concerned about in terms of like, government staffing. I'm not much concerned about Vivek here, though. The Washington Post did report that some Trump advisers have asked Congress for 35 to 50 million dollars to fund the Doge Commission. The alternative is to raise money from the private sector, which seems more likely. It's also just very funny to have like an efficiency department ran by two people. Especially if you're going to ask to spend 50, $50 million. Because, yeah, I'm sure the best way to improve government efficiency is to give two billionaires $50 million.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's to have two people running it, running a department, that's great. That's what we need, two managers.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, it's also like a fake department that' like a write up that talks about cutting Social Security.

[Carl Cassarda]

Right. Like, and then everyone will throw it in the bin.

[Simone Boyce]

That's all it's going to be. Musk has also gone to Twitter to try to get people to send in job applications to work for free, to like sort to sort through these, like these people that should be cut from federal government. He just wants people to do work for free. So now you have people sending in job applications to Twitter. I'm sure that'll end great for those people. Part of this just feels kind of like a scheme to like coerce Trump into allowing the formation of a fake government agency to pump the value of dogecoin. Like yes, dogecoin did like boost in value after this announcement. And like this is very suspicious and like should be maybe illegal because this could just be like a cryptocurrency scheme, which is very, very likely now, despite the kind of goofy nature of Doge and like the idea that this is basically just Musk and Vivek sitting at the kids table to keep them happy while the adults take care of real business. I don't want to brush over the influence that Musk currently has on the Trump admin. Basically, since election night, Musk has essentially been living with Trump at Mar a Lago. Just like the first buddy. Yes, he is. He, he started to call himself First Buddy, which makes me deeply uncomfortable.

[Carl Cassarda]

The richest man on earth.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

First friend with benefits.

[Carl Cassarda]

Absolutely pathetic.

[Simone Boyce]

Musk is reported to be giving input on staffing decisions and joining phone calls with foreign leaders. I'm going to play a clip from CNN here.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Multiple sources tell me tonight that Musk has been seen at Mar a Lago nearly every single day since Donald Trump won, dining with him on the patio at times. Today they were seen on the golf course together.

[Chelsea Handler]

Musk has been in the room when.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

World leaders have called Trump. And tonight we've learned he's also weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles, even publicly. Tonight, Elon Musk is backing Florida Senator Rick Scott as the next leader of the Republican conference to replace Mitch McConnell. While Musk himself is still not expected to take any kind of formal position inside Trump's administration, given how complicated it would be with his companies.

[Chelsea Handler]

What's becoming clearer tonight is that he.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Doesn'T really need to, with one source telling me Elon Musk is having just.

[Simone Boyce]

As much influence from the outside. NBC has reported that a source close to the transition team has told them that Musk is, quote, behaving as if he is co president and making sure that everyone knows it. And he's sure taking lots of credit for the President's victory. Bragging about America, PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He's trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the President is indebted to no one, unquote, which is a very, very fun statement from a, from a Trump guy.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's also not true. Doesn't Trump owe loads of people money? Like empirically we know this.

[Simone Boyce]

Yes. And currently through lawsuits, Trump does owe people a lot of money, but not that that will matter at all anymore. In a meeting with House Republicans last Wednesday, Trump reportedly joked, quote, elon won't go home. I can't get rid of him, at least until I don't like him, unquote. Which kind of underscores the running bet pool that we have here at coolzone Media on when the Trump musk falling out will happen. And we will, we will keep up on this story very closely because I really can't imagine that that Musk will stay here for too long. I'm sure he'll stay in some proximity, especially with all like the government contracts that Space X has. But Trump being like this close to Musk surely will result in some kind of fallout. And maybe, maybe that's opium, maybe, maybe that's me just fully hopped up on Hopium. But I really see ableism working to our advantage here with Trump eventually just getting sick of this guy. And I think part of what Elon's doing here as well, and other people have postulated this, including Robert, is like, Elon can't run for president legally. Right. And now again, laws might just completely go out the window here, but because Elon's not a natural born citizen, like, Elon can't run for president and Elon does want power. So basically Elon's trying to become as close as he can to President Trump to be like this source said, co president.

[Carl Cassarda]

Right?

[Simone Boyce]

That's kind of his end goal here is he wants to be the president and he can't. So this is, this is as close as he can get. That is most of the main picks so far. Lastly, I'll mention like three people who worked on the Trump campaign who will now be serving as advisors, including Dan Scavino, James Blair and Taylor Buttowich. All these guys appeared pretty frequently in the behind the scenes documentary about Trump's 2024 campaign. And all three of these guys primarily focused on like weaponizing anti immigrant claims to get Trump elected. That was kind of their main focus, especially James Blair. But lastly, lastly, I do have one more person to mention. The co chair of Trump's transition team, the former CEO of WWE, Linda McMahon. She is working as the co chair for the transition team. She is the wife of Vince McMahon. Now, she also served in Trump's first term as head of the Small business administration from 2017 to 2019, after two failed Senate runs in Connecticut. Now, besides co leading the President's transition team, McMahon's also the front runner to lead the Department of Commerce. Now, to kind of tie this back to Matt Gaetz, she, along with her husband, are also currently being sued for sex trafficking underage boys in the wwe. The suit alleges that WWE leadership knowingly allowed an announcer named Mel Phillips to groom and molest the five plaintiffs who were hired as ring boys from the ages of 12 to 13. Ring boys basically like people who, like, help out on the side for. You know, I see they're kind of like performative roles. Yeah. So that's pretty fucked up. And the fact that this whole QAnon movement has now resulted in two people being charged for sex trafficking or at least investigated for sex trafficking, being this close to the Trump orbit, I'm sure we can just trust the plan and things. And things will all. Things will all turn out fine. But yeah, that's a little. It's a little Linda McMahon a fun fact there. So that is all I have to say at this point about the Trump Cabinet picks. There's going to be more. I know RFK is going to be its own nightmare that we will get to. Yeah, I guess. Any closing thoughts, Sophie or James on this? Who's who of the worst people in the country, who's gonna come next? And that's basically it. And not even that after this first round. And then obviously he's gonna fucking fire some people. Who's he gonna replace them with?

[Carl Cassarda]

It will be like Instagrammers by the end of four years.

[Simone Boyce]

I'm sure he's really just going through all the people who have pledged complete loyalty to him, including people who've previously been critical but have turned around and gotten fully on the Trump train. And like, the thing that links up all of these names is that Trump believes that they're not going to turn on him because that was the thing that really threw a wrench in his first administration. And the reason why he's appointing all these people who are just chronically unqualified is because they. They need Trump. Right. Like, if Matt Gates doesn't become ag, then he's also like, out of a job now because he resigned from Congress. And he'll also probably face more punishment for his alleged sex trafficking.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

But if he's in charge of the entire Justice Department, he's not going to get anything right. Like, a huge part of Trump, like, trying to become president again is to get out of all of the criminal complaints and indictments that he's been facing the past year. And now none of those matter. I'll point you to a legal Eagle video for, like, why none of the convictions will matter. None of the ongoing cases will matter. All of those trials are now completely meaningless. He has gotten away with everything. Looking over this whole list, you see a lot of neocons in foreign policy positions and, like, mega celebrity loyalists in domestic positions, which makes a lot of sense for Trump trying to both, like, maintain his own power as well as showing off his kind of hidden neocon tendencies. And this entire cabinet points towards centralizing power with just him and the White House. Right. These people are not qualified. So now Trump basically will puppeteer every department and Trump's advisors, including, like, Stephen Miller. So this is all about centralizing power and demanding fierce loyalty. That's what all of these appointments point towards.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's a good ending. What a happy show.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, that is a great ending. You know, not all these will have happy endings because we're currently facing a pretty. A pretty rough situation. But we will have some episodes later on in this week that do point more towards what you can do to protect yourself in the coming days, including Molly's episode tomorrow. So stay tuned for that. But this is just a quick rundown on why I don't like every single person appointed to these positions.

[Mia Wong]

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[Chelsea Handler]

You ever get the feeling the city walls closing in the concrete jungle suffocating your soul? You crave wide open space, chance to connect with nature, maybe chase some elk, fish a private stream. Well, listen up. There's a whole world out there and.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Finding your own piece of it just got easier.

[Chelsea Handler]

Head over to land.com. they've got ranches, forest, mountains, you name it. Search by acreage, location, the kind of hunting or fishing you dream of. Land.com it's where the adventure begins.

[James Stout]

This holiday season, skip the crew socks and ugly sweaters. Shop for Lenovo holiday sale and gift the gamer on your list with the.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

PC they really want. With deals this great, you may end.

[James Stout]

Up buying yourself one too.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

With new Intel Core i9 processors, they'll be able to go beyond performance in game without compromise. Gaming happens with intel.

[James Stout]

Head to lenovo.com now.

[Simone Boyce]

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[Chelsea Handler]

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[Simone Boyce]

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[Simone Boyce]

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[Simone Boyce]

For all terms, visit petsbest.com policy.

[Mia Wong]

Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face the lack of pet friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet friendly shelter across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the purple Leash Project. With more pet friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together. Visit purina.compurple to get involved.

[Michael Phillips]

I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a book about racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, an upcoming about the eugenics movement in Texas called the Purifying Knife.

[Stephen Monticelli]

I'm Stephen Monticelli, an investigative reporter who covers political extremism in Texas and beyond.

[Michael Phillips]

In the Pitch Dark Just before midnight on August 3, 2019, Patrick Crusius took off on what would soon be an infamous journey. The young man from the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas, had become obsessed with an idea that would soon move him to murder.

[Stephen Monticelli]

That idea had been inspired in part by Renaud Camus, a French racist Enraged by the growing Muslim population in Europe. In 2011, Camus had given a new name to what was actually an old idea. With the publication of his book Le Grand Replacement, which translates in English to the Great Replacement.

[Michael Phillips]

Camus argued that global elites had conspired to replace the white culturally superior population of Europe with darker skinned people who were mostly Muslims from the Middle east and Africa. He claimed these elites had opened the door to mass migration, discouraged white reproduction and encouraged the newcomers to intermarry with whites. This racial displacement, Camus asserted, had brought crime and terrorism to Europe and threatened the very survival of Western culture.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Camus idea predated World War II. The great replacement theory hardly differed from key ideas promoted by eugenicists in Western Europe and the United States. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, eugenicists sought to ensure the survival of those they believed to be biologically superior. Their methods included forced sterilization and harsh immigration restrictions. Failure in this mission, they believed, would lead to white extinction. But Camus book enraged and energized a new generation of far right extremists, not just in his native France, but all around the world.

[Michael Phillips]

Camus didn't specifically identify the elite supposedly responsible for what he called a reverse colonization of the European homeland. But leaders of the international far right quickly filled in the blanks. The Great Replacement conspiracy theorists insisted had been engineered by Jews who desired to destroy the Aryans who served as their only competitors for global control. In the chaos that would unfold as Europe racially darkened, Jewish people would supposedly complete their conquest of the world's politics and finances and would enslave a now intellectually backward global workforce.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Camus racist fever dream ricocheted around the world and left behind it a trail of blood. The dread of the Great Replacement animated a coalition of neo Nazis and other white supremacists who swarmed Charlottesville, Virginia on the night of August 11, 2017 for a Unite the Right rally protesting the proposed removal of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Carrying tiki torches, with many wearing matching polo shirts and khakis, the extremists paraded on the grounds of the University of Virginia campus chanting White lives matter and a phrase directly inspired by Camus, now six year old polemic, Jews will not replace us.

[James Stout]

Jews will not replace us.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Jews will not replace us.

[Michael Phillips]

The next day, one of the racist marchers murdered an anti racism activist, Heather Heyer, when he rammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters. The following year in 2018, a 46 year old white nationalist who feared a hypothetical Jewish and Muslim plot to take over America entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood and using a long rifle and three semiautomatic pistols, sprayed the congregation with bullets over a period of 20 minutes, murdering 11 and wounding six. The synagogue had participated in a program to aid migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, charity work that prompted the murderer Robert Bowers, to post online that such organizations, quote, like to bring in invaders that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.

[Stephen Monticelli]

The Great Replacement Theory and its online promoters claimed a high body count in 2019. On March 15, a 28 year old Australian man, Brendan Tarrant, livestreamed his slaughter of 51 Muslims and the wounding of 89 others at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant authored a 74 page manifesto which he emailed to newspapers and television stations as well. As New Zealand's prime minister, he repeatedly referred to the Great Replacement Theory and expressed admiration for Anders Breivik, a Norwegian neo Nazi terrorist who had killed 77 people in 2011 because of his hatred for Muslims who have settled across the European continent. In his manifesto, Tarrant praised American President Donald Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.

[Michael Phillips]

The murders inspired by the Great Replacement Theory were far from over. A mass shooting claimed three lives and wounded three others at a synagogue in Poway, California on April 27, 2019, and three others died and 17 more suffered injuries during an attack at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the same state on July 28th. This was the heartbreaking worldwide context in which Patrick Crucius of Allen, Texas took a fatal journey just six days after the Gilroy massacre.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Crusius marked his 21st birthday just the weekend before the massacre, but for the unemployed young man, it was not a happy occasion. He had grown up watching his father struggle with chemical dependency. High school classmates described him as withdrawn and one claimed he had been bullied by Spanish speaking students. His parents divorced and he moved to his grandparents home in a suburb north of Dallas called Allen, a town with a median family income of more than $121,000 and a history of white flight. Unemployed, Crucius spent a lot of hours on 8chan, an online message board favored by white supremacists.

[Michael Phillips]

Crusius had given himself a grim mission he believed no one else had the guts to carry out. According to the Dallas Morning News, late that Friday evening he loaded his humble 2012 Honda Civic with his laptop computer, 1000 rounds, Apollo Point bullets, earmuffs and a semiautomatic civilian version of an AK47 he had ordered online from Romania. The Texas Tribune later reported that as of 2019, Romania was exporting 9,000 AK47s to the United States every year. He also brought heavily insulated gloves because that rifle, he would later complain, overheats massively after about 100 shots are fired in quick succession. The college student sought to start a war, one he thought he wouldn't survive, but that if others followed his example, might save the country.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Ahead of his 10 hour trek westward across the vast Texas landscape, Crucius filled his gas tank and pumped himself with energy drinks. He arrived in El PASO at about 8am first parking at Assisi's Pizza, which happened to be closed. He then cruised around the border city of almost 700,000 people, where 63% of the population primarily speaks Spanish at home. He eventually stopped at the parking lot of a Walmart superstore, nicknamed the Juarez Walmart because of the large number of customers who shop there from across the Mexican border. About 3,000 people in all were estimated to be at the retail outlet when Crucius arrived.

[Michael Phillips]

Crucius walked inside and cased the joint for at least half an hour. He went back to his Civic and sat for a while in contemplation, hungry. He went back into the store, bought an orange, and then, after returning to his car a second time, gobbled it. He then posted online a 2,388 word racist screed called the Inconvenient Truth. At about 10:38, Crucius stepped out of his car, weapon in hand, and began massacring Mexicans and Mexican Americans. He described in his manifesto as, quote, the invaders.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This is an NBC News special report.

[James Stout]

Here's Jose Diaz Balart.

[Michael Phillips]

Good afternoon and update now on that deadly shooting near a busy shopping mall.

[Stephen Monticelli]

In El Paso, Texas.

[Michael Phillips]

It happened at a Walmart near Cielo.

[Simone Boyce]

Vista Mall this morning about 10am local time.

[Stephen Monticelli]

The scene is about seven miles from downtown El Paso. In about three minutes, Crucius slaughtered 23 and wounded 22 others. In spite of expressing a wish that he would die in the attack, Crucius surrendered. Police quickly connected Crucius to his Internet diatribe, which he opened by saying he, quote, supports the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto, referring to Brenton Tarrant. Crucius then pivoted to outrage over Mexican immigration in the United States. Jason Whiteley of a WFAA in Dallas reported on the manifesto's disturbing content. In the letter, the shooter describes himself.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

As a white nationalist, a right wing extremist consumed by conspiracy theories. In short, he thinks that white people.

[Robert Evans]

Are being replaced by immigrants in this country. The letter states.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This attack is in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, he wrote, not me.

[Robert Evans]

I am simply defending my country from.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.

[Michael Phillips]

By the time of the el Paso massacre, 80 men, women and children had been murdered by extremists inspired by the Great replacement theory. In 2019 alone, the carnage didn't end at El Paso. On May 14, 2022, a white suspect wrote a hateful rant he posted online before murdering 10 and wounding three African Americans in a Buffalo, New York supermarket. He linked declining white birth rates to genocide. On May 6, 2023, Mauricio Martinez Garcia, a Latino white supremacist who embraced neo Nazi ideology, drove from his Dallas apartment to an outlet mall in Crucius hometown of Allen. Tattooed with a swastika, Garcia shot to death nine people, including a three year old and wounded seven others before being killed by a police officer. Garcia seemed to be targeting Asians and.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Asian Americans throughout this mayhem. The political right has proven eager to blame everything but the wide open gun laws in places like Texas, which made it legal for Crucius to mail order a civilian style AK47. There was no interrogation of the long history of racism or of repeated Republican rhetoric depicting immigrants as dangerous. But there were other convenient excuses. In an interview on the Sunday edition of Fox and Friends shortly after the El PASO tragedy, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick offered a menu of alternative explanations for the mass shooting, such as video games. He also suggested that public schools needed a healthy infusion of theocracy and reverence for the stars and stripes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Where are we as a country? I look at social media, the violence of just bullying people on social media every day and we turn our head and we. And we allow it. I look at on a Sunday morning when most of your viewers right now, half of the country are getting ready to go to church and yet tomorrow we won't let our kids even pray in our schools. We have to look at ourselves as a nation. That's many factors, factors that go into these shootings, many factors. And it's not a time to politicize. It's a time to look deep inside of who we are as a country where we no longer salute our flag or we throw water on law enforcement and thank God we have law enforcement.

[Stephen Monticelli]

In recent years, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has described immigration at the southern border as an invasion that is part of a Democratic plan to, quote, take over our country without firing a shot. In response to this alleged plan, Patrick has said that Texas has a right to defend itself from the threat of criminal invaders in a Fox News interview in 2024 for all those people who.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Should come here legally processed and vetted. In that group are hundreds of thousands, thousands and thousands of criminals, murderers, molesters, gang members, drug dealers, carjackers, kidnappers, you name it, they're part of this group.

[Michael Phillips]

And terrorist Patrick Crusis Panic about white genocide and the violent rise of black and brown people against Western civilization had deep roots in American culture. The Texas history of segregation, white flight, post September 11th Islamophobia, and the backlash to globalization poisoned Crucius particular worldview. But perhaps the biggest factor in Crucius murderous rampage was that he was taught to hate and fear immigrants by the grownups around him in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

[Stephen Monticelli]

But before we get into that, a quick ad break the fear of white extinction at the hands of so called savages villages dates back to Puritan New England in the 1600s. Even as they lethally infected tens of thousands of native peoples with bubonic plague, malaria, measles, smallpox and typhus, English colonizers slew thousands more in wars of conquest that did not spare the very old infants, the disabled or the unarmed. Puritans didn't just kill Native Americans, they often tortured them first and desecrated their bodies with rituals of humiliation such as scalping. With each act of genocide, however, the Puritans projected those war crimes on their victims. One Puritan leader, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, warned that whites were in continual danger of the savage people. A white habit of mind formed that relieved any guilt the inhabitants of colonial America might feel about their bloodthirsty conquests. The invaders became the defenders of the homeland, the out armed became the menace, and the vanquished became the aggressors. In effect, genocide became an act of self defense.

[Michael Phillips]

In the Lone Star State public school students are required to study Texas history. Crusius would have been fed highly distorted accounts of the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836, although the content has improved since the Civil rights movement, for the most part, Texas history textbooks have depicted Mexican soldiers as ruthless killers who without qualms, shot Anglo soldiers after the Battle of Goliad in southeast Texas and the survivors at the Alamo after they surrendered. These same students were not typically taught that white Texans massacred 650 Mexican soldiers, most of whom had already cast away their weapons after the Battle of San Jacinto. The engagement that ended the Texas revolutionary war.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Until the late 20th century, Texas students were also taught that after the civil war, the abolition of slavery, and the enfranchisement of African Americans, dangerous chaos reigned. A sort of racist myth was promoted in textbooks and classroom lectures that Reconstruction, the state's first brief failed experiment in multiracial democracy, was actually a tragedy. According to the legend promoted in schoolhouses, Reconstruction was defined not by increased literacy, improved infrastructure and the expansion of black human rights, but instead by political corruption, wild government overspending, high taxes, out of control crime and endemic incompetence. During reconstruction, children were taught the United States armed African American soldiers who then harassed and assaulted harmless whites, especially women. In short, across the curriculum, white students learned that whenever black and brown people gain power politically, socially or economically, historically, white people have been in mortal peril, a lesson that implies the need to kill or be killed.

[Michael Phillips]

In the 1920s and 1930s, white American school kids across the country were indoctrinated into accepting eugenics. In their biology classes, they learned that if they didn't produce large enough families, whites would lose a demographic race to jews, Italians, Russians and other immigrants pouring into the country. A best selling American author in the 1920s, Lothrop Stoddard, warned his readers that unless trends were reversed, racially superior Nordics, as he called those from western northern Europe, might have to fight a war of extermination to stem a deadly tide of color that would engulf white people worldwide.

[Stephen Monticelli]

El Paso shooter Patrick Crucius grew up in Collin county, which borders Dallas county on the north. The county's wealth before the civil war derived primarily from cotton cultivated by enslaved labor. During Reconstruction, Klansmen organized in the county seat of mckinney to terrorize African Americans into not voting. African Americans continued to toil as farm labor after reconstruction, and the white population kept them under tight control through occasional outbursts of homicidal violence. In the summer of 1898, local whites panicked when between 30 to 40 African Americans from out of town routinely gathered during a rainy season in hopes to be on hand when the weather cleared up so they could resume working. Ominous notices began to appear around the town that said, Mr. Negro, don't let the sun go down on you. On June 15th of that year, Klansmen warned black residents that they had no more than 10 days to leave the area. One family, the Severns, became the target of a violent mob of vigilantes known as white cappers, who arrived at their home in the middle of the night to punish them for not vacating their home on Main Street. Anticipating the arrival of the terrorists, Jake Sebren stood by the door of his home holding a Winchester rifle. When his assailants realized he had a gun, they fired into the house. Jake then attempted to shoot back, but he was unable to stop the assailants from fatally shooting his pregnant wife, Laura. The three Sebren children were found screaming and clinging to bedsheets near their mother's bloody body inside their home. When it was all said and done, White Capper violence continued for years across the state, targeting both African Americans and Mexican Americans in an effort to maintain white supremacy.

[Michael Phillips]

Thirteen years later, on August 11, 1911, Collin county authorities arrested a Farmersville man, Commodore Jones, for allegedly flirting with a white telephone operator. A mob of 300 outraged whites seized Jones from police custody custody carried him to the city square and hanged him from a pole in front of the telephone office. In spite of this bloody history, Collin county got rich and by the 1970s transformed into a major urban center. This development correlated with white flight as Dallas glacially succumbed to court order desegregation beginning in the 1960s and after uprising in response to a Dallas police officer forcing a 12 year old Latino, Santos Rodriguez, to play a fatal game of Russian roulette in the backseat of a police squad car.

[Stephen Monticelli]

White flight fueled a population explosion in Collin county governed by conservatives who kept property taxes low compared to those in the metropolitan center to the south. Corporations followed this population shift during the half century between the 1970s and the 2000s. Dr. Pepper, Frito Lay, J.C. penney, Keurig, Pizza Hut, and the Professional Golfers association of America, as well as Toyota planted their corporate headquarters there. However, even if whites moved to Collin county in the 1970s to avoid school integration and feared urban unrest, the new corporations brought with them diverse workforces that include Muslims, Hindus, and people of color from all around the world. In 2000, non Hispanic whites made up slightly more than 81% of the Collin county population. In 2020, that number was slightly less than 51%. Asian Americans and Asian immigrants made up almost 7% of the population, while Mexican Americans and immigrants from south of the Rio Grande represented more than 10%. All the ingredients needed were present for a vicious racial backlash.

[Michael Phillips]

By 2013, the right wing in the entire Dallas Fort Worth area was in full panic mode about immigration. In 2019, Texas was believed to have the largest Muslim population of any state, numbering about 422,000, still less than 2% of the total state population, but one of the fastest growing religious demographics in the area. Two thirds of that population lives in the Houston and Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan areas. Muslim worshipers pray at as many as 55 mosques in the Dallas Fort Worth area, and the Muslim population in north Central Texas is believed to have tripled since 2010.

[Stephen Monticelli]

In 2013, Harry Le Roselier won election as mayor in the Collin county city of Plano. Conservatives mocked him at the time as the quote mayor from Haiti in reference to his birthplace. When affordable multifamily housing was proposed for the suburb of Plano, fear quickly spread that black and brown low income workers would fill those residences. Signs appeared that said Don't Dallas my Plano, referring to the largely black and brown population in the metropolitan center. Republican politicians across the Dallas Fort Worth area began to warn that some of the newcomers plotted to impose Sharia, or Muslim law. The panic stemmed from the practice of many American mosques offering non binding mediation services, employing principles from the Quran to couples in troubled marriages to resolve bitter business disputes between Muslims and so on. Such arbitration is not legally binding and Muslim practices can't be imposed on non Muslims because of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which forbids the government from establishing any sort of religion. Nevertheless, one Plano state representative Jeff Leach in 2015 introduced an anti Sharia law in the Texas legislature. His Bill failed, but Governor Abbott later signed a similar law in 2017. Stay with us through this ad break to learn more.

[Michael Phillips]

Dread about Muslims and Sharia law dominated politics in Irving, a suburb with a population of about a quarter million people 12 miles northwest of Dallas for much of 2015. In February, then Mayor Beth Van Duyn, who later became a Trump appointee, characterized a Muslim mediation panel reportedly located at the Islamic center of Irving as an Islamic court. She introduced a resolution to the Irving City Council supporting Leach's proposed legislation. It passed 5 to 4. As reported by a CBS affiliate in.

[Chelsea Handler]

Dallas, Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyn has accused local Muslim leaders in the past of creating their own laws called Sharia law and adjudicating that doctrine, bypassing the state and federal court system. Catholic and Jewish faiths also have similar tribunals that are presided over by faith leaders who act as arbitrators. But the local imam here in Irving says Islam is being targeted yet not breaking any law.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

They believe that we are trying to supersede the federal or state laws and that's not the case. We work within the boundaries of federal and state law.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Anti Muslim tensions spread across the Dallas Fort Worth area, ending in tragic violence. Anti Muslim extremists held a deliberately provocative Draw the Prophet art contest in Garland Texas, a city of about 235,000 just north of Dallas. Knowing that the images of Muhammad are prohibited by Islam and were likely to inflame the broader Muslim community, two heavily armed Muslim men took the bait that day. Driving from out of state and arriving at the scene of the contest on May 3. They then shot a Garland police car before being killed with return fire.

[Michael Phillips]

Little more than four months after the Garland shootings, Irving police arrested Ahmed Mohammed, a Muslim of Sudanese background, on September 14, 2015, after the 14 year old had brought a digital clock built as a personal science project to MacArthur High School. Proud of his creation, Muhammad showed the clock to one of his teachers, who subjected the boy to racial profiling. Fearing the clock might be a bomb, the teacher seized the device and sent Muhammad to the principal, who then called Irving. Police officers interrogated the boy for 90 minutes while his parents were denied access to their son. Meanwhile, a militia inspired by Irving Mayor Van Dyne's alarmist warnings about Sharia law showed up at two mosques in the Dallas suburbs wearing camouflage and mask and brandishing 12 gauge shotguns as they stalk worshippers going to prayer.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Islamophobia in the Dallas Fort Worth area even extended to deceased Muslims. The Islamic association of Collin county had hoped to establish a 35 acre burial plot in Farmersville, a town of about 4,000 people. When the Farmersville Planning and Zoning Commission approved the plan in May 2015 without a dissenting vote, furious opposition erupted. According to a CNN report, Farmersville is.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

About 25 miles away from Garland, Texas, where in May police killed two Muslim gunmen who tried to carry out a deadly attack at a draw the Prophet Muhammad event. One resident in Farmersville has even suggested using pigs to scare away the Muslim group.

[Carl Cassarda]

Take and dump pig's blood and pig heads on a float.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

They won't buy the land.

[Michael Phillips]

If I had my way, I would outlaw it. Islam in America. Farmersville resident Jack Hawkins declared a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. Quote, I would tear down every mosque that was in this country. That's how I feel about it. A local Baptist minister suggested that the cemetery would lead to the establishment of a madrasa, a Muslim religious school that could become a training ground for extremists. He was interviewed by CNN.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I believe I'm a watchman on the wall. Ezekiel 33. See the incoming danger. David Meeks is the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, which ironically sits next to a cemetery. He says the cemetery could bring radical Islam to Farmersville. I see the expansion of Islam that.

[James Stout]

Is going on all over the world now.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

It has Come to my hometown and you see that danger in a cemetery. Anytime you see the Islamic folks coming into a neighborhood, I think, in my opinion, I think you can say we could be less safe in the future.

[Chelsea Handler]

Than we are right now.

[Stephen Monticelli]

100 opponents of the cemetery crowded into a July 14, 2016 city council meeting in Farmersville, with some residents expressing the fear that Muslim corpses would contaminate the local water supply. Members of the local Muslim community and of the Farmersville City Council suffered threats of violence. Facing a federal lawsuit, the city of Farmersville finally relented and on September 20, 2018, allowed the Islamic association to move ahead with purchasing the land needed for their graveyard.

[Michael Phillips]

This is the poison air Patrick Crusius grew up breathing. He didn't kill because of computer games, because they didn't pray at schools he attended because of protest against police violence or the collapse of respect for authority. Crusius wrote that America is rotting from the inside out because of immigration and that unless whites took up arms against dark skinned newcomers, whites could become extinct. In his manifesto, Crucius insisted he embraced the Great Replacement theory before Donald Trump became president. One can only wonder how many other self appointed racial warriors might be inspired to violence by the 2024 presidential campaign that centered mostly on the purported dangers of what Trump repeatedly called migrant crime, including the eating of neighbors, cats and dogs and the spread of deadly diseases. Trump has even repeated the warnings of early 20th century Eugenicists about the biological damage. He claims immigrants are bringing bad genes to the United States. He says Trump's incendiary anti immigrant rhetoric has been compiled by the news site Politico.

[Simone Boyce]

Americans have watched their communities destroyed by.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This sudden suffocating inundation of illegal aliens.

[Simone Boyce]

I said, if you let them in.

[Michael Phillips]

It'S going to be hell.

[Simone Boyce]

They are vicious, violent criminals. These are stone cold killers. They'll walk into your kitchen, they'll cut your throat.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

These are people at the highest level.

[Simone Boyce]

Of killing that cut your throat and.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

They won't even think about it.

[Simone Boyce]

The next morning, these people are roaming our country. They could go into a restaurant, they.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Can do whatever they want and they will kill you because they are wired that way.

[Robert Evans]

These people are animals.

[Simone Boyce]

Now they'll say, oh, that's a terrible.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Thing for him to say, no, no.

[Robert Evans]

These people are animals. It's in their genes and we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.

[Michael Phillips]

That dread of white genocide has been nurtured across centuries of American history and has become one of this country's major exports.

[Stephen Monticelli]

And with politicians like Donald Trump stoking fear about the alleged, quote, enemy within and promoting mass deportations and the idea of, quote, remigration, which is a notion with a deeply fascist history. We are almost certain to see the Great Replacement panic continue to boil under the surface of a society with constantly shifting demographics. Ongoing economic insecurity will feed into this, and the passive acceptance of gun violence as the price for American freedom will certainly feed into future racist violence. This is Stephen Monticelli.

[Michael Phillips]

And this is Michael Phillips. Thanks for listening.

[Mia Wong]

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[James Stout]

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[Teddy Mellencamp]

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[Simone Boyce]

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Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime. And nearly half of survivors delayed leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face, the lack of pet friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the purple Leash Project. With more pet friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together. Visit purina.compurple to get involved.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where it has happened here. I'm your host, Mia Wong. With me is Gare. Hello, Gare. How are you doing this accursed day?

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, I'm feeling very healthy. I'm up on my vaccines. I'm doing pretty good. Just had a nice bowl of cereal. Oh, yeah, it's great.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, you're doing better than the country is about to be doing because this one, this one's bad, folks. So a couple of days ago, we promised that RFK Jr. Was getting his own episode and he's getting 85, 90% of his own episode. There's one other guy we're going to talk about, but unfortunately, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. I don't know what the F stands for. Fitzgerald.

[Simone Boyce]

I'm assuming Fitzgerald.

[Robert Evans]

Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. Has been nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. I first off, need to note that RFK Jr. Has been credibly accused of sexual assault. And when asked for comment by the Washington Post, he said, and I quote, I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world. Now, legally, I cannot make an interpretation of how, how you want to piece together those sets of facts. But he was accused of it and that's what he said when the Washington Post asked him for comment. So, you know, that's great.

[Simone Boyce]

Between that and, like, all the, like, sexual misconduct allegations against Musk and like everyone else involved in Trump's orbit, Matt Gaetz, Vince McMahon, and, and his Wife. The whole like, me too era feels kind of dead and it kind of has been for a while, but really the, the general voting public does not care at all.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it does not seem to. It's very bleak. That's not even remotely the bleakest part about this appointment though, so.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, no, he's. He's bad for so many reasons.

[Robert Evans]

Holy shit. So I, I think if you are like most people listening to this, I don't think people tend to have an understanding of how many fucking departments there are, like under, under the Department of Health and Human Services, just how many different organizations there are. I originally I had listed them all out and then I was like, I can't do this. It's too long to read in the podcast. So here are the important ones for our purposes, not even all the important ones, but here are some of the important ones. So under the Department of Health and Human Services is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Inspector General and the Office for Civil Rights. So we've just put probably the US's most famous anti vaxxer in charge of all of these organizations. And I say we've just put. He still has to get confirmed and there is some chance that he doesn't make it. I don't know. We. It would be much better for everyone on earth if he fucking doesn't get appointed.

[Simone Boyce]

But it's still very up in the air.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

If any of these guys are going to get pushed in through recess appointments or whether the Senate will just completely cave to Trump, who knows?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And I mean, you know, and we'll get to part of this later. There is real political opposition to Trump in parts of the Republican Party base, especially the Senate. Yeah, he is about to fuck with the money and sometimes you can do that and it's fine and sometimes you can't. And we simply do not know yet. And so I think before we get into how again, an anti vaxxer leading the US's like health services is going to just obliterate us all. All. I think it's actually worth taking a look at what this means politically in terms of Trump's base and in terms of sort of the power compositions of it. Because in 2020, the last time he was running, he had a real problem with the anti vaxxers because, you know, on the one hand Trump like did a bunch of anti vax stuff. On the other hand, he did spend a bunch of money to develop the vaccine. And this pissed off an incredibly large number of people. You have, like, your Alex Joneses yelling about how he was, like, tricked into the vaccine. And there's a kind of split in his base between the people who are anti vaxxers and people who think that Covid was, like, designed in a lab as a bioweapon. Because those people, in theory, if you're. If you're following this coherently, right, the people who think that Covid was created in a lab as a bioweapon, you should also want a vaccine then, because that could stop the bioweapon.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, unless the bioweapon was invented so that people would get vaccinated. And the real dangers, the vaccine. See, Mia, you got to be thinking one step ahead with these people.

[Robert Evans]

But there's another thing, too, which is you also have to simultaneously argue that Covid is pretty mild, because that's another thing that all these people believe, because you have to be anti lockdown, and to be anti lockdown, you have to believe that Covid's mild. So the chain of things you have to believe, and there are like, I don't know, like a third of the population of the US Believes some variance of, like, Covid was made in a lab as a bioweapon. It either escaped or was deployed. It's also mild. And also the vaccine is trying to kill you. So this is bad. And Trump has kind of papered over this issue with his base by again, just handing all of the fucking health departments over to RFK junior And a sign of what RFK junior's tenure is going to look like, assuming he gets appointed, is that he has been putting together lists of people. He wants to head all of these agencies. And chief on that list is J. Bhattacharya, who's. He wants to be the head of the National Institute of Health. Jay is a. An anti lockdown maniac whose thing was that he thought that the lockdowns were bad and that we should have just sent everyone back to work in the sort of just absolute peak of the pandemic before we had vaccines. And he thought that, like, only 40,000 people were going to die because of COVID and that if you just sent everyone back, everyone would get Covid and this would create like, quote, unquote, herd immunity, and then the disease would be okay.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And that's nonsense, right?

[Mia Wong]

That.

[Simone Boyce]

That did not happen. We can actually say for sure, yes, more than 40,000 people died. It wasn't just a flu.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And also you know, there were countries, like, I think Norway tried this where they tried to like, ease lockdown restrictions early, and it just killed a bunch of people. And you didn't get an immunity benefit because then the thing about herd immunity, right, so herd immunity is this concept. And this is kind of. This is important for the vaccination angle of this. It's this concept that. But there are some people in a population who medically cannot be vaccinated. You know, there's like actual health reasons, right, for this that aren't just like anti vax shit. But if enough of the rest of the population is vaccinated, then it doesn't matter because there's not. Because there's enough immunity in the entire herd that it's hard for the disease to spread. And the way you're supposed to do this again is with vaccines, right? But there was a whole crowd of people who wanted to try to do this not with vaccines, but just by giving everyone Covid. And these are the people that RFKID Jr. Wants to, like, put in charge of the nation's health services. Now, the political response to this from our side is also really complicated because, you know, the way that the battle's already playing out in the media is RFK Jr versus Big Pharma. And the problem is no one likes Big Pharma unless you're being paid by them. Like, we don't like Big Pharma. These companies suck shit. They're really bad. They're like parts of the reasons why none of you can afford your healthcare. But also the reason they're evil isn't because they make vaccines. And this is a. This is a complicated sort of tension to manage. And if you read a lot of the media coverage of this so far, NPR has this just fawning article of RFK Jr that's like, oh, he's gonna, like, cut through the bureaucratic red tape with his controversial things and like, help treat chronic disease. And no, he's an anti vaxxer. He's a very hard line anti vaxxer. I also want to read this absolutely insane thing that he said about COVID being a. I'm just going to read this. I don't know how to preface this. COVID 19. There is an argument that is ethnically targeted. COVID 19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID 19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. Oh, we don't know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but There are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic different impact.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, oh, no, that's, that's not what those papers are trying to say.

[Robert Evans]

No. And I will also say this. One of the things that you can just, you know, something very bad is about to happen is when someone uses the word Chinese as a noun. You are about to hear the most racist shit you've ever heard in your entire life.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, not, not to mention Ashkenazi Jews.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And so you know what, those actually, whatever. To briefly talk about what those studies were actually saying is like, well, yeah, there were certain communities that were hit worse by Covid and there are certain communities that were hit less by Covid. And that largely has to do with things like income and how much you're forced to like go work during the plague.

[Simone Boyce]

Living conditions, class poverty, where you live, gentrification. There's lots of aspects how strong your.

[Robert Evans]

Anti Vax movement is. Definitely another one.

[Simone Boyce]

Not to mention just like, like medicalized racism, which is a massive problem in the American healthcare industry.

[Robert Evans]

Oh yeah. And RFK Jr not going to make that better.

[Simone Boyce]

No. I don't have an inkling that's going to be on the top of his priorities beyond nationalizing essentially chicken pox parties instead of vaccines.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. OK, so RFK Jr. Has been playing the world's most obvious shell game with the media, which the media, I don't know, a lot of press outlets are just sort of rolling over for Trump right now. And so he's been playing this game where he's been telling the press, oh, I'm not going to take VACC vaccines away from everyone, from anyone, and it'll be fine. And like, we know that he thinks that vaccines cause autism. Like he just says this all the time.

[Simone Boyce]

He has promoted books about that. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So like, you know, we know that he is anti Vax, that he spreads, he spreads anti vax propaganda. We know that he spent a bunch of money doing this specifically also in minority communities. So there's, there's a lot of dangers here, some of which we're going to get into more when we go into what specific agencies can sort of fuck with stuff. But one of the biggest dangers in the very short term is that he is now in control of what is effectively the US's medical science apparatus and he can use this to spread all of the anti vax horse shit that has been spreading through like less official channels before this. I think it's worth remembering that this whole anti vaccine craze started with one guy getting One shitty paper published in the journal Lancet and the reporting on that and the media frenzy around that was enough to turn the active vaccine movement from like 10 people into a worldwide movement that has killed unbelievable numbers of people. And the reason that's true is because if an official authority tells you like that this vaccine isn't safe, people will believe it. And he's going to be able to use the National Institutes of Health, he's going to be able to use the cdc, he's going to be able to use the journals that they publish, he's going to be able to fill these people with his cronies. It's going to take a lot of fighting, but he's going to be able to use this to push anti vaccine bullshit. Even with even just leaving aside his regulatory abilities, just the ability to like legitimize this complete horseshit as actual science is going to do incoculable damage to this country and it's going to do incalculable damage to the world. Because also a lot of the, one of the things that's under Health and Human Services is the, is the US's like international medical and healthcare programs and sort of prevention programs that we do internationally. So this is all very bad. Do you know what's not very bad?

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, all of the ads that are going to play right after I stop talking. Surely none of them could be slightly problematic.

[Robert Evans]

And we are back. Okay, so when I was first writing this in the halcyon days of last week, right, I had a whole thing written here about how one of the other effects of this is not just going to be the attack on vaccines, it's going to be the destruction of basic virological research, right? Like our basic research on viruses and on diseases is going to be destroyed, you know, and this is because the people that RFK Jr. Is surrounding himself with are the lab leak truther people. And the lab leak truthers have convinced themselves that anyone who does any kind of research with a virus is actually like creating a giant, a bioweapon that can at any moment like break containment and kill the entire population. And you know, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I was putting together all this stuff and then he just straight up said that when he gets in charge, he's going to go to the NIH and stop studying infectious diseases for eight years, first week.

[James Stout]

And I'm going to call all the division heads and I'm going to call all the bureau chiefs and I'm going to say we're going to give drug development and infectious disease a break, A little break, a little bit of a break for about eight years. And we're going to study chronic disease.

[Robert Evans]

He's just saying, straight up, he's going to try to stop all infectious disease research for eight years. Now the thing about diseases, right, I talked to a virologist beforehand who will rename Nameless for security purposes, but their response was, hold on, let me, let me read this exactly, because it's extremely funny. I would love if pathogens would decide to give it a rest for eight years. Sadly, I do not think pathogens will get the memo because they're random microorganisms. The big issue here, right, is okay, so we're stopping all infectious disease research now. You know, we're already, I mean, we're still in like we gave up trying to end the first pandemic that like that would happen on the Trump administration, right? We were, our solution to this. And this is also part of the problem of the decay of these institutions, even under Biden, was that, you know, we gave up trying to stop Covid. We just, we just like NASCAR it too much work. So you're all going to die now. Have fun.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, luckily there won't be another global pandemic anytime soon because these things really only happen once a century.

[Robert Evans]

No, but you know, the consequence of this, right, is when the next pandemic hits, we're going to have an administration that is sort of broadly anti vax, whose everyone around them is anti vaccine, and we're going to have just destroyed our capacity to do infectious disease research.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, and specifically, this was a joke about the bird flu.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing is, right, so the next one could be that fucking bird flu strain that's blooming. It could be something else too. We don't know. There could be other ones. We, you know, like if you go into like the actual sort of causes of these things, which have to do with things like factory farming and like increasing human, they call it human zoological contact. But it's like humans going into places where there weren't people before and there are a bunch of animals and coming in like increasing contact with the animals, right? That's all stuff that are driven by structural elements of the economic system and like our constant need to develop land and the way we've set up our meat agriculture. And that's not stuff that like RFK Jr gives a shit about, like, like actually attempting to deal with. So instead we're going to just do whatever this infectious Disease research stop is. And I think this also aligns with a lot of the stuff that all of the, that you know, Trump's cabinet appointees broadly have been talking about. Right. Which is this desire to just sort of kneecap and you know, sort of purge the American bureaucracy, you know, and I've been seeing some very, very optimistic people going like, oh well, he can't really do a purge because like what competent people are good? Are you going to replace them?

[Simone Boyce]

It's like no one. That's the problem. That's the problem.

[Robert Evans]

They're either going to be replaced with no one or they're going to be replaced with like one of the like hundreds of millions of weird anti vaccine freaks these people have found have like cultivated over like a giant global international network. Right. They have so many crank doctors.

[Simone Boyce]

We're just going to be like governed by like a conspiracy theory cabinet, which is kind of what it's looking like. Yeah, you're just going to be governed by the Fox and Friends weekend host segment team and. Oh boy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And I will say, you know, this is all going to be very bad. I do want to do a little bit of panic calming, which is I've seen some people freaking out about the potential of RFK Jr just sort of destroying the American food system by just implementing a total ban on fertilizers and pesticides. And could he do that? In theory, maybe, but that one I don't think is really likely to happen because if he does, if he tries to do this, he is immediately going to face like one of the most ferocious lobbies in the entire history of American politics, which is the American, like I guess you could call them the farm lobby, but really it's the American big ag, like big agricultural lobby.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, it's the agricultural lobby. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And like you're about to face like the power of fucking Bayer Monsanto. They are, they are a ferocious opponent. If you try banning their pesticides, they to come for you. They already hate him because he's already, he's like, has sued them over a bunch of stuff over the years. And the thing about this combination of companies that make chemicals for stuff and also the giant farming conglomerates who run most of America's food production is that unlike, for example, the pharma lobby. The pharma lobby is very powerful, but its power is sort of dispersed over a broad geographic area. It's not centralized very well, which, which makes them sort of weaker in an attempt to like stop RFK Jr. The thing about the farm lobbies that they're not. There are a lot of plain states were just straight up their senators and it doesn't matter which party you elect, your senator is just a cutout for like the agricultural lobby.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And those people work together, right? Like they have worked together, they will work together, they caucus together all the time in order to get agricultural subsidies and stuff. And these people are unbelievably powerful. They are united political bloc in the Senate and they can bring the entire US government screeching to a halt. So that's not a fight I don't really think that he can win, but I mean there's still some kind of chance that he tries to do something like this. But on that one, and I've seen a lot of people panicking about it, I think that one will probably be okay. That said, we're giving a guy who one of his big things is that like the government's been like repressing raw milk and we're giving this guy control of the fda.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, the raw milk people. Oh my God. Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, and luckily there's been no FDA related fiascos this year which has led to thousands of food recalls that are incredibly challenging to keep up with. And now the joke here is that there actually has been massive FTA fuck ups which actually has led to thousands of food recalls which actually are pretty challenging to keep up with because oh boy, our whole regulatory state was kind of gutted the past eight years and it is still recovering and the deregulations have led to massive food borne illness failures in the production scene. So yeah, that's, that's been happening. I'm sure one of you has been affected by this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And you know, I think there are some people who tend to read the way that RFK Jr talks about like we need to eliminate like toxins from the food supply or whatever and read that as, oh, he's going to like try to do more agriculture regulation. And that man's brain has been eaten by worms. Like that is his brain is a bunch of conspiracy theories matched together. Like that's not going to be how this plays out, unfortunately for us.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I really think this is something to keep in mind. Is anyone who is treating this guy as like some kind of serious reformer of US health policy, do not trust anything that they say.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Like keep note of what fucking media outlets are saying this right now. Because with RFK Jr. A man who says one. Absolutely. Like I said that thing earlier, right? About suspending research for infectious diseases. Right. He said that Like Friday, last Friday, at an anti vaccine conference, he was on. On like zoom. He says this shit literally all the time. And if you're a sort of journalist and you're treating him as like a semi serious guy and not this person, like, you are not sort of qualified for the task of covering what's going to be happening in this administration.

[Simone Boyce]

I mean, really, the worst thing about rfk, in my opinion, is that he has ruined the Kennedy conspiracy search results. If you Google Kennedy conspiracy, it sucks now. Now it's just RFK conspiracy theory beliefs that he has terrible. It's. It's. It's ruined one of my great hobbies, which is trying to find new, new JFK conspiracies.

[Robert Evans]

You know what else is ruining JFK conspiracies?

[Simone Boyce]

Probably these ads. Because, my God, the more time I have to spend looking at advertisements is less time I could be reading about how JFK was secretly. Okay, we are back. Mia, I would love to learn more about RFK Jr. If possible, or maybe some other random guy who's also bad. What else do you have for me here?

[Robert Evans]

Oh, boy. We have from here Adderall.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, wow. One of my favorite prescription drugs. That's not true, actually. I'm actually not on stimulants. Everyone thinks just because I talk fast and sound like this, I probably am on stimulants. This actually isn't true. This is me completely sober. So just imagine how worse I would be if I was on Adderall.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So, okay, let's do Adderall first and then we'll talk about antidepressants. So, okay, if you've had to get Adderall and I'm actually not on it, somewhat miraculously. I don't know. Not miraculously. Whatever. It's not. It's not my favorite thing, not being on this. But, you know, if you've tried to attain Adderall or something like Vyvanse or one of the other sort of treatments for adhd, you have probably noticed that there's just shortages. And there's two explanations for the shortage. If you read the stuff the Food and Drug Administration says, they're like, oh, it's because of labor shortages at drug manufacturing plants. And that's like, not really the reason. The actual thing that's going on here is that so these are technically like restrictive substances. Right. In order to produce substances like this, the DEA sets like, a quota of the amount of these drugs you're able to produce in a year. And the DEA became absolutely obsessed with, like, the fact that people were, like, getting hold of other people's Adderall, and this made them absolutely lose their fucking minds and start imposing these unbelievably draconian production quotas on these stimulants, which is why there's been a fucking shortage of them for, like, three years now. It's worth noting, on the one hand, you know, the FDA has kind of been trying to fight the DEA on this, because the FDA is looking at this and it's like, okay, so we just have a bunch of people who have ADHD who can't get their meds, and that can just straight up destroy your life. Like, getting. Getting taken off of one of these things immediately is really, really bad for you. And also, so, like, not having executive function is real bad. But we have the mild upside of the fact that DEA isn't technically going to be under RFK junior's control.

[Simone Boyce]

Wait, is. Is it going to be under Kristi Noem's control?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's just this department.

[Simone Boyce]

Okay. So it could maybe Gates. Well, maybe, maybe Gates, because we have. We have since learned that Trump has conceded that Gates might. Might not make it through a Senate confirmat. So we will still see if these recess appointments are actually going to happen.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So we don't know who's going to be running the Department of Justice. But, comma, what we do know about RFK Jr. Is this quote from Futurism. Quote, I'm going to create these wellness farms so they can go get off illegal drugs, off opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs if they want to, to get off SSRIs, to get off benzos, to get off Adderall, and spend as much time as they need, three or four years if they need it, learning to get reparented, to reconnect with communities. So, as a lot of people, including Futurism, have pointed out, she is framing this as if it's voluntary. But what this is, is instead of treating people for, like, mental health issues, you send them to a labor camp to do organic farming for the government. And that's very bad. And it's also worth noting that these programs are supposed to be, quote, unquote, voluntary, have this sort of nasty way of suddenly becoming involuntary the moment someone's actually in power.

[Simone Boyce]

So.

[Robert Evans]

The worst possible read of this, like the most bleak and dystopian read of this, is that this is going to be implemented as a method of solving the indescribable human cost of evicting tens of millions of people. One of the Things that will do, which is absolutely obliterate our labor supply for agriculture. Right. Because it turns out that the people who actually know how to do agricultural work is not the white planters who fucking own the farms. So this is a thing that could be used to try to replace that labor. Right. I, I don't know how much I think that specific one is going to happen. It's unclear how we could use the power of the state to do this. Right. There's not a direct path.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah, this seems, this seems really, this seems really goofy, frankly.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And like, I've seen some panic over it. It's like, I, I mean, maybe that's a, like, I don't know thing. That's like a, like, I don't know, we're in like year six of the Trump, of the second Trump administration.

[Simone Boyce]

And like, yeah, I, I really don't see how they could even get anywhere close to the numbers for like a voluntary drug like rehab program that puts you into like, agricultural farm work. That it's not going to replace any of the missing farm labor.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, it won't work. Right. Even if you could do the compulsory labor thing, there's not just simply aren't enough people.

[Simone Boyce]

People.

[Robert Evans]

Right. To do it. And also, agricultural labor is skilled work. Right. Like, yeah, you actually have to know what you're doing. But, comma, I will, I will mention, you know, as this is kind of, this is an unlikely but technically possible thing to happen. The thing that's more likely to happen is that this is a good time to mention that one of the organizations that's under Health and Human Services is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And there are a lot of ways using this administration and also just cooperating with the dea, because again, we have to remember this, the DEA is just unbelievably pissed off at the thought of like, a single person getting their prescription. So I don't think it will be hard for RFK Jr. To find his allies in the Justice Department to intensify the crackdown that's already been happening on things like, on things like Adderall and on things like antidepressants because there's a whole other range of conspiracy theories. We've covered this on the show.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

That have to do with people who think that, oh, all the mash shooters or on antidepressants or whatever. And that kind of stuff is. That kind of thinking is incredibly powerful. And there's a, there's a real chance that we are about to see a bunch of people who believe that shit. Suddenly in control of a bunch of the agencies that are supposed to be doing drug regulations. There, There are other things that we can see him do. He, he's going to have some authority over approving new vaccines, which is real bad. It's going to be hard for him to just like, I don't, like he can't just like do a vaccine ban. But what he can do is he can also fuck with people's insurance covering vaccinations and he can fuck with like to what extent they're recommended by the government.

[Simone Boyce]

This is really upsetting for the potential like HIV vaccine that's. Oh, it's like nearing its completion.

[Robert Evans]

We're going to get to that. Hold on, give me one second because we're getting to that.

[Simone Boyce]

No.

[Robert Evans]

Okay. So before we get to the fact that Arfa Jr. Is an HIV AIDS denialist, we need to put out one more thing he can do, which is that he can use the office of the Inspector General as a weapon to, you know, I mean, is the office of the Inspector General and like the regular, the legal and regulatory capacities of the other agencies under Health and Human Services, are they supposed to be a thing that you can use to go after drug companies for like making vaccines? No. Will he be able to do it? Probably because we are about to enter a era of like lawfare and like what is it isn't considered legal that is going to make the past like eight years seem like the most functional democratic regime the world has ever seen. So we're probably going to see that and we're also going to see the effects of RFK Jr. S HIV AIDS denialism. And this shit is so. I don't know if people even remember this but, but there was a whole like one of the earlier kind of anti vax conspiracy movements was about HIV not being the cause of aids. And it's been so long since this has been a public thing that I think most people have sort of forgotten about it. I think Dave Gruel is probably the most famous one of these guys, but he was in this camp of people who thought that like AIDS was caused by malnutrition. RFK Jr not in that camp. RFK Jr in an even worse camp of people who were just like, oh yeah, no, it's because like gay people were doing poppers that like that's his actual thing, right? He thinks it's just.

[Simone Boyce]

He thinks it was poppers?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he thinks it's because of just literally like quote the gay lifestyle is why HIV happened. This kind of shit wiped out an entire generation of queer people. Our best hope here is that he's forgotten about most of this and is on to more and new. Like, just gets sidetracked on his other conspiracies and he just gets obsessed with raw milk or whatever. But yeah, this could be really, really fucking bad for if he actually decides that this is one of the issues he's going to focus on. Right. He is now in charge of a bunch of the agencies that helps people fucking deal with this. Right. Because hiv, aids, now getting it is on a death sentence. Like, you can live a perfectly functional, normal life as long as you have the right medical care. And as Gare was talking about earlier, there is a pretty promising vaccine that could fucking stop this shit. Right. But if this is something that he remembers and he focuses on, there's a real chance of him using his power to fuck with it because he is a kind of homophobic that like, up until really two or three years ago had kind of like, mostly vanished from like the mainstream. Even from sort of like the heart. The, like, the homophobes tended to have different homophobia now than like this shit.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah. So this is like a classic 80s 90s homophobia.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at this point, also, we need to mention that again, one of the offices that he's now in charge of is the Office for Civil Rights, the ocr, which is something we've talked about on our episodes about trans policy. He's. I don't know, RFK Jr. Is kind of one of those people where it's like, it's not clear to me if, like, his heart's really in the anti trans stuff. He says all of the most hideous anti trans shit.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

But that's also like, it's also a pretty recent position that he's adopted.

[Simone Boyce]

You mean? Yeah, same thing with Trump.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. But now that might not matter.

[Simone Boyce]

Right, right, sure. I'm just saying these are more recent changes from them.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

That kind of reflect a growing shift in politics for like the GOP and their. And their base.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Simone Boyce]

Whereas, like, historically, Trump has felt fine sexually harassing trans women.

[Robert Evans]

Yep, yep.

[Simone Boyce]

Because they're women because of misogyny, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Anyway, but, you know, but our issue here is that the Office of Civil Rights is the office that you're supposed to. That's supposed to be the thing that stops discrimination in healthcare.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh, okay.

[Robert Evans]

And in fact, this is the organization that the Biden administration had just left trans people to the mercy of, where if, like, if your healthcare got Banned. You were supposed to like, submit a complaint to the ocr. So, like, it's not like an incredibly functional agency right now. Right. But it's about to get a lot worse. There's a couple other things that I should mention before we close out here that are. I mean, you could do a full episode on in and of themselves, but there's just so much shit here. One of them is that he's also like, anti fluoride in drinking water.

[Simone Boyce]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Robert Evans]

Now this is one where I don't know how much power he's going to have to do this because a lot of fluoride stuff is done at the local level.

[Simone Boyce]

Well, luckily for our friends in Portland, this won't affect them at all because there already is no fluoride in your drinking water.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

So our dental health is just fucked because of this. He's probably going to use. This is going to be another bully pulpit thing where he uses his position to push antifluoride shit. And I think the last thing I want to end on is just one of the, like, cruel, petty things that he's probably going to be able to do is one of the, like, bugbears of the right is that like, people on food stamps aren't eating healthy enough food. And so we're probably going to see a bunch of these just really hideous restrictions on what you can buy with SNAP benefits.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah. Well, and the rest of these guys also just wanted. Want SNAP benefits and welfare to also just like go down the toilet entirely. So.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So they're trying to make them as unusable as possible. And again, it's like, okay, so like, if you can only buy like fresh fruit with this and you live in a food desert.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Because you're poor, what the fuck you, you know.

[Simone Boyce]

Right. It's just, it's just compounding classism.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And the general trend of this is things are either going to get monumentally worse or merely sort of worse.

[Simone Boyce]

I do love those two options.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. When your best chance is you're hoping the brain worms ate the part of his brain that remembered this specific conspiracy, you're in real trouble.

[Simone Boyce]

Oh. I mean, RFK Jr. Is so emblematic of like the type of like democrat kind of wingnut hippie environmental guy who then slowly has been pivoting to like the right wing conspiracy sphere. Like, you see this with a lot of like, you know, like hippie moms from like the 90s. Right. Who had very like, you know, fluoride beliefs, vaccine beliefs, like all this type of stuff. That was kind of more associated with this like, kind of like slightly conspiratorial wing, nutty section of like the left and how much that entire sphere has been totally eaten by the right and now it's a pretty like successful and reliable voting bloc for them. And this has only become more the case under Trump's first term and now we are seeing it again with these types of guys, not just on like Facebook comments sections, but now actually like heading up entire departments of state.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's also worth mentioning that part of the reason this stuff happens is because it's really profitable. The anti vaccine lobby, and it is a lobby, has an unbelievable amount of money. You see a lot of people pivot towards it. I'm going to close this out by yelling at, there's a, there's a media organization called Gray Zone, which if you've been involved in anti Palestine activism, you've probably seen some of their reporting. They are also like pivoted into this kind of anti vaccine stuff. And you know, remember at the top when I talked about Jay Bhattacharya, who's that anti lockdown fanatic who's going to be in charge of the National Institutes of Health, he is a guy that like Gray Zone interviewed on their fucking website and put out a bunch of articles in support of his, of his anti lockdown stuff. Right. And so this is something that we've been seeing for the last four years, is a lot of people who are supposed to be leftists pivoting towards this anti vax stuff. GB Dore is another example of this. Yes, yes, Literally, purely because it makes you a lot of money. And now that, now these grifters just have their guy in office and all of us are going to have to live with the consequences of it. Unless, unless we stop this jackass from being put into office. Which is not impossible. It's, it's, it's not without hope. This guy has a lot of enemies both among like the people and also in corporate America, so.

[Simone Boyce]

And also in the animal kingdom.

[Robert Evans]

That's true, that's true. He, he has, he has many enemies. The families of the dead carcasses he.

[Simone Boyce]

Draws around well, and just the families of the microbials in those carcasses which have wormed their way literally into his brain.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone like eggs, cinnamon roll and even hot fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave. Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay. So when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy. A part of IHG Hotels & Resorts.

[Chelsea Handler]

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[Chelsea Handler]

Head over to land.com they've got ranches, forest, mountains, you name it. Search by acreage, location, the kind of hunting or fishing you dream of. Land.com it's where the adventure begins.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Hey listeners, have a gamer on your.

[James Stout]

Holiday gift list, but you're still not sure what to get them.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Head to Lenovo to shop. Unexpectedly great deals on tech this season. Gift your number one player with a brand new PC. Help them go beyond performance in game.

[James Stout]

Without compromise with Intel Core i9 processors.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

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[James Stout]

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[Simone Boyce]

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[Teddy Mellencamp]

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[Mia Wong]

Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime. And nearly half of survivors drivers delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face the lack of pet friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the purple Leash Project. With more pet friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together. Visit purina.compurple to get involved.

[Chelsea Handler]

Hello and welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a show that is no longer hypothetical now that it is happening here. I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger, and today I just want to talk to you a little bit about your online security. It's a hot topic right now for obvious reasons and this won't be a comprehensive overview on the subject by any means. I'm sure there will be more episodes in the future covering specific angles on this in more depth. But today I just want to touch on some basics, especially for people who may be asking themselves some of these questions for the first time. This is more of a mental framework and a pep talk. The main message here is don't freak out. I'm not saying the situation isn't serious or your concerns aren't real. It's very serious. But freaking out is not going to do you any good. And if you're looking for complicated high tech solutions to the very real anxiety that you're feeling right now, this episode doesn't happen. It that's not what I have for you today. And I know a lot of people have really specific concerns about apps they might be using to track their menstrual cycles or fertility. And we're not going to touch on that today because I think it's a topic that deserves its own episode and an episode where I talk to an actual expert. So I'm hoping to get that out next month. So what are we talking about? The answer is pretty simple. Calming down and shutting up. That's right, it's only Thursday when this airs, but it is always Shut the fuck up Friday in our hearts. Because the main source of the risks you can do something about is your own mouth. Because here's the thing. I'm not an expert on digital security. I'm not a computer programmer or a hacker. I had to call our producer Danil one time because I went to record an episode in my little recording device, said no, and I almost cried. And it turned out I accidentally slid the little tab on the data card that locks it. I don't know. But what I do know a lot about is how to exploit someone else's lack of digital security. If you're a listener to my show, Weird little Guys, you know that I kind of have a knack for finding out everything there is to know about a guy. So what I can offer you is a sort of reverse engineered guide to stay safe online from someone like me, but evil. I like to tell people that you should be thinking of your digital security, kind of like your health. People are going to have different risk factors, different vulnerabilities, different concerns, different goals. If you're undocumented or on a student or work visa, the risks and possible consequences for you are very different. If you're queer or trans or a person of color, your risk profile looks different. If you're economically dependent on family members whose politics don't align with yours, your risk profile is different. If you have a criminal record, if you work in a field where your political activity is a significant threat to your continued employment, if you're running for office, if you have a security clearance, if you have children or vulnerable family, these are all different vulnerabilities. And you're going to have specific concerns that are unique to you. And this isn't meant to address those specific risk scenarios. But just like people who may have different risk factors when it comes to their health, everyone can benefit from the basics. You know, no matter who you are, you have to wash your hands. And when it comes to digital security, a lot of people want to jump right to the exciting, complicated, technical fixes. You know, they want the Kim Kardashian full body MRI equivalent of being safe online. People want to talk about buying burner phones and getting a Faraday bag and evading high tech surveillance, but they're not washing their hands. People love to say they're going to buy a burner phone, but if you go to Walmart and you buy a burner phone and you put your credit card into the machine that is recording a video of your face, and then you take that phone home and turn it on inside your house next to your real phone, you've done nothing but waste your time and money. So we're not talking about solutions like that. What we are talking about is boring, unsexy, basic stuff that everybody can and should be doing before they jump into the deep end if you choose to go that route. Because I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about more advanced threats. I'm just saying you have to start here. So before you can figure out how to mitigate a risk, you have to nail down what that risk actually is. What is the outcome that you're hoping to avoid. There's a lot of anxiety right now about unknowable possibilities. And it's really easy to get Overwhelmed with the what ifs of a worst case scenario. And then you just end up feeling really helpless. And look, yeah, there are, there are some potential threats here that I don't have the tools to help you address. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be taking the steps that are within your control right now. You have to fight off that feeling of helplessness. So what we're talking about here is threat modeling. I gave a little workshop a few months ago about digital security. And the first thing I asked the group was, what is the bad thing that you were worried will happen? And most people's answer to that was they're worried about getting doxxed. Okay, that's, that's fair. That's a valid fear. But what do you mean by that? What specifically is the piece of information you are worried someone will discover? Is it your name, your address, where you work? Is it connecting two pieces of your online identity that you thought were separate? Doxing can mean a lot of things to different people and in different contexts. And it can happen in degrees, right? Like, you know, my full legal name, I'm, you know, doxed to whatever extent that means anything. But this could still happen to me. Someone could still discover a piece of information about me that I wish they didn't have. And most people can't become completely anonymous. I, I can't help you do that. And honestly, I don't think that should be most people's goals. Don't disappear. I'm not telling you you should disappear. This is just about figuring out what makes sense for you and what you can do to navigate the landscape that you've chosen to operate in. So what is the actual negative outcome specifically that is making you feel afraid? What is the concrete thing that you are thinking about when you experience that fear? And people's answers tend to be that they're worried about getting harassed, they're worried about their physical safety, they're worried about negative fallout at work or at school. People's fears tend to be about things like getting arrested, getting sued, getting fired, getting hurt, and getting embarrassed. And so the next question is, can you identify the potential sources for the kinds of harm you're worried about? And you can sort these into a few primary categories. The state can harm you. That's the police, the government, you can get charged with a crime. Institutions can harm you. If you're a student, you can get in trouble at school. If you have some kind of professional license, people could file complaints against you. Politicians and organized political groups can harm you. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene might tweet your TikTok video, or Canary mission might do a blog post about where you work and right wing groups can harm you. You might get targeted harassment from some Nazi telegram channel. Worst case scenario, maybe you were physically threatened or attacked by an extremist group. You could get swatted. And then there's just this sort of wild card of the random strangers and Internet mobs and the way they factor into and exacerbate all of the above scenarios when it comes to harm from the state. That's beyond what we're talking about with this digital hand washing metaphor. A lot of the prevention steps you can take today are still going to help you. They're still worth taking. But at the end of the day, if the government wants to know who runs a Twitter account, who drove to a protest, who supported a movement, who donated money, that's beyond the basics. Most of what I have direct experience with are just these basic measures that you can take take today to make it a little bit harder for the average weird little guy to get into your business. It'll stop the average online troll, it'll slow down a decent sleuth, but it's not the kind of stuff that stops a guy with a warrant. Think of protecting your online identity like being inside your house. If you have no curtains, someone walking down the street can see you even if they they didn't go out of their way to look. If you're putting everything out there with no thought to digital security, somebody could dox you without even trying. Just like they would be able to see in through your windows from the street. Somebody who is a little more curious about you might walk into your yard. But if you put up a fence, maybe that person will decide this isn't really worth my time. Somebody who loves peeping in windows and really wants to see you, he's going to hop your fence, right? But the average troll will see these barriers and they'll get bored. But again, curtains, a fence, a locked door, a guard dog, these don't stop a guy with a warrant. So we're talking about just putting up barriers that slow down and discourage the average low to mid level weirdo. In short, delete your Facebook, set your accounts to private use, sign signal, put a passcode on your phone, say less and try to do something about the data brokers. Let's break these down one at a time. I'm sure it's been talked about on this show before, but I tell everyone in my life, download signal, download signal. It's free. Put it on your phone. It's just an encrypted messaging app, and I use it by default pretty much exclusively in place of regular texting, just because it's easier for me to have everything in one place. It doesn't collect or store your metadata. It doesn't back up to the cloud. And you can set all of your conversations to automatically disappear at whatever time interval you choose. You don't need text messages from a year ago. You don't. Those can never help you. They can only hurt you. Just let them go. And turn off the biometric unlock on your phone, whether that's a fingerprint or a face id. Turn it off. Turn it off. Set a passcode. If you get arrested and you have your phone on you, they can use your finger or your face to unlock it without a warrant. But if you have a passcode, you're a little bit safer. So set a passcode that's at least six digits long, longer if you can bear it. I know. But when it comes to social media, you have some choices. You may look at your own threat model and say, well, I don't care if everyone can see what I've posted, and that's okay, right? We all have different goals and vulnerabilities. And if you're a very public organizer, then, yeah, you need public social media. But if you've been using Facebook for 20 years, you probably weren't always very careful about what was on there. And there are privacy settings now where you can retroactively set all of your old posts to a new privacy settings. You should do that. Start there. If you haven't done that. But that still leaves a lot of digital debris. If you've changed your display name to something more private in recent years, something that isn't your current legal name, old posts that other people made about you still have your old name in them. So if they tagged you 10 years ago, that old name is still a link to your current profile. And you can't control the content that your friends and family posted years ago. And on the flip side, if in the end you decide you don't care what's on your Facebook about you when you're doing your threat modeling, consider the people close to you. Because when I'm working at this from the other side, a lot of times I'll find that, you know, the guy that I'm looking for has done a pretty good job cleaning up his own digital presence, but his wife, his mom, his sister, someone in his life has not. So if there's someone in your life who maybe is at greater risk than you are. Don't be their weak spot. And if you're in a position to do so, talk to the people in your life about this. Have these conversations about what are our risks, what are our goals. Let's do a digital hygiene tech together, because you can build an impenetrable digital fortress around yourself. But if your Aunt Kathy is live streaming your baby shower, that didn't do you much good. And now that more people are talking about these kinds of concerns, you can try broaching the subject with people in your life that may not have been receptive to it a year ago. Show your mom how to set her Facebook to private Take the time to explain to your less political siblings why they should think about the ways in which their social media use might expose someone they care about. Don't just scold them or, you know, say it's reckless that you're doing this. Talk about why. So when it comes to social media, I'm saying delete your Facebook as a sort of shorthand for the general cleanup of the stuff that you've left online for the last 20 years. Cleaning up your online presence is the number one thing you can do right now to thwart the Bizarro Universe version of me, who is trying to collect every piece of information about you. Because even if you're careful today, even if you're so smart about it now, and you're not putting anything online that puts you at risk, you weren't always that careful. We're all guilty of it. People who've been doing this for a long time, people who know better. We're all guilty of being a little messy online. Fine. It's okay. There's no shame that you didn't know before. Don't feel silly. Don't feel guilty. Just start cleaning it up today. And so, to figure out what exactly you might have been leaving out in the open, one thing you can try is doxing yourself. Or do it with a friend, right? Try doxing each other. So start with a completely clean cache. Delete your cookies, whatever. Open an Incognito browser. Start with a blank slate and just Google yourself. Google your name, your address, your phone number. Google the usernames that you currently use on various sites, but Google the username you used in high school. Google your old AIM handle. Google the email address you made when you were 12. What comes up and is that information you want everybody to have? Probably not. Start by deleting accounts you don't use anymore. Just wipe those bad boys right out. You don't need those. A lot of people have no idea that the ghost of their old MySpace page still exists online. I've actually used that one fairly recently to confirm the details about a person's close associates and family members. They hadn't logged into MySpace since 2010, but your top eight lives forever. So delete or set to privates any account that you don't use, don't need, or just don't need to be public facing. Log into every social media site, every forum, every online store where you've ever created an account, and just look at what's visible. Your online reviews may contain information about where you live. Your profile on some forum you Posted on in 2012 probably has your birthday on it. And if you're an active Pinterest user, your Pinterest boards are probably revealing a lot more information about you than you realize. Information about your family, your interests, your plans for the future. People will make Pinterest boards with names like Jaden's second birthday. And now I know that you have a son named Jaden whose second birthday party you were planning last July. That's a real example. So set these things to private. Change your profile picture to something that isn't your face. Look at your username. Did you have to put some numbers at the end of that because the one you wanted was taken? Are those numbers your birthday? And vary your usernames a little bit. Unless you have some kind of professional reason for using a personal brand across every platform, don't use the same username everywhere. Keep separate areas of your life separate. Don't make it any easier than it needs to be to connect these different pieces of your digital footprint into one picture of who you are. Because again, I'm not talking about becoming completely anonymous online. A lot of people need to exist online as the person that they are. You have a LinkedIn, you do public facing organizing. I'm not saying you need to disappear from online, but if you have accounts that you don't want connected back to your true identity. If there are pieces of you that exist that you don't want side by side, don't connect them. So if you anonymously run a social media account for an activist group group, don't use it to follow your own real account. Don't like your boyfriend's posts when you're logged into your anarchist shitposting account. If you don't want it connected to you, don't create overlap. If you post a screenshot from one social media platform onto another. You know, a screenshot of a tweet on your Instagram, whatever, be mindful of what's in that image. Is there a thumbnail of your own profile picture in there? Does the screenshot show that you interacted with that post? Because a filled in heart on an Instagram screenshot is something I have used as a building block for a docs. And maybe you've never posted anything identifiable on Twitter, but have you ever posted a link to your Twitter account on Reddit? Or are you in a big discord and you shared one of your own posts with your friends in there, like, hey, look at this banger tweet. I'm going viral. And I say both of those specifically because both of those are specific mistakes that I have seen people make that were for me a crucial link between two accounts that connected the dots. To figure out who they were, use two factor authentication, use a password manager, use complex passwords, never recycle a password. Check databases like have I been pwned? See what's been leaked about you. And some of that data is out of your control now, but it's out there and you can't claw it back. But you can change all of your passwords today. You can download a password manager and change all of your passwords today. And all of your passwords should be something different from one another. I'm going to say it again. Change all your passwords. Stop using your dog's name as your password for everything. It was hard, but I did it. Okay? And when you're doing this digital hygiene check, you know, you're googling yourself, you're checking these breach databases. One of the things you're going to find is your address, your email address and your phone number and your parents name names and your parents address. All of these pieces of what you thought were personal private information, they are bought and sold to data brokers. And these data brokers put them online on sites that people can pay to access. Be like people finder, true people search white pages. There's hundreds of them. Now, by law, all of these sites have to have a link on them somewhere where you can ask them to delete your information. Some of them make it kind of hard and it may take weeks for them to actually honor the request and you may have to follow up. But theoretically, if they're operating legally, you do have the ability to manually clean up how much of your personal information comes up from these data brokers. But I'll be honest with you, it's whack a mole. You could spend one afternoon a week for the rest of your life making opt out requests and following up on them and checking back to make sure it's really gone on you. You can do that. I used to do that. But there are also services that will do it for you for a fee. I think there may be an episode in the pipeline examining that particular ecosystem in some more detail. So I won't go into the pros and cons of different services that exist. But if that's something you're interested in paying for, do some research about it before you put your money down. But at the end of the day, I just want you to remember you can't solve this whole problem. That might sound like a defeatist message, but I think it's healthy. I'm not saying it's hopeless. I'm saying you have to spend your energy where it counts. People ask me all the time, you know, are you worried about this or that specific threat? And the answer is, yeah, probably. Yeah, of course I'm worried. But you can't let that fear overwhelm you. You know, if I get fixated on the existence of threats that are outside of my control, I'll just freak out. And that makes me less capable of focusing on mitigating the threats that are within my control. So don't put blinders on. Don't lie to yourself. You know, be realistic. But don't wear yourself out worrying about things that are so far out of your control that all you have is fear. So today, now take a deep breath, delete your MySpace account, and talk to your mom about setting all her old Facebook pictures to private.

[Mia Wong]

Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot, fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone, like eggs, cinnamon rolls, and even hot, fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave. Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay. So when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy. A part of IHG Hotels & Resort.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You ever get that feeling like the.

[Chelsea Handler]

Concrete jungle's closing in? You crave wide open spaces, the chance to chase your own dinner, or just breathe clean air. Well, listen up. There's a whole world out there waiting and finding your piece of it just got easier. Head over to land.com. they've got ranches, forests, mountains, you name it. Search by acreage price, location, they've got it all. No matter what kind of wild dream you're chasing, Land.com can help you find.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

The ground to make it a reality.

[Chelsea Handler]

So quit dreaming. Head over to land.com find your open space and get out there.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Hey listeners, have a gamer on your.

[James Stout]

Holiday gift list, but you're still not sure what to get them.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Head to Lenovo to shop. Unexpectedly great deals on tech this season. Gift your number one player with a brand new PC. Help them go beyond performance in game.

[James Stout]

Without compromise with Intel Core i9 processors.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Gaming happens with Intel.

[James Stout]

Shop now only at lenovo.com.

[Simone Boyce]

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[Chelsea Handler]

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[Chelsea Handler]

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[Mia Wong]

Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face, the lack of pet friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the purple Leash Project. With more pet friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together. Visit purina.compurple to get involved.

[James Stout]

What's Pew Pewing My pews. This is Robert Evans Evans and it could happen Here. A podcast about it happening here as it seems to be more every week and when things get worse. One thing that a lot of folks start talking about is should I buy a gun? And obviously this is a fraught question and the Only responsible answers to it are very complicated. And so to talk over some very complicated answers, we've got James Stout and we have in the audience with us the great Carl Cassarda. Carl, Carl of InRange TV, thank you for coming on to be our resident firearms expert in this podcast where we try not to be deeply irresponsible.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure to come back to the show and people always ask for more collabs and here we are. But on a very important topic and yes, the only question I have is now is when do you change the name of the podcast to. Oh, no, it's happening here.

[James Stout]

We're talking with the marketing people. It done happened here.

[Carl Cassarda]

Oh, shit, it's happening again.

[James Stout]

It's been happening here. Here it is here now, right in this moment. Be here now, comma, it.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, we gotta work out which one SEO is best. But we're on it, Carl, don't worry.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Great.

[James Stout]

We're working on it.

[Carl Cassarda]

So as I think both of you know, but maybe listeners don't. Gun sales typically soar before elections, as do ammunition purchases. People are afraid of gun bans has been traditionally one reason why. And. And the firearms industry is not afraid of hyping those up to increase sales in election years. And normally prices increase in line with demand. If you go back to November 2020 and look at the prices of ammunition and guns compared to now, you'll see how much incredibly higher they were. That was for a number of reasons, but considering inflation, gun prices are pretty low right now.

[James Stout]

That is kind of a recurrent thing for the most part is that while. While everything else gets more expensive, television and firearms remain affordable, guns have gotten.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

To the point where they're more affordable than they've ever been.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they really are.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

AR15s are. I used to talk about this on in range. AR15s are essentially cord wood and you can get a fully fled good to go AR15 now for like 4 to 500 bucks, you can get pistols for 250 bucks. Oh yeah, the prices on guns are like through the floor. And yeah, it's interesting to note that like if you are a gun manufacturer or firearms dealer, even if you don't hype elections, it would be unintelligent of you to not prep for elections because they're so consistently the Christmas of gun sales. So this is an instance in which we didn't see that. And it's kind of interesting.

[James Stout]

I think there's an element because obviously when we talk, I think to people who are not into guns and talk about how cheap guns have gotten, they're like, well, that's very bad. And there's definitely downsides to that. But an upside of that is it does kind of suggest we are not seeing the degree of panicked hoarding for a civil war that we have seen at previous points when gun prices were not as cratered and ammo prices were a lot higher and ammo availability was a lot lower. Like, in some ways, that's kind of an optimistic sign.

[Simone Boyce]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Or the dark side of that is the traditional prepper air quote is so saturated in guns and ammunition that they don't even need another one.

[James Stout]

Right. Well, I think that is where a lot of people are.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. Also, capacity really increased in 2020, and I think they've been pumping out. It's interesting to look at the cost of 9 millimeter and 5.56ammunition, which, if you're not familiar, are the most commonly used defensive ammunition rounds compared to more niche stuff that hasn't gone down as much if you're trying to get 300 wisdom or something.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

The funny thing, yeah, 5.56 and 9 millimeter, both defensively as well as just recreationally, are the most common. I mean, by far. And some of the weirdo stuff I like to shoot, like percussion caps for percussion revolvers, you can't find that stuff to save your life. That stuff's through the roof and expensive. So they've literally just bunkered down intent there and are making 5, 6, and 9 millimeter because that's where the demand is and will continue to be.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, I can't find. You can't see it. I have a little reloading set up here. I can't find shotgun primers or certain powders anywhere now.

[James Stout]

And this is going to be a problem because if we have another Cowboys and Aliens kind of situation, what are we going to use? You know, what is Harrison Ford going to use to save us anyway? Nobody saw that movie. Why am I making that joke?

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Let me know. I've got a good stash of percussion.

[James Stout]

We're all going to be leaning heavily on Carl.

[Carl Cassarda]

Carl for all humanity.

[James Stout]

So I think we've gotten a little bit ahead of our skis here. We should start by talking because again, I think we've all seen a lot of people being like, well, I guess I should get a gun now in the way wake of Trump's victory.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And I think the first caveat we should give everyone is like, if you are reacting in a way that is totally reasonable, to this news, being depressed. Right. If you're somebody who deals with suicidal ideation, if you have been spiraling lately, if you have been thinking about self harm, if you are just not in a stable mental place and especially if you have no experience with firearms and are not in a stable mental place, don't go rush to pick one up now. Like for one thing, I assure you they will be available in the future. They are not going to get harder to buy.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

No. You know, it reminds me of a line from the movie We Were Soldiers, which is actually a pretty good movie, historically speaking.

[James Stout]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun.

[Robert Evans]

Not at all.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Gibson. It was pretty good. And there's a scene where like the old hardened soldier from World War II in Korea gets to Vietnam and he's like, he's just got a pistol and everyone's around him saying, don't you want an M16? He goes, don't worry, there'll be plenty of those laying around if I need one.

[Robert Evans]

So.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Kind of that's where we're at in this country. Don't worry, there'll be plenty laying around if you need one.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. We are not entering a period where that's, you know, I think there are some specific worries where there may be attempts to restrict specific groups from arming themselves. But even so, I wouldn't say that elevates it above a threat. If you are dealing with suicidal ideation. Having a gun is not a talisman, as our friend Tacticool girlfriend often brings up, and you shouldn't treat it as one. And part of what that means is that you have to model the threat that you're facing. Right. And if you are not in immediate danger, if nobody is threatening to kill you specifically, then that may not be the safest thing for you. And particularly I think the other side of it that Carl, you are much more qualified to talk about with than me is that if you are going to buy a firearm, if you want that to be a thing that can actually protect you in a situation where you are in danger, where someone is threatening you or life, you have to train with it.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that, not to make, to make light of that at all with that little joke about that movie. But the reality is we as people, humans in general, all of us are bad at threat modeling. And that's not to say that the perceived threat that we're seeing with the results isn't real. Yeah, I think it is. But that said, at the moment, if you're dealing with Some of those issues like you mentioned, or the living situation you're in, or even the community around you isn't one in which a firearm laying around is. Is particularly safe could mean that you're actually inducing more threat and risk to yourself than what might come in two years. So that is something we have to think about very carefully. Can I possess this responsibly? Do I know how to use it responsibly? Am I in a place not only in my living situation, but my mental state that possessing this very quick and easy to use lethal device is safe to have around? Those are questions you should ask first before worrying about tomorrow, right?

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. I mean, maybe we should address like a couple of things that Carl said right off the bat. Like you said, having a firearm lying around.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

One thing that we should address is like, I know I recently purchased a new gun safe, but like, if you have X budget to buy a gun. Robert also mentioned that without training, your liability with the gun. Right. Maybe we can break down. If you have $1,000, you don't need to go out and spend $1,000 on your gun. Right. Perhaps it would be better to save some of that money and put it towards other things. I think it might make sense to just break those down for people in case they're not familiar.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think that might be a good place to start, is if you decide, number one, I'm in an emotionally stable place, I either have some specific threats, or I want to be prepared for a future where those threats are more likely. And let's start with a budget of $1,000, right? And this is one of the. There's going to be people who can't afford a budget of $1,000. And that's very unfortunate. But this is one of those things that, like, isn't fair, Right. Like, guns cost money. Not everyone has disposable income. But $1,000, I think, is a reasonable floor for not just acquiring a firearm, but, like, the things you need to be able to start building proficiency with it. So, like, let's talk about that, Carl. Like, what would you do? What would you advise someone with a grand who is looking into getting into shooting and also being set up to potentially defend themselves if they need to.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Right. So this, it's such a nuanced question and answer because there's so many variabilities there, one of which you have to understand the living situation you in. Are you living in a place that is solely your own? Do you live with roommates? Do you have. Do you have children? And your parents. I mean, like these things all come into the equation about how well can you secure this thing should you acquire it? And so that comes up to do you need a full bolt into the wall safe? Do you need something that is locked with cable underneath the bed that still is reasonably difficult to get into but is accessible otherwise? Do you have a situation in which you're the only one that could access this, this, and therefore you're not worried about that? So the first thing you have to think about is I'm taking possession of responsibility of this. It is a lethal weapon. What am I going to do to make sure that that doesn't fall into the wrong hands, whether they're people that live within your own structure or outside of it should something go awry? So you have to consider that. So right off the bat is what are the situation I'm in and what are the things I need to consider to make sure this doesn't leak out of my control? Because we've seen in so many instances, especially some of the horrible spree shooting and such, in which it's not the person that possessed the gun, but someone around them that took it from them and used it for that?

[James Stout]

Absolutely.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And that's because it wasn't stored well. And so that's number one. So you're going to think about one, are you getting a small, a pistol or a long arm? And that's a discussion to be had, too. But those two equate. And then depending on which one of those two you're acquiring determines the kind of safe storage requirements that also align with your current living situation. Of course, the best thing is a safe bolted to the floor that only you can get into. But that's not viable for everyone.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

But it's something, right?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. What comes along with that is you also. This is going to be true at every stage of this process. You need to know the laws of your state and maybe even your local area. Right. Like in Oregon, we have very strict safe storage laws. Right. Like you can be held accountable to a higher degree in this state if you don't secure a weapon and someone gets access to it. Right. Now, obviously, if you have a safe and someone drills into your safe, you're not liable. Right. Like you took the actions you could to stop them from being able to get to your firearms. There's not an expectation that you have a fortress of solitude or whatever, but you have to have taken reasonable steps to lock them away. Right. And you know that's going to be different A lot of states have absolutely no requirements whatsoever. But you need to be aware of what your local legal situation is.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that to the table because myself living in Arizona, we have no such rules. And so I could essentially.

[James Stout]

You can just keep them on the floor.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I could stack them in my front yard. Right. I'm like, ah, I just put them out in the yard. We'll see.

[James Stout]

I had extra ars. I use them to make a fence cheaper than wood right now.

[Carl Cassarda]

They're literally cold wood now.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So the thing about that is this is again, these, these things get more and more complicated over time. And we don't want to make this conversation impenetrable.

[Carl Cassarda]

Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

But like the kind of safe you acquire is important too. And this, that's a deeper topic than we could ever do in one video.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I'm going to go ahead and, and just dovetail out to a friend of mine, Deviant Olaf. He has a channel, he does a lot of video work about gun safes and which ones are good or bad. But let's just say the cheap $90 thing with the cylindrical key lock, isn't it? So you gotta be a little better than that. So I would estimate, let's go with cost. You're buying, let's say an AR15. You're probably gonna need to spend and I'm guessing here around $250 for a safe that's actually worth a damn.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yep. That's about what I spent recently for a little handgun safe.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

So let's build on that. Right. Let's say you've decided that you want a gun and that it is safe for you to have a gun. I think, yeah. The first thing you ought to prioritize is making sure that no one for whom it is not safe gets that gun, which we've addressed. Right. The second thing that you need to prioritize is that you could use that gun safely and like you are not a liability every time that you pick up and load that gun. Right. Yes.

[James Stout]

And part of that is in. And maybe y'all will have different opinions on this, but I think we're probably simpatico, picking the right type of firearm. I see a lot of people saying, I am worried I'm going to get attacked. You know, I've gotten a death threat, you know, I'm scared, particularly of this group of, you know, Nazis or whatever. So I'm gonna buy a hand and I will tell you right now, my opinion is that if you are looking for a self defense weapon, a handgun probably shouldn't be what you pick unless you are looking to carry a gun.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, no, that's a good quote. Right. I carry a handgun because it's unwieldy to walk around with a Biff. 50 BMG.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I cannot take my AR with me in the street. Right. So I keep a nine on me.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You know, handguns are the most difficult, difficult thing to use skillfully under distress and duress than any other firearm. And above and beyond that, they are actually the least effective at doing the job you think they're going to do than anything else.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

There are a shocking number of people are shot way more times than you would expect they could survive with a handgun. Right. Like, yeah, that is just a reality of the way that they work because they're much, much less powerful than a rifle. And it's also like I had a friend a couple of years ago who bought a snubnose. 38 thinking, well this is simple, I can't fuck it up. It's a good. And I took her out and was like, I'm going to set up a 10 foot target and we'll see how many times you can hit it with this gun. And she could not do it one out of five times. And then I brought out my Glock and she was able to hit it every time. Right. And it's because one of those is a much easier weapon for somebody who is a complete novice to learn how to use functionally.

[Simone Boyce]

Right.

[James Stout]

And it's not the snub nose.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

38 in the roughest of most senses. Typically the smaller the gun is, the more professional you need to be to use it.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. And like with that in mind, you're responsible for every shot you fire. Right. Training in self defense, whatever, by fucking accident because you don't know how to clean your gun or what have you. Every bullet that leaves that barrel, it's your fault. And every one of those is potentially someone's life. So when you, you're thinking about buying a gun, you want to have something where you can A, handle it safely and B, discharge it and know where that bullet's going to go.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah. So on that note, this has been asked for me many times and we're talking about, we're all, we are on the same page. It's like when someone asked me this question and it comes up more than you think. First of all, we're getting past the issue of like are you safe to own this and safe storage. So now we're at the point you are buying a Gun. Right. So you have to think about what's the threat? Are we worried about three years from now and the potential realities of, of a very caustic and dangerous political future? Are you worried about only home defense? Are you worried about your own self protection walking down the street? Because obviously you're not going to be. Well, not obviously, but for the most part you're not going to be carrying an AR15 down the street. But if you are only worried about your castle, make a joke about castle doctrine. If you're only worried about your house, inside your house, there is no reason to be picking a pistol. None whatsoever.

[James Stout]

Now I will say that there's a number of folks in the lefty gun space who will say, so just get an AR15. That's not always going to be practical, depending on your loss. Right. Like that is not something that we can say everyone will be able to do. Right?

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But we can say there will be a non handgun option that will probably be a better fit for you.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, absolutely. And this is where we see a lot of people in the gun space. It's kind of weird. There's like cultural shifts in the zeitgeist of what's the cool, cool defensive thing of the time. But there's a lot to be said depending on what you think you're going to have to shoot at. Hopefully never of course, but like, yeah, and AR15 does things like armor piercing in terms of Kevlar and da da, da da da. But for home defense, it really still is kind of hard to go wrong with a shotgun in many instances. And that should not be ignored.

[Carl Cassarda]

You know what else shouldn't be ignored? It's our obligation to pivot to advertisements about every 15 minutes on this show. All right, we're back. Karl, you'd mentioned that you think a shotgun sometimes can be more effective than AR15 especially. Another thing I will add is in a state like California, the laws regarding semi automatic centerfire rifles are incredibly confusing. It's extremely easy to buy something on Amazon, slap it on your gun and render it a felony.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I would generally say like in most situations an ar, if you're new to shooting, it's going to be easier to figure out. They're very simple, easy to upgrade and modify. But like, yeah, in California, in a state like New York is similar. It's very easy to commit a felony with an AR15 and not know that you are. And you don't want to find out that your gun is a felony when you have to use it in self Defense. Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This is an instance in which the good old man, again, I'm not trying to, I'm not on, I'm not on team shotgun here. But when it comes to cross all state lines, I mean, sure, there's an exception somewhere, but for the most part, a manually pump activated shotgun.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Is likely to not run afoul of the law anywhere. Additionally, there's a good chance that if you were to, and we have to consider all realities, there's a good chance that should you need to use it, that when you're in court trying to defend yourself for using this lethal weapon, a shotgun doesn't seem to evoke the same, same concerns, let's say, from courts and from judges that an AR might. An ar, you know, regardless of how common they are and how much they proliferate society, there's still those scary rifles. A shotgun does not tend to evoke that same kind of response. It is most likely legal almost anywhere. And the diversity of ammunition you can use in it really bridges the gap from 1 yard to 100 yards or more. But a lot of people that are new to guns will think, well, shotgun, I don't need to aim. That is incorrect. Shotguns need to be aimed as much as any other long arm. They're just very effective when they actually connect.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's one of those because I do change, like what I am taking with me based on where I go. And like when I'm in California, I generally, like, if I'm going camping or something, I'll make sure I have a 12 gauge in the car. Right. Because I'm not going to try to get whatever this month's gun laws are. Right. That's just not practical to me. That said, I think because there are a number of people who will be very frustrated at us talking about shotguns. One thing that they are right about is there's a different type of training that's necessary with the shotgun. And they are in some ways more complicated to use than an ar, in part because for every shot, well, unless it's a semi automatic, like for every shot you're pumping it. Right. And like that is a. That is, there's muscle memory that has to be built there, Right. It's. It's harder, you know, maybe a little bit slower to get up to a level or at least you have to train differently with it. Right. The other thing about it is that like it loads very differently. You know, a shotgun is a completely different kind of ammunition than an AR has, which all goes back to the Whole like you have to be willing to train with whatever it is you're going to use. Fair enough, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

See, ideally, like if you're in this position of thinking, if you can find a friend, or failing that, a range that will allow you to try different guns, I think as a novice you're going to pick up if you've never shot a gun before, I probably wouldn't pick up a 12 gauge shotgun and start pewing away because the recoil will be quite profound and noticeable to you. So don't start there, start with something else.

[James Stout]

There's smaller shotguns, a 20 gauge and.

[Carl Cassarda]

Those are fine, especially if you're a smaller statured person. Even a 28 or 16s are hard to probably buy defensive ammunition for. But I think if you can, when you begin that journey, often I see people say with handguns, find one that fits your hand. You probably have no idea what fits you and feels good. If you're just starting out, finding someone who is local to you, ideally who has some experience, who can help you along that process, I think, and someone who you trust. Right. I have to train. I have a concealed carry weapons permit in California. The last time I went to take a course, like from the outset I got like xenophobia, homophobia, like jokes that I guess the guy who was instructing the course thought that everyone was in on. Just like they made me feel unwelcome and I'm a CIS het white guy.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

But I think maybe we should address that. Like if you're thinking of getting started, what kind of instruction should you look for? Where should you look for it? And like what would you recommend? Maybe other sources too. Carl, like your YouTube channel has been a great resource for me.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This is, this is where, where in the firearms. It's. Owning a thing doesn't make a community. So there's always this phrase, the gun community. It's not a thing. Owning. Owning a thing doesn't make a community. A community is a group of people that bond together over mutual beliefs and hopefully care for one another. So there is no firearms community. But that said, the broad scope of people that have been interested in the topic for the longest duration of time has been mostly seceded to a group that we would not find ourselves aligned with or comfortable with being around. And so, so this is where the community building thing is real because the more we build communities and we're behind in this regards in terms to alternative voices in the firearm space. But the more we build that community, not only online but amongst one another, the more we're going to have safer, better spaces for us to work together to learn how to use these things safely and efficiently. And that is a challenge. If you walk inside unseen to a place that is probably foreign to you in firearms land and sadly at this time point in time, there's a pretty good chance it's not going to be something you're going to be comfortable with, quite honestly, just like you mentioned, James, like it's going to be that kind of stuff. There's probably going to be Trump stuff on the wall. There's probably going, you're probably going to hear some jokes that are just jokes but you know, they're really not. That's the kind of space that that's filled with. And so when people come and say, well, who can I go to to get this training with? I'm like, that's challenging. There's some options online. There's like Operation Blazing Sword. There's a, there's, there's. The liberal gun club has some training options as well. But what's better is finding people and interconnecting with people of like mind around you if you can and working together and then actually building a real community that isn't a gun community. And that's where we're going to find solace in the ability to get better at this stuff together. Not a great, not exactly a strong answer, but it's the truth. But if you're going in, if you're going in just unhindered, you're going to expect it to be a place that you're probably not going to be happy with.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a really good point. I'd like you, can we talk a little bit more about training options? Like not just because you mentioned Operation Blazing Sword, I'd like to hear a little more about them, but also where people could go for like reading and videos in order to kind of find more information on how to develop proficiency.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah. Okay, so YouTube University doesn't teach you how to actually like effectively hit targets.

[James Stout]

With something like that.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You can, you can't, there's no way to learn that besides doing it. But in terms of just general firearms understanding, learning some of the history, learning about how guns work, There are some YouTube resources out there. Tactical Girlfriend you already mentioned has four years of a legacy of content on her site that a lot of it is focused on beginner style content. In fact, she just posted a playlist. She has kind of stopped making videos in general. She mentioned that a while back, but she still has her content online and she posted a playlist recently of all of her how to get going videos 101 stuff. And that would kind of be where.

[James Stout]

I'd start with yes, absolutely.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

My channel In Range TV has some of that. I tend to focus a little bit on the more esoteric and like next level things, but that's not to say it's not there as well. So I'm not trying to self promote, but I would actually say her playlist is going to be better than some of my own. Although we have stuff like that on In Range TV as well. If you want to open up that dark void called Reddit, the Liberal Gun Club has resources on it. If you go there, they have a list of people and local resources. You can also google the Liberal Gun Club. I'm not even trying to say anyone doing that is necessarily identifying as a liberal, but they are. They have gathered lists of statewide resources, as many as they can that are providing training in regional places. That would be a good place to start. Operation Blading Sword is a subset of that. Blake Al. I can pronounce him. Blake has been on my channel and you'll find him there in the Liberal Gun Club listing. When I think of that, I would say go to YouTube, hit up tactical girlfriend, go to in range TV if you want to see maybe not 101 but next level stuff, but a friendly space to you. And then check out the Liberal Gun Club. Best I can say, because they do have a list of resources that they're gathering across the country.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And I think one thing thing that Tactical Girlfriend talks about that is a. Because you're right. And I think this is an important point that like you have to spend time shooting and you know that costs money in order to get better. But there is one thing that you can do that does not cost ongoing money to get better with a handgun. If you're again looking to carry a gun, which is dry fire training, right. Which is a very useful process of building proficiency, you can do it. I mean you could do it every day if you want. It will help. It does not replace needing to go shoot. Right. But you can find guides. Tactical Girlfriend talks about it a lot. But you can find other guides online and that is a way that you can kind of stretch your ammo budget and gain additional proficiency.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

There are even products designed specifically for that. One of them pops to mind and there are others like Mantis X. And you make sure your gun is safely unloaded and you're proficient with that part of it. You put these devices in and you can actually fire at a dry fire is firing with no ammunition, the gun. Click, add a target on the wall and it'll teach you things about like, did you pull to the right, did you push to the left, did you dip the gun? And those are very good products that you can use once you buy them. Gets more money. But you can train proficiently in a safe place without firing live ammunition and improve your skills quite a bit. That's a good point.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. I would say, like another organization I would plug is Armed Equality, especially for like LGBTQIA people. Friends of mine. Very nice people. Perhaps we should go back then to that. Like Robert's mentioned dry firing. We've mentioned.

[James Stout]

Well, first I think we need to go to ads. James.

[Carl Cassarda]

You're right, Robert. We should go. Go back to Chumba Casino here.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So dry fire at the wall and think of Trumba Casino.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Or just download an upgrade from Neural link that you got from Elon.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Our primary sponsors, the brain chip.

[Carl Cassarda]

All right, we're back. So we've had discussion about training, safe storage and a little bit about, like, what to look at, firearms wise. But I want to go back to that third one because you are marketed at so heavily when you're trying to buy a firearm. Right. And the likelihood of you getting misinformation. Right. We all know smaller statured people who have been given. Yeah. A snub nose.38. A gun that's entirely inappropriate for them. Carl. What? Like, if you could maybe go through like each major category. Right. If we do handgun, shotgun, semi automatic rifle, maybe one that is compatible with AR band states and one that's, you know, if you're in real America, there.

[James Stout]

Are some options like the Ares SCR that are basically AR15s that are a lot easier to keep in compliance in a state like California, but they are also more than twice as expensive as like a budget AR15. Right. Like, which is not to say it's impossible to have a budget AR15 that is in compl. In compliance with California law. It's just. I am not going to take on the responsibility of telling you how to do that legally. Because when I lived in California, I was only about 80% sure that I was in compliance with the law.

[Carl Cassarda]

If you're in California, my advice would be to go to a shop and buy the gun complete.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

Don't piece it together off the Internet.

[James Stout]

That's good, good advice.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Oh, well, if you're a new gun Owner don't piece together anything together because the knowledge to make something reliable that you've put together from bits and pieces is not a good idea. You want something that's got, I mean literally you want something from a quote unquote reputable manufacturer but has a warranty. Like let's just be that. Don't even start with trying to put something together.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So let's just go ahead and start with pistols. So the challenge there is like of course it would be very nice to be able to buy like four of them because you can train with a 22do and practice with this and. But let's go with the constraint that we had earlier of this thousand dollars and you're going to buy a pistol and with it you plan to train, get better, be proficient, but also maybe have to use it for self defense. You really want to stick with a 9 millimeter. I mean there are smaller guns like 380s and such like that. But we're getting into specialist guns.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

What is what I'm going to say here across the board when I recommend something, it's going to be the opposite of specialist. It's going to be the most bland, boring possible thing.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And when it comes to that, and I know that everyone likes. But it's a, it's a nine millimeter. Probably a Glock.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

The Glock 19 is a relatively reasonably sized gun. The 17's a little bigger. The 19 is in this nice middle ground. It is carriable. It's small enough to be concealed should you have the right to do so. But it's big enough to be viable for being reasonably accurate with not extensive amounts of training, but enough training to get good.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And it's a bunch around the 9 millimeter magazine that just plain work works.

[James Stout]

Yep, Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

If you're on a tight budget, I will say that cops are always. You can find trade in police Glocks pretty cheap. Cops don't shoot very much. You can sometimes get some pretty good deals on those.

[James Stout]

Yep, that's it.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I'm revealing a little bit of future history of what's going on in range. We're doing a video in a couple weeks. There is a strange trade imbalance between us and never mind the politics. Turkey and they are making some really high end, really well made guns. There is a Glock clone from Turkey that I can't vouch for yet. But this is the kind of where we're at in the gun space. This thing is interchangeable with all Glock parts and the gun's like 250 bucks.

[Carl Cassarda]

Oh, wow.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Oops.

[James Stout]

You can't beat that.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

We don't know yet. I'm not saying go buy that, but I'm saying we're going to do a review of it. The point is there are Glocks and Glock like things that can get the price down.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right. And so you're looking at, you know, if you get a budget AR for 500 bucks, you know, a budget 9 millimeter handgun. Because even if with not counting that one, there are other budget options that are in the 300 ish dollar range. You just have to look around a bit. And I should also note, buying used with a firearm is not like buying used with electronics. If a gun is well maintained, it will outlast you. Right. There are some parts that will need replacing from time to time. Right. Your springs and stuff are going to age faster than other things and like barrels you can shoot out, but it takes quite a bit of shooting, shooting to shoot a barrel, you know, smooth. Right. So it's never a bad to consider like finding like you said, like a police trade in or something like that. Like that could be a great way to save money.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Absolutely. So when it comes to the pistol, we're talking about buying just one. Pretty much boil it down to a 9 millimeter.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

That is probably a polymer frame gun, not some big heavy steel thing. A Glock is the, is like the de facto. But there are others. I mean there's, there's HK is, there's rugby.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I like cigs, but they're pricier. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

The thing about Glock is Glock's been around forever. It's the standard. Finding, accessorizing, buying magazines or even getting repairs done to a Glock is ubiquitous across the country. If you get a Glock, you'll be able to deal with it, fix it, do whatever you want to it straight up.

[James Stout]

And what has helped me a lot in general is I have my carry gun, I have my home defense firearm and then I have built a couple of firearms from the ground up. And certainly as you said, I would never have started there. But because I had the extra money, doing that means that has given me so much deeper of an understanding of what goes wrong when things do go wrong with a gun and how to fix it. I've replaced every part on my carry gun at this point over time and it's given me a much deeper level of understanding of just mechanically how these things function. Building an AR15 was the same process. And I'm Really, I do find that valuable. Obviously it, it's, it's throwing more money at the problem too.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, totally. So the, the, the other advantage of 9 millimeter, which is, is reasonably cheap to feed and shoot, reasonably cheap to practice with. For those of you that don't know anything about guns, you will typically practice with what's called FMJ bulk pack ammunition.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Nine millimeter, 115 grain. It's just a bullet that's got a copper jacket on it and that's your practice am ammo. And then for carry, should you be carrying it, you'll probably want to carry something that's specifically designed to be defensive ammunition. It'll be far more expensive per box. But once you get to the point of yes, I am ready, safe and capable to carry this, you're going to want to pick something gold dots, spear gold dots or a hollow point designed to specifically be for self defense. But make sure the gun you've chosen works reliably with that defensive ammo because even though it works 100% with that FM Jay, it may not work with the defensive ammo you might have to play with a little bit.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

We should also note when you are buying ammo online, which is not going to be legal in every state, but most people will be able to do this, it pays to be careful. There is a lot of stuff that is sketchier out there and there can be consequences. I have had a firearm, I have had like a handgun blow up in my hand as a result of getting ammunition that I had not shot before. This was in fact Turkish, I think it was because I think it was a hot load. But it's possible that it was the result of a bullet be a squib that then jammed in the barrel and then another round came in after it. I generally have been pretty good at checking to make sure there's a hole in the paper with each shot, which is something you should be making sure of like when you're shooting. Because if you get, if you shoot around the, that like does not have enough powder behind it, Right. If you get a bad round, it can jam in the barrel and then the second round can cause the barrel to burst. This is also why we always wear eye protection. But when looking at ammo, if you think this looks like good ammo and it's cheap, look online, add like Reddit to the name, see what other people say about it. Right. Like see if you can find anything written about that. If other, usually other people, if it's like a less reliable manufacturer Will have said, I've had a bad experience with this ammunition. Do your diligence, right. The first time you're shooting a new kind of cheap target ammo.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

That, that being said, like there's a lot of names that almost anyone that's never owned a gun before will recognize. Names like Remington, right? Winchester. Yes, these are. That's not to say that they don't make mistakes too. But like if you're going to go buy a Winchester bulk pack of ammunition, you are buying at least what is generally considered consumer level reliable ammo.

[James Stout]

If you're buying it from absolutely Crazy.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Bob's reloading shack, right. You don't know what you're gonna get.

[James Stout]

That was what. Cause a lot of the sketchy stuff isn't even a manufacturer. It's like ammo that you may not notice immediately. It's like, oh wow, this seems really cheap. And then it'll say in small letters, remanufactured. Right. Which means somebody has reloaded it. Reloaded ammo. And like, you know, you can reload ammo and have it be perfectly good ammunition. But do you know who reloaded this ammo? Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I will tell you as a person that shoots a lot and has been doing it for decades, I personally, personally, even with all that, I will never fire remanufactured ammunition. I don't want to deal with Krazy Bob's weird Bad Wednesday.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Crazy Bob's Bad Wednesday bullets.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's a great name for it. Yeah, yeah. So we've addressed the pistol, right? Like I want to address long guns. And then you mentioned a couple of things, Carl, which you should also address, which are like accessories. Robert mentioned eye protection. So Ear and I.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Let me add one more piece to the pistol and we'll move on. Yep. The, the thing now, the whiz bang thing now is every pistol has a red dot sight on it. A red dot sight is essentially an electro optical box that sits on the top of the slide and you look through it to aim and it projects a red dot like almost like a laser dot. If you're not familiar with it to aim with for the most part. I'm not saying you shouldn't have one because they're cool. But for the most part, a person getting into this specifically for self defense does not need one of those. You don't need to spend 300 on a red dot. The iron sights that come on any of these guns should be sufficient for most purposes. So don't get suckered into. I need that if that's something you want later, think about it. But it's not a requirement.

[James Stout]

Now, that said, if a gun has one on it, I don't agree with people who say, like, you can't learn to shoot on a red dot. I think that that's. Now you should. You will need to look up because it may not be cited. How to cite it. Right. Like, because it like red dots are a thing. Like you need to dial them in. Right. And there is a way to do that. Again, you can find guides to this online, just like you can find guides to like mounting a scope on a rifle. These are complex mechanical tasks. A red dot less so than a scope. But you can't just buy a gun with a red dot on it and trust that that red dot points out where the bullet's going to go. That's not how they work.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Absolutely. My point being is if you gave me. You said this person here needs to be able to hit a target 15 yards away. You've got one hour.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I would not be messing by giving them a red dot. I would give them something with iron sights and just get them through the task. But that's what I'm. Where I'm going with that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think that's perfectly reasonable. Yeah. I prefer like now that I know what I'm doing to use my red dots and stuff. But I also pretty regularly shoot with iron sights in part because I like it. Like, it's enjoyable mechanically and it's kind of how I learned.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Or don't get me wrong, it is better.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

It also adds another level of complexity.

[Carl Cassarda]

And it's more to go wrong. Like if you're installing that yourself, it's annoying and it's easy. Easy to mess up and then you're upset. Let's move on to long guns. One thing that we should mention is you might buy an ar, specifically an AR, actually, and find that it comes with no sighting systems at all. So that's a thing to build into your budget. So let's talk about what to get for your budget in the long gun category. Carl.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah. So when we go to long guns, we talk about rifles and shotguns. Let's stick with rifles for now, I'm assuming. So in that regard. Charge. This is the, this is the thing where like actually I have a video on my channel about the nfa, which is the National Firearms act, which is what regulates a lot of like machine guns and stuff. But this also occurs across many gun control laws. They're frequently ableist.

[Carl Cassarda]

Very Much so.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And the things that they put the most restrictions on are the things that are actually most capable. And that means, that means AR15s in their general guise with a pistol grip and a red dot sight, which we just mentioned for P pistols and a 30 round magazine is the thing that is going to be the most I could get. Anyone, I tell you, anyone capable of hitting at a target at 50 yards within a four hour training session with a red dot sided AR15 and a good magazine, it's a good ammunition. AR15s are light, low recoil, they're loud because of the.556, but they're light, low recoil guns that almost any one of most body structure can handle. Now, there's exceptions of course, if you have specific physical challenges. Challenges, that's another discussion. But if almost anyone tiny to large can handle a basic AR15 and it is the gun that is most focused on for gun control. Ironically, places like California, where they take away things that make it more functional like the pistol grip or reduce your magazine capacity because they're trying to diminish the functionality of the gun. But the reality is the reason they're doing that is because that is the gun that is most functional for most people. And it is therefore the one that almost anyone can handle pretty well with the smallest amount of training.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yes. And I think there's a good point there in if I were coaching someone who was buying an AR that has no, you know, does not have iron sights on it at all. You are. It is much easier to learn how to sight in and use a red dot on an AR than learning how to adjust the iron sights on an AR15. Right. Like, not that you can't learn that. You should again, you have to, you can watch a video on it, but it's much more intuitive to set up a red dot in that way.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This is actually where I would flip flop with the pistol. Don't concern yourself too much with a red dot. If you're going with an AR15, concern yourself with the red dot.

[James Stout]

Please get a red dot.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Do the opposite.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Unless you were like in the marines or something and you know how to dial in your irons. Right. And even then you're gonna have a better time with a red dot.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah, totally. And you're once. And a red dot is very intuitive. So one of the things that people aren't familiar with firearms, but when you bring up a long arm, there's multiple points of contact to the person shooting the gun. When you bring up a pistol, you probably have two hands on it and you're pushing your arms out almost like you're like making a triangle. When you're using a longarm like an AR15, there's a buttstock on your shoulder. Your cheek is on the actual comb, which is the base of the stock. Your other hand, your support hand, is holding the gun up on the front of it. You have a minimum of three points of contact with a red dot. That makes it very stable and easy to get reliable hits. And the red dot means you can keep both eyes open. Don't need to worry about the idiosyncrasies of focusing on a front sight. Essentially if it's zero, meaning the dot is regulated to where the gun hits and you put the dot on the thing and press the trigger without doing something like jerking the gun, you'll hit the target and so that's why that matters.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

So, so what sort of budget should people be looking at and like would you be comfortable recommending like even brands that they should look at?

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I it all comes down to cost. When it comes to AR15s, you can spend as much money as you want. The reality is I have a video on the channel. Never mind if you like or dislike the company. They're one of the ones that really pushed the lower cost products out there. Psa, it stands for Palm Auto Palmetto State Armory. You can go there and get your branded Trump log lower but at the same time you can get an AR15 for like 400 bucks.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And like in the gun space, you're not, you're not going to find someone to buy who is spotless and selling guns in large numbers cheaply.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, like that's generally not so like so, so for 400 bucks or around there from PSA, you can get a traditional, what's called an M4. It's essentially a 16 inch carbine. It won't have any sighting system on it, so expect to throw another 2,200 bucks ish onto a reasonable red dot site on that. So for around the 600 range, you're going to get a gun that's going to weigh seven pounds but it's going to have low recoil and you're going to have something that's for the most part reasonably reliable. Is it the best of the comp is the best of the best? No, but it's reasonably lightweight. It is well manufactured. I've done videos about them on my channel, they've worked just fine. And so 4 to foreigner is for the gun gun the 200 for the sighting system, couple mags you could get out the door for under $700. With everything probably under that, maybe under 600 even if you're careful. Oh, but let me plug one thing. If you've got lots of lots more money, double that you get what would Stoner do carbine which I designed. It'll be half the weight and super reliable from K Arms.

[James Stout]

But I love mine.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Doesn't bring any money to me. I'm just saying the point I'm making here is you can get something good enough and if you got more money, there is better out there that are lighter, more reliable guns. But you don't need to is my point. I'm not trying to sell anything here.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. They are one of the few manufacturers who offer a California compliance solution at checkout which is nice for California people.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes. So that can be a really beneficial thing to you in terms of not having it be something that you're scared about.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

California compliant will probably mean no flash hider, no pistol grip and a fixed magazine. At least at this point in time.

[Carl Cassarda]

You can have the removal magazine if you don't have the flash height of the pistol grip and the collapsing stock.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Okay.

[James Stout]

All right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Well if you can buy it from them ready to go. There's. I know there's also magazine capacity requirements or in the case. So maybe you have to buy like a couple 10 round mags or something like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Obviously 30 round mags are better than 10 round mags and for most, if you live in a place like California, do not worry too much about that. If you get a little proficiency on a couple ten round mags will do a lot.

[James Stout]

And to be honest, in self defense shootings the odds are low that you will be firing that many rounds right now. If you're in a self defense shooting where you do need more bullets than that, there's really nothing that can replace having those bullets available.

[Carl Cassarda]

But yeah, don't get wrapped around the axle on it. It's not something you can change.

[James Stout]

The fact that you only have a ten round magazine does not mean that you can't become profitable.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah. And I don't want anyone here to think that I'm saying you shouldn't. You should be able to get a 60 round magnus as far as I'm concerned. Places like California that have these restrictions have them statistically speaking and I don't know if this data has changed, most self defense shootings happen within three yards, three seconds, three shots fired.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

I think it's really good to remember that when you're seeing some YouTuber tell you you need to be able to have 30 rounds and 500 yards.

[James Stout]

I don't go downtown without my backpack and my, my SBR 300 blackout with 630 round magazines accessible.

[Carl Cassarda]

I was a conservative man, scared of cities.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah. I carry an RPG and I take the little safety cap off because I like to live that way.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dangerously down pen thing. My clothing is made out of debt cord. I just wear nothing but debt cord. Wherever I go. We're all going down.

[Chelsea Handler]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

At least you'll take some people with you.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

It's all city blocks done.

[Carl Cassarda]

Self defense martyrdom.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Oh, but let me say one more thing about long arms. Another thing you'll see from people that are new in the space, depending on like what they've seen or what they've consumed, this is going to get some hate. Don't bother with AKs. Yeah, just don't. This is the United States of America. And this country believes in the AR15. And what that boiled down to is they're everywhere, they're prolific. The parts are here, the repair is here. They're well manufactured. When you stray from that course to something like an ak, first of all, you're losing ergomics, but that's a different problem. Problem. You're dealing with an un, an unknown quantity of problems. You get an ar15. That's what's in this country. It's what's prolific.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

If you were in, if you were in somewhere war torn Africa, get your AK here.

[James Stout]

I'll say this about the war torn AK countries because I've been in three countries where the primary arm is an akm. Right. Like a kind of ak. Right. Syria, Ukraine and Iraq. In all three of those countries, every soldier who knew their stuff, who was proficient and had the option chosen AR platform if they could. 100% of the time they're just better firearms.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, that's been my experience as well.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

They look cool. But, but, but don't go. Just get an AR15. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like I love my AKs, but they're, they're range toys. Right? Like, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

So let's talk about accessorizing, which again is much easier with ars and aks. Like what other stuff do you need to build into your budget? If you've not shot before, you might not know that. You need air. Pro eye, Pro sling, maybe holster.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Well, we'll start with the firearms accessories. Right. So with the pistol you're. First of all, we talked about safe storage. That's already off the table with the pistol. If you plan to carry it, you need a good, reliable holster and a good, reliable gun belt.

[James Stout]

Good Lord, yes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Depending on how you want to carry it, that'll determine the kind of holster. If you want it outside the waistband, which means it sits outside your belt, that's one thing. If you're carrying it concealed, you're probably going to want an inside the waistband, which goes between your belt and your body. Again, another level of training there. Because when you're drawing from that, things can go wrong.

[James Stout]

Sure.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And that's where people tend to shoot themselves. So that's something you need to be very cautious of. Yeah, but with a pistol, typically you're going to want probably an extra magazine or two. It may come with one, depending on what you bought. A quality gun belt and a quality holster.

[James Stout]

Now, what about a.44 Derringer and an ankle holster on each ankle? Right. Like that seems the ideal solution. Anytime you're in danger, you just gotta squat right down there, you know?

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

No, get real low.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

When you've been pushed onto your back by the mob and you're there in that scene and you're pulling it out of your ankle holster. Yeah, right.

[James Stout]

No, no, no. Just get a wire around the trigger and attach it to your toes so that you can squeeze your toes and fire from.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

What you need is the belt. Revolver from North American Arms.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, that's great.

[Stephen Monticelli]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

No, from that freaking movie, the vampire movie, Quentin Tarantino.

[James Stout]

Oh, geez.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Dust till dawn. Dust.

[James Stout]

Dust till dawn. God, yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

No, but for the pistol belt, a magazine or two extra, it might come with them. And a quality holster. Now, the obvious question is, what's a quality holster? And the obvious answer is there's too many out there to be able to offer you that answer right now. Probably something polymer if it's going to be outside the waistband. And this will be another one that'll get people fired up. Generally avoid the Serpa holsters unless you really want to have a lot of training. Serpa holsters are one that have a little button on the side that allows the gun to come out if you're not trained well or have the wrong gun in it. It also allows you to accidentally shoot yourself quite easily as well.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, best avoided.

[James Stout]

That's. That's a very good point. And also one thing I will note is there's a danger that a lot of people aren't aware of with leather, which is that leather holsters. Now there are some leather holsters that have like a trigger Area reinforcement reinforced with Kydex, which is a rigid plasticky substance. But if it's not in time, those can start to get weaker and worn in such a way that it can also cause it to press the trigger when you holster it. That's a thing that has happened to people. So I generally think you want the trigger guard to be rigid and not something that's going to warp and be malleable around the trigger. The whole point is that it stops the trigger from firing.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes. You want to avoid that. How about with the, with the long guns, like what are you going to need to budget for those? And then other things like for shooting generally that you'll need if you don't already have them.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So when it comes to the longarm, we already said if you're going to get an AR15, you're going to want to stick some sort of red dot sight on it. The lowest cost ones that are the unbelievably bomb proof are a Chinese company called Holosun.

[James Stout]

Hell yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

I have a holosun from 2017 that is still works just fine.

[James Stout]

I love my hollow suns.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Yeah, My hollow sun's been bounced down an asphalt road and it still works fine.

[James Stout]

So it's the opposite of a fail sun, a hollow sun.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So you can pick up a red dot hollow sun. Those can go in. You can get those sometimes. Sometimes as low as like 150 bucks.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So you'll need a red dot site. A sling is nice, not required. Especially if you're going to be using it within the premises of your property. You probably don't need to worry about that. Also, slings can cause issues like get caught on things or on things in your house or even tangle you up. So that's a training issue. So sling is iffy, an extra magazine or two. And if you're planning on needing to use this for a defensive purpose inside of your home or structure or at night, it's not the worst thing in the world to throw on a flashlight.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yes. Especially if it's like a defensive firearm, like it's your home defense guy or a carry gun, like a flashlight. And also if you're. I think it's generally a good idea if you're going to carry a carry firearm with a flashlight, have another flashlight that's not on a gun. Because one thing you should never do is use your gun flashlight to look at just random shit that you need a flashlight for.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You come home at night, it's dark, you forgot. You forgot. You can't find which Key is the right key for your using your gun to illuminate your door. Don't do that, do that, don't do.

[James Stout]

That, don't do that.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's a pretty good list of accessories there. Make sure you have allowed ear and eye protection as well.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

So that's we're going to go. On the safety side of things. You need proper shooting glasses. That means not the glasses that you picked up for readers at Walgreens. Their shooting glasses can be as cheap as nine bucks, all the way up to hundreds of bucks. You can get them at the sporting goods store. But they're designed with the kind of plastic to be able to take shrapnel or hits from pieces of fraction fragments that are high velocity. They're meant for that. So $10 shooting glasses.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You need.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Hearing protection. Those can be squishy earplugs you put in your ear or they can be over the head muffs. Do not ever shoot guns except in the most critical conditions or situations without eye protection and hearing protection. Because that's the kind of stuff where you lose an eye and every time you fire that gun, you're losing hearing. Every time.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes. And like for the really. Cause obviously most like it hurts to shoot a firearm without hearing protection. You can get away with shooting a gun without eye pro every time but the one time. Right. Which is why I really emphasize eye protection. It's easy to convince yourself I don't need to have it on right now. You do.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Cause that's the day that it does the thing.

[James Stout]

Yes. Yes. Guns do fuck up for lack of a better term. And you really don't want your eyes. Eye unprotected if they do.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. It's. It's a bad day.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Absolutely. And so. But you on the safety side of eye protection and hearing protection, it can be as cheap as $10 shooting glasses and a bottle of squishy earplugs. You're going to be in there for 20 bucks.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't have to be expensive. Make sure you have it and make sure you use it.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

But you know what? Before you do any of this, you know what's a smart thing to do? Go take a class from stop the bleed and learn how to use tourniquets and medical gear.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And have that around any. Anyway before you ever buy a gun. Go do that.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

That's the most important thing you could do for anyone.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yes. And that, as you said, should be a priority before getting the firearm. And if you have the money to get and train a gun. You have no excuse for not having an individual first aid kit, an IFAC and the knowledge of how to use it. Right.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And I think stop the bleed classes are usually free. You can look it [e-mail] or.org, google it. Take a class that teach you how to use a tourniquet, use how to use a band, have an ifac, as was just mentioned, which can be a pretty simple kit.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And as you said, Robert, if you can afford a gun, you can afford that.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

And have that with you on the range anytime you're shooting. Because as you said, guns can fuck up. They usually don't. But if they do, you're going to want that ifac and that IFAC and that training might just help your neighbor one day when they get in a car accident or whatever.

[James Stout]

I regularly make the decision not to carry my gun with me places. Right. You know, I'm going to go out and get drunk tonight. I don't need. If I have a firearm on me when I'm drunk. But you know what I always have is the ifac. Right. Every single time, you know, because number one, drunk with an ifac, I'm. No, I'm probably less effective, but I'm not going to endanger anyone.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

You're just like, hey, buddy, I think you need a permakid. He's like, no.

[James Stout]

Google said this goes around the neck.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

But once again, a stop the bleed class and an IFAC is more likely to serve you or your community more than any gun ever will.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, I think that's a great place. I would say that if you are going down this pathway and you're looking to join openly leftist gun organizations, there are several. Right. John Brown Gun Club, Socialist Rifle Association. We've had those people on our show before. Be cautious when you're doing that and keep an eye on things because that could be something that might get you into trouble in the long run. So it's something to be aware of.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It might be good to just put a holder on joining a new organization until we're a few months into this thing coming up next year. Maybe have an idea about what kind of things might be safe and what kind of things might be less safe.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, definitely.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

No, but none of that stops you from using signal, building community and learning how to use a firearm properly.

[James Stout]

Right. Meeting people. Yes. And like training with them, you know, and taking. Getting training, getting, building proficiency. Absolutely. All of that that is legal and will remain legal. Just don't start. If anyone Ever talks to you about let's make a militia.

[Carl Cassarda]

Don't do that.

[James Stout]

It's time to leave that conversation. Right. Because among other things, at this point there's a good chance they're the FBI.

[Carl Cassarda]

If you live in Michigan, do not.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

This podcast brought to you by cointelpro.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, that's great.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

But I mean it's a tough challenge. And so the other thing you can do is also once you've got your basic proficiency up and you know that you are are safe in terms of handling things. Let me throw this out there too. It doesn't have to be any specific one. Although remember you're going into a space that may not be politically your comfortable place. A good place to build up skill is to go shoot matches, competitions.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Teddy Mellencamp]

For the most part it's business oriented. You'll see. You'll hear some stupid comments here or there depending on what match you're at. But the reality is you're not there for that. You're there to get better with your gun on a course of fire that they put up for for you. Pay your 10 bucks or 20 bucks. Learn how to shoot better in those conditions. And that's another space to. Once the basic training's out of the way, don't go to a match to be training. Use the match to help increase your skill after you've gotten training. But those matches can be a place to really help you out a lot. And there's a lot of them around and those are easier to find than almost anything.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yep. Practice score is where you can look them up if you're into that kind of thing.

[James Stout]

Excellent.

[Carl Cassarda]

Thanks very much for joining us. Carl, do you want to very Briefly plug your YouTube channel channel. Where can people find you?

[Teddy Mellencamp]

Well, sure. And thank you for having me on the show. It's always a treat. I really appreciate it. It's always great to be able to just to hang out with you both. It's should do it more often. You can find my work, it's inrange tv. You can find my website at inrange tv. I'm distributed, decentralized across multiple platforms, the predominant one being YouTube. Cover everything from civil rights history, human rights to firearms to from old west flintlocks up to the most modern machine guns across the channel. Some of it is instructional, some of its history. And I've got a cool video dropping tomorrow in fact. Well, tomorrow based on when we're recording this on the opium wars and how Britain and China's firearms technology discrepancy caused Hong Kong to be owned by Britain. That's the kind of stuff I do on my channel, so check that out. And if you want to find matches that are going to be a place that is truly an inclusive space, we do run matches called Brutality Matches. You can find them at brutalitymatches. They're not monthly. We have run a couple of them across the country. But I can guarantee you that's a space you will feel comfortable because we make it that way.

[James Stout]

Awesome.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, thanks, Kel.

[James Stout]

Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

[Simone Boyce]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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