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You're listening to an iHeart podcast.
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Time is precious and so are our pets.
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So time with our pets is extra precious.
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That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24,7 access to licensed vets.
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With unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets.
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Time and schedule a video visit the same day.
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Our vets can even prescribe medication for.
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With Dutch, you'll get more time with.
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Your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes comes to their vet care.
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In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare.
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Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked.
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Well, not me, but me with someone else's body part.
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This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.
- [01:01]
Host 1
Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.
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Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Host 4
I'm Clayton English.
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I'm Greg Lott and this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.
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Host 5
It's kind of star studded a little bit, man.
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We met them at their homes, we met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it.
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It makes it real.
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It really does.
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It makes it real.
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Host 6
Listen to new episodes of the War.
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Host 2
On Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the.
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Host 4
Iheartrad Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Sam Mullins and I've got a new podcast coming out called goboy, the gritty true story of how one.
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Host 2
Man fought his way out of some.
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Host 4
Of the darkest places imaginable. Roger Caron, was 16 when first convicted.
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Host 2
Has spent 24 of those years in jail.
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Host 4
But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex con to a literary darling. From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
- [01:59]
Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or where you get your podcasts media. Hey everybody. 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.
- [02:34]
Host 3
Good morning, podcast fans, and welcome to It Could Happen here. It's me, James, today, and I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Garrison Davis. Hi, Gareth.
- [02:43]
Host 4
Hello.
- [02:44]
Host 3
Hey. So what I want to talk about today is a little piece I wrote. I wrote it on my patreon, but I want to kind of discuss it a bit here, read it to you and talk about it, about what we talk about when we talk about immigration. Sophie recently sent me Associated Press piece on the Darien Gap, and the piece was reflecting on the loss of economic opportunity for the Embera people who had previously sold, as you heard in my series, right. Products, services, accommodation to migrants coming through the Dharian gap. But if you read that whole piece, you'd never know they were embarrat, because the word embraer doesn't occur once in the piece. Right. You'd never know that the embraer people existed. They never appear in the story. Instead, the ap, which is currently going toe to toe with the Trump administration on whether it should call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or not, and was ejected from the White House press pool at one point for refusing to call it the Gulf of America, used the phrase Comarca indigenous lands in its reporting, which I don't know where this came from. It has kind of a strange capitalization. If you were just reading the piece, you might think that that was the name of the Comarca, like that it was a proper noun, but it's not. The Comarca is like, I guess you could roughly equate that to an American state. It's like an administrative division of Panama. The name of the comarca is Embra Unan, but that doesn't appear anywhere in the apps. And you could, to be clear, like, I understand that some reporters don't speak Spanish. I understand that some reporters, like, you know, they are not, like, particularly expert in a given region, but neither am I. That was my first time in Panama, but this is something you could find out on Google Maps. It's not unique to the ap. It happens all the time. Right. And I want to talk about that today because it happens at the US Southern border, too. One of the reasons that I wanted to go to the Dalian was because I felt like the embarrassment story was not being told. When people talked about the Dalian Gap, when they're mentioned at all, it's kind of in passing or not as people who have agency. Right. And even I think these stories about, like, the lack of income that they have after migrants leaving, kind of strip them in agent of agency in the way that they're told. When people talk about the Darien gap in media, they kind of use this heart of darkness construction. Obviously it's Joseph Conrad novel, but like, this idea that, like, it's where the wild things are. I don't know. Like, it. It strikes me as very. Almost Orientalist.
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Host 4
Yeah, Orientalist is what I was going to say.
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Host 3
Yeah. And it, like, it completely discounts that there are thousands of people who live there who've raised their families there, their children play fucking basketball there. Right. They spend their whole life there, and they bury their elders there. And they have done for thousands of years. For them, it's their home. Right. And I understand that the jungle could be scary. And I think anyone who's listened to my series will understand that. The jungle was scary for me sometimes. And it can be a very harsh environment. But if you are someone who belongs there, if you're comfortable there, it can also be home. And it could be beautiful and it could be bountiful. And I think the same thing is true of the mountains and deserts and rivers that make up the USA southern border. The desert can kill people. I'm well aware of that. But for the people who call it home, the desert is somewhere that contains their memories and their sacred spaces, their childhood recollections and the remains of their ancestors. Right. And the omission of indigenous perspectives is something that we saw again when Christine Noem decided to waive a number of laws in order to facilitate faster construction of the border wall. So I want to highlight again the AP coverage there. The ap. And again, they're far from unique in this. Right. Lots of other outlets did this too. They seem to have only engaged with the DHS press release as opposed to the actual proclamation by Noam, which you can find in the Federal Register. Right. So the press release only focused on the environmental law she was waving. DHS said, and I quote, to cut through bureaucratic delays, DHS is waiving environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy act, that could store vital products for months or even years. This waiver clears the path for the rapid deployment of physical barriers where they are needed most, reinforcing our commitment to national security and the rule of law. The rule of law thing kind of made me laugh as they were like, here we are waiving, like a dozen or so laws, but I'm not a big rule of law person, so I guess that's fine. It seems that almost every outlet, though that's what they read and that's what they ran with, that they're waiving these environmental laws. And I think that can sometimes be this. We still see this all the time in the legacy press when they talk about environmental laws. There's this idea that it's some kind of people who want to protect the flowers and the plants and that it's not that serious, and that these environmental laws are something that are nice but not necessary. And some of these environmental laws, specifically the ones that regulate water, will determine the future of places like California and obviously places south of the border. Water doesn't know where the border is. In the previous Trump administration, they waived some environmental laws, including ones about floodwater, which that, combined with the expedited way which they built, the border wall, I guess, led to them not putting floodgates in part of the wall, which then led to the wall damming up with dead trees and dead cacti when it rained heavily, and then the wall becoming a barrier to water and then the wall getting broken or washed away.
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Host 5
Right.
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Host 3
Because it didn't have sluice gates so they could open to let the water out. The AP went to someone called earthjustice for comment. And to their credit, that person said waiving environmental, cultural preservation and good governance laws that protect clean air, clean water, safeguard precious cultural resources, and preserve vibrant ecosystems of biodiversity will only cause further harm to our border communities and ecosystems. That person is the only person who mentioned the cultural damage that's being done here. And unless a reader themselves. The Federal Register isn't linked in any of these pieces. Right? It really is. I try and link to it when we talk about something in executive disorder, but unless you found that yourself, you wouldn't know that along with waiving these environmental laws, and like I've said, those are important, they also waive something called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation act, according to the Department of the Interior. I was kind of surprised this was still up on their website, actually. I thought this might have been purged. So, like, a lot of. Maybe it just.
- [09:36]
Host 4
Maybe it's just, like, skirted by.
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Host 3
Yeah, yeah. Like. Well, I mean, no, apparently no one fucking talks about it, so maybe they got away with it, you know, like, it's always funny going on government websites now, being like, oh, it's gone. Like, finding dead links to so much. Even in stories I've written in, like, 2020, those links are dead now. NAGPRA requires any federally funded entity to return human remains, funerary possessions, objects of cultural patrimony, and sacred objects to the deceased persons and their descendants by, and I'm quoting from the website now, consulting with lineal descendants, Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations or Native American human remains and other cultural items. Protecting a Planning for Native American human remains and other cultural items that may be removed from federal or tribal lands. Identifying and reporting all Native American human remains and other cultural items in inventories and summaries of holdings or collections and giving prior notice to repatriating or transferring human remains and other cultural items. So the waiver allows them not to do these things. Right. Crucially, in the context of border wall construction, what it allows them to do is not to conduct an archaeological survey before they dig the border wall. And again, I don't know why. This isn't something the legacy media isn't concerned about. It wasn't in 2020 either, when they started doing this. They were blasting areas where something called midden soil was found. Midden soil is soil that contains evidence of cremated human remains. Right. I wrote a piece in 2020 for Sierra about this. And normally before these digs, there would be an archaeological survey done and a tribal representative would be there to take part in that. Right. That would take time and it would delay construction. Instead, right now, the construction will continue without considering the damage done to the cultural patrimony and ancestral remains of the Kumeyaay people here in San Diego. Homeland spanned both sides of the border and who were here long before the US or Mexico was talking of. I can't think of a good fucking ad pivot.
- [11:43]
Host 4
Yeah, there really is no good ad pivot for stuff like this.
- [11:46]
Host 3
No, there's not. We're just going to do adverts now. And we are back. The Kimi are not the only indigenous people whose homelands have been significantly, permanently damaged by the construction of border barriers. Right further east, in the homelands of the Tornadam people, where I've spent a lot of time, war construction has destroyed sacred saguaros. Saguaros. That's the big cactus. Like when you think of a cactus, right? Like the cactus with two arms. Yeah, with the two arms. You could put a little hat on the cactus if you wanted to. Maybe give it like a little six shooter and it would look like it was a cowboy. Yeah, it's literally the cactus. It's in all the western films that were filmed out at Old Tucson there. Yeah, we used to ride our bikes from the Pascal Yaquires to the place where they filmed all those western films. That was our loop. Very, very weird experience, that place. It's like A one day I will write my fucking five part documentary about the myth of the Old West. But you can find it. You can find it there in Tucson. The saguaros people aren't aware, are afforded the highest respect as ancestors by Ottoman people. And they play an important role in ceremonial and culinary traditions that have been kept alive despite centuries of genocide and assimilationist policies from state and local government. Under the Biden administration, the Government Accountability Office wrote a report about damage done by border wall construction. Again, for now, this is on the Internet and I will link it in the show. I don't know how long that will remain on the Internet. It's a PDF, so it's going to be out and about. It can't just be taken down, but maybe it won't be on government websites. They highlighted the case of Monument Hill, which was damaged by explosives in the previous Trump administration, despite being a sacred place for Latono O' Odham and the site of ceremonies conducted by the here said Odham, who were their ancestors. Kitobakito Springs, which is a sacred site and oasis in the Sonoran Desert, it's a really special place, was irreparably damaged in the last Trump administration, including the destruction of a burial site that the tribe had sought to protect. In some cases, the Biden administration made this worse. One of those was that on entering office, Biden said they were going to build not one more foot of border wall in 2021, right? He was full of shit. They built lots more border wall. But they did put a pause on some of the contracts, right? They finished some of them and they were like, oh, we can't go back on this federal funding, which has not been an issue for Donald Trump. Four years later, they were like, congress approved it, so we have to pay it. Which was great. But the bits that they were able to cut included a program that had people taking care of so that they attempted to transplant the saguaros. They didn't just cut them down because they were sacred, right? And they're very old. They wanted to take them somewhere else. And this was part of the agreement that they came to. Unfortunately, the Biden administration cut the funding for the people who were taking care of them in their new location. So nearly all of them died. They were being watered and stuff to get them settled into their new root structure. Because the Biden administration cut back funding, it stopped them from being watered. And so many of them died in areas where barriers were built, but drainage culverts were not finished. The culverts were never installed. So that was the flooding I was talking about earlier. Right. Sometimes they just went ahead and built Wall Street. When they build the wall, it comes in about 50 foot sections and they truck those out there and like just they put them on the ground flat and pull them up, right? And then they dig a foundation, they mix the sand, make concrete and put the wall sections up. But then they. I guess it's my understanding that in the end of the last Trump administration, Trump made a claim in a debate about the number of miles of wall that had been built, and that claim was largely inaccurate, but they sort of started trying to ex post facto justify it by claiming repairs were miles of wall. Right. And in the final months of the Trump administration, maybe like from late summer to January, certainly to November, they were really speed running wall construction. And part of that was putting sections up where there should have been culverts and just putting regular wall sections there and then attempting to come back later and do the culverts, which because of the funding pause, they didn't do. So then we've seen a huge change in how the desert drains, right? Because it backs up at the. All the detritus, all the dead branches and stuff get caught in the wall, and then the water gets sort of pushed along the wall until it finds a weak point to undermine it or push it over. Very little of this gets reported at all. Right. Occasionally there are media moments when everyone wants to report on the borders damage to indigenous communities. We had one in 2020 when they started destroying saguaros at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. But these appear to be. When they just pop up like this, it seems like it's without context or precedent. Right. And when outlets ignore indigenous people for 90% of their border reporting, it doesn't give the context that's necessary to explain these incidents, which are outrageous and decades of policy, which has been outrageous. If our listeners are not aware that the border is on native land, all of it, just like all of America, right. It can seem confusing for them, right. When they see something like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and they think, well, that's not on a reservation. Because a lot of outlets don't give that context, right. That obviously reservations do not contain all the spaces that are sacred to indigenous people. And a reservation is illegal, not a cultural construction, it can seem alien to them. And lots of these spaces that are being, that will be militarized under this Roosevelt Reservation declaration, that the reservations are not militarized under that, but spaces that are sacred to people still will be. But because our Reporting so often lacks that context. People don't understand it. The admission of tribal lands was again missing in lots of pieces on the Roosevelt reservation. Washington Post article on the Roosevelt reservation, the one that broke the story. It doesn't contain the word tribal lands at all, Right. It doesn't mention the fact that these areas are not part of the militarization proclamation. The problem here isn't just the ongoing erasure of indigenous people. It's a failure in basic journalistic practice in my mind. Right? We can't properly understand borders unless we acknowledge the people they impact. There's no way I could have experienced a Darien gap in the way that I did if it wasn't for the embarrassment people who literally let me live in their homes, right? Without the same generosity that they showed to me, the people crossing would die in much greater numbers. And it's precisely because migrants arrive in indigenous villages and not in, like, government Panama that a system exists where they're ferried upriver on those Piraguas that I reported on, Right? And it's precisely because they enter government custody at Lajas Blancas, a place at the AP called a river port, by the way, which, I mean, it's one of the more miserable places that one can end up. It's terrible. And calling it a river port fundamentally undersells how appalling it is what happens to people. People are stored there for months, right? And that is because they are entering the system of bureaucracy, the system of the state, the system of fees and identification papers and all these things. More importantly, I think we can't understand the relatively new and invasive nature of borders, especially borders with physical barriers, without acknowledging the much, much longer history of indigenous people moving freely through these areas. Like I said, it's not just people, it's water and wildlife. And in all cases, the damage done will be unforeseen and likely irreparable. But if we only treat the border as a rhetorical thing, like something to discuss in Congress, not a physical place, then we miss what's really happening, and we miss the people it really impacts. I don't want to pick solely on the ap. It's a tendency in the whole US where the overwhelming media narrative erases the existence of indigenous people unless it's some kind of novelty or trope through which they can be deployed. The Darien example was a particularly stark one to me, just because I spent a decent amount of time there, and I obviously have a great deal of affection for the people who looked after me. But as more and more laws are waived both in terms of border wall construction and human rights, more damage will be done. It's already the case that people who speak indigenous languages tend to have much worse outcomes in the US immigration system. Right. I've seen this firsthand. It can be very difficult when someone arrives and they speak an indigenous language from Mexico, from Peru, from these places where the people speak these indigenous languages, their first language. And it's hard for them to. Very hard for them to get legal representation.
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Host 5
Right.
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Host 4
Even U.S. citizens. Like that incident from just a few weeks ago where that 19 year old who was born in the state of Georgia but primarily spoken indigenous language was put into ICE detention overnight.
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Host 3
Yeah. Which I think kind of these two narratives sort of play into each other. Right. Like because indigenous people don't exist so much in so much coverage, it can be much easier for the state to make them disappear. Right. Like that guy.
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Host 4
Well, yeah. And literally being arrested and charged with entry as an unauthorized alien.
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Host 3
Yeah, absolutely. And it's happened to indigenous people who are indigenous to the United States. Right. And it will continue to. I think I've heard some stuff about happening on a Navajo res relatively recently. Obviously I should say, if that has happened to you or someone you know, you can reach out to us at coolzonetipson. Me and like, I know that there are lots of big border reporters at big outlets who fucking hate me. And I really don't care. I just wanna, like any one person coming into this country who needs a bottle of water is more important to me than all of their collective opinions. Right. Like my job is not to make them happy. My job is to tell the stories of the people who come into this country and often suffer greatly to do so. I care more about them than my ability to be objective, which I don't think we should be objective in these situations. And I want to end on this idea of objectivity, because not objectivity, I don't know. I'm glad that the Washington Post is running a story about a Venezuelan teacher who got deported today. I'm glad that they're giving these people human faces now. But it's fucking hard to look at the reporters who wouldn't drive half an hour down a dirt road to come and see people in concentration camps when Biden was president because I know they were worried about getting their rental car dirty or they don't speak Spanish or the desert's cold at night. Like, I don't know why people didn't come. I suspect it's because their commitment to writing about migrants is more a commitment to doing it when it makes money than it is to do doing it because it's the right thing to do. And when we write these stories now about deportations being terrible, they seem to pop up without context, Right? And the context of how these people came into this country and the amount that they were forced to suffer by choice by the Biden administration in 2023, it's completely absent from these stories. Right. The reason some folks are choosing to leave is because what they've seen of the US Government, a week in an outdoor detention camp where the government didn't even bring them food or water, Right? And then they're passage through this system, which doesn't give them a pathway to permanent residency, which doesn't give them a pathway to citizenship. And then they see these deportations, like, from the migrant perspective, this is just a sort of steady escalation. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that what's happening now is the same as what happened before. It's worse. It's considerably worse, and it's abhorrent. But, like, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't tell the truth about what happened before either. And it doesn't mean that we should ignore the physical border as well as the sort of rhetorical and internal and technical border. Right. All these things that we're seeing now and like, the way that borders have worked in this country is that it's like a ratchet that only moves to the right, and the Republicans move it to the right and the Democrats never move it back. And until we hold them accountable for this, it will continue to get worse. The Democrats completely ceded the narrative on migration under the Biden administration, and that's part of why they lost. Right. Rather than making an argument that these people have a right to come here, that many of them are a massive benefit to our society, and it doesn't matter whether they are or not, they still deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. And even if you're a big law and order person, according to international and United States law, they didn't do that. It didn't treat them according to international United States law, nor did they make an argument that it's morally right to do so. And that's one of the reasons they lost. Right. This is why I really think that we need to be conscious in our media consumption and be conscious as journalists of why we do this, because I'm finding it really hard to see this outpouring of care from people who I know didn't care when there were shivering little babies in the desert from people who could have said something, could have done something right. Like this could have stopped earlier. If there were big major Legacy Media op eds, the pictures of shivering babies were like on the 9 o' clock news, right? Coming into people's houses every night. This wouldn't have lasted for as long as it did. People wouldn't have suffered and people wouldn't have died. But because I guess Joe Biden was in office, it didn't matter. And I'm glad that people care. Now, don't get me wrong, but like I want especially listeners to think about holding those people accountable to caring when it's not profitable, caring when it's not convenient. And our listeners have to be fair, we raised almost $50,000 for migrants in the desert and that was fantastic. But yeah, I still think we do immigration reporting wrong. I still think for most outlets that's because they treat migrants as a rhetorical device, not as people in the same way that they are. And that upsets me and I wanted to write about it. So I have. I guess that's all I've got. It's not the best ending. If you are somebody who wants to get in touch, right? Like I said, especially with with regard to immigration activities on reservations or of indigenous people, you can reach us at coolzonetipssroton me. If there's other stuff that you want to share with us, you can do it there too. It is end to end, encrypted only if you send from another Proton email address. That's all I got.
- [27:30]
Host 2
Time is precious and so are our pets.
- [27:32]
Host 1
So time with our pets is extra precious.
- [27:34]
Host 2
That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24.
- [27:37]
Host 1
7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets.
- [27:43]
Host 2
You can message a vet at any.
- [27:44]
Host 1
Time and schedule a video visit the same day.
- [27:47]
Host 2
Our vets can even prescribe medication for.
- [27:49]
Host 1
Many ailments and shipping is always free.
- [27:52]
Host 2
With Dutch, you'll get more time with.
- [27:54]
Host 1
Your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [28:00]
Host 2
On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10 vile. No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO. Grotesque.
- [28:34]
Host 3
Oh my God.
- [28:36]
Host 7
Oh my God.
- [28:38]
Host 2
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public until now you feeling this too. A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published. And he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen.
- [29:08]
Host 4
Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.
- [29:11]
Host 2
Has spent 24 of those years in.
- [29:13]
Host 4
Jail, 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex con to a literary darling almost overnight.
- [29:20]
Host 1
He was instantly a celebrity, he was.
- [29:23]
Host 6
An adrenaline junkie, and he was the.
- [29:26]
Host 7
Star of the show.
- [29:28]
Host 2
Go Boy is the gritty true story.
- [29:30]
Host 4
Of how one man fought his way.
- [29:31]
Host 2
Out of some of the darkest places imaginable.
- [29:34]
Host 6
I had a knife go in my.
- [29:35]
Host 3
Stomach, puncture my spleen, break my ribs. I had my guts all in my.
- [29:39]
Host 4
Hands, only to find himself back where he started. Roger's saying is, I've never hurt anybody but myself. And I said, oh, you're so wrong. You're so wrong on that one. Rob from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
- [29:54]
Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app.
- [29:57]
Host 4
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good. No one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling, the limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers@taylorpaperceiling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council.
- [30:37]
Host 6
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about transgender. I am your host, Mia Wong. Now, we have spent a lot of time on this show covering a bunch of really bad stuff and also some cool stuff. We've had some cool trans things on this show too. We're going to have some more in like the coming weeks. But it is a bleak time to be trans, really, anywhere in the world. The United States is also pretty fucking bad right now. But in the words of lengths and hues, between the darkness and the dawn, there rises a red star. And one of the things that has happened as this sort of like, you know, sort of the crisis of transphobia and the crisis of the genocide and the sort of multiple genocides the government's doing and as sort of transphobia as like an institutional state discourse has like, solidified is that, I mean, honestly, multiple generations of trans journalists have really kind of like risen, risen to the forefront. And yeah, we've, we've, we've been, we've been seeing a bunch of extremely cool reporting and a bunch of very, very good work from a bunch of like more radical trans journalists. And that's a thing that kind of like there's been so few of us for so long and suddenly there's several and it rips and I'm. And I'm really happy about it. And with me to talk about sort of, you know, what trans journalism is like in this moment, how it functions and you know, and how, how, how it can be sustained going forward and why it's sort of important is David Forbes, who is the editor of the Asheville Blade and also an independent journalist, Mira Lazine, who is a freelance journalist who recently launched the outlet Free Radical. And maddycastigan, who's an independent journalist and the creator of maddycast News. All of you, welcome to the show.
- [32:21]
H
Thank you.
- [32:21]
Host 5
Happy to be on.
- [32:22]
Host 6
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm ecstatic to have all of you on to get to talk about this because I don't know, I guess the place that I want to start is like I, I remember this kind of like period in like 2024, for 2023, 2024, where it was like, I mean, it still is really bleak for trans journalism in a lot of ways. Like, you know, I'm just in transmedia in general. Like, I was just watching like the space that had been opened a little bit in like the 2010s for there to be trans people in media just like closing, you know. And like I've been watching like pretty immediately around me, like I've been watching the number of like trans fans, especially like non white transfers just like disappearing from media. And it was, you know, it was, it was like watching the stars disappear from the sky. And the thing about the stars disappearing from the sky is, you know, there's. You don't notice it unless you're looking at them, in which case the light is fucking gone forever. And it was this really, really bleak thing. But also, you know, as it's happening and as we've been sort of like resisting this, I've been getting to watch like the stars go back on in the sky and like watching new like people emerge and watching people who've been doing cool work for a really long time sort of like come out into the open and like get more sort of national recognition and. Yeah, I don't know. I guess so. I guess that's the sort of place I wanted to start is just talking a little bit about like what it's like to be fucking doing journalism right now, because Jesus Christ, I'll.
- [33:51]
H
I'll go ahead and start. I've been a journalist for over 20 years. And for those who might be wondering, since you refer to trans femmes, I am a trans woman. I use she. They pronouns. I also like the name David. But I have seen it kind of wax and wane. I've seen it go up and down. And to some degree, what we're facing now, it is a much worse and escalating version, but it is also some of what I've seen trans journalists face, period. I came out in publicly in 2016. I started my transition in 2015, and immediately my freelance career basically died overnight. And it wasn't like I was writing for, you know, right wing outlets or something. And, you know, honestly, the fact is, and this is, I think, unusual among trench journalism because a lot of it admirably focuses on your national or even international level stuff, because what we face is so vast. But if it had not been for the local support, because the Blade, a lot of the Blade subscribers are local, though we certainly welcome people to subscribe from wherever they are. You know, I would be homeless and there's a good chance I wouldn't be talking to y' all right now. But at the same time, in this kind of what I kind of call the quiet purge, which I think has been escalating in recent years that you talked about, about, you know, just. We've got trans journalists who used to write for national magazines living out of their cars. Now that is the reality we face.
- [35:14]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [35:14]
H
Our publications, all working class trans people. And, you know, we've had journalists arrested twice.
- [35:21]
Host 6
Yeah. Oh, my.
- [35:22]
H
For doing their jobs. Two of our journalists were. Were taken to trial in 2023 on a minor trespassing charge, which is almost unheard of in the US as bad as the US often is.
- [35:33]
Host 6
I should mention also this was like trespassing for fucking reporting on the cops doing a homeless encampment.
- [35:39]
Host 4
Sleep.
- [35:39]
H
Like on Christmas.
- [35:41]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah, on Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Like, just like unhinged police state shit.
- [35:46]
Host 5
Like, yeah, yeah. Even in la, they'll, like, sometimes they'll act like, accidentally, quote, unquote, arrest journalists, but then they'll be like, okay, we'll let you go because you're a journalist. They don't actually take you to tr.
- [35:57]
H
This is one of those kind of welcome to Asheville moments, because I think people buy the marketing sometimes and think we're this super progressive city. And actually it's an incredibly repressive, like, tourism fife and that's this kind of really to a point though like the city government, city council here is six Democrats and one kind of like Bernie Sanders type independent though even more tepid. And the DA is a Democrat and still, you know, they were hell bent to persecute trans journalists. Yeah, one of our, one of our journals, Matilda Bliss was openly mistreated and misgendered based on her gender during that. So to some degree what's happening now is certainly a worsening, but it is also an extension of what's been going on for a very long time. So okay, like it is getting worse. I don't know where we're going to be in a two, three, even one year. But also like this is not a new fight.
- [36:52]
Host 5
Yeah, I can speak to it a little bit too. I've been a journalist for I guess what was six months because it's a long story but I kind of got into it more out of fear for myself. Sometimes people think I'm selfless and maybe I am a little bit, but a lot of it is really selfish and just feeling like I have to do stuff to protect myself and my friends basically. But even in that short period of time I have faced a lot of bad stuff from honestly predominantly the left and liberals and sometimes even other queer people being a trans woman of color. And that wasn't really initially what I was afraid of. You know, I was afraid of like I'm going to get death threats and Nazis up then like trying to dox me. And actually none of that's happened. I can't really explain why other than that I just don't use Twitter and I guess so they don't know I exist. But I have one of the first national news story that I broke, or one of them, I guess it was about Meta AI being super racist. And I kind of figured that out. I proved that it was racist basically I just used my brain to make it tell on itself and explain its prompt and all that. And it became this huge international news story. But it was immediately co opted by a Washington Post journalist who retweeted me and then recreated the conversation and posted it again. And then I had to go on like this weeks long kind of campaign to try to just get basic credit for that. And eventually she did credit me in the column to give her credit. But that was not something that was forgiven. And a lot of others that I said the thing to also didn't credit me. And that's just been a recurring trend that yeah, like I, I'm kind of invisible, even though I make a lot of important news. So that kind of sucks.
- [38:49]
Host 6
So, yeah, there's something that happens fucking constantly. I'm like, my, my, like, welcome to the. This, this is before I was out too. And this is also like, you know, part. Part of what's going on here is like one of the things you learn really quickly in media is the extent to which so much national media is just like, what they do is steal stories from like, people like, who are you know, from sort of like, like more regional media or people they think they can get away with taking stuff from. Like, if. And this goes all the way up the chain, right? Like, if you want to know what's going to be on Rachel Maddow show, look at, look at what's happening on behind the Bastards whenever they cover someone on the right, and within about three weeks, you will get a Rachel Maddow episode that is five minutes a thing. But like, you know, but like, you know, it's obviously like, it's significantly worse with like trans people because, like, yeah, they can just fucking steal stories from us. Like, I remember, God, my, like my, like the first, like, journalism. Well, that's not true, but the first journalism stuff that I did with like whole zone people was like, we would dream when like the Atlanta spa shooting, we tracked down there. There was like, there was a Facebook post that people were circulating reportedly from the shooter that was like, basically blaming like anti China media stuff for it. And we tracked down that this person did not have a Facebook and that all of this was fake, but that person, that post had been circulating through the national news and we were like, well, yeah, this is like fake, right? And then like every single news, like every single, like CNN fucking FOX News, like every single major news outlet just like took all of our work and like repackaged it and then never fucking mentioned that it was like Gare and I who did this because, you know, why would you credit the transgender anarchists when you could simply repackage the story yourself? This is a problem that's like, goes all the way up to like, this is part of the reason we're here right now, right? Like, we're complaining about this on sort of like, professional level because, like, it's annoying, but also like, the reason we're fucking here right now is because the person who got it right about trans stuff was fucking Jesse Singal, who is a CIS man whose only qualification was the thing he previously wrote about was men who fuck other men who don't consider themselves gay. And because he was the person who got to write all of the, like, trans coverage, even though he's just, like, some fucking CIS dipshit. Right? Like, he's now the guy who's, like, been being cited and legal cases for ages and ages for why you should restrict trans healthcare.
- [41:03]
Host 5
The Atlantic and its consequences on society.
- [41:06]
Host 6
Disaster. Disaster.
- [41:08]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [41:08]
Host 6
Mira, do you want to talk a bit about your experience with it?
- [41:10]
Host 1
Honestly, what you just described has been happening to me this week. So I've been in the industry for about three to four years now, consistently, inconsistently, for a little bit longer. And initially, it was way easier for me to get gigs. Like, within the first few months of me seriously starting, I got accepted pitches into Discover magazine and places like that. And then, like, within, like, six months after that, it became a nightmare to get pitches accepted.
- [41:43]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Host 1
And it just so happened I became more out as trans around that time frame. Definitely not a coincidence at all. But more recently this week, I launched my independent newsletter, the Free Radical. Go subscribe.
- [41:58]
Host 6
Yeah, Go Subscribe.
- [41:59]
Host 2
It's.
- [41:59]
Host 6
It's legitimately great. You will get reporting there that you won't fucking get from. Well, okay, you. You will get recording there that you won't get from anyone else until about three weeks later when all the national outlets pick it up. And it will be better. And you will have it first for the person who actually reported it.
- [42:17]
Host 1
In every article I've written so far, I've taken a second to basically be like, okay, here's some anarchist shit you should read, y' all. My audience is mostly, like, libs, and I'm just like, here, here, read this, please. But my first story I broke this week was about a trans woman who was legally held in Guantanamo Bay. And that story got picked up by bigger media outlets pretty quick within the first, like, 12 hours. The news outlet then did a very good story that basically just cited me every chance they got. Come to find out this is because a trans woman wrote that.
- [42:55]
Host 6
She's awesome.
- [42:55]
Host 1
I just followed her the other day. Aww. But then Brazilian news outlets started picking up on this.
- [43:02]
Host 6
Yeah, this was a Brazilian trans woman who got, like, sent to Guantanamo.
- [43:06]
Host 1
Yeah. And the first one to do this was the newspaper. Forgive me if I am mispronouncing this. Fuljada South Paulo, I believe it's called. I might be mispronouncing that. I apologize if I am, but they are one of the biggest newspapers in Brazil and definitely one of the oldest. And that story was all right. You know, they credited me for breaking the story.
- [43:29]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [43:30]
Host 1
I was talking to the person who wrote that. She's sweet and even did original recording. It's awesome. And then right after that, like, dozens of other outlets came in. None of them credited me. And they posted, like, social media stuff about the story. Not a single one of those credited me. And they're getting, like, thousands of likes and comments and shares. And yeah, most egregious, I think, is I've seen a few of them credit the journalist with Fulha as breaking the story. And I've seen one cite them as breaking the story.
- [44:08]
Host 6
Oh, my God.
- [44:09]
Host 2
Whose.
- [44:09]
Host 1
Whose article, mind you, literally, in a subheading says, I broke the story.
- [44:14]
Host 7
Yeah.
- [44:16]
Host 1
And I didn't check in on it today yet, but last night I was, like, up late just looking at all the news outlets that was boosting. And it's like, I'm glad the story didn't cover it. Don't get me wrong, it's an important one.
- [44:27]
Host 6
It's just like, yeah, no, it's great. Yeah.
- [44:30]
Host 1
Almost none of them are seeing where they got the story from. It's just like, oh, wow, there's this bigger outlet covered. I'm going to credit the bigger outlet.
- [44:39]
Host 6
So to explain why, we're also sort of concerned about, like, the way this attribution stuff works, right? This is a incredibly material problem for us, right? And, like, I am very lucky in that, like, in terms of trans journalism, I have, like, a stable job. But the thing is, right, unless. Unless you fucking got really lucky and you got hired, like, as a CIS person, and then you have a bunch of very, very supportive, like, co workers and, like, your bosses are supportive. You are, like, trying to cobble together, like, every cent that you can possibly pull out of a fucking couch cushion. Because, like, you know, I've said this on the show before, right? Like, if you're a trans person in the US Even when, even before all the turf tariffs hit, right, like, you, you were living in the, in like, 1936 Great Depression levels of unemployment. And, you know, and so, and so that means that, like, it actually matters a lot when, when other outlets do your studies and don't attribute it to you because, like, you have to find a way to fucking make money. And like, almost all trans journalists are, like, the most hideously broke people you've ever heard of in your entire life. Like, and this is also, you know, and this is, this is also part of the way that, like, class plays out in, in the transmedia, you see, is like, you know, the people with the biggest platforms tend to be Trans people who were already doing okay because those are the only people who can afford to do this. And like, that's why most of you have heard of me, and most of you probably have not heard of David and Mira, even though David Amira do, like, quite frankly, more important journalism than I do. And like, in terms, especially in terms of like, like, and like, break lot, way more stories than I do because it's not kind of like, not exactly like my thing. Right. But that's because I was like, you know, like I, I was already sort of like in a place that was financially secure and everyone else is so unbelievably fucking broke all the time. And it matters when fucking stories get stolen. Because the only way that if you're a trans journalist and you're, you know, you're working at your own outlet because an outlet won't fucking hire you, because that's just the way that the fucking media is structured. The only way for you to get paid is, is by, like, people seeing your stories. And that's part of why there's like, just not that many trans journalists, is because, like, the level of discrimination on top of the kind of like, erasure of independent journalists that already happens makes it just like, financially impossible to fucking do it.
- [47:04]
Host 5
Yeah, it's not just liberal media, or it's not just like the CIS had liberal media too. Sometimes. Like, I had a similar thing with when I broke the story of Rainn and some other sexual abuse nonprofits removing all of the trans people from their websites. That became a national news story, and the Washington Post picked it up also. And I think part of that was because I complained so much about the previous time where they almost didn't cite me, that maybe they were a little bit more cautious about me is my theory. But anyway, after that initial news story that cited me, same thing happened where it's like, everyone's like, oh, well, we can just cite the Washington Post now of this person. No one knows. And the first website to do that was like a queer news outlet. And then I just kept watching as, like, I think it was like three or four different queer or like feminist women focused news outlets did the same thing of not citing me. And there was even like a really long piece from this other, like, outlet that was. Felt like it was going out of its way not to cite me because it was talking about this entire issue about nonprofits censoring people. And that was an entire conversation that was started specifically because of a news article I wrote, but it specifically did not cite Me, even though they mentioned how one of the organizations that I reported on had reversed course, which is something that they emailed me and said it was because of me. So that's how deep this goes. They will go out of their way to carve you out of a story that exists because of you, even if they are ostensibly, you know, not just a liberal, like a New York Times outlet, but like a left wing, like, progressive facing outlet that's trying to like market itself like that. They just. They just want to exclude trans women from their own stories even. It's kind of crazy.
- [48:54]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [48:55]
H
The extent of it is actually telling at the local level, too. Here. The Blade did a number of reporting and we also featured some, like, really well thought out and pretty sharp opinion columns, which is one thing we kind of specialized in because I think they're really good for, like, raising issues in the local level about how awful the Tourism Development Authority is, which is this hotelier cartel that takes every dime of all the local hotel tax, every bit of it, and then uses it to market the place to more rich people and push crackdowns on pretty much everyone else. So we pushed this. It became a widespread public demand. A lot of organizing happened around it, and there was zip, zilch, zero mention that, like, spurred by investigations and editorials in the Asheville Blade. Even one of the. One of the people who wrote that editorial, who was a local resident activist who dealt with some tourism stuff, was literally being quoted the fact she'd written a piece for the Blade and that, you know, was just not mentioned and actually became kind of a running kind of grim joke because we're all working class trans people and, you know, half of us are trans. Femme. Yeah, is just. The Asheville Blade does not exist. And some of that was for liberals. But honestly, Asheville has a massive transmisogyny problem. We think we were the first media outs to do like a quick guide to trans misogyny, which we did kind of like his slideshow about it in our patreon and stuff, because it was that extensive. But even the left in Asheville has some real problems with trans misogyny. So, yeah, and it's applied everything, not just from trans issues, but even to bread and butter kind of local stuff, which we also do a lot of reporting on. You know, it's. We can admit that trans leftists and anarchists are shaping the discussion any way, shape or form.
- [50:43]
Host 6
It's funny because like, like, even us, like, even, like the podcast, it could happen here, which is like a pretty big national Thing like there's no one else talks about us. It's amazing. You could, you could just like see, you could like literally watch like every other podcast that's like a tenth of our size. There's like media coverage of and there's nothing and they will never admit that we fucking did anything. It's awesome. It's so cool. And I think there's like a convergence of factors here too because like, you know, on the one hand, like in terms of sort of the way that hyper visibility works, right? Hyper visibility for trans femmes only works negatively. Like there's only the kind of like you get by it, but then also on top of it, you get the reverse version of it where it's like, yeah, you know, your labor was stolen. And this is, you know, this is true both in movements. This is true of the way that sort of capitalist media functions. And then on top of that we have the kind of like trifecta of like we will never mention that you exist, which is trans, independent and radical at the same time. And like this is something that happens. Like every fucking trans family journalist, like friend of the show Maya Arson crimew has had this happen to it like a billion fucking times. I want to talk a bit more about kind of just like the financials of how this plays out and how independent media is sort of being supported in this era. Because, you know, like, it's also really true that like even, even the like nominally trans outlets, like a lot of it functions of labor exploitation and. Yeah, let's, let's talk a bit about that.
- [52:24]
Host 1
I have a lot of strong cakes.
- [52:28]
Host 6
Seen some shit.
- [52:30]
Host 1
Oh boy, I have so many opinions. So I mentioned I kind of more formally got a start three to four years ago. My first article was published in like 2018 and it was just like a local thing when I was living in Scranton, Pennsylvania area where nothing happens. But I found something to report on. The reason I got started that would have been like early 2022. Reason I got started then was because I was homeless and I needed a way to make money. And where I was living at the time was a complete job desert there. I didn't have a car and there was nothing in walking distance for me. The only things that were were like minimum wage food service jobs that over half an hour walk. And mind you, I'm disabled. My body is in pain if I stand up too long. So those jobs did not last long because I physically couldn't. And so I tried to find something that I could do remotely more consistently and I went all in into freelance writing and journalism.
- [53:37]
Host 6
Real. Really the money making career.
- [53:41]
Host 1
Oh yeah, I'm totally, I'm just in this for the money, you know. I made such amazing profits that year, which is why I ended up homeless again. And by the end of the year I was living in a motel.
- [53:52]
Host 3
God.
- [53:53]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [53:54]
Host 1
And a lot of the writing I was doing at that time was very generalist and I hadn't really found much of my niche yet. But as I began to zero in more on trans issues over time and just politics and stuff like that. Because as an aside, I also tried to break into gaming journalism because I unfortunately am a gamer.
- [54:17]
Host 6
Regrettably many such cases, many such cases.
- [54:19]
Host 1
And that industry is just dead. It was dying at that point. And then I was just like, if you want to get a job as a gaming journalist, you're not gonna. I tried, we need more people to do it, but it does not pay. So I ended up going into politics journalism, which pays like marginally better and by marginally better. Let me talk about some of my rates.
- [54:40]
Host 6
Oh God, yeah.
- [54:41]
Host 1
One outlet I've written for pretty consistently over a while to start it paid me about a hundred bucks an article, flat rate. And this includes for highly researched, in depth reporting articles.
- [54:55]
Host 3
My God.
- [54:56]
Host 6
Yeah. This is again like shit that's going to be stolen by a national outlet in two days. And by you.
- [55:03]
Host 1
A lot of these stories took weeks to make. Them fell for 100 buc bucks. And so I eventually got quote, upgraded to that outlet to doing 75 a piece, but four pieces in a month. And so that was great. That $200 a month for each individually reported piece that really paid the bills. And eventually it changed into 150 a piece for in depth reporting pieces that often took over a month's worth of work to get going and I had to meet my deadline or else they would get really angry at me and they would be really dickish. And that was one of my better experiences, certainly not the best. I've had plenty of people who are wonderful, who I've written for and who I've had great times with. But the through line of all of it, even the places that pay better, they're for one off stories, they're for things that do not guarantee a source of income long term. Even the places that have paid me the best for individual stories, it's not enough. Not the least of which because you know, the cost of living is horrible right now. Tariffs are going show up, it's oh God, what the fuck is happening? But also because none of it's consistent. The closest to consistent I had was overworking myself by writing like upwards of like 10 articles a week, sometimes upwards of like five to seven in one day. And all of them being reported in. In death. And it's not sustainable doing that. No, but that's just common. That is just normal.
- [56:48]
Host 5
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [56:50]
Host 6
And it's. And it's like the sort of bleak thing about it is your. Your options are you have money already, you won the fucking lottery, basically, and, like, you got a stable position, you work at a rate that is, like, genuinely hideous, or you have a second job. And sometimes it's a lot of these things combined.
- [57:14]
Host 5
Yeah, Yeah.
- [57:16]
Host 6
I think there's a tendency to talk about discrimination as something that's sort of like, abstract or something that's even just kind of like point of hiring stuff. Which is all true. And like, you know, it is like. Yeah, like, part of the problem with this is that it's impossible to get, like, staff positions. And like. And like, I mean, I could say this is like. So, I mean, I got hired, like, as a CIS person, right. And like, like, they would have hired me if I was trans. But, like, that's also just true for a lot of people, which is that, like, that's like the way that you can do it. So, like, there, there is the, like, front door discrimination. But then also the second aspect of it is that, like, the way that all of this stuff plays out structurally in the economy is that you get reduced sort of contract labor unless you try to go go it by yourself. And because of the incredible, just material financial oppression of trans people, this is another big part of the reason why there's just so few, you know, and like, there's. There's becoming more. Right. And I'm. I'm incredibly happy that, like, you know, like, I'm fucking talking with three trans journalists. This rules. And also the reason there's all more of us, which is important because, like, CIS people trying to cover our stories is a disaster. Like, that's how we got here. But, like, part of the reason why there's not more is just that, like, it's so difficult to survive doing this. And.
- [58:29]
Host 5
Yeah.
- [58:30]
Host 6
You know, and that's also. I'm gonna turn this into a minor plug, which is like, go subscribe to the actual blade. Go subscribe to Free Radical. Go subscribe to Maddie Cast News. Because, like, literally the difference between, like, people being able to have an apartment and pay their rent or, like, living in a car is, like, the amount of support that you get from this stuff.
- [58:50]
H
That's absolutely true. And I should note the, you know, the Blade's a co op. We've been one for, for half a decade now. And part of the reason for that was we'd seen how unfairly like income was treated just in the press in general. And also I'm an anarchist. And while I love being an editor, I don't want to be a boss. I want to like work with other people.
- [59:15]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [59:15]
H
And it's made us a lot more effective. I would say we wouldn't exist if we hadn't become a co op. But also when we do hit a difficult financial spot and we operate on a shoestring budget, especially post Helene, as sadly a lot of folks have been driven out of Asheville by the refusal of various governments to do anything about rental aid, by the resumption of like very quick resumption of evictions and a lot of other horrible stuff. Like it's a struggle. We all are working class folks, we all work other jobs and face trans, you know, the discrimination, transmissology and transphobia. So it's, it's difficult. And even with being a co op, we do the best we can and we do, unlike other places, pay freelancers fair rates. But sometimes it's legitimately difficult to divide up our tiny budget. And at some points we say, look, we can't cover this right now. Or we have to say, okay, in some cases. I've done it before, certainly I'm covering this, but I am going to literally have to split up payment forward over multiple months because we just don't have the money in there. But I feel it does need to get out there. And even if those decisions are made more fairly, it is still a real problem that we are dividing up a fairly small pool of resources. We do a lot with that, but it is a real limitation.
- [60:31]
Host 5
Yeah, I'm kind of in a similar boat in terms of my publication, Maddiecast News. So I'm in one of the categories you mentioned. Actually I'm in two of them where I fund what I'm doing not from my work, but from my first job, my main job, I guess, which I got, I guess pretending to be CIS or maybe non binary be them or whatever and then kind of jump scare them. But anyway, that job pays pretty well, thankfully. Software engineering, one of the on the lottery professions for trans women. You get your healthcare, you get your money. But I've been trying to go beyond just me and try to help other people as well. So recently we just applied for fiscal sponsorship with 501C3, which will hopefully let us become a charity, tax deductible and all that. And I've also been putting a bit of my own money and I've also been pretty much begging all my readers to, to give us money. Because one of the biggest goals of my publication, it kind of started off more about reporting on the news, of course, but now it's reporting on the news and also making sure the people who report on the news aren't homeless. Actually, maybe that's a bad thing. Everyone I know in my life knows people like all these journalists who report on this news, but a lot of them probably don't even know how much they struggle just getting through their daily lives. So I'm really trying to hopefully create some structure for us to have at least one nonprofit that will fund trans journalists at a living wage of at least $25 an hour, which I honestly don't think is a lot, especially in a place like LA. But $25 an hour is probably more than you can get almost anywhere as a trans journalist. Also, I've heard a lot of jokes about we're passing around the same $20 in the trans community and it's a little bit more of that. But I'm also hoping to see if I can try to fundraise from other people and try to raise awareness for this issue because I don't have a lot of time myself to be writing articles these days because I do have a full time job. But yeah, hoping to kind of make a dent on this issue and raise awareness. And it's really a win win for all trans people that if we're paying people who need this money to survive, but they're also creating really important news coverage that literally is like life changing for hundreds of thousands, millions of people at many times. And that's how I see it's an exceptionally important issue that is completely unaddressed.
- [63:06]
Host 6
This is also part of the issue with the way that like trans issues are reported on by the media is that they're, they're largely, you know, and it's not, it's not things like healthcare aren't important, right? But like just the raw class dynamic of all of this just does not get talked about. Right? The homelessness rates, the. I don't, I don't actually. Fuck, I should have the homelessness rates off top of my head. I think it's like three or four times at the very least more likely across the entire trans population to be homeless than CIS people. And, like, you can just fucking see that if you know trans people, it's like, yeah, fucking everyone's spent a bunch of time being homeless. And, like, you know, that's just the conditions of this. And, you know, this is a thing that, like, as you, the listener, like, it is possible for this. It doesn't have to fucking be like this. Like, it doesn't. You have the power in your hands to, like, to keep people off the street and, like, with a roof above their head. And you could do this by clicking the links in the description from our co op.
- [64:10]
H
Thank you for repeatedly mentioning that aspect. I think also this does. This class dynamic does shape the type of trans coverage you see too, quite a bit.
- [64:20]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [64:21]
H
We did some reporting one time on the city of Asheville spending over a million dollars to the Salvation army, which is basically a queer and transphobic cult. But that piece was reported very differently from if it had been reported by, say, a trans journalist who'd been very well off their entire lives. You know, because a lot of us people in our co op have either been close to or been homeless before. And so we were able to bring in the experience of knowing that if you are a trans homeless person, the Salvation army isn't letting you in or is one of the worst possible shelters you can end up in. And that piece was written and read very differently because we were drawing from that. From that on the ground experience.
- [65:04]
Host 5
Yeah.
- [65:04]
Host 1
On that note, I have. I've written so many stories that have been about just the poverty rates of trans people and what we've all gone through.
- [65:14]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [65:16]
Host 1
I used to be a daily contributor for LGBTQ Nation. They were one of the outlets that I was trying to crank out as many articles as I could for. And the editors, lovely people there. No issues with them. Lovely folks. Yeah, they just. They don't. They didn't have enough money to begin with to pay me enough, so you gotta do. But I remember working on a story sometime like the summer of last year for them where I was writing about some new report that came out talking about just like, poverty rates, job discrimination rates of trans people. And one thing I've noticed is, like David mentioned, there is a huge disconnect between even if you have, like, wealthier trans people write about an issue versus those who are in poverty. Like, yeah, a lot of the sources I had for specific article, I don't remember the headline because I wrote like 500 articles for Q Nation last year. But a lot of the sources I used for that article and other ones like it are like big nonprofits. And, you know, obviously your mileage may vary depending on which nonprofit, but most of the folk who like writing these reports or who were doing the press releases and stuff like that, you could just kind of tell that they maybe did not have quite the same experiences as, say, trans people who have been homeless, trans people who have had to deprive themselves of medical care because they couldn't afford it, trans people who have had to go without food because not enough money. And it's almost like a lot of people who didn't have to go through this stuff, like, intellectualize it more. They see it as, like, these abstract numbers, and they know it's bad, but they don't have that, like, individual connection. Like, even many of the nonprofit folk, a lot of their friends, even their social circles are all going to be, on average, you know, I can't say for every single person, obviously, like, on average, more wealthy, more stable. They have family to back them up. They have plenty of options. And I don't know, rambling a bit, but there's just a disconnect whenever reaching out to folk who won the birth lottery a little bit.
- [67:33]
Host 5
Yeah. One of the most expensive article that we did at maddycast News earlier last month was about Maryland prisons and how they're basically torture chambers for trans women, as most prisons are. But it seems like they're especially bad in Maryland, despite it being supposedly a safe trans state, 70% Democrats. And that was kind of an example of just how unprofitable, how impossible to. Not just unprofitable, because when you think unprofitable, it's like, oh, you're not making money. It's not about that. It's like if you're losing 80% of the money you put into these articles because it takes so many. I'm very strong believer of paying people a living wage. So I was paying the journalists well over $25 an hour for dozens of hours of work. And that adds up really fast. And then court pacer fees, all these other costs are adding up, and it ends up being around $1,000 for the single article. And it's a really important article that raised a lot of awareness. Everyone in Maryland, in the trans circle, they're talking about it, but at the same time, it's basically a charity project. This is why I'm trying to become a nonprofit, because there's simply no other way to be able to fund this stuff. There's no capitalist model for reporting on trans women in prison. It's not something that people are. I definitely get there's a lot of people who support us out of the goodness of their hearts, and that's really nice. But even that is not enough, because that's just how it is. There's just not enough people who care about these issues. Sadly, especially the more intersectional it is. Even a lot of people in the queer community aren't as worried necessarily about people in prisons, and more worry about people not in prisons. And, you know, of course, everyone matters. But I think it's really important to focus on those most intersectional issues, because when you really think about it, like, prisons are basically, you know, where they do everything they want to do to trans women who aren't in prison. That's where they get to do all of it. And no one's looking, no one's. No one's watching them, no one's holding them accountable. But yeah, I think it's basically a complete failing of capitalism. There's definitely some outlets that maybe they could be doing better. But at the same time, a lot of the time, it's basically be really shitty to people or close down, and neither of those are great options. And personally, I would close down, but I can't tell other people what to do. And I think really it's a systemic issue that society doesn't care about us, that the CIS people who really should be funding these things and trying to solve these issues, just pretend like we don't exist and, you know, go out of their way to even erase our presence, even when we do, you know, create national news.
- [70:26]
Host 6
You know, I think part of. Part of the difficulty of it, right? And this specifically, the way the trans issues functioned about class and journalism are my class microcosm. It's like the most intense version of the stuff that's happening to the entire journalism industry, right? Where, like, you know, part of what we're seeing is like, is just. It's been the destruction of local news, right? And the product of this is that the only people who can be journalists are like a bunch of fucking rich dipshits. And, you know, like, yeah, you've all fucking read, like, New York Times columnist is like platforming a genocide denier today, right? Like that. And that's. That's sort of the. The product of this. And it means that, like, unless, like, literally, like, people like you, the listener, and I guess this doesn't apply to you if you're, you know, like, statistically a good number of you are, like, you are also transgender and you make like $9 an hour. Like running a forklift or something. Like, this is not. This is not on you. Like, I know a bunch of you are gonna be like, holy shit, I should give money to these people. It's like, okay. But, like, this stuff is only possible if people are actually fucking willing to support it. Like, until we can, like, fundamentally change the way that the entire political and economic system works in this country and in this world. And until then, it's like, yeah, like, it's. This is a fucking problem for, like, us here too, because, you know, like, again, like, I got fucking lucky. Like, I am extremely dissimilar. Like, I am the trans woman. Like, one of the trans women who you will hear from the most. And I have, like, a stable job. I haven't been homeless and I haven't done sex work. And this makes me completely unlike a huge portion of trans people, especially trans femmes. Right? And yeah, it's like, yeah, it fucking colors the way I do this shit in ways that, like, I don't see because, like, I haven't had to, like, do this shit. And this is a real fucking problem. The only way that it can not be like this is if people are actually willing to support the people who understand these things because they fucking gone through it. And so. So your. Your options are like, all of our stuff gets reported on by Jesse Singal and we all fucking die. Or we fund trans journalism and we fight them and we all live in a fucking better world.
- [72:37]
Host 1
My backup option if trans journalism doesn't work, you mentioned sex work, is quite literally to write furry smut and hope that pays.
- [72:48]
H
The last year, the Asheville blade marked our 10th anniversary. So I think. I think that is worth mentioning too. Like, I think sometimes things. And they truly are precarious, they truly are difficult in some ways, they're only getting more precarious and more difficult. But at the same time, despite our journalists being arrested, despite being kind of like targeted and ignored by a lot of liberals and even some leftists in town, we're still here. We're still doing journalism. We just put out a really powerful investigation about, you know, more. Yet more malfeasance in the police department. So. So ye. Like, it can be done. It's not impossible. And as tight as things are, there is also a lot of resilience and we do get a lot of very genuine support. I do think that's worth emphasizing too. So, like, there is strength and there is some hope here.
- [73:36]
Host 6
Yeah. And. And you know, and again, it's like, it's. It's not impossible. It just requires a. Requires a bunch of fucking work from the trans people who are doing it. And then also it requires, you know, putting on my fucking NPR pledge drive voice. It requires viewers, like, you know, to, you know, it requires people to care enough about it to support it and make it exist. And, yeah, I think that's a. That's a kind of good note to start sort of wrapping up. Do you have anything else that you want to make sure you get in before we move to plugs?
- [74:09]
Host 5
I guess. Yeah. For. For me, as. As a. As I'm also kind of in that spectrum of, like, being a little bit more privileged as far as trans women go financially. And my message to other people who make. Especially Cisco, if you're a CIS person, you make over a hundred thousand dollars, you're comfortable and you're feeling bad listening to this, you know, go give a trans person money. Go give Myra Lazine money. Go give David Forbes money. Like, we have to. We really need everyone to start pitching in, especially people who aren't trans. And we really need, like, it's. It's literally life saving the money. Like, and I think one thing to consider is, you know, $1,000 to someone who makes a lot of money is completely different from $1,000 to someone who is, like, a month away from being homeless.
- [74:55]
Host 6
$20 functions like that.
- [74:57]
Host 5
Like, yeah, $20 even. Like, no, I know so many people, like, $1,000. Like, they'll go. They'll spend a thousand dollars in a couple weeks on restaurants, right? And then there's people. There's trans people with a thousand dollars. It's like, change their life forever.
- [75:13]
Host 6
The look on Vera's face, like, the look of horror. Holy.
- [75:19]
Host 5
There's people who spend, and I don't even joke, $20,000 a year on sushi.
- [75:23]
Host 1
Holy.
- [75:24]
H
Having worked in the service industry, yeah.
- [75:26]
Host 1
I feel bad when I spend like, 20 bucks on Popeyes once a week.
- [75:29]
Host 5
Like, yeah, exactly. So if you spend $20,000 a year on sushi, please spend $19,000 a year this year instead and give $1,000 to a trans person. That's my advice for you.
- [75:43]
Host 6
Double the income of a trans person today. This is also, like, you know, part of what I was talking about with, like, the Great Depression. Like, we don't live in the same economy that everyone else does. Like, it is literally a different fucking world. And the more fucked you are, like, down the fucking scale of like. Of, like, trans poverty, the more it's like, you literally, like, the reality that, like, the people live in is Just completely alien to you. It's like, what the fuck?
- [76:13]
Host 1
I want that kind of money.
- [76:18]
Host 6
David. Yeah. Do you have anything else that you want to say before we, like, wrap up?
- [76:21]
Host 1
Please support trend journalists. Please, dear God. Please, everyone I know who is primarily a journalist for work is broke. We need the money. Please, dear God. Yeah.
- [76:39]
Host 6
I would.
- [76:40]
H
Yeah, I'd add to that. But another thing is, look, you should support trans journals, because trans people deserve to, you know, to be supported and to be able to make a living. Also, frankly, we're really good at this. Like, generally as a whole, like, we have a lot more perspective, I think, on how this hellscape social structure actually does and doesn't work, and a lot more determination to actually tell the truth in general. And so, you know, dollars to the Asheville Blade, for example, or to. Or to Mira or to Madicas. Like, they go to Journal.
- [77:14]
Host 2
Yeah, yeah.
- [77:15]
H
You know, they're not going to like, some baroque hierarchy of, you know, of gentry, administrators or something, or CEOs. Like, it goes to journalism. It goes to actual interesting reporting and views and things that need to be said. So if people are even just looking, if some journalism is something they care about or think needs to be stronger, this is the way to do it.
- [77:40]
Host 6
Yeah. And like. Like, this is also a directly political thing because, like, the work that y' all do, like, I have literally watched it change the sort of landscape. Like, that's. That's just like a thing that happens, you know, like, and I think we're all. We're all very cynical about sort of the power of, like, the truth to do anything because it requires people to act on it. But, you know, if you don't know anything is happening, it is not possible to act on something. Yeah. So, like, you know, you are simultaneously, you are supporting, like, you are supporting trans people in, like, the most precarious position we've been in in fucking ages. You are, like, supporting. You're supporting journalism and you are not even poking a stick. You are helping build a lance to, like, stab into the side of the people who are, like, destroying this world. And, yeah, I think that's fucking important. So if people want to support you, where do they go? Where do they go? Go, go, go, go.
- [78:32]
Host 1
Yeah, so if you want to support me, go to the freeradical.org that.
- [78:37]
Host 6
That.
- [78:38]
Host 1
That is my newsletter. There's stuff to subscribe and. And give money. You can do a free subscription. Especially for broke. Please do a free subscription. I don't need your $20. I'll give you my $20 please. And also I have a Ko Fi if you only do like a one time thing, it's Mirrorlessine. I'm the only one only mirrors lazine on there. And if you subscribe you're supporting some of the only trans anarchist national news coverage. Yeah, basically in every single article I write I try to find a way to shoot Horde Anarchist theory. And what. And like my first article I was like hey go check out Crime thing, the one I published yesterday. I just, I went on a whole like page long tangent where I'm like okay cool, so this is what more liberal people are saying. But here's. Go read Lorenzo Combo Irvin. Go read Query anarchism. Go, go read this. And, and yeah that's. I just want to shoehorn anarchist theory and get more people to be anarchists.
- [79:44]
Host 5
Yeah, yeah. So if you ever want to support maddycast News. To be clear, I don't take any income from the website. I actually have plans to put lots of money into it. But all of your money will be going towards supporting other trans journalists. So that's one way to, you know, contribute to the cause. So. Or even if you just give me your email, I appreciate that too but my website is maddycast.com and that's only one D. So M A D Y cast.com and Round Blue Blue Sky 2 with the same website name. And yeah, thank you.
- [80:19]
H
People can find our co ops work@ashfulblade.com and there's a giant link to our patreon there. For 15 bucks a month you can get a lovely Gentry tears mug which we're particularly proud of.
- [80:31]
Host 6
It's so cool. It rules.
- [80:36]
H
Thank you for the endorsement. And at the end of each article we have addition to our Patreon a link. If folks just want to send us some one time support, we'll certainly put that to use as well. And if they would like to see some of my personal writings about trans survival as well as some anarchist looks at various periods of history. Patreon.com David Forbes if if that is, if that is more their cup of.
- [81:01]
Host 6
Tea statistically in our audience, I know there are a bunch of you whose special interest either is or could be medieval peasant uprisings. You are not going to find better writing on medieval peasant uprisings anywhere else. Yes, there is a limit to the extent to which you can actually talk about the structural problems that are happening and you can't fucking talk about how to solve them. And this is also partially why like I've got myself a journalist, like I Kind of jokingly refuse to call myself a journalist because, like. Like, I fucking. I fucking refuse to be associated with, like, all of those goddamn Atlantic motherfuckers whose institutional job is to endanger trans people. Like, you know, but also no ground to fascists, though. That's true. That's true. Yeah. You know, because it's like, we're the ones actually fucking doing this shit. But also. Yeah, like, this is, you know, to do my one. To do my one Karl Marx quote. It's like, you know, like, philosophy has hitherto only sought to describe the world. The point is to change it. And that's a thing that we could. That, like, we, like, have the power to collectively do together. And that's something that, like, the New York Times does not want you to.
- [82:04]
Host 4
Know that you can change things.
- [82:07]
H
No.
- [82:09]
Host 1
Yeah, they. To borrow a term that David has recently gotten into my vocabulary, a bunch the gentry really fucking do not like the idea of solutions. Their idea of a solution is, go vote for Pete Buttigieg. Go sign the ACLU's petition.
- [82:24]
Host 6
Yeah, I want to read this fucking post that I saw that Kendra writes about the New York Times. I think a lot about the top New York Times editor who I told the historians were warning were in a similar period to the ramp up to the Holocaust, and maybe we could look back and see what MIT had done wrong. Did not repeat his mistakes. He shrugged. New York Times didn't really cover the Holocaust.
- [82:46]
H
Oh, my God.
- [82:47]
Host 6
What? So don't support these people. Support the people who actually do this shit. You know, like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make a kind of, like, comparison. But it was like, at the time this shit was happening, there was a bunch of very good coverage of the Holocaust of what was happening, but it was because it was all happening from, like. Because it was like, largely Jewish radicals who were doing it. All that got ignored and that could have been prevented wasn't. And we don't have to live in a world where that shit fucking happens. And we can make it not be like that, but, like, the structural. The structural, like, structural nature of the media is one of the ways of this just happens. And we don't have to let the New York Times do this again.
- [83:29]
H
No. And that's a good reminder There is another way with journalism. You know, Ida Wells was able to detail the extent and horror of American segregation and lynching and also called for people to shoot the clan. Yeah, this is the. You know, the modern idea that you have to be detached and everybody attached from pretty gentry perspective. You know there's a world elsewhere where there's other ways to do things.
- [84:09]
Host 2
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Host 1
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Host 2
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Host 1
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Host 2
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Host 1
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Host 2
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Host 1
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Host 2
On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10 vile. No, no, no no no no no, no, no. Grotesque.
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Host 3
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Host 2
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published. And he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen.
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Host 4
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Host 2
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Host 4
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Host 1
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Host 6
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Host 7
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Host 2
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Host 3
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Host 4
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Host 2
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Host 4
Rob from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
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Host 2
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Host 4
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- [87:15]
Host 7
Welcome to another episode of It Can Happen Here I am your guest co host, Bridget Todd, host of There Are no Girls on the Internet. I'm joined by the lovely Molly, host of award winning podcast on Cool Zone. Weird little guys. Molly, how you doing?
- [87:31]
I
Great. Glad to be here, Bridget.
- [87:33]
Host 7
Okay, so I wish we were here to talk about all the exciting stuff going on in your life, but I wanted to bring this topic to the It Could Happen Here audience because I live in the District. I know you're a Virginia gal, so you might know a little bit more about how it works in the District than your average person. But. But I don't know that people really understand what is happening to residents of the District of Columbia like myself. So I live in dc. I've lived here for most of my life. I have a lot of like, hometown pride. This is not just where I happen to live. It's like my city, my home. Do you know what I mean?
- [88:05]
I
And you don't have representation.
- [88:07]
Host 7
It's. It's true, right? It's something that infuriates me. And so, you know, the first thing to know about D.C. is that it's not a state. So that means that what happens federally has a huge impact on the day to day minutiae of the life of people like me who live in the District. If you don't live in the District, when it comes to decisions about how your like, local tax dollars are spent, that, that usually lies with like your state and local leaders. That's not really the case for me and the other like over half a million residents of the District. All of this is made worse by the fact that we are essentially disenfranchised, just like you said. Right. All of this stuff is playing out in our home. Like all of these big national conversations are happening in our own backyard. And we arguably have less electoral power and agency because we aren't a state. Fun fact. D.C. residents only got the right to vote in 1961 in presidential elections. What I know, like, I didn't know that. We have not been voting in presidential elections for very long when you think about it in the fullness of time. So when people are like, oh, you know, call your congressperson, call your elected official to oppose xyz, we really have like, nobody to call our congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton cannot vote on bills that are being considered by the full House. And so we really just like, don't have a say whenever those big Campaigns are going on. I'm like, oh, it must be nice to have. Even if that person ignores you, it must be nice to have someone you can call. Wouldn't know.
- [89:32]
I
It always seems disrespectful to be like.
- [89:34]
Host 2
Oh, yeah, you guys.
- [89:34]
I
You guys have a representative. But it doesn't do anything.
- [89:37]
Host 7
Exactly.
- [89:39]
I
It's just vibes.
- [89:40]
Host 7
It's just vibes. So all of this matters for Trump's return to my hometown, because as president, Trump has a lot more authority to dictate how things are run locally for D.C. residents like myself. You know, we all know that the Trump administration is hell bent on making all of our lives worse. But imagine if Trump was also in charge of how your local police force in your city policed your city. Like, that would be horrible, right?
- [90:05]
I
That sounds like a nightmare.
- [90:07]
Host 7
And that is. That threat is like, literally the reality that we are faced with here in dc. So there's been some pretty big changes this time around in the Trump administration. During his first administration, I feel like Trump largely ignored dc. Like, he would pick a fight every now and then, but he didn't really seem to meddle in how D.C. was run, like, locally. That does not mean that he was not, like, out in the District doing terrible things, which he very much was. You might recall in 2020, during the racial justice uprisings in the wake of George Floyd's death, Trump cleared protesters using chemical agents so that he could go out in front of St. John's Church and, like, pose with an upside down Bible. Upside down Bible. Remember that?
- [90:48]
I
Distressing.
- [90:50]
Host 7
It was distressing. I was there that day, and I'll say, like, it was, like, genuinely very excessive. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of it, but in the aftermath of that event, internal reports made it clear that, like, it wasn't exactly clear what happened and under what authority. Like, was it DC's local police force, Metropolitan PD? Was it federal Park Police? Like, it really underscored the tensions of D.C. locally versus the federal government.
- [91:16]
I
And it doesn't help that there's half a dozen different police forces operating on any given block of dc.
- [91:22]
Host 7
Oh, my God, girl. Like. Like, you. You genuinely never know. When you see flashing blue and red lights, you genuinely. It's like, you're like, this could be federal aid. Like, this could be federal. You never know.
- [91:33]
I
Have I just committed a federal traffic violation?
- [91:35]
Host 7
Exactly. And so the New York Times actually described that event as, quote, a burst of violence unlike any scene in the shadow of the White House in generations, and possibly one of the defining moments of the Trump presidency. And so I remember that as like a moment that played out nationally, but also it felt very local and like, I think it underscored how we really felt the impacts of how militarized the city could locally get during Trump's first administration. So that was like, something that really sticks out to me.
- [92:08]
I
I mean, I, I rarely visit D.C. because I'm afraid of traffic. Like, just the act of driving to, through Northern Virginia to get to D.C. is too frightening for me. So I try not to go. But I think people who don't live in the area don't think of D.C. as a place where people live. They don't think of it as anyone's home. Right. It's like Congress lives there, the laws live there, but like, a lot of people live there, people who have nothing to do with the federal government, mostly a lot of black people, honestly.
- [92:34]
Host 7
I mean, D.C. used to be called Chocolate City for a reason. These things were more like a, like a latte city, but. Exactly. I can confirm that people don't think of the, you know, over half a million D.C. residents who have nothing to do with the federal government, sometimes who nothing with politics, who just, like, live here and is our home. Like, I was born in dc, like this is. I didn't just, you know, move here to work in politics. Like, my family can be traced back to our roots in the District through generations. And so I have a bee in my bonnet about this because I feel very unseen. And I think the way that the Trump administration is playing out, I feel like the reporting really can sometimes overlook the way that this is playing out in the lie, the life of your average, you know, D.C. resident who might have nothing to do with politics or, you know, the federal government.
- [93:24]
I
Like seventh graders trying to get to middle school.
- [93:26]
Host 7
Exactly that. Exactly that. So during Trump's first administration, after the incident at St. John's Church, our mayor, DC's mayor, Muriel Bowser.
- [93:37]
I
She's still the mayor.
- [93:37]
Host 7
She's still the mayor. She's still the mayor. She's bold and strong. She erected what became known as Black Lives Matter Plaza, where she wrote Black Lives Matter in like big yellow letters. Outside of the White House. You remember this.
- [93:52]
I
I've had some unpleasant experiences in that zone.
- [93:55]
Host 7
Yes, yes, you and me both. This could be a separate conversation. And so I will say when she did that, it was largely like a symbolic move. And a lot of D.C. activists thought the mayor was kind of, of co opting or racial justice ethos, that she didn't really Embody in practice. But I do think that that really set the tone for the mayor's relationship with Trump during his first term. Like, she was defiant. She was someone who was going to stand up to him publicly. And something to know about DC's mayor Muriel Bowser is that she kind of has two modes. Defiant, like the version of herself that painted Black Lives Matter outside of the Trump White House, and then sort of diplomatic, right, like somebody who, like, wants to find common ground, which I think is the. Is the version of her that we're seeing this time around that is very different than how she was the last time around. Like, she started Trump's second term sort of touting the goals they have in common. And, like, she met with him even before he was in office. And so I have a lot of critiques about DC's mayor, just like anybody would of their political leader. But I do think it is important that folks understand that she is navigating something that literally no other elected official in the United States has to because of DC's lack of statehood. Like, we, our city is uniquely threatened by Trump, and she knows this and Trump knows this, and so she really has to, like, walk a tightrope, greased in shit, if you will. She's, like, navigating this public relationship with an unstable, lying fascist, and has to do so in a way that's going to end up with, like, what's best for the city. So you can say whatever you want about Mayor Bowser, like, I certainly do, but this is a complicated thing to navigate. I do not advocate for anybody complying in advance with a fascist. But in this situation, I do think it's fair to ask, like, well, would being defiant toward Trump make things worse for D.C. residents like myself?
- [95:48]
I
Would it result in martial law in the city?
- [95:50]
Host 7
Exactly. Exactly. So, like, I don't like it, but I get it. I guess if there was, like, a mantra for my feelings on this, it's like, I don't like it at all, but I get it.
- [96:00]
I
It's a no win situation.
- [96:02]
Host 7
It is a no win situation. And you know Trump's bent. Even when he was on the campaign trail before he was president, he talked this time around about how he was planning to take over the city. And because D.C. is not a state, like, any president does have the authority to interfere.
- [96:18]
Host 3
How?
- [96:19]
Host 7
With how D.C. is run. Like, any president can take over the police department and the powers of the mayor and the D.C. city Council. Any president has the power to federalize DCs, like, local police force, metropolitan police Deputize the National Guard and give law enforcement powers in D.C. and activate the military and federal law enforcement agencies, such as the park police in D.C. so.
- [96:40]
I
Oh, I didn't even. So, like, the governor of any state has control of their National Guard, but D.C. has its own National Guard, Right?
- [96:47]
Host 7
Correct.
- [96:47]
I
And they don't have a governor. So those are the President's national cards.
- [96:50]
Host 3
Correct.
- [96:52]
I
Oh, that's not great.
- [96:53]
Host 7
So it's not great. It's not great. And, you know, the prospect of just. Just, like, let that sink in. The prospect of Trump having his own military and police force in the District, like, I could. I cannot tell you how much this terrifies me. Like, I cannot stress to listeners how much of a shit hitting the fan moment this would be for the city to give you a sense, like, I have a go bag and a, like, get the fuck out plan for that scenario playing out.
- [97:17]
I
Virginia's so close.
- [97:18]
Host 7
I know. I mean, yeah, honestly, anybody in the dmv, if you're in Maryland, Virginia, you should be thinking about this. The Trump has continued to, like, pressure the mayor and threatening to, like, take over if she will not do the things that he says, things like clean up the city. Trump notified Mayor Bowser that she has to clean up all the unsightly homeless encampments in the District, especially around federal buildings. If she's not capable of doing so, we will be forced to do it for her, he said. And so far, her strategy has really been one of, like, quiet appeasement. So that Black Lives Matter plaza that she erected in Defiance during his first term, that came down.
- [98:06]
I
Did it really? They painted over it?
- [98:09]
Host 7
I think they paint. They dismantled it. I think that they were like, oh, we're going to, like, take it up so that it can go someplace else, but we're removing it from this part of the city, if that makes sense.
- [98:22]
I
That's. I mean, that's a symbolic moment.
- [98:24]
Host 4
Right?
- [98:24]
I
Just, like, pouring the asphalt over the words Black Lives Matter.
- [98:27]
Host 7
Yeah. And I do really think it. It underscores this moment that we're in right now, where it does. I mean, I'm curious for your thoughts. It does sort of feel like a pendulum swing in some ways, where all of these, like, largely symbolic gestures are now, like, being bulldozed over oftentimes, like, like, voluntarily, like, without even really being pressured into doing so.
- [98:50]
I
Right. I guess it's hard. Right. Because, like, painting Black Lives Matter on the sidewalk did nothing for black people. Right. Like, did that help you? Did that materially improve your life? No, it was purely symbolic. But negating that symbolic gesture, I think does a lot more harm than never having had it right. Because that is a. That is a. An imposition of. Of will over. Over what was, again, a symbol that did nothing and accomplished nothing and didn't actually help anyone or change any situation. But taking the time out of your day to bulldoze that symbol sends a strong message.
- [99:22]
Host 7
I feel the exact same way. And Republican Representative Andrew Clyde actually wants it to go further. He introduced a bill that would have amended the US Code to withhold certain funds from DC unless Black Lives Matter was taken off the street and that area was renamed, quote, Liberty Plaza. And for the District to remove all Black Lives Matter Plaza references from city websites and official documents. So they. They want to, like, memory hole it and be like it never happened.
- [99:49]
I
That's such crybaby bullshit, too, for the, like, these free speech warriors, right? Like, oh, the facts don't care about your feelings. Free speech is the most important thing, like the marketplace of ideas. Like, I guess you can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, bucko.
- [100:00]
Host 7
Exactly. Clyde said, quote, it's time for our nation to leave this failed agenda behind, starting with the removal of BLM Plaza from America's capitol. Trump is 100% right. We must clean up D.C. for the American people. I believe that removing BLM Plaza must be part of this critical effort. After all, BLM is a radical defund the police organization, but we are not a defund the police nation.
- [100:22]
I
So I know this, you know, clean up the city rhetoric is sort of fascist in and of itself, right?
- [100:27]
Host 4
That.
- [100:27]
I
That's scary rhetoric regardless. But pairing it with, like, back to back in the same breath, like, we have to clean up the city. We have to get rid of BLM Plaza. Like, are you saying being reminded that black people have civil liberties is dirty to you? That that's what's making the city dirty, is the black people?
- [100:43]
Host 7
I would argue that's exactly what he's saying. But D.C. is like, getting upset about black people. It's like going to the beach and getting upset whether. When there's sand. Right? It's like we could have a whole conversation about DC's demographics. But, like, we are. We are a black city. Like, that is what makes D.C. what it is. It's like, why I continue to live here. Right? And so, like, I think that's exactly what he's saying, is we don't want our nation's capital to be one that honors the agency of black people, black bodies and black lives. Right. I think that's like, what he's saying.
- [101:11]
I
Then move the White House to South Boston, I guess. I don't know what to tell you.
- [101:16]
Host 7
So the mayor pretty quickly relented, and BLM Plaza is no more. She basically said, like, we've got bigger fish to fry, like, focusing on DC's autonomy and budget. And to be honest, like, a lot of residents agreed with her that, like, it probably was not worth the fight. That's kind of. That's kind of the theme here, is that all of these little things that individually are probably not worth the fight, but then collectively you're like, well, who is sort of in charge of this city?
- [101:42]
Host 4
You know?
- [101:43]
I
And if none of these little things are worth the fight, are you fighting?
- [101:46]
Host 7
That's a great question. Are you fighting? If nothing is worth the fight, are you fighting?
- [101:51]
I
And I feel like that's kind of.
- [101:52]
Host 7
I don't know, with.
- [101:53]
I
On a larger scale, sort of. The National Democratic Party's line has always been, we got to keep our powder dry. We got to keep our powder dry. Keep it dry for fucking what, dog?
- [102:01]
Host 7
Right?
- [102:01]
I
Like you're. You're going to end the war, you know, with a pile of bodies and a bunch of dry powder.
- [102:06]
Host 2
Exactly.
- [102:08]
Host 7
So the next demand that Trump made of Bowser was the need to clear homeless encampments near the White House, saying that if Bowser didn't do it, he would be forced to do it for her. So within hours of Trump's call to Bowser, D.C. city crews arrived at these encampments to tell residents they had to be out the next day. It's not great, like, to be clear. It is not like our mayor does not clear encampments in dc. In fact, her administration said they had been planning to clear the encampment in question, but just doing so in, like, a more planned, rolled out way. So it's not like she's like someone who is not, you know, down with clearing encampments. The Washington Post spoke to some of the people who were residents of those encampments when they were cleared. Shelly Byers is someone they spoke to who has been chronically homeless in D.C. for three years. She was living in an encampment that was cleared in 2023 before winding up at the one that Trump wanted cleared. And she said they were basically given no notice that they needed to vacate. She said, now we have only less than 24 hours to get out, as she threw her clothing out of her tent. I liked it here. They keep shoving us off from place to place, making it so we don't have anywhere to go. The Post also spoke to the president of Miriam's Kitchen, which is a big Nonprofit here in D.C. that provides services for the homeless. And he said that it wasn't even clear. Like, he wasn't even sure if the city followed proper protocols with this hasty encampment clearing. At Trump's direction, encampment residents are meant to be given two weeks notice, but people who were cleared said that they only learned about that action within 24 hours. And so I think that's part of the issue here. D.C. like any city, has issues like crime and homelessness, but, like, getting people housed just takes time. Like, just wanting to quickly move people who might not have anywhere else to go because they look, as Trump said, unseemly or unsightly is not solving the problem. What you're actually doing is just traumatizing people who are already vulnerable and then forcing them to go elsewhere. Exactly like that woman told the Post.
- [103:59]
I
Right. Like, even in the best case scenario, even the most organized clearing of an encampment is. I mean, it's violent and it's inhumane, and it doesn't really serve a greater purpose other than. And I don't know, so that people don't have to think about homelessness on their way to work. But there is a way to do it that is, at least theoretically, could result in something that is not monstrous. You know what I mean? Like, like I said, there's no good way to clear an encampment unless you're giving everyone an apartment. But, right. Like, you're giving people two weeks notice, let social services get involved, lets them go, you know, tent to tent for those two weeks, talking to people about where they could go, giving them options, connecting them with services if that's what they choose. Like, like. But if you're just rolling up overnight and throwing people's shit away, you're not, you're not solving a problem. You're not even trying to solve a problem. You're not even pretending that you're trying to solve a problem.
- [104:45]
Host 7
But I think that's exactly how Trump thinks about this issue. It just, like, looks bad and unseemly to him. So I don't care where they go. I don't care how you do it. Just, I don't want to be looking at them, right?
- [104:56]
I
Because for him, it's not. It's not about getting these people connected to services so that they might eventually find stable housing. It's about, I don't want to fucking see these people because they're gross.
- [105:05]
Host 3
Exactly.
- [105:05]
Host 7
And, like, he is encroaching on how our city is run. Right. And so, like, if that is the ethos that you have, I don't want to see these gross people. I don't care where they go. This is not an ethos that. That responsibly is able to run a city like that. Like, that is really.
- [105:19]
I
That's disruptive. Yeah, it's absolutely disruptive because they'll go somewhere else. They'll go somewhere else. And now they. Now their lives have been uprooted. They don't have. Maybe the documents got thrown away, and it's going to be even harder for them to find stability. Like, you have not. Not address the problem.
- [105:32]
Host 7
Exactly. And I think that's what. That's like the name of the game with the way that Trump has already been, you know, meddling in the way that DC runs its local affairs. This next example, I gotta say, it really gets to me. So DC's Attorney General, Brian Schwab, recently dropped a lawsuit against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for their behavior during January 6th. So the suit was initially filed by the former D.C. attorney General, Carl A. Racine. It initially marks the first effort by a government agency to hold the individuals and organizations civilly liable for violence at the Capitol on January 6th. But a federal judge in D.C. granted the District's request to dismiss that case. The suit was fashioned after a modern version of the 1871 law known as the Ku Klux Klan act that was enacted after the Civil War to safeguard government officials carrying out their duties to protect civil rights. This was actually a similar challenge that prevailed against groups involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which, Molly, I know you might know a thing or two about.
- [106:33]
I
I'm very familiar with Clan act lawsuits, and they are effective. They're effective. It's one of the only things that we still have from Reconstruction that hasn't been taken away from us is this civil remedy for civil rights violations. And it works.
- [106:47]
Host 7
It works, but, like, you have to carry it out. And basically, the city decided that it wasn't worth it, given all of the threats to DC's autonomy by the Trump administration.
- [106:56]
I
So it's extortion.
- [106:57]
Host 7
I mean. Yeah, like, that's exactly what it feels like. I mean, this is extortion.
- [107:02]
I
They're being prevented. They're being prevented from seeking a viable civil remedy through the courts out of fear of retaliation. That seems very bad.
- [107:10]
Host 7
It's like. I mean, I'm glad that you used the word extortion, because it really does feel like, if you've seen one of my favorite movies, goodfellas, it feels like what Henry Hill, the mobster, calls real grease ball shit, right? Like, ooh, great city you have here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it, like extortion, right?
- [107:32]
Host 2
God.
- [107:32]
I
But usually, I mean, sometimes you get something out of a protection racket. DC's not even fucking getting anything out of this.
- [107:37]
Host 7
I guess you could argue that they are, like, not raising the ire further of the Trump administration and that, like, that might lead to DC having more autonomy and like, like DC, you know, like Trump officials not meddling in DC's affairs.
- [107:51]
I
I mean, I. I don't know if any of these people have read a book, but appeasing a fascist has historically not resulted in you getting what you want.
- [108:00]
Host 6
No.
- [108:01]
Host 7
And I gotta be honest, girl, this one fucking stung. Like, it sucks. Hearing people like the Proud Boys leader Enrique Terrio, basically brag about having this case dropped. The Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes, his attorney, said, we are very pleased to see the District of Columbia has come to the same conclusion that the American public and President Trump have. The narrative that January 6th was some sort of armed insurrection to overthrow the government was false from the very beginning. Enrique Terrio posted after the District requested to dismiss this lawsuit, saying, another exoneration. If God is with us, who can be against us? Like, it just chaps my ass to.
- [108:37]
I
Hear this, like, God didn't do this, baby. God didn't do this.
- [108:41]
Host 7
You also have DC's Metro Police investigating the vandalization of Teslas as a hate crime. This again, like, it really makes me wonder, like, as far as I know, Trump is not in charge of our Metropolitan Police Department, but stuff like this makes me wonder. We're like, is he kind of in charge?
- [109:00]
I
I mean, pressure is clearly being exerted, correct?
- [109:02]
Host 7
Basically, somebody wrote, quote, political hate speech on a Tesla. The statement from the Metropolitan Police Department said they were investigating these offenses as being motivated by hate or bias. To be clear, Mayor Bowser was like, I didn't tell them to do this. Like, she was like, I have nothing to do with the police department's decision making on this. Like, that's them.
- [109:21]
I
A hate crime typically implicates a protected class like race, gender, religion, national origin. What is the protected class of being a Tesla owner? It's like, is being a big loser a protected class now?
- [109:33]
Host 7
Unclear. And they wouldn't even say, like. Like, what was the nature of what was written on this car that. That made it a potential hate crime? Like, we don't even know.
- [109:41]
I
Which is so funny because these guys never believed in hate crimes before.
- [109:44]
Host 7
Unless it's against like, Elon Musk and people who like him. That's the, that's the best I can figure.
- [109:49]
I
But I've, I've heard full throated arguments against the existence of the category of hate crime. And now suddenly they're very important. Yeah, now they're, they're very important.
- [109:57]
Host 7
And I do think, I mean, like, when I, when I heard about this, it really made me think about how different categories of crime and legislation around it is like, very well intended and well meaning and like, I understand who hate crime legislation is meant to protect, but then you also have the ways that it can be sort of like perverted to protect a protective class that is not a protected class. Right. Like it's, I mean, it's, it's the.
- [110:21]
I
Same as the language around terrorism, right. That like, terrorism wasn't something that we were talking about or charging. It's not even very well defined in the law, to be honest. But it's something that became part of the conversation when America became very afraid of Muslims, became very afraid of Middle Eastern people. Right. So terrorism had that implication for a very long time. And then there was this brief window in the last couple of years where they were using it against domestic white extremists, and now they're not doing that anymore. And they're just going to charge you with terrorism for looking sideways at a Tesla.
- [110:49]
Host 7
Exactly. Here's how my co host and friend Michael Schaeffer, who writes the Capital Cities column for Politico, put it. He says, now the White House is beating the drums about Tesla vandalism, creating another incentive for locals to play ball. The FBI director called Tesla vandalism domestic terrorism. The President suggested sending vandals to jail in El Salvador if, like, if likening the run of the mill political graffiti to criminal bigotry is what it takes to keep the feds from padlocking City Hall. The logic goes, maybe it's worth it.
- [111:16]
I
No, it's not.
- [111:17]
Host 7
I would say it's not.
- [111:18]
I
That's why it's not. Maybe they want to do extraordinary rendition to vandals, but maybe it's worth. No, it's not worth it, babe.
- [111:25]
Host 7
It's not worth it.
- [111:26]
I
You're not gonna, you're not holding back the tide of fascism if you allow fascism to happen.
- [111:31]
Host 7
Unlike local governments in Cleveland or Boston, D.C. is really stuck between a rock and a hard place. And I mean, like, I understand why city officials are taking this like, appeasement angle. But, like, I guess, as you said, like, I don't know how you can make the argument that it's, like, worth it. Like, what are we getting if every single day it's going to be a new threat to DC's autonomy, a new threat to DC, a new EO from the Trump administration? What are we really getting by playing ball in this way?
- [112:03]
I
Right. And if you're saying you're saving your energy for the big fight, it's like, well, what do you think the big fight is going to be if it's not the slow erosion of the safety and civil liberties of everyone who lives here? Exactly what is the big fight?
- [112:24]
Host 7
Well, some might say the big fight is DC's tense budget showdown, which is ongoing. It's a little in the weedsy. So, like, I'm not going to get too, too into it, but I'll try to give you the quick and dirty version of what's going on. The District is overseen by Congress, thanks to a provision in the Constitution. So this means that DC is occasionally treated like a federal agency rather than like a city or a local government under various laws. This used to mean that DC's budget was regularly delayed. Because of this, the city had to wait for Congress to approve DC's local budget alongside other federal agencies, which Congress just, like, almost never does on time. So pretty much everybody agreed, like, this was a problem. So in the early 2000s, they changed it so that if Congress was behind schedule, DC could just keep spending at its current budget levels without disruption until Congress is able to formally approve a new budget. But in March, that all changed because the language was omitted from a new funding bill that Congress passed in March that would basically force DC to omit $1 billion from its budget. Just to be clear, like, if DC were to omit $1 billion from the budget, we basically could not function as a city. The things that you need to run a city, schools, garbage collection, all of that would be cut to the point of, like, not being viable. I'm not even sure what that would mean for the city to make that deep of a cut. And the worst part is nobody really knows why Congress did this. Like, in my capacity as co host for a local DC podcast, citycast dc, I've spoken to a lot of people in DC government and reporters, and the best I can come up with is that Congress just really does not understand what they have done. A reporter that I spoke to said that there seemed to be confusion with lawmakers that we're talking about DC's local tax money and not federal money. And so this was happening in March during the height of, like, doge efficiency. I'm putting efficiency in, like, heavy scare quotes. It was at the height of that. And so the best I could think was that lawmakers thought, like, oh, this will. We will be able to, like, say that, you know, making D.C. cut a billion dollars from the budget will be a big show of have federal tax dollar savings. But we're not talking about federal money. We're talking about local tax money, not federal money. Doesn't save anybody any federal money. And so I. I think that from what I've heard, it sounds like people like Mike Johnson just maybe, like, did not really have a good understanding of that. It is a little bit complicated, but, like, if you're a lawmaker, like, come on, dude.
- [114:48]
I
But again, because you have no representative who is really involved in this process. Like, there's nobody in that room going to bat for dc. There's nobody in that room whose constituency is decent DC who understands what it means to run dc.
- [115:02]
Host 7
Exactly. And what's funny is that, like, for all the talk about, like, how. How, like, we're not a defund the police nation, this bill would kind of defund D.C. police. It would have.
- [115:11]
I
It would mean defund everything.
- [115:13]
Host 7
I mean, like, it would mean, like, $67 million cut from the D.C. police budget, along with cutting funding for D.C. public Schools and the Department of Human Services, which serves the city's poorest residents. Right? So, like, it would defund everything, including the police. So it's, like, funny to be like. Like, we're not down with defund the police, but we are down with this bill. That kind of does it, right?
- [115:31]
I
Like, who do you think is going to fill the potholes? Who's going to mow the grass? Like, nothing will get done. The city will fall apart.
- [115:36]
Host 7
Well, so our mayor has really been doing her diplomacy thing and appealing to exactly that. Right. Like, Trump has been really clear about all these goals he has for the district, like beautifying D.C. and cracking down on crime and homelessness. There is no way to do that if you are slashing the budgets of these departments that are meant to work on those things, but by tens of millions of dollars.
- [115:55]
I
Who's gonna prune the cherry trees, Donald?
- [115:57]
Host 7
I mean, who's gonna prune it? Almost as if Trump doesn't really care about doing any of this stuff. He's just, like, talking big and doesn't give a shit about how it actually plays out.
- [116:05]
I
He doesn't know how anything works.
- [116:07]
Host 7
Yeah, I mean, that's really the bottom line for me is that when you have Trump really loudly talking about the ways that he is meddling and the way that D.C. is run, he's not someone who is good at efficiently governing. And so, like, you know, say what you about dc, we had a function, we have a functioning local government, a functioning city, putting somebody like Trump in charge of how things get done, what happens to encampments, what happens to education, what happens to crime. Like, like that's just a terrible, terrible move for the city.
- [116:39]
I
I mean, it's like, you know, at a shitty retail job, you get a new assistant store manager and they try to change the way the schedule gets made just so they can look like they're doing something, so they can feel like they're in charge. And it's like, like, yeah, dog, that's just not how things work at this store. Like, it won't function if the key holder doesn't open.
- [116:54]
Host 7
I wish I could tell Trump that, like, I'm taken back to my days of working retail at the mall where I, where you could just be like, actually, Greg, that's not how it works here at this Claire's. I used to work at Claire's.
- [117:07]
I
It just won't work like that. Like, I know you're very important and you're in charge here, but it's just like it won't work.
- [117:13]
Host 7
It won't work. So, yeah, I mean, as of today, there has not been a vote on DC's budget. Trump actually signaled that he is on board for a fix that would prevent this billion dollar cut and he urged the Senate to vote for it. He posted the House should take up the DC funding fix that the Senate passed and get it done immediately. All caps. But everybody's on recess. And so in the meantime, like, it's not clear what's going to happen. And the city did announce that they're looking at making cuts and furloughing stats because it's not clear what's going to happen. So, you know, so it's not, it's.
- [117:46]
I
Not that the city doesn't have them. It's not like the city is broke. Like the city has the money, they're just not allowed to budget it.
- [117:51]
Host 7
Yes, exactly that. And for no reason. It's a fake problem. Fake problem. But again, I don't know that people like Mike Johnson understand that there are people who live here who, you know, just want to have their trash taken out, just want to be able to educate their kids, just want to be able to, like, live our lives in the city. And I think I said this on. It could happen here before, but I have to feel like it's punitive, right? Like, dc, nobody didn't vote for Trump. Like, DC didn't vote for Trump. Like, you know, Nikki Haley won DC's Republican primary, not even Trump, Right? So, like, we have made it very clear that we don't like him and we don't want him here. And I guess I just have to say the only thing that makes sense as to why Congress would do this is punitive, is to be like. Like, fuck DC and the progressive, hippie, dippy, educated people who live there. Like, it just feels like a punitive attack on the District, but again, just.
- [118:42]
I
Like, shooting themselves in the dick. Because, like, if the city falls apart, like, you still work here, you still have to drive on the streets here.
- [118:50]
Host 7
Well, I mean, if Trump gets his way and DC just becomes like a. Instead of a city, like a military compound that is controlled by, like, his goons, Right?
- [119:02]
I
Like a sort of a. Like a Trump Vatican City where he's the king of this little tiny country.
- [119:06]
Host 7
That is my ultimate, biggest fear about what is on the horizon for dc. That is like the ultimate, ultimate, like, negative fear that I have. And I guess bottom line is, like, this is why D.C. needs statehood. Like, we are facing such unique threats from the Trump administration that no other place in the United States faces. You know, there are a million reasons for D.C. to become a state, but this just. I think that the way that Trump is acting toward our city, toward our mayor, toward our council, with regards to our budget, like, it all just makes so much sense that our residents should not be at the behest of somebody like Trump to have our city run the way that we want it to be run.
- [119:47]
I
And, yeah, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
- [119:49]
Host 7
It doesn't make sense.
- [119:50]
I
The city. The city should be able to make its own budget. There's no reason for it to function like this.
- [119:54]
Host 7
There is no reason for it. So from your lips to God's ears, I hope.
- [120:01]
I
Yeah. So, like, I guess, what should people look for? Like, what's the next step in this process? Like, when's the next vote on this?
- [120:08]
Host 7
So when lawmakers are back in session, we should have some sense of what's going on with DC's budget. The thing I would end with is, like, give a shit about dc. Like, don't. Don't be somebody who perpetuates the idea that the only thing happening in D.C. is like national politics and like where national conversations are happening. Because, you know, there are 600,000 people who live here and we want to be able to control our city and control our. Our tax money. Like I pay taxes just like anybody else and it's ridiculous that I get less of a say than everybody else. So if you don't live in D.C. and you hear about Congress or the Senate voting on stuff that impacts D.C. residents, like you might hear about them voting on the D.C. budget fix bill, you can call your representatives and advocate on our behalf and kind of be our voice because we don't really get one. Hopefully this all gives you a sense of what's at stake for us. So please give a about dc, give.
- [121:01]
I
A about DC and hopefully you guys still have garbage services.
- [121:05]
Host 4
We'll see.
- [121:08]
Host 7
Molly, thank you for running through all of this with me. You're such a good co host.
- [121:12]
I
Yeah, this was fun. Yeah. I listened to Bridget's podcast. There are no girls on the Internet.
- [121:16]
Host 7
Listen to weird little guys.
- [121:18]
I
A Webby award winning podcast.
- [121:20]
Host 7
Yes. So deserved. Are you like keeping your wedding secret? Is that something I can talk about?
- [121:25]
I
Well, I did tell the listeners just because there's going to be some reruns coming up. I'm getting married soon, so I will be out of town for a little bit. But yeah, so I got, I got a lot going on. I got my weird little guys. I got my weird little wedding.
- [121:36]
Host 7
Well, congratulations. I was telling you off mic that like, I love it when women who do work in the like, extremism right wing space have happy, thriving personal lives. So it brings me a lot of joy, deeply. Congratulations.
- [121:51]
I
Thank you. Yeah, I am experiencing a lot of joy.
- [121:54]
Host 7
You deserve it.
- [121:55]
Host 4
Thank you.
- [122:14]
Host 2
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On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape. Lodged in the player on that tape were 10 vile.
- [123:14]
Host 4
No, no, no.
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Host 2
No, no, no, no, no, no. Grotesque.
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Host 3
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Host 7
Oh my God.
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Host 2
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the to a horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Karan's first book was published. And he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen.
- [123:53]
Host 4
Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.
- [123:55]
Host 2
Has spent 24 of those years in.
- [123:58]
Host 4
Jail, 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex con to a literary darling almost overnight.
- [124:04]
Host 1
He was instantly a celebrity, he was.
- [124:08]
Host 6
An adrenaline junkie, and he was the.
- [124:10]
Host 7
Star of the show.
- [124:12]
Host 2
Go Boy is the gritty true story.
- [124:14]
Host 4
Of how one man fought his way.
- [124:16]
Host 2
Out of some of the darkest places imaginable.
- [124:18]
Host 4
I had a knife go in my.
- [124:20]
Host 3
Stomach, puncture my spleen, break my rib. I had my guts all in my.
- [124:24]
Host 4
Hands, only to find himself back where he started. Roger saying is I've never hurt anybody but myself.
- [124:30]
Host 1
And I said, oh, you're so wrong.
- [124:32]
Host 5
You're so wrong that one.
- [124:34]
Host 4
Rod from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
- [124:39]
Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [124:47]
Host 7
We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.
- [124:51]
Host 5
We just kind of knew from, from the beginning that we were family.
- [124:54]
Host 6
They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent.
- [124:59]
Host 4
Like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's.
- [125:02]
Host 3
All been worth it.
- [125:04]
Host 2
I wouldn't change thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.
- [125:09]
Host 7
Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.
- [125:21]
Host 2
Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast normally about it happening here being, you know, the real world where you live. But for the next two weeks after this, and for the week before this and for this week, we're we're talking about it happening in a galaxy far, far away. That's right. This is the second in our four part series reviewing and discussing andor season two, which due to a series of incredibly unlikely events, has become the most radical media to reach a wide audience in the United States in quite some time. I am here with Mia Wong and Garrison Davis. How are we all doing today?
- [125:57]
Host 6
Hanging in there. Hanging in there as we always are.
- [126:03]
Host 2
Yeah, just watched episodes seven through nine last night, which is really helping with the hanging in there.
- [126:08]
Host 6
I have not seen that shit yet.
- [126:10]
Host 4
So yeah, that's for next week, though. We have to say that for next week.
- [126:12]
Host 2
Yeah. Well, we're not talking about them now, but we watched them this week and I'm happy.
- [126:16]
Host 4
I. I did watch them and. Oh, boy. But we still have a lot to talk about for episodes four to six. It does kind of set up what we see later on, but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff there with like, building an underground resistance, a lot of spies and espionage mixed in with, like, the personal cost of rebellion and how it affects, like, your personal life, your relationships. So there is a lot to discuss here, but. Oh, boy, I'm. I am excited for next week.
- [126:41]
Host 2
Yes, I am very excited for next week. I'm very excited for this week, which we should talk about. So kind of there's a few themes running through these three episodes. One of them is. Yeah, the cost in terms of your personal life on being part of a rebellion. And. Yeah, I'm interested, kind of. What are some of the. I mean, there's one real standout moment in these episodes that I know we're all gonna want to talk about, which is a speech given by Saul Gerrera. Saw played by Forest Whitaker, just amazingly.
- [127:15]
Host 4
Yeah, the nitrous speech.
- [127:16]
Host 2
Yeah, the nitrous speech.
- [127:17]
Host 4
We'll get to it.
- [127:18]
Host 2
We'll get to that. But ye. We should start with the first of these episodes.
- [127:22]
Host 4
Yeah, Episode four. Ever been to Gorman? I guess once again, if you do not want to be giving Disney plus your money, you can be like Hondo Anaka and acquire the show that way.
- [127:34]
Host 6
Remember the torrent combinations? Remember the variations? Gotta keep them all in your head.
- [127:38]
Host 2
Yes, yes.
- [127:39]
Host 4
All nine or eight variations. Let's do a quick recap of this episode, then we'll. We'll talk about some of these aspects. So. So one year later from the previous episodes. Cassian and Bix are on the planet Coruscant staying at a safe house in between running missions for Luthen. Bix is severely struggling with ptsd, while Cassian is stressed about having to avoid surveillance while hiding in the capital city.
- [128:01]
Host 2
And Bix is also, we find out, abusing Space Xanax.
- [128:05]
Host 4
Yeah. Later on we can. We can see that she's. She's using. Using space drugs to help her cope with the massive amounts of trauma that she's been been forced to deal with the past few years. Now our favorite weasel, Cyril Karn, has been transferred to the planet Gorman, where he's running the local bureau of Standards in the capital city of Palmo. He refutes imperial propaganda About Gorman While on a FaceTime call with his Fox.
- [128:30]
Host 2
News addicted mother, talking about, like, yeah, the Imperial. The Imperial News says the Gormans are super arrogant, just real.
- [128:39]
Host 4
You gotta stop watching Imperial News. But this may be a ploy from Cyril because Cyril knows he's being monitored and surveilled by members of the Gorman Front, a small underground resistance group. While working as a double agent for his ISB girlfriend, Dedra, Cyril gets invited to a town hall meeting where he's introduced to the leader of the Gorman Front, a local businessman and city councilor. And then Cyril is recruited into the Resistance.
- [129:06]
Host 2
Yeah, I want to say a little about the Gorman Front because they're. They're very clearly French Resistance in World War II coded. They developed a whole, like, language for them to speak, which is basically like.
- [129:16]
Host 4
French with French phonics, but different words.
- [129:18]
Host 2
But different words. And so it sounds a little bit like French and German, like, got mashed together. People who speak both have told me, I don't know, I. I'm not a. Not a language guy, but it sounds distinctive. And they're very clearly like, again, their whole. The whole industry of this planet is high quality textiles that come from like, spider silk, elk. But also clearly the. The guy who's leading the resistance, his business is kind of meant to evoke sort of like a classic, like, French vineyard. Like, so he's like, he's not a poor man, right?
- [129:47]
Host 4
Like, no, he's like, he's like wealthy. He's like, well off.
- [129:50]
Host 2
Yes, yes.
- [129:51]
Host 4
I mean, that's a big part about, like, Gorman is this is like a, you know, middle, upper class, like, status planet.
- [129:56]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [129:57]
Host 4
This is like a big part of like, Lutheran's interest in the planet is if. If he can bring a planet with that status into the rebellion, that could have a whole bunch of advantages. And that's kind of why he's at least like, looking into them as an option and eventually kind of setting them up for like an accelerationist push.
- [130:10]
Host 2
Yeah, because I actually think it's a slightly different even than that. But we'll talk about that in that when we get to episode nine. Yeah, sure.
- [130:17]
Host 4
There's an ISB board meeting where they discuss a batch of new raids and arrests on rebel activity and how to deal with this influx of arrests that's making it hard to process and obtain useful information. Luthen's ISP spy informs them of the Empire's increased interest in Gorman and. And that the ISB is running covert operations on the planet. Meanwhile, Senator Mon Mothma unsuccessfully lobbies against the Emperor's resentencing directive. And at Saw Gerrera's hideout, Willem teaches Saw's partisans how to safely deploy a fuel pipeline diverter.
- [130:48]
Host 2
Yeah, and specifically, Saw puts him with one of his guys who's kind of coded as being, like, a close to Saul. Like, this is somebody that he really trusts. And it's kind of implied fairly soon that, like, Saw doesn't want this guy going back to Luthen with information. Right.
- [131:03]
Host 4
He wants to keep Willem.
- [131:04]
Host 6
Yeah. He has just, like, kidnapped this guy.
- [131:06]
Host 7
It's like.
- [131:07]
Host 2
Well, he wants to kill him at first. That's the statement he makes to his guy, is like, once you have these variations down, we're gonna ice him.
- [131:16]
Host 4
Saw doesn't really trust Luthen very much anymore.
- [131:18]
Host 2
He never did.
- [131:19]
Host 4
Luthen's slowly losing a lot of the trust that he's built up throughout the galaxy.
- [131:24]
Host 2
Yeah. But, like, one of the things that's interesting here is that, like, we kind of see Saw's paranoia, where there's a bunch of variations you need to know to get. Get fuel out of any number of different things. And the guy's like, I have to memorize too many. If you just let us know which one we're trying to go after. But that would make it clear which fuel station they're going after. So Saw doesn't want to say shit initially.
- [131:45]
Host 4
So this episode, we're introduced to the planet Gorman, like, in person. It's basically like northern Italy mixed with French culture.
- [131:52]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [131:53]
Host 4
The massive set they built is just gorgeous. Huge, huge, huge town square for the capital city of Palmo.
- [131:58]
Host 2
The amount of money they spent on.
- [132:00]
Host 6
This show, the protesters, I think, is really interesting because it's, like, protesters at.
- [132:04]
Host 4
Like, the monument of the Tarkin Massacre.
- [132:06]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [132:07]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [132:07]
Host 6
They're kind of fascinating because it's like the. The way that their banners are designed really, really remind me of, like, pictures you see from, like, 1917. It's, like, very, very similar to that. And also they have a thing that's a very common protest thing where it's like, there's a. There's, you know, there's protests going on. So there's, like, just, like, 10 guys in the square all the time.
- [132:25]
Host 2
Yes.
- [132:25]
Host 6
Kind of, like, chanting stuff.
- [132:27]
Host 4
Yeah, yeah. Always making noise.
- [132:29]
Host 2
They're kind of keeping a vigil because basically what happened is. And this is another interesting. Tony Guru is kind of famously not a Star wars fan, like, prior to working on this. And so there was a lot of, like, anxiety from big Star wars nerds that, like, oh, this isn't going to feel like Star wars, but he clearly has a lot of folks who understand not just, like, the stuff that's come out, you know, since Disney started in the different books and comics, but, like, the legends stuff. Because in Legends, like, a major spark of the whole rebellion was the Gorman massacre, which is in Tarkin lands. And Tarkin's the old guy in the Death Star in A New Hope, Right? Like, he's the guy who's Darth Vader's boss in the first movie, and he lands a craft on a crowd at Gorman, and that's supposed to have been one of the major sparks. And they've retconned it a little, but to the point where that still happened. But it's clearly the setup for a larger massacre that this season is building, building towards.
- [133:22]
Host 4
Yeah, man. Space. Fox News. Very good. We see the Ministry of Enlightenment's efforts to. To weaponize public opinion and how much it's working on. On someone. On someone like Cyril's mother, who. Who then becomes convinced that, like, the propaganda that she's being fed is stuff that she, like, already believed. Absolutely right. Is. Is stuff that she. She's, like, retconned into her own memory of being like, no, Like, I've. I've always never trusted the gore.
- [133:46]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [133:47]
Host 4
Meanwhile, she's, like, sitting in front of her, like, TV like, 24 7, watching this, like, garbage get beamed into her brain.
- [133:55]
Host 2
And I'm wondering, did y' all wonder for a second if Cyril was legitimately getting pilled by the Gorman resistance? Yeah.
- [134:01]
Host 4
Cause it's.
- [134:01]
Host 2
It's good, right? There's like, that moment you're like, well, fuck is he. Is our boy, like, starting to have a break already? And then you realize, like, no, that's.
- [134:09]
Host 4
That's what we're getting. Like, that's kind of what's being set up, is like, how, like, will. Will this experience for Cyril, like, change him as a person? And, like, I think, yeah, the audience is meant to not. Not fully know. And I. I think. I think it's. It's definitely, like, possible, but. But Cyril might be more of a hard ass than what some people give him credit for.
- [134:28]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [134:28]
Host 4
Because he is. He's very excited to get invited to this meeting. He purchases a spider from one of, like, the Gorman front, like, recruiters that has information on how to. How to go to this, like, public town hall where he talks about, hey, you know, if maybe. Maybe we can start working together. Maybe I can start feeding information. One point, hilariously, he gets. He gets Accused of being an imperial spy in like a joking manner.
- [134:49]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [134:51]
Host 4
And denies it. And then he gets on the phone with his ISP girlfriend. He's like, I'm in.
- [134:56]
Host 6
This is one of the first times we see this the Gorman friend people. These people have no idea what the fuck they're doing. They are amateurs.
- [135:03]
Host 4
They are like very green.
- [135:04]
Host 6
Yeah. Like their operational security is unbelievably dog shit. They like wiretapped one guy and were like, hey, let me introduce you to the leader of our organization. We have met you one time. We have listened to one phone call you're in now.
- [135:19]
Host 2
I think they probably listened to more.
- [135:21]
Host 4
Than one, but they've definitely been watching him for a while.
- [135:24]
Host 6
Him much? They just were kind of like, hey, you're gonna like meet our leader now at the first meeting you've shown up to.
- [135:31]
Host 4
He meant like the public facing aspect of it, I guess.
- [135:34]
Host 2
Yeah. You can see the Gorman. Like, they have some degree of sophistication in that they're tapping like him. And they've been listening probably for quite a while. And they sweep their shit every day for bugs. So you understand that, like, they have an idea of what they need to be doing. But when it comes to all of the in person stuff. Yeah, that's where they're incompetent. Right. Where they don't have the actual operational experience to know when someone feels off. Right. Like, that's the stuff that they're missing. Like man to man on the ground is where the problems come in. Like, you can tell they're thinking this stuff through, but they just don't know what they're doing enough.
- [136:10]
Host 6
And this is, this is the thing you. I mean, this is the thing you genuinely. You run into like in the field a lot where there's people who like, have read a lot of stuff about operational security but haven't done anything. And so they don't under. And there's, there's varying levels of this, right. But you get this to do people where it's like they don't know what the important things are. So they do some of the stuff, right, that they've read, but they don't understand how to put all of it together to like do something securely. And so you'll get these things where like, some of their stuff is like unbelievably secure to a point where it's useless. And then some of it is like, very open. Yeah, yeah. They're just like, hey, have. I don't know. Yeah, they'll just bring people into stuff that instantly compromises everything that they're doing because they haven't, like, thought it through.
- [136:52]
Host 4
Yeah. I mean, and this is something that. That Cassian talks about in the next episode, which we will get to shortly.
- [136:57]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [136:58]
Host 4
I mean, so much of these episodes is built around, like, paranoia and, like, surveillance. Like, Cassian's talking about not wanting to go, like, on a walk in the park because the Empire just put up cameras.
- [137:07]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [137:08]
Host 4
He's nervous about, like, where they go grocery shopping. Like, he's. He's trying to, like, do everything right, but it's. It's like hurting his relationship with Bix. And it's just making their life, like, very, very challenging on Coruscant as they're, like, stationed there in between missions. Like, meanwhile, like, Luthen is just trying to gain as much information on Gorman as possible. He has a line that I like, a smear campaign is an opening move, not an end game. I need the end game game.
- [137:32]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [137:32]
Host 4
Talking about, like, the limits of, you know, the Empire's Fox News style propaganda is. Is only. Is only like a starting position. Like, this is obviously leading somewhere, and I need to know where that is. And he's gonna obtain that information slowly over the course of the next few episodes. And then I think the other thing I want to talk about before we go on break is Mon Mothma's lobbying against, like, the prison sentencing guidelines. She says, quote, sector boundaries, civil liberties, personal freedom, respect for local traditions. You've been voting with me on these issues for years. And the Gorman senator replies, this is security. Mon, you're confusing criminality and politics here. Mon says, really? Are we finding criminals or are we making them? Yeah, this is where you see senators parroting, like, fake crime stats about how there's been, like, you know, this increased huge surge.
- [138:23]
Host 2
But that's not true. Yeah, because.
- [138:25]
Host 4
Just because. Just because they're arresting more people, so that makes there be more crime. And like, you see this, this in season one, where Cassian's arrested at the Beach Planet for, like, no reason and then sentenced to the forever prison.
- [138:35]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [138:36]
Host 4
Like, yeah, they are arresting more people. So if you just look at those stats by itself, without any context on, like, how. How other policing is working, then, yeah, it can look a certain way. And this is what Mon's trying to, like, push back on. And. And the other senators are just too, too, like, bought into the Empire or. Or too scared. Like, the Gorman senator believes that voting against the Emperor at this point point would further endanger his planet.
- [138:57]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [138:58]
Host 4
Even though this type of thing is actually going to end up biting him in the ass in the next few years.
- [139:02]
Host 2
Yes. And yeah, he is like, very much desperate to like. No, please, we can calm this down if we just don't piss the Empire off enough.
- [139:10]
Host 6
No, the thing I think is actually is interesting about the crime statistics stuff is that this is actually a more sophisticated operation than what happened in real life, where in real life all the actual crime statistics were like, crime is falling. But everyone just kept saying there was more crime.
- [139:23]
Host 4
Totally. Totally.
- [139:24]
Host 6
This is like arresting more people to jack the crime rates. That is a more sophisticated thing than what we actually dealt with, which was the media just lying.
- [139:33]
Host 4
No, our, our own version of this.
- [139:35]
Host 2
Our.
- [139:35]
Host 4
Our not outer space version of like propaganda news media can just say something and you don't even need the stats to back it up.
- [139:42]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [139:42]
Host 4
Let's go and break and we'll come back to talk about episode five. I have friends everywhere.
- [139:57]
Host 2
Ah. And we're back. Yeah. So, yeah, let's start with the summary of this episode.
- [140:05]
Host 4
All right. Luthen wants a first person assessment of the Gorman front, but he's like, too high profile to go himself, so he sends Cassian undercover as fashion designer Varian Sky. The ISB stages a performative raid of Cyril Karn's office to gain more cred with local rebels as Cyril begins to feed them select information.
- [140:25]
Host 2
And he does such a good job of seeming pissed at it.
- [140:28]
Host 4
Oh, yeah, he, he, he loves, he loves pretending to be pissed at the isb. He has so much fun kicking his little trash can across the room. This is outrageous. Yeah, very good stuff. And I, I do like, like, yeah, like the weaponization of, like, state repression as a tactic to actually increase state repression, like, long term. Doing this, like, performative show so that Cyril, like, builds trust and, like, solidarity with the other rebels. Very good. Luthen visits Bix at the safe house and grows concerned for her well being as she uses space drugs to cope with trauma.
- [141:01]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [141:01]
Host 4
Cyril arrives back on Coruscant to report to ISB command. Has a one hour meeting with his girlfriend where they turn off the lights.
- [141:09]
Host 2
Yeah. After arguing. Because she's had him followed after arguing.
- [141:15]
Host 4
Yeah, He's a little bit pissed that she's having him followed and then she orders him to turn off the lights and then they do something for an hour in their apartment.
- [141:22]
Host 2
God only knows.
- [141:24]
Host 4
I don't want to know. I don't want to know what they.
- [141:26]
Host 2
Get up to, these fascist weirdos.
- [141:29]
Host 4
But at ISV command, they plan how to, like, carefully push the Gorman Front into taking action against the Empire. Cassian makes contact on Gorman and is unimpressed with their operational security and warns against trusting an Imperial source, as the ISB could be feeding false intel.
- [141:46]
Host 2
Some of the best moments in this episode so far because it's. It's. They don't know shit about Cassian, so they don't know who they're talking to. And when he's like, you guys shouldn't do fuck right now because you don't know shit about fuck, they're like, well, you're not a real revolutionary.
- [142:02]
Host 4
You don't get it. And, like, honestly, I understand what. What's being expressed there too. And, like, we'll get to that in a sec. Like, the Gorman Front is adamant that their source is vetted and reliable, even though they haven't really been vetted. The plan is. Is that the Resistance seeks to expose the construction of an Imperial military base on Palmo, something that the Empire denies, though it seems most of the citizens actually already take this to be true and or questions the necessity of this plan. And relations sour with the group. Back on Coruscant, Clea learns through radia chatter that one of Luthen's listening devices may be discovered during an artifact reappraisal. Saw kills an Imperial spy and his crew forcibly recruits Willem. And while on mission installing a fuel diverter, Saw convinces Willem to huff the fuel fumes.
- [142:51]
Host 2
Yeah, we'll. We'll talk about that in a second.
- [142:54]
Host 4
I want to talk a little bit about, like, Cassian on Gorman.
- [142:57]
Host 2
Yes.
- [142:58]
Host 4
And there's. There's a lot of interesting stuff there. And, like, specifically when the Gorman Front leader, like, calls Cassian out for, like, not being a real, like, revolutionary, which I think is, like, kind of true. Like, Cassian at this point is a thief and a soldier. He thinks about things purely from that, like, operationally, like. Like, tactical point of view. He doesn't have, like, a larger, like, politics. He's, like, focused on. Right. Like. Like, Luthen is more of, like, a revolutionary, a very, like, manipulative one. But, like, he is focused on, like, this, like, larger political game. And this is something that, at this point, Cassian's not fully, like, interested in. He's more interested in, like, on the ground, like, tactical preparedness.
- [143:33]
Host 2
He is interested in what he can do and get away with.
- [143:37]
Host 4
Right, exactly.
- [143:38]
Host 2
As opposed to Luthen is interested in what does more damage to the Empire. Now, what's interesting to me is that the Gorman Front are actually in the middle. They think that they are willing to do whatever. But they don't understand what that is. And part of what you are seeing here is the Gorman front are adamant we are ready for war. We're already in a war. Yeah, and they're not technically wrong about that because the Empire is planning to wipe them out. Right. We know the Empire does not plan for there to be a Gorman in the future. So the stakes are where they're saying they are. But even though they're saying that, most of them don't truly believe or understand it. And Cassian understands what war is. And what he is telling them is that you are. And he's right about this. You are not ready for what you think you're ready for.
- [144:27]
Host 4
Yeah, totally.
- [144:28]
Host 2
Because what you're going to do is die. All of you.
- [144:31]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [144:32]
Host 4
That's what makes all their interactions so interesting. Because there is that unspoken tension which slowly gets, like, aired. Because, like, they're really assessing different things. Like, what Cassian's assessing is different from what Lucin wants assessed. And that's different from what the Gorman front actually, like, want to do. Like, they're okay with the degree of casualties, like, being had because they just want to, like, have control over their planet again and put up any resistance, even if it ends up up, like, leading to hardship.
- [144:55]
Host 6
But I think the other angle of that too, though, is that, like, they don't know what they're doing, right?
- [145:00]
Host 4
No, like, they like their plan.
- [145:02]
Host 6
Their plan is genuinely really bad. Right. Like, the plan is they want to, like, steal an Imperial weapons shipment and then reveal that the Empire shipping weapons in. But if you do that, then you just like. And Andrew points. It sounds like, okay, so if you. If you do this, then you reveal that you did. You hijacked the shipment. So they're just going to, like, raid you all.
- [145:22]
Host 4
And they're okay with that?
- [145:23]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah.
- [145:24]
Host 4
But like. And they're like, okay with that visibility at this point.
- [145:27]
Host 2
And there's this. This very standard. It's also this very common. And this is part of what Cassian recognizes. This common myopic thing that you get with people who, again, think they want a war that they don't truly understand the meaning of. Where they're like, we need. We need weapons. And when they think of weapons, they think of guns that they can hold. And so that's what they're focused on getting. And that's what they think will let them fight the Empire. When Cassidy understands there's no fighting the Empire with what you can possibly get from a raid like this. All there is is Suicide. And then there's the other level of. What Luthen understands is so the fuck what.
- [146:03]
Host 4
Sometimes that needs to happen.
- [146:05]
Host 2
What matters is that these people die in public and it pisses people off.
- [146:09]
Host 4
Yeah.
- [146:10]
Host 2
Right. And that's. There's this. There's this escalation of, like, the Gormans think having guns means you can fight back.
- [146:17]
Host 4
Or, like, guns. Guns means that they'll be safer.
- [146:19]
Host 2
Right. And they're wrong. Cassian thinks staying alive for a future moment means that you can fight back. And he is wrong. Luthen understands that the only ammunition that really counts in this war is human life.
- [146:32]
Host 4
And that sucks.
- [146:34]
Host 2
And that sucks. That's why he's lost his mind and soul. Yes.
- [146:38]
Host 4
And that's why people are starting to really, like, dislike working with him.
- [146:41]
Host 2
Yes. Because he's.
- [146:42]
Host 4
Even though he might not be, like, completely wrong here.
- [146:44]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [146:45]
Host 4
I like so much. This episode is built around finding bugs.
- [146:48]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [146:48]
Host 4
The ISB looks for bugs in Cyril's office. The ISB's planting bugs in Cyril's office. Bugs are hidden in the artifacts that Luthen's selling to high society. Everyone's listening. Everyone's always. Everyone's trying to collect more intel.
- [147:00]
Host 2
And there's this. This. This issue the Empire and Luthen's organization are having with, like, we're getting too much. You know, the. The Empire's like, we're wasting too many people. Like, number one. It's like, cutting into our ability to get into these organizations. And it also is just like, we're drowning. And Luthen. Same thing. I'm always spacing on her name, but she's wonderful to his. His. His comments, lady. Like, we're drowning. We have too much shit.
- [147:25]
Host 4
Yeah. Something I. I love is when. When Cyril's talking with the Gorman Front about the ISB raid of his office, the Gorman Front remarks, quote, we think the ISB is running a shadow government without the Emperor's knowledge.
- [147:37]
Host 2
Yes.
- [147:38]
Host 4
Yes, unquote.
- [147:39]
Host 2
And it's a real. You hear this when you read about histories of, like, czarist Russia, like, mo. Even a lot of people who take. Take part in the 1917 Revolution. Right. Right up till it started, their attitude was like, oh, if the Tsar knew what his advisors were doing in his name, he'd be on our side. And the same thing happened in the Third Reich. If only Hitler knew was a common phrase. We're like, well, Hitler, who doesn't know that Gestapo is doing all these awful things? Of course.
- [148:02]
Host 4
And it's. It's so sad because, like, this Is this is their, like, local, like, resistance group who. Who still has that level of delusion. Because they come from, like, high society.
- [148:10]
Host 2
Right.
- [148:10]
Host 4
They come from this, like, diplomatic background where they can, like, solve. Solve things through, like, free trade. And they're like, like, sure. Surely. Surely the Emperor doesn't actually know what's going on here. It must. It must be, like, the CIA. It must be the FBI. It's like the ISB is running a shadow government. They're the ones that are actually, like, ruining things.
- [148:26]
Host 2
Yes.
- [148:27]
Host 4
And you're like, no, your enemy is the entire Empire. Yes. Your enemy is the isb, but it's also Cyril Karn, and it's also Emperor Palpatine.
- [148:35]
Host 2
Yes. And I love. That's part of what I love about that.
- [148:38]
Host 1
That.
- [148:38]
Host 2
That laddered interaction between them and Cassian. And Cassian and Luthen is they're not really revolutionaries either. They. They are protesters, Right?
- [148:48]
Host 4
Totally.
- [148:48]
Host 2
They still think that the overall empire, once it realizes how bad things are, will be on their side. And Cassian thinks they can wait. Yeah, it's. It's Luthen who's like, no, no, no. There's one way out, right? You know, back. Going back to season one, there's one way out.
- [149:04]
Host 4
Before we talk about the Saw Gerrera stuff at the end, I do want to point out how wonderful it was to see Cyril Karn in the ISB control room, where he remarks that this is the greatest day of his life.
- [149:16]
Host 2
Oh, God, it's just amazing.
- [149:18]
Host 6
Gordon Livy.
- [149:19]
Host 3
Shit.
- [149:19]
Host 6
It's like Libby finally getting to spy.
- [149:22]
Host 2
And Partagas even makes that great comment where he's directly talking about the Gorman front. And he's like, yeah, there's a lot of people who think they understand shit better than they do because they're new to it. But he's also clearly talking to Cyril like, you don't know what you're doing, but I'll use you. Fine.
- [149:40]
Host 4
It's so good. Cyril gains cred amongst the Gorman Front when they find out that his background is that he lost his job because the ISB found out how badly he fucked up. F. They're like, ah, I see. Cyril must have good reason to hate the Empire because of this. And you're like, no, you stupid fuckers. He's desperately trying to, like, become some, like, ISP secret agent.
- [150:03]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [150:04]
Host 4
Like, he. He just wants approval from, like, the.
- [150:07]
Host 2
Daddy state, like, and from his girlfriend. Right. Who has taken over for his mom in being, like, the primary source, the person he's trying to impress.
- [150:16]
Host 4
The Last thing I want to talk about in this episode is this episode displays like two different types of drug use.
- [150:21]
Host 3
Yes.
- [150:22]
Host 4
We have, we, we have Bix, who's trying to get over the immense amount of fucked up stuff that's happened to her.
- [150:27]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [150:28]
Host 4
By taking space Zen, if you will.
- [150:30]
Host 2
She's barred out every night holding a gun, watching tv and.
- [150:34]
Host 5
Yeah.
- [150:35]
Host 2
And it's like, who amongst us?
- [150:38]
Host 4
It is disrupting her personal life. It's also disrupting her like, operational capacity.
- [150:43]
Host 2
She has been sent out in the recent past and she can't be sent back out again. And the specific. We don't even see the mission that most recently fucked her up. But we're through her nightmares. We're led to infer she and Cassian captured an Imperial pilot and Cassian killed the guy because he'd seen her face. And she's, in addition to having been tortured in season one, fucked up because like, we didn't need to kill him. And Cassian's like, yeah, we did. Like he saw your face. That's it.
- [151:12]
Host 4
The weight of resistance is really getting to Bix.
- [151:14]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [151:14]
Host 4
And like, like Lutheran comes over to like check on her and also like, see if she's able to like work, see if she can like appraise some like, weapons or something. And he realizes like, she is not like well enough to work at this point.
- [151:26]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [151:27]
Host 4
And becomes like getting worried for her and tries to plead with her. You have to make sure that you stay healthy. I don't know. It's definitely hard to watch. I think this is definitely this moment. It's like, I don't know. Bix has always had a lot of agency taken away from her. We see this in season one and we see this kind of now. And I definitely would like to see her get put back in the driver's seat of her own life at a certain point. But like, like, like living through like PTSD and living through like these types of like, you know, political movements does, does like destroy people and like this does happen.
- [151:59]
Host 2
Well. And just what torture does. Right? Like.
- [152:02]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah.
- [152:03]
Host 2
Torture breaks people. That's its purpose, you know.
- [152:06]
Host 4
So we have Space Xanax and then we have Saw Gerrera.
- [152:09]
Host 2
Yeah, we fucking do. So let's. I want to talk a little bit about his background, some stuff that's not in the show. In the show you see him when, when he is already basically the hardest son of a bitch in the rebel rebellion. Right. He is the only leader of a rebel faction that Luthen treats as an equal. Right. Where like Luthen is meeting with him. We see Lutheran meeting with him directly. Luthen is not willing to sacrifice he and his men in, like, in order to maintain the COVID of a spy, which he is.
- [152:35]
Host 4
Yeah. Because they're, like, serious militants.
- [152:37]
Host 2
Yeah, they. They are serious, and they're. And every time we see them, there's more of them, and they have more ships. They're the first ones. They're the first rebels to use X.
- [152:44]
Host 4
First ones to have X wings.
- [152:45]
Host 2
Yeah. And Saw's background, and you have this is way a bunch of the expanded stuff, but he. He started out as essentially a local rebel on this planet during the Clone wars that was not aligned between either major faction. But basically, the Jedi, taking the role of space CIA, armed him and his sister to lead, like, a rebel group against the other power they were fighting.
- [153:09]
Host 4
In the Clone wars occupation, like Separatist.
- [153:12]
Host 2
He was meant to be Mujahideen, Coded. Right. Initially. Right. So he's like a space Mujahideen who's armed by the space CIA who are the Jedi. And then when the Republic ends, he immediately starts fighting the Empire. And one of the kind of, like, moments that form Saw is his sister dies in the process of this failed attempt to gain independence for their homeworld, this place called Onderon. Right. You don't need to know any of that to perfectly get and enjoy his character in these shows. But the moment that we're atomic talk about. To talk about means more if you understand his backstory with his sister. Right.
- [153:46]
Host 4
Yeah. And. And. And he's been doing this ever since he was, like, a kid. Like.
- [153:49]
Host 2
Yes. And, yeah. This has been his whole life. Right. I. I think he's supposed to be, like, 46 when he dies in Rogue One.
- [153:55]
Host 4
Hard 46.
- [153:57]
Host 2
If you look at him, you know, he looks clearly older, but also he looks like. Well, yeah, he's been fighting his entire life, that age, like a teenager. And he has this. So the first thing that he does is he executes this guy who was set up as his friend. When it becomes clear that that guy was a spy, and it's insinuated he thinks it's a spy for the Empire. That guy might have been a spy for Luthen or someone else. We don't actually know. We know he was sending info to.
- [154:22]
Host 4
Someone he was transmitting.
- [154:24]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [154:24]
Host 4
Saw thinks that they were going to set up, like, an ambush at their next mission.
- [154:28]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [154:28]
Host 4
And instead they evacuate their base, and.
- [154:31]
Host 2
Saw blasts him and basically says, hey to the kid. You're mine now, and we're Gonna go steal this fucking fuel. So the next time we see them, they've. They've busted onto this Imperial fuel lot and they're fueling up their ships. And while the kid is like, working out to set this thing up to allow them to take the. The, the Ribo, which is the Rhydonium. Rhydonium. Rhino. Sorry, the starship fuel. While the kid is like, doing this job, we've been told if you don't do it perfectly, it kills you. And everyone around you saw is monologuing. And he's talking about his childhood where he was like, I was a child slave, you know, forced to labor in these Rhino mines, right? And one day there was a gas leak and all. Everyone ran. And, you know, this stuff, it was so bad out there. The old people would die and you'd come back the next day and the jungle was so thick they'd been eaten down to bones. And one day everybody has to flee because of this leak. But I don't run away because, like, I'm huffing this gas. I get high and I like, realize for the first time I'm alive, you know, he has this, like, this moment and then when the kid figures out how to get the fuel hooked up, Saw immediately leans in and starts huffing what is effectively gasoline and going. And the kid's like, what the fuck? The kid who's wearing a gas mask. Who's like, wearing a gas mask. It's like, what are you doing? And he's like, she's my sister, right? O, she's my sister and she loves me.
- [155:52]
Host 4
I want to read it. Here. I have, I have this back of the monologue quote.
- [155:56]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [155:56]
Host 4
You feel how badly she wants to explode.
- [155:59]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [155:59]
Host 4
Remember this moment. You think I'm crazy. Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us. Unloved, hunted, cannon fodder. We'll all be dead before the Republic is back. And yet here we are. Where are you, boy? You're here. You're not with Luthen. You're here. You're right here and you're ready to fight. We're the Rhino kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. Let it in, boy. That's freedom calling. Let it in, let it run, let it run wild.
- [156:27]
Host 2
And he is, just for one thing.
- [156:30]
Host 4
The kid is choking on the.
- [156:32]
Host 2
On the fuse, is nearly dying from the gas fumes that clearly saw is barely affected by anymore, right? It's again, this thing I love that they do in terms of. They're calling back to the older lore when he calls this his sister. But you don't need to know that his sister died to get this moment. It just makes. It adds an extra layer of meaning if you're a nerd for the lore, which I appreciate it. Initiate a lot. And it also sets up in Rogue One when we see Saw near death, he's huff. He's on. He's on oxygen. He's. Well, I think he's on O2 because he's destroyed his lungs. Huffing.
- [157:05]
Host 4
He's huffing this now. This is what he's huffing. That has been like. Like Retconned.
- [157:11]
Host 2
Is it confirmed it wasn't oxygen? Okay.
- [157:12]
Host 4
Yes. Bo, the writer.
- [157:15]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [157:15]
Host 4
Called Tony Gilroy and said, hey, what if we have him huff and fume? And they went for it.
- [157:21]
Host 2
Well, yeah, but I. But I think that was to try to explain because. Because Tony said he didn't know why Saul was on oxygen when he put it in Rogue One. And I. So they. They came to explain it, but I think he's on oxygen because I think.
- [157:33]
Host 4
It'S been Retconned to being that he's just huffing. Right.
- [157:36]
Host 2
Is he just huffing right out? I don't know. Okay.
- [157:37]
Host 4
I saw it in an article, you know.
- [157:38]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [157:39]
Host 4
So either way, we'll see. We'll see. I could be wrong. I was wrong last week about one thing. I miscredited the quote about. About the Empire's great grip tightening and systems falling through. Because the theory Twinks, British actor has a. Has an accent very similar to the one Carrie Fisher poorly tries to imitate in A New Hope, where she says that line. So sorry, George. Sorry, George. That was your line. Good line. The theory Twink just has some very similar ones. So I got confused. Accountability.
- [158:08]
Host 2
Wow. Mean to Carrie Fisher Garrison.
- [158:10]
Host 4
Everyone knows her accents bad in that movie. We all know it.
- [158:15]
Host 2
I fucking love this speech by Sarah.
- [158:18]
Host 4
Oh, yeah. This is the most Robert thing I've ever seen.
- [158:20]
Host 2
Yeah, it's. It's perfect. It's perfect. Everything about it makes me so happy. Bo Williman continues to be, like, maybe the best monologist writing for TV right now. It's just such a raw scene. And explains both, like, why Saw is still around because he's the most paranoid, crazy son of a bitch there is. And because he, unlike everyone else and unlike the. The Gormans, unlike even Cassian, he's the only guy who understands what Luthen understands, which is that, like, we're not here to see the other side of this. We're here to catch on fire. You know, like, that's. That's the whole thing.
- [158:55]
Host 4
And hopefully that fire will grow.
- [158:57]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [158:57]
Host 4
And. Yeah, if that means we get burned up in the process, that is. That's how it be.
- [159:01]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [159:02]
Host 4
If the fire will burn very brightly.
- [159:03]
Host 2
Yes.
- [159:04]
Host 4
All right, let's go and break and then come back to discuss the final episode in this arc.
- [159:12]
Host 3
Foreign.
- [159:20]
Host 4
What a festive evening. Luthen sends Mon Mothma's cousin Val to re establish relations with the Gorman Front. After Cassian's icy reception, Cassian and Bix reunite on Coruscant. But then Cassian shows up at Luthen's shop to confront him about checking in on Bix at the safe house while Andor was on mission in a possibly, like, opsec. Irresponsible.
- [159:43]
Host 2
Huge opsecup.
- [159:44]
Host 4
Huge opsecup.
- [159:45]
Host 2
Cassian Andor's face is known. Yeah.
- [159:48]
Host 4
Not. Not good. This is like Cassian's emotions getting the better of him. Here, Senator Mon Mothma and her husband Perrin attend a party of the Empire's elite, where she debates Krennic on Imperial cruelty and the mindset of a rebel underdog. Meanwhile, Clea uses their undercover ISB agent to help remove a Listening Devil device hidden in the Price collection of artifacts. Vel reunites with Cinta as they help to lead the Gorman Front's first attack, stealing Imperial weapons on a cargo transport. At first, things go according to plan. Cyril watches from a distance and reports to ISB headquarters.
- [160:21]
Host 2
We should note ahead of this that during the meeting where they had about this one point that they had made is none of you have guns. None of you carry guns. On this, me and her are the only people with blasters. You don't need them. You're not competent to use them.
- [160:36]
Host 4
Yeah. So near the end of this operation, a civilian confronts the rebels about what they're doing. And in the struggle, Cinta is accidentally shot and killed by one of the members of the Gorman Front, a guy named Sam with two M's. I love Star Wars. This episode ends with Bix and Cassian going on a mission to kill the imperial interrogation expert Dr. Gorst, which they succeed and then walk away heroically from the explosion.
- [161:02]
Host 2
Similar to kill him by torturing him the way he tortured her.
- [161:06]
Host 6
Yeah. And then they blow him up.
- [161:07]
Host 4
Then they blow up the building and they play the music cue from the very first arc, the very first season, where Cassian is walking away with that fast drum beat. So this episode has so much about relationships complicating political activity. Right. We have Andor and Bix. We have the lesbians, Val and Senta.
- [161:27]
Host 6
They killed my lesbian.
- [161:28]
Host 4
They did kill your lesbian. They killed my lesbian. We'll talk about that in a second.
- [161:32]
Host 6
Later.
- [161:32]
Host 4
Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
- [161:33]
Host 2
Sec.
- [161:33]
Host 4
They. They also have, they also have Cyril and Dedra. We have like, like a lot of, A lot of like how relationships and politics like function, how, where there's friction when things can go well, when things can go bad. Let's talk, I guess a little bit about this party where, where, where Luthen talks with Credit very, very briefly and at the end, I mean, this is, this is a very effective scene where they like build tension with Claire trying to remove this bug while Krennic's like in the room seeing, seeing these other artifacts and it's like debating Mon. But when, when Lutheran and Cleia leave, they jokingly remark, so good man, we should have killed Credit when we were up there. And they laugh and you're like, yeah, no, you guys should have. That's not a joke.
- [162:19]
Host 2
You really should have killed Critic.
- [162:21]
Host 4
You really should have killed Critic. It would have fucked things up. But then the Death Star may not have been completed.
- [162:27]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [162:27]
Host 4
And this whole thing would have gone differently. Although, you know, you know, in, in a way, the Death Star operation does lead to the fall of the Empire in like a paradoxical.
- [162:36]
Host 6
Like, to be fair, they don't know that exists.
- [162:42]
Host 4
But he's like, he's like, he's like a super high up guy.
- [162:44]
Host 2
Yes.
- [162:45]
Host 4
And man. Yeah, that is tough. That's. That's a tough scene.
- [162:47]
Host 2
It's a tough. What's also, what's interesting is that it's a tough scene in light of the rest of the lore. It's a really nice. Because they've been fighting, waiting, bickering for this whole cycle of episodes and like you're. Things are breaking down and this is a moment where like they get back on the same page and you're like, tension eases.
- [163:03]
Host 6
Yeah, well, because part of it, because like part of what's going on here is like Lutheran is losing it. Right. And this is the thing because like he's, he's juggling too many threads. And like, yeah, you. Everyone's seen this. Like, yeah, your friend is juggling 15 projects at once. They're losing their goddamn minds. And then like the, the, the. The girl in your group was on top of it, has to just slap them and be like, lock the in.
- [163:22]
Host 4
Yeah. No, Clea is a scary monster. She is on it.
- [163:25]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [163:25]
Host 2
Well, it's made really clear in these cycles, she is not his subordinate.
- [163:30]
Host 4
Oh, no, they are, they are handling.
- [163:32]
Host 2
Very different parts of the operation. But she is not working under him.
- [163:37]
Host 3
No.
- [163:38]
Host 6
And she is, like, the one who, like, is, is the reason any of this shit works.
- [163:40]
Host 4
Absolutely.
- [163:41]
Host 6
And it's like, that's a thing you see very often.
- [163:43]
Host 2
There's a line in season one where things are looking bad for them. And he specifically asks her, is your go bag already? And he doesn't check his own. So he. I think he understands if one of us has to get out, it should be you.
- [163:55]
Host 4
She has to survive. Yeah, totally.
- [163:57]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [163:58]
Host 4
And I think that is, that is where things are gonna, are gonna be moving.
- [164:01]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [164:01]
Host 4
Yeah. I mean, when, when Cassian's coming back from Gorman, like, Lutheran picks him up and, and they start, like, arguing over, like, is the Gorman front, like, a real thing to, like, spend effort and, like, time on? Like, they're kind of all, like, like, green. They don't really have good opsec. They're not, they're just not like, ready yet.
- [164:16]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [164:17]
Host 4
And, and, and Lutheran pushes back and, and says to Cassian, like, you're thinking small. You're thinking like a thief. And Cassian rebuts like, no, I'm thinking like a soldier. And Lutheran, you're not that either. You, you have to think like a leader. You have to actually. And like, from Luton's point of view, a leader is like, a very, like, manipulative role. And like, like, you, you have to start using these guys as pawns for this, like, larger game. Because the empire is bigger than just Gorman. The empire is bigger than us. We. We have to think bigger. You, you can't just, you can't just think like a, you know, a small illegalist who's gonna steal your food and, and not pay for parking and, and just, like, get by while still doing crime, but, like, you know, try to, like, outsmart the empire. He's like, no, like, we, we are, we are, we are beyond that.
- [164:59]
Host 2
We ain't robbing banks anymore.
- [165:02]
Host 4
Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, we are beyond the illegalist, like, point of view. We have to start thinking, like, much more, more, much more, like, strategically and with, like, the bigger picture in mind because, like, we are, we are slowly getting closer to the battle of Yavin here.
- [165:15]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [165:16]
Host 4
And I, I, I find their little argument there really interesting. And, and then their secondary meetup where, where Cassian's mad about Luth and checking in on Bix, and I think, like, I can understand both their point of view here is this. I, I think this is still a big fuck up from Cassian, but it's like, it makes sense. But like, yeah, the, the relationship's getting like the better of him on like a strategic. Strategic standpoint. Like at, at this, at this plot point. And Lutheran still trusts them though. Like, Luthen still gives them the assignment to kill Dr. Gorst. So like, Luthen still is able to work with these people and he still actually, like, oddly enough, like, prioritizes empathy and like, says like, like, like empathy. Like you. You can. You cannot have a. You cannot have a revolution without empathy. That's what this is built on. And, and, and even though he's a bit of a hard ass sometimes, he still does like, trust them.
- [166:01]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [166:02]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [166:02]
Host 7
But he's.
- [166:02]
Host 6
He also is deliberately fucking with him. Like, like one of the things.
- [166:05]
Host 4
Yeah, totally. He's very manipulated.
- [166:07]
Host 6
Like, he's like, he's being unbelievably native. Like, like one of like one of the things here is like, he deliberately gives Bix. Tells Bix about this assignment that he was going to give her and then doesn't specifically to see if she would tell andor about it and test how Andor would react to that, which is like, don't do that. That's unhinged. Like, that's like not. And this is like also part of like, you know, the thing you have to like, balance here, right? Is like, like, you know, you have to be able to balance like getting people to do things that need to be done with like not being a fucking asshole and alienating everyone. And this is like a. Especially when you yourself. Because like, Luthen is also falling apart in the.
- [166:44]
Host 4
He's not going to change. He's not. He's never going to change.
- [166:46]
Host 2
Yeah, no, he's not changing the thing though. That's not his job. Right. His job was to make the later stages of this, where people act differently inevitable.
- [166:57]
Host 4
Totally.
- [166:57]
Host 2
And he understands that you need something that horrifies people to do that. Right. Like, and that's. That's all he's trying to set up.
- [167:05]
Host 4
Luthen is absolutely, like, immoral. Very manipulative. I am, I am still. I'm still Team Luthien 100. Even though he, like, sucks as a dude. Like, I would hate to work with him.
- [167:15]
Host 6
Yeah, well, it's like.
- [167:16]
Host 4
But like, I still gotta be team Lutheran in the end.
- [167:19]
Host 6
Yeah. Well, I would just say like, like, if the thing is like, if you try to act like this in like an actual organizing space, this isn't going to work. You're just going to put.
- [167:30]
Host 2
He's not that kind.
- [167:31]
Host 4
He's not in organizing.
- [167:32]
Host 6
He's not doing that.
- [167:33]
Host 2
Right, That's.
- [167:34]
Host 6
That's what I'm saying, though. Right, Right.
- [167:35]
Host 7
Like.
- [167:35]
Host 6
Like this. This works because of the exact specific thing that he's doing, which is he is the guy who was coordinating a bunch of networks. The thing is, in order for networks to hold together and work, people have to have relationships with each other.
- [167:46]
Host 5
Yeah.
- [167:46]
Host 6
And if you behave like this in that situation, it will fuck everything. And this is the conflict that's happening, like, even inside of his own limited network, is that like he's. He is, like, fucking with everyone? And we'll get to that with the lesbians, too.
- [168:01]
Host 2
You see how. You see the different levels at which networks work here. Like, the Gorman Front works because they're all friends and neighbors who care about each other. Right? And that's why they are able, like, real tactile solidarity. And they're able to stick together even though they're not. They don't have. Have perfect competence. We see Saw's group where someone made the comment that, like, well, he's basically a fascist. And because of, like, the hold he has on his group, which is not what I saw at all. I saw as soon as he shoots.
- [168:28]
Host 4
He'S a cult leader, possibly, but he's not a fascist.
- [168:31]
Host 2
He has to prove to the rest of his group that guy was a spy and needed to die. And once he does, they're like, all right, well, back to the job. Right?
- [168:39]
Host 4
I mean, yeah, no, but.
- [168:40]
Host 2
And he gets. He has to get. You know, he gets up as part of, like, the. Just the necessity of. It's. It's literally the only thing he has in between acts of terrifying violence. But that's how that group bands together. And then we see, you know, these smaller cells of experts, right, who. They have their connections with each other and they have their little moments of vengeance, and that's what keeps them going. And the only thing that keeps Luthen going is the pure lot logic of the calculus of what he's put together. That's all he's got.
- [169:12]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [169:13]
Host 4
Information. Collecting boyfriend. Always collecting information.
- [169:16]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [169:16]
Host 4
All right, let's talk about the space lesbians who are running the. The French Resistance. So I liked. I liked a lot of what they did with them this episode. I liked the. How they were, like, reuniting. I liked the way they talked about the on again, off again style of their relationship based on, like, having to live in this rebellion, like, life, like, they can't always see each other. They're always being moved around by Luthen. But they both specifically took this assignment hoping and like, and I think, like, knowing that it would mean that they could see each other. So I, I, I, I liked the development that we had with them as people who, like, are, like, in the same spaces but do not have the luxury of actually having, like, a life together at this point in time. They advise the little resistance group. They're, they're much more friendly than, than, than Cassian is.
- [170:06]
Host 6
They do come in and are like, all right, you, like, you people are amateur. You have to listen to every single thing.
- [170:11]
Host 2
Oh, yeah, no guns.
- [170:13]
Host 4
Yeah, it's like, no. Like, I guess they have more of a willingness to put up with the amateurs than Cassie does a little bit. I think, I think is, is kind of what's going on there. And, you know, they're hoping that after this mission's over, maybe they'll be able to spend more time together. And then Cinta does get killed. And I, I've seen a lot of criticism of this. I, I've seen people invoking like a, like a, like a barrier gaze type trope. And I don't think that's my personal outlook on what's going on here. I think a lot of people die throughout this show. We had Brasso die and this sort of thing, like, just, it happens.
- [170:49]
Host 2
That's, that's the point is, yes, she's really good. She's really good. She's incredibly skilled.
- [170:54]
Host 4
It feels so, like, purposeless and like, welcome to war. I think that is, yeah, that's the problem part of the point. And like, the upset, like a reaction that you have, I think is like, that's, that's showing, I think, the strength of, the strength of this. Like, it sucks to see a lesbian get killed, but I think we're seeing so many relationships, like, fall apart. We're seeing a lot of people get killed.
- [171:14]
Host 2
Brasso didn't die for any better reason. Right. This is just how war works.
- [171:18]
Host 6
No, I mean, I think, I think the reason, and this is an interesting part of this, I talked a bit about this last episode was like, this is the most, like, this is by far the most like, gay Star wars we've ever had.
- [171:28]
Host 2
Right.
- [171:29]
Host 6
And it's the most, like, I'm trying to think of the number of other.
- [171:31]
Host 2
Shows, the only time they didn't lean away from it or insinuate it.
- [171:35]
Host 6
Yeah, no, like, well, that was Kiss in this episode, and it's like I'm like genuinely like I'm like racking my brain. I'm trying to think of like the number of like major TV shows I have ever seen in my life where a non white lesbian gets to kiss someone. It's like not that high. And I think that's why people. Because like yeah, like this is, this is, this is an. This is the best representation of my culture. Which is like the leftist lesbians don't gonna see each other. It hur ever seen. And then it's like, yeah, and she fucking dies. It hurts.
- [172:00]
Host 4
It's like I think like we were able to watch these characters develop over the course of like a few arcs. Right. Like we, we saw these in the Aldani heist where they were like basically the only two people to survive besides Cassie. Like everyone else on that. On that heist died. Right?
- [172:14]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [172:15]
Host 4
So the lesbians made it out of that. They. They struggled to maintain their relationship in the interim as. As things happen. They had this emotional reunion here. I think, you know, you could. You could make an argument maybe it would be better to kill Val. But we've had more development with Val because of being related to Mon. So like. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. It is tough with like the disposability. But that is, that is that. That is a part of fighting in an environment like this.
- [172:42]
Host 2
Yeah. It's not that they're disposable. It's that combat is random like and fuck ups are random. Like this, this exact thing. Somebody screws up and shoots when they're not supposed to and the bullet doesn't stop. Stop happens all the goddamn time. And like it's part of what people up. If you talk to people about their. Who have war experiences, one of the things that'll someone up the most is watching someone they know and care about get turned into pink mist. And it's usually a situation where somebody hits or steps on or whatever an IED or takes a rocket at a bad time and there's this person that you knew and you care about and they're three dimensional to you and you probably plan to keep knowing them after the. And then they're just. And it just. It shatters people's minds and that's what happens. Like.
- [173:32]
Host 4
And like yeah, Val's little like speech to Sam afterwards. Being like you are. You now have to live your entire life knowing that you took this person away. And like every action you take for the rest of your life is going to be like it's going to be all all an attempt to, like, make up for this. Like, every. Every. Every Imperial you kill will just be one for Cinta.
- [173:51]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [173:51]
Host 4
Because, like, Cinta was, like, a professional. This is, like, the life that she led. Like, you will never be able to understand how important she was. You'll never be able to understand, like, how good she was at that.
- [173:58]
Host 2
This.
- [173:59]
Host 4
And you're like a, like, French kid.
- [174:00]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [174:01]
Host 4
Like, you don't know what you're doing, and now you have to spend your entire life making up for it. And it was a very hard speech, but I think Val did a really good job with that and, like, understanding, like, the political necessity of, like, you can't let this be, like, in vain either. Like, you have to, like, you have to use it making. Making his life, like, worthwhile now.
- [174:17]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [174:18]
Host 4
And I mean. Yeah, it's. It was rough. I mean, I would love. I would love more. More like gay characters living happy lives in Star wars, but. But we rarely see anyone living a happy life in Star Wars.
- [174:26]
Host 2
This is not about happy lives. I. Also.
- [174:28]
Host 4
That's not what we're seeing here.
- [174:29]
Host 2
I love the thing that doesn't get a huge amount of attention in these episodes, but is interesting to me is the guy that he was. He pulled that. Matt or whatever his name was.
- [174:38]
Host 4
Sam.
- [174:39]
Host 2
Sam Amma. The guy that Sammima. Sam with two S pulled his gun to try to stop is just this random Gorman dude who's like, hey, no, I'm not gonna, like, leave. This is like, my city. What are you doing here?
- [174:51]
Host 4
What's going on?
- [174:51]
Host 2
As soon as he realizes he carries her body, like, he goes with them, you know, and we. It's kind of unclear. Is he, like, some sort of spark, or is he literally a Gorman who at the whole time was looking for a way to get involved, and once he realized what was happening is like, yeah, these are my people. I'm with this.
- [175:06]
Host 6
Was that the guy from the meeting or was it a different. The one from the.
- [175:09]
Host 4
He wasn't the guy.
- [175:11]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [175:12]
Host 6
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [175:14]
Host 2
So I guess he just wasn't in the inner circle, but, like, he hops on, you know, now.
- [175:18]
Host 4
Yeah. But no, I. I do understand, like, the racial disposability and, like, the barrier, gays, like, aspect that could be read into this. So it's a tough thing to. To thread here. And I. I think if you view this in context of all of the people that we have seen, like, get killed, like the entire Aldani crew, like, Brasso, basically, you know, the droid from season one gets like abandoned on that planet. I think, like, it. It does. It does make sense, I think in that larger context. Context. I. I think there's a way that not everyone, like, has to die to lead to rogue One, like, besides Cassian.
- [175:53]
Host 2
No, not everyone.
- [175:54]
Host 4
But. But someone likes it. And like, frankly, like someone like Cinta, the type of militant she is, they do have a short lifespan. Like, that is. That is part of the specific thing Cinta is doing is like you burn fast and you burn bright and sometimes you will die in a way that's like, really purposeless. And that sucks. And that happens in war. That happens in like activist spaces. Like, that happens. That happens in the United States with people here. And often they are like, non white gay people.
- [176:23]
Host 2
Yep.
- [176:23]
Host 4
Like, that's what happened in Atlanta. So, like these, these things happen.
- [176:28]
Host 2
The number of people who committed suicide too, after 2020, you know, like. Yeah.
- [176:34]
Host 4
Do we have anything else you want to. Want to say, Mia? Do you have anything you want to close out on as the resident non white lesbian on the podcast?
- [176:42]
Host 6
They killed my lesbian.
- [176:45]
Host 2
So sad.
- [176:48]
Host 7
There aren't.
- [176:50]
Host 6
What is the next time I'm getting a non white lesbian in Star Wars? It's gonna like, I am going to be right, like raising a black flag over Shenzhen by the next time we get another one of these characters in this series.
- [177:00]
Host 4
You know, we had, we. We had a non white lesbian in acolyte who also talked.
- [177:06]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [177:06]
Host 4
And yep. I do not see people talking about the barrier gay st with the acolyte as much.
- [177:11]
Host 2
Well, nobody.
- [177:12]
Host 6
Because nobody was a shame because it wasn't bad. But.
- [177:15]
Host 4
And I think it's also worth. I think it's also worth remembering like, like this is. This is a show starring like a non white leading role. Like, like Cassie Cassian is not white.
- [177:23]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [177:23]
Host 4
So I think the racial politics are a little bit. A little bit more. More complex, I think what some people are discussing. But yeah.
- [177:30]
Host 2
All right. Well, these episodes have been amazing. Everybody get into inhalants and steal fuel from the military. That's the message.
- [177:44]
Host 4
Run wild.
- [177:47]
Host 2
Don't do that. That's a joke. Legally.
- [177:49]
Host 6
Okay.
- [178:08]
Host 2
Time is precious, and so are our pets.
- [178:11]
Host 1
So time with our pets is extra precious.
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Host 2
That's why we started Dutch.
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Host 1
Dutch provides 24. 7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets.
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Host 2
You can message a vet at any.
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Host 1
Time and schedule a video visit the same day.
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Host 2
Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments.
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Host 1
And shipping is always free.
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With Dutch, you'll get more time with.
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Your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
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On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10. Vile. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Grotesque. Oh my God.
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Host 3
Oh my God.
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Host 2
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published and he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen.
- [179:47]
Host 4
Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.
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Host 2
Has spent 24 of those years in.
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Jail, 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex con to a literary darling almost overnight.
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Host 1
He was instantly a celebrity.
- [180:01]
Host 6
He was an adrenaline junkie and he was the star of the show.
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Go Boy is the gritty true story.
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Host 4
Of how one man fought his way.
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Host 2
Out of some of the darkest places imaginable.
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Host 6
I had a knife go in my.
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Host 3
Stomach, puncture my spleen. I didn't break my rib.
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Host 5
I had my guts all in my hands.
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Host 4
Only to find himself back where he started. Roger's saying is, I've never hurt anybody but myself. And I said, oh, you're so wrong.
- [180:27]
Host 2
You're so wrong on that one.
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Host 4
Rod from Campside Media and I heart podcasts.
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Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Host 7
We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.
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Host 5
We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.
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Host 6
They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend.
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Host 4
At the end of the day, it's.
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Host 3
All been worth it.
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Host 2
I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.
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Host 7
Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by Adopt Us Kids.
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I
The U.S. department of Health and Human.
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Host 7
Services Services, and the Ad Council.
- [181:14]
Host 2
Time is precious and so are our pets.
- [181:16]
Host 1
So time with our pets is extra precious.
- [181:19]
Host 2
That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 247 access to licensed vets.
- [181:23]
Host 1
With unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets.
- [181:27]
Host 2
You can message a vet at any.
- [181:28]
Host 1
Time and schedule a video visit the same day.
- [181:31]
Host 2
Our vets can even prescribe medication for.
- [181:33]
Host 1
Many ailments and shipping is always free.
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Host 2
With Dutch you'll get more time with.
- [181:38]
Host 1
Your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [181:45]
Host 2
On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No trace traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10 vile. No, no no no no no no no no. Grotesque.
- [182:18]
Host 3
Oh my God.
- [182:21]
Host 7
Oh my God.
- [182:22]
Host 2
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept rest restricted from the public until now you feel in this too a horror anthology podcast listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Karan's first book was published and he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen seen.
- [182:52]
Host 4
Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.
- [182:55]
Host 2
Has spent 24 of those years in.
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Host 4
Jail, 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex con to a literary darling almost overnight.
- [183:04]
Host 1
He was instantly a celebrity.
- [183:07]
Host 6
He was an adrenaline junkie and he was the star of the show.
- [183:12]
Host 2
Goboy is the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. I had a knife go in my.
- [183:20]
Host 3
Stomach, puncture my spleen, break my rib. I had my guts all in my.
- [183:24]
Host 4
Hands only to find himself back where he started. Roger's saying is I've never hurt anybody but myself. And I said oh, you're so wrong.
- [183:32]
Host 5
You're so wrong that one.
- [183:34]
Host 4
Rod from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
- [183:38]
Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [183:47]
Host 4
I always had to be so good. No one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling the limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars workers skill through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers@taylorpaper ceiling.org brought to you by Opportunity at work and the Ad Council. This is it could happen here Executive Disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout and Robert Evans.
- [184:32]
Host 2
That's right.
- [184:33]
Host 4
This episode we're covering the week of April 30th to May 7th.
- [184:38]
Host 2
Yes. When you think of Ed, you think about rigid cylindrical things?
- [184:44]
Host 4
Nope.
- [184:44]
Host 2
Flying at high speed towards. Sorry, that's a bad way to introduce the fact that there's now a war going on between India and Pakistan.
- [184:51]
Host 6
Jesus Christ.
- [184:53]
Host 2
I don't know. What else are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to go into this? Pakistan and India are shooting. Yeah, let's.
- [185:00]
Host 6
Okay, okay, I'm going to attempt to do a very, very, very, very brief. Please golf.
- [185:05]
Host 2
God.
- [185:05]
Host 6
Like, do not let this be the extent of your knowledge about this conflict. But yeah, okay, here is one paragraph about this. So when India gains. And Pakistan eventually gained independence from the UK and the British Empire, there was the partition. This is a process in which millions died and India and Pakistan were split into two states.
- [185:32]
Host 2
Millions die as a result of the disruption to infrastructure and as a result of mass.
- [185:37]
Host 6
Yeah, and like, again, people fleeing, like back and forth between the two places. There's been disputed territory for fucking ever. One of the most contentious parts of this has always been Kashmir or Jamaica. There's a whole complicated thing here. But. So Kashmir was sort of split in two. There's an almost entirely Muslim, like, territory that ends up under the control of India. And India has waged a brutal military occupation of Kashmir since they got it. Basically it ramps up and down in terms of like, how bad it is, but it's never good.
- [186:13]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [186:13]
Host 6
And this has been a constant source of tension between India and Pakistan where, you know, Pakistan has played its card of like, we are like the defenders of Muslims in, in India. And there's been a series of wars also. But this, this is one of the few times where you can say there are genocides on both sides. And it's true because like, one of the wars that they fought was because of the. The genocide that Pakistan did in what became Bangladesh. So like, there are no heroes in this story. There is only. I mean, I guess, like, you know, there are people resisting repression from both states.
- [186:45]
Host 2
There are good people, but neither of the states have clean hands.
- [186:48]
Host 6
Yeah, but the states suck shit. Right? Like, you know, let's be clear about that. Kashmir is one of the most militarized places in the world. It got much, much worse after 2019 when India withdrew the autonomous status that Kashmir had had. This sparked a bunch of protests. They were horribly repressed. There's been staggering numbers of people have died over the past like 30 years. There, like, a lot of like Hesper's access to the outside world has been cut off. It's been difficult to get people like, in to it. And obviously you know, the thing about occupations is that there's been a very, very long running series of sort of insurgencies and militant groups in Kashmir of various kinds of. Pakistan has funded some of these groups as a way to sort of like poke a stick at India. And in late April, a group killed 20 odd.
- [187:41]
Host 3
26, I think.
- [187:42]
Host 6
Yeah. 20.
- [187:43]
Host 2
20, 26.
- [187:43]
Host 4
I don't.
- [187:44]
Host 6
26, I think. Yeah, I think that's the final number. Like Hindu tourists in Kashmir. It's worth noting there's no actual evidence that Pakistan is behind this, but.
- [187:55]
Host 2
No, but that's India's claim.
- [187:57]
Host 6
Yeah, that's India's claim. And this is causing things to get really, really bad in Kashmir itself, which is the part of this I think has gotten lost in a lot of the discussion here, which is like, like, if you, if, if you read statements from, from like, I mean, like A, there's just been like an incredible intensification of repression and B, if you read statements from Indian officials, they are, they are just straight up talking about, quote, like Indian style, final solutions for Kashmir. It's completely unhinged, hinged. The Indian state has gone into this. I mean, it like, you know, it's, it's Modi.
- [188:25]
Host 2
Right.
- [188:25]
Host 6
Modi is running probably the world's most effective fascist government. And his thing is always like a huge part of it has always been specifically about, like, wanting to repress Muslims. And this, you know, has, has, has kicked the Islamophobia into an absolute fever pitch. And the product of this is that they have started doing strikes inside of Pakistan. I'm going to pass it over to Robert. Talk about like, what those have looked like and what this conflict has been.
- [188:49]
Host 2
Yeah. So. And it's important, you know that during this terrorist attack, one of the big things that is alleged is that husbands were executed in front of their wives. Yeah, that is, that is going to be relevant for the name of the operation that India is in the process of carrying out right now.
- [189:05]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [189:05]
Host 2
Prior to, in the immediate wake of that attack, everyone knew some shit was going to go down on the border. India was going to do something in part because India said they were going to do something. Right. J.D. vance, the peacemaker, as we call him, I don't believe anyone else has ever been called that in the history of government or popular media. So yeah, that seems like a good nickname for him. Went to India like a day or two before this all happened to calm things down.
- [189:32]
Host 3
This is after making a visit to.
- [189:34]
Host 2
The Pope or to tell Modi, do whatever. Like, we don't know actually what he said. Some people are like, Vance must have given him the go ahead. I think it's just as likely Vance was like, hey, we don't really want a war right now. Can you calm down? And Modi didn't listen. Or that Vance just didn't even have anything meaningful to say. We actually don't know at the moment. But last night India started carrying out what they are calling Operation Sindoor. S I N D O O R is how it is generally anglicized. The name of the operation comes from. Again, I mentioned a little earlier that during that terrorist attack in Kashmir, Hindu men were killed in front of their wives. Sindur is a word that refers to this kind of colored dye that I, I believe it's like a bridal thing that like women put in. I think it's in their hair. But it, it's, it's a reference to something that is part of like the traditional Hindu wedding and something that the bride does. And so it was specifically named this in order to make it very clear, clear this is vengeance for that attack. Right. Like that's why it was named what it was. Okay, does that all make sense? Yeah, sorry, I've got it here. Sindor is the Hindi word for vermilion which is the red pigment Hindu women apply to their forehead. Right. So like that. And so it's, it's a reference also to the fact that these terrorists are said to have like shot their victims in the forehead. Right. So there's, there's a lot going on there basically.
- [190:52]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [190:52]
Host 2
But that's what's relevant. So when it comes to this, what's happening, happening? First off, perfectly reasonable to call what's happening war. India has launched cross border strikes. They appear to have launched both cruise missiles and air strikes using modern jets. Right. Pakistan has responded with modern military air defenses. What we can safely say right now is that this is the first full 21st century here on peer military action. And I know as came up in the meeting, people are going to say, well Ukraine, Ukraine, not entirely Ukraine and Russia. There is a degree to which that is true because Ukraine is armed by states that are peer or more than peer to Russia in terms of military technology. But Ukraine does not have an industrial base that is in any way comparable to Russia's. They are not capable of manufacturing the weaponry that they need to compete with Russia on the battlefield on their own. That's why international aid has been so critical. Pakistan and India are both effectively peers in that they both do purchase weaponry a lot from other countries, but they also have domestic arms industries and they have potent domestic militaries that are armed to a comparable standard. Right. And so there's a few things happening here. I do not want to lose count of the fact that people are dying. Obviously civilians died in that attack in Kashmir. At the moment it looks like the death toll from the initial Indian strikes is somewhere around 40. Pakistan is claiming the vast majority of those are civilians. Civilians. India is claiming that they only hit infrastructure associated with the terrorist group that they believe carried out the attacks in Kashmir that they claim is being supported by Pakistan. There is substantial evidence that the majority of the dead are civilians. People have claimed that like large chunks of their families were wiped out in these strikes. I don't see any reason to doubt that knowing how airstrikes work. A good number of the dead though have also occurred as a result of cross border artillery fire fire. And it's unclear to me if India and Pakistan have had a full on artillery duel across the border or if this is Pakistan's artillery firing back in response to the airstrikes. That part is unclear. There are also videos where you can hear small arms fire, so machine guns and the like. And reports that that is coming from Pakistan side too. It's possible there is a cross border direct arm engagement. It's possible no one died as a result of the small arms fire fire. Given the distances that this is occurring at. Right. That the only deaths have been due to field artillery and due to missile strikes. Right. That seems likely. At this point it's possible the death toll is much higher than 40. But that's, that's somewhere around. There is what's been confirmed right now. Now we have talked about the deaths. Obviously the biggest concern is the loss in human life. Here I am going to talk about what this means on a military level because that is relevant to both how this conflict is going to proceed and how future conflicts are going to proceed. Because we have not seen a peer on peer fight like this before in this century. Right. So one of the more important things as to how this is proceeded is that a number of the jets that India launched across the border are what are called rafals. RAFAEL E. This is a French fighter jet. It is broadly considered to be equivalent to an F18 Super Horn Hornet. Now I say that if you go online and you listen to people who are nerds about fighter jets, they will pull a knife on you for claiming that. Right. There are major differences between the two airframes. One of them is that the Rafale is a larger plane, which means it's theoretically capable. Not theoretically, it is capable of a significantly higher payload. However, there's a couple of problems that come with that. One is that the Super Hornet, not only is it a smaller craft, but a it's, it is built for carrier duty, which means its wings fold. Yada, you can fit more of them on a carrier. They take off and land more easily from a carrier. A Raal can take off and land from a carrier, but it has to have a different loadout. Right? The other issue, a Super Hornet can stay supersonic with its full payload for longer periods of time. That means that it can be breaking the sound barrier consistently, not just using its after burner for like a quick burst of speed. That matters because the faster you're going to going, the harder you are to shoot down. The primary air to ground package it has is what's called a hammer and that's an acronym. H A M M E R. I don't know what it stands for off the top of my head, but they are between 250 and a thousand pounds each, right? These are their air to ground munitions that they are equipped with standard, it's possible India has a separate loadout for them. I don't actually know. This is their standard armament. Now they can only have their full complement complement if they're not going supersonic. So they cannot go supersonic for a comparable period of time to a Super Hornet if they have a full complement. From a military technology standpoint, the biggest news from the initial stage of the strike is that at least one of these Rafales has been destroyed. There's decent evidence that potentially another two. If India lost three of these jets, they have 36. That is a meaningful degradation of their entire air force capability to strike. Right. Losing these jets and they cannot be replaced on any kind of of timeframe that is comparable to how quickly they're being shot down. Pakistan is claiming significantly more that they. Pakistan's claim is that they've downed three Rafales, one MiG 29, one SU 30 MKI, and at least one Israeli made heron drone. People generally say Pakistan is probably exaggerating. However, French authorities have confirmed at least one Rafale and there's two more that possibilities that are being looked into to. It's possible three planes were downed but only one was a rough fall. We don't really know yet, right? But even one is a meaningful loss. And the fact that it was downed says a couple of things. One thing is that there's a decent chance what I suspect we might Hear especially if three of these went down, is that India sent these things off with a full strike package. So they were not able to go as fast as they normally can and thus were not able to evade Pakistan's anti anti air defenses. Right. That may be what happened. The other thing that we're seeing here is that Pakistan is equipped, they buy the best part. And Pakistan has a lot of S3 hundreds and S4 hundreds I believe, which are like what we've seen in Ukraine. Those have had a very mixed operational history in terms of their capability to take out modern aircraft. Pakistan also has a lot of PL15 radar guided anti air missiles. These are Chinese anti aircraft missiles. They have never been used in combat. But before, if you're a nerd for like modern military technology, one of the things people have been talking about in that field for a long time is like how are these going to function? And we just know that they've been used because wreckage from them has been found and photographed. And people who are experts in these missiles online have confirmed this is from this weapons package. It is very likely that the Rafale that was down was downed by this missile and if more than one was down, that they were all downed by these missiles. Missiles. So that tells us a lot about the comparable capabilities of both this modern Western fighter that the French are selling and of this Chinese anti aircraft missile. Right. And so that's really relevant if we're looking at both how this conflict is going to proceed. Because I don't want to be coming at from this bloodless like, oh, I'm just interested in the military strategy part. This is relevant because if India has lost three of these advanced fighters that they cannot replace on any kind of comparable time frame in the first few hours of strikes, that suggests one of two potential future outcomes. Number one, the tempo of use of advanced aircraft in this war is going to change considerably as it drags into the next stages. Right. Because they simply can't maintain that tempo. They can't continue to take those sort of risks. And that either means moving on to a lot more ground engagements between infantry, between tanks, between artillery, like direct face to face shit or a potential for escalating things to the next level. And the only next level higher than where we're at is nuclear. Right. I don't think that is the likeliest outcome. I do not think a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is the likeliest thing at this point. However, the rate at which India is attritting air assets means that they're going to have to Make a choice in the not too distant future. Right. Although it's also worth noting we don't know entirely the degree to which Pakistan's anti air defenses have been attrited by this. Right. There's a lot of open, there's a lot of unknown, known unknowns and known unknowns here. Right. As, as our good friend Rumsfeld would say. I will say the other issue here, if there is a nuclear exchange, it's going to be the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the century. That doesn't mean it's going to be a nuclear war across the entire world. And that shouldn't be your first concern. Your first concern should be that that would still mean millions of deaths in India and Pakistan, potentially at least hundreds of thousands. Right. The concern is not they start so everyone else does, it's they start and thus the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II occurred occurs.
- [199:38]
Host 3
Yeah, I mean some of the most densely populated cities on earth are in this region. Like a strike in any major city there would be devastating.
- [199:46]
Host 2
Yeah. A strike in Islamabad would be the worst thing that's happened possibly since the holocaust. In terms of like human death toll due to human actions.
- [199:54]
Host 3
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I know. India claimed that they were launching a quote non escalatory strike. And as much as that means shit.
- [200:02]
Host 2
Yes.
- [200:03]
Host 3
They also claimed that the PL15 didn't have its interceptor head, which I think, I guess the French intelligence refuted.
- [200:08]
Host 2
Yeah. And, and this is all. There's a lot that's unknown about kind of how these weapons have performed still. But these are from a. In terms of both how this conflict is going to proceed and how future conflicts will proceed. These are things you should be looking at because these weapons platforms, these are, this is important in terms of what war is going to continue to look like.
- [200:26]
Host 6
Yeah. I, I think it's also worth noting a couple of things. One is that this is by far the largest like, like clash that these countries have had in a long time. But also like there have been like periodic like cross border skirmishes around Kashmir for a while now.
- [200:41]
Host 7
Right.
- [200:41]
Host 6
Like there was a pretty big flare up in, in 2020 that kind of lasted in 2021. And so there is a chance that this doesn't turn into a full scale war and that you get something more like what happened sort of recently with Israel and Iran where they like bomb each other a few times and then everyone sort of packs up their bags and goes home and continues to like poke each other with militant groups instead of it being like tanks and I, I Think that is like, orders of magnitude more likely than, like, nukes flying.
- [201:14]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [201:14]
Host 6
Just to sort of like. Yeah. Like the chance at which these people start shooting nukes at each other is not very high. Like.
- [201:21]
Host 2
Yes.
- [201:21]
Host 6
Just like in the history of nuclear weapons, too, you have to understand that like, like some of the most unhinged people who have ever lived, like Curtis LeMay, like the US and the Soviets never did it. Like Mao. Mao and the Soviets never did it. Like apartheid South Africa had nuclear weapons and never used them. Some of the worst people who have ever lived have had access to nukes and never fired them. The odds that you're going to die in nuclear fire are very, very, very, very, very low. It's not good.
- [201:47]
Host 2
No.
- [201:47]
Host 6
Everything that's happening here is very bad. But, like, you do not need to be, like, living in existential terror of, like, fire raining from the sky. That's not, like, a reasonable reaction to this. And I've been seeing a lot of that.
- [201:59]
Host 4
So.
- [202:00]
Host 2
No, it's, it's, it's far from the likeliest outcome. And your primary concern should be to people who are living there right now.
- [202:08]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah, right.
- [202:09]
Host 2
You know, it's worth noting that the 1999, the cargo war, that was not an insignificant death toll. Right. Like, you're, you're talking probably like, certainly more than a thousand. I think a thousand to a couple of thousand people. So that would not be. That's not, certainly not out of the question without it escalating in that way. I think the primary concern that you always have and why I bring up weapon systems is that countries think in terms of stuff like this a lot. This is a big part of why we get World War I. Right. You have these nations that are arming and they're always concerned with how do my weapons compare to my neighbors.
- [202:44]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [202:44]
Host 2
If we go to war now, I feel pretty good about where I'm at. And if I wait another two years, maybe they'll be in a better position. And thinking like that is part of the planning that's going on in these states and the planning about when do we escalate and how do we escalate? Right. Do we. Do we move to a point where we've got masses of infantry shooting at each other? Well, maybe if we can't risk the continued attrition of our advanced air assets, we do that. Or maybe we make another decision. Decision. That's why it's relevant to know about this stuff. Not because you want to nerd out over who's got the coolest missile and who's got the coolest planes. But because that is very much how states think. Right. Anyway, before we go to ads, to tie this back to the executive dysfunction, because that is what this is about. Not. Yeah, not, not the current wars podcast. In the immediate wake of all of this, President Trump was asked about, hey, how about these two nuclear armed states going to war? What do you think about that? And he gave a, you know, just a traditionally eloquent, you know, Donald Trump response. It's a shame we just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends quickly. Me too, buddy.
- [203:56]
Host 3
Great.
- [203:57]
Host 2
I guess. I guess they've been fighting for a long time. Okay, okay. Anyway, let's go to ads.
- [204:17]
Host 4
All right, we are back. I'm going to talk now about some other horrifying geopolitical news. Hey, this is garrison from Friday, May 19th 9th. I have a correction to make on the original copy of this episode. I made an error in saying Greta Thunberg was aboard a humanitarian aid ship off the coast of Italy that was airstriked by Israel. The ship was indeed attacked, but she was not on that ship. I watched a video of her discussing the attack and it sounded first person. And then we recorded shortly thereafter. But now it's clear she was not on the ship, but instead planned to board later that day on the way to Gaza as a part of the humanitarian aid organization, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. More than a dozen other aid workers were aboard the vessel when it was hit. And this relates to the larger humanitarian aid crisis in Gaza. Now back to the episode. The past two months, Israel has forcibly cut off all food, water, machines, supplies and other humanitarian aid to Gaza. Gaza starving the Palestinian people. As Netanyahu continues to reject ceasefire deals, reports from the UN say that Gaza will run out of food in days.
- [205:28]
Host 2
Yep. I mean, it looks like a starvation genocide. I don't know how else to phrase this. There's really nothing else. This isn't the time to mince words. Like every piece of evidence suggests this is a starvation genocide being carried out, that they're trying to starve this population to death or until they all leave, which is the same genocide does not necessarily mean you kill everyone. It is the forced killing and, or displacement of a population. Yeah.
- [205:52]
Host 4
Israel says that the Palestinians still have food for a few months, but the UN and other aid organizations say that is not true. Now, last Sunday night, Israel's security cabinet approved a plan to reoccupy and hold the Gaza Strip if a new ceasefire deal isn't reached by May 15. While Netanyahu and Israeli officials continue to undermine negotiations for a purpose permanent ceasefire. This plan is called Gideon's Chariots.
- [206:21]
Host 2
Jesus Christ.
- [206:22]
Host 4
The plan is for the IDF to invade with four to five armored infantry divisions mobilizing upwards of 70, 000 reservists, which would gradually occupy and secure basically the entire Gaza Strip. According to Israel's finance minister, this IDF occupation would be permanent, not even pulling back with the release of any remaining hostages. Though other Israeli officials disagree on this and say this would be a temporary occupation. Pretty hard to take their word on that. All remaining buildings would be destroyed, flattening the entirety of the strip, just like Rafah and the northern side. Amir Avivi, the founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum think tank and a former deputy commander of the Israeli forces, say, quote, this is the only way to eradicate Hamas. Hamas, militarily and governmentally is to take over Gaza and to conquer the area and destroy them, unquote. There's some added complications with, like legally, like, occupying Gaza. Under the Geneva Convention, a formal occupation would require Israel to have the capacity to operate as an official government authority in this region. Now, there's no indication that Israel will like follow the Geneva Convention, as they haven't.
- [207:36]
Host 6
Yeah, it's Israel. They never have given a shit.
- [207:39]
Host 2
Yeah, I don't, I don't see why we'd expect that.
- [207:41]
Host 6
Sure.
- [207:42]
Host 4
But if they do occupy, they, they would be more like liable for the well being of the Palestinians that would be inside the territory. And the IDF does have a plan for this. They are planning to forcefully relocate around 2 million Palestinians to a single, quote, unquote humanitarian area, which is positioned in the rubble of Rafah, where secure, quote, unquote compounds are being constructed to distribute food and supplies to Palestinians, Palestinians who are screened and approved as not being members of Hamas. This area will be managed by private US companies and a, quote, unquote, new international foundation which works with Israel and the United States established aid organizations in the UN, announced that they would not be participating in running these, quote, unquote compounds, calling this a tactic to give the Israeli military even more power over how aid is distributed, saying in a statement, quote, it contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life sustaining items as a pressure tactic. As a part of a military strategy, it is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement, unquote.
- [209:00]
Host 2
Yep. Yeah.
- [209:02]
Host 4
An Israeli official said the only alternative to being moved to, to this quote, unquote, humanitarian area would be to leave Gaza, quote, unquote, voluntarily to other countries, citing Trump's plan to resettle displaced Palestinians. Robert James Mia, do you want to comment on this?
- [209:20]
Host 3
It's not much to say. S like, it's, they're just saying the thing that they've been going for for a while now, which is the removal of all Palestinian people from the Garda Strip, either in body bags or, or to live somewhere else.
- [209:32]
Host 6
I guess it's just straight up a genocide like they are. They're describing a genocide.
- [209:35]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [209:36]
Host 2
There's no doubting it. Like, I don't even know. Like, what is it? What is there to say? Right. Like, at this point I, I almost think other, other than obviously documenting what's happening is important. The only important thing to try to talk about is like, how can this be stopped? And, or yeah, how can a degree of like, what does justice look like at some point down the line? What should be done? You know, like, these are questions to ask but like, to just like, I don't know what to keep saying other than like, yep, they're trying to wipe out Gaza.
- [210:10]
Host 4
Like, and specifically the use of these like quote unquote compounds. You're like rounding up and keeping people inside one secure area, concentrating them in camps. Like, come on guys, you're just setting up camps for Palestinians on the south side of the strip. And like that's all that this is as they reoccupy and hold the entirety to, to quote, unquote, eliminate Hamas. So this Monday, Trump's going to start a three day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This is while the US Government has taken a back foot on Gaza negotiations while still backing up Netanyahu and any actions taken by the Israeli military.
- [210:47]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [210:48]
Host 4
So we will know more about what Israel is actually going to do immediately in the region in like a week's time. Though it looks like they are going to be going forward with this May 15th reoccupation plan.
- [211:01]
Host 2
Cool. Well, yeah.
- [211:04]
Host 3
So more good news from me. Immigration update the New York Times today on the this is Wednesday the 7th is reporting that the Trump administration is as soon as today I checked this before recording the plane hadn't taken over off planning to ship people to migrants to Libya. The nationalities of people being renditioned there are not clear but my guess would be that these are third party nationals that the US can't deport to their Home countries like they previously deported these people to Panama and to El Salvador. If you're not familiar with migrant detention in Libya, conditions are horrific. Like among the worst things, things that can happen to people. The situation in Libya is currently the country is divided between the Tripoli government, which is recognized by the UN and which the US has formal government to government relationships with, and Haftar's government based in Benghazi, which the Trump regime has associated with before. Yeah, we have covered conditions in Libyan migrant detention camps before, which I'll check in the show notes. And we also talked about the dangers faced by people leaving Libya towards the EU in a different episode, which I'll also also list. But to recap, reports document starvation, rape, murder, slavery and organ harvesting occurring in Libya. Mass graves, including one last year that was found with 65 bodies in it, are not uncommon. To quote from David Yambio, David Yambio is someone who was, he was sold and then forced to fight in a militia in Libya. And I think I believe he escaped. Escaped. And he is now in, I think he's in Italy, but he's relatively outspoken on this stuff. The slave trade is alive and thriving in Libya. It thrives in the silence of nations, in the shadows of complicit systems, and in the unchecked racism that dehumanizes black lives. In other immigration news, the government's attempt to just to delay Rumesa Ozturk's return to Vermont was rejected by the 2nd Circuit. So that means that she will have to be returned to. She was arrested in Massachusetts, if you remember, for writing an op ed at Tufts University. Yeah, yeah. Moved across state borders to Vermont and from there sent to Louisiana. So the habeas case was transferred to Vermont and the 2nd Circuit has ruled that the government cannot delay bringing her back there anymore. Another flight containing 81 migrants left Panama yesterday at the United States expense. This is a continuation of a plan that the Biden administration installed in summer last year year and the Trump administration has continued whereby the US Funds deportations from Panama. Meanwhile, Tokyo Weekender in Japan is reporting that the United States is asking people to show five years of social media history in order to obtain a student visa. Just to like put that in perspective for people. So you have to, even if those accounts are deleted or no longer used, you have to declare them all on your form. Form. If you're applying for a student visa and you're at the younger end of a traditional aged undergraduate, you could have to list every social media account you've had since you were 12 on this form. And the US has required disclosure for a while, but it hasn't been a practical thing. I haven't really ever heard from anyone of anybody's visa being denied or asylum being denied based on social media posting. But this is now something that they are asking people to disclose and requiring.
- [214:36]
Host 4
Not like requiring, not asking. It is it is it is going to be like an enforced requirement in a way that before it really hasn't been. It's the term that the law firm used in this piece is like in the past this has been mostly quote unquote negligible.
- [214:51]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [214:52]
Host 4
And now this is something that the Department of State is really being adamant about.
- [214:57]
Host 3
Yeah. Which will massively delay the time to process visa applications. On top of everything else, people in.
- [215:05]
Host 4
Japan have compared this to policy similar to that of China's Cultural Revolution.
- [215:11]
Host 3
Yeah. I mean I have been to other countries to be clear where they open up your social media and look at it when you're entering. But this is not a thing that anyone has ever associated with the United States. Finally, I guess the Freedom of the Press foundation got some documents released under the federal Freedom of Information act that outlined that the intelligence community did not believe, believe that the Maduro regime was controlling Trend Aragua, which was one of the claims that Trump administration has made in its invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. Right. So it's just kind of, I think most people who pay any attention to the situation weren't really buying that. But. But it's showing that this was documented by the US Intelligence community as well. So yeah.
- [215:54]
Host 2
Any.
- [215:55]
Host 3
Anything to add? The Libya stuff stuff is bleak. Like yeah, it hasn't got much coverage in the US we have covered it before. But the European Union is already complicit in the terrible treatment of migrants in Libya. And for ages it has happened for ages. The so called Libyan Coast Guard are bringing people back to Libya and then like literally selling them from shelters to human traffickers. I mean we've more or less kind of lined up behind some of the worst places on earth.
- [216:23]
Host 2
Earth.
- [216:23]
Host 3
Like in, in terms of migrant detention. Right. With. With secot and this.
- [216:27]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [216:28]
Host 4
More and more families are figuring out that like their family members have been sent to Sakat. Like people who have not been named in official documentation. They've been able to like search through these propaganda videos and like identify more people. So they're launching court cases to have them returned. People who very clearly have had no gang affiliation. Not that that should even matter when you're sending people to the forever prison Yeah.
- [216:52]
Host 3
I saw one guy who had a Donald Duck tattoo and that was, I guess, a decisive claim there. Right. There's a form that ICE agents fill out and there's a number of points they have to amass. I believe it's three points. And one of the things that can allow you to amass three points is like, I think two points come from a tattoo which they decide to be gang affiliated.
- [217:13]
Host 2
No. And again, they seem to just be saying tattoos, Pierre, period. Right. Like anything is Trindagua. Right?
- [217:20]
Host 3
Yeah. Right.
- [217:21]
Host 4
People who have, like soccer tattoos, people who have I love my mom and dad tattoos. It doesn't matter.
- [217:26]
Host 2
There's an autism awareness tattoo.
- [217:28]
Host 3
Yeah. Some guy had an autism awareness.
- [217:31]
Host 2
Yes.
- [217:31]
Host 3
Yeah. That one, like, haunts me because I have met young neurodivergent people and their families who are bringing them to the US to get better. What they thought was a better standard of care. Right. To allow their children to progress and, and have a beautiful life. Yeah, man, that one, like, like, I honestly really struggle with that. I, I've spent lots and lots and lots of time with Venezuelan migrants. And like, I. They're my friends. And that particular one, like, people whose children have any need for medical care, right. Are overrepresented in migrant population because they just can't access it there. And so they. They upend their whole lives and carry their children across a continent to give them a chance at a better life. And like that. That one is particularly hard for me to witness. I did just want to mention, on the topic of asylum, I have heard from so many migrants stuck in Mexico who are having a God awful time to include robbery, kidnapping, sexual violence. All of the things that we know can happen to migrants along the migrant trail because they have no pathway to get to the US they're now just stuck there. Right. Mexico continues to take migrants and move them back south if it catches them near the United States border. Even if some of them move up as far as Mexico City. Right. Because they have access to services there, and then again sent back south to places where migrants have routinely been murdered. So I know we're focusing a lot on migrants being kicked out of the US Deported, renditioned. Conditions for migrants who aspire to come to the United States, who took great risks to be Americans and are stuck in Mexico are also dire.
- [219:15]
Host 4
All right, let's go on break and then come back for a few more updates before we close out.
- [219:19]
Host 2
Yeah, we're back. And wait a second, is this that. Is that the tariff song? All right, guys. I actually don't Know, do we have anything to say about tariffs this week?
- [219:55]
Host 6
Yeah, we actually, we actually do have some teriffs. So Friday.
- [219:58]
Host 2
All right, good. I'm just. We gotta get all of our use out of that song because again, we really. Do we really have to suspend the whole team's health care to pay for it? It was monstrously expensive. The, the full cut of that song is 17 and a half hours. We actually brought in the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac as well as several Rolling Stones. It was, it just, just disastrous.
- [220:20]
Host 3
Yeah. So far, attempts to resurrect Joe Strummer have failed, but we have spent millions.
- [220:26]
Host 2
We only use the clip with our friend the Narcissist Cookbook. But yeah, there, there is A, a 26 minute drum solo with the guy from Rush. Getty Lee. He's still alive, right? Was it Getty Lee? Yeah, yeah, he's still alive. The joke works. The joke works.
- [220:40]
Host 4
Not cheap.
- [220:41]
Host 2
Not cheap.
- [220:42]
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. It's much like the direwolf thing. We've put Joe Strummer's DNA into another coffee man and we're waiting to see where we've released him into the wild and we're going to see how he develops.
- [220:51]
Host 2
So far he just has a lot of blood clots, but we have Nathan.
- [220:55]
Host 4
Fielder on the case though. He's trained him up. We'll, we'll get them, we'll get them on soon.
- [220:59]
Host 2
All right, good. Bad. What do you think?
- [221:03]
Host 7
Everything's bad.
- [221:04]
Host 6
Okay, so. All right, let's, let's, let's, let's actually do this. So one of the, one of the things that we've been talking about a lot on this show is the de minimis exemption, which was this exemption that formally allowed you was particularly used in trade with China where you could, like, if you were sending a package that was under like 700, you didn't have to, like, it didn't have to like go through kind of lessons in the way that you would normally would have to do it. That shit's gone. That ended on Friday of last week. This has already skyrocketed the cost of doing imports of shit from China because huge amounts of stuff being shipped from China was, you know, like reliant on shipping it in packages that were exactly $699. And you know, this has like, like Temu's entire business model has changed basically overnight, where like, they're no longer shipping stuff in from China, they're only selling stuff from like American and distributors. This is going to have catastrophic effects on so many supply chains. You've never even thought of in the weeks to come because again, there are so many different, like tiny screws and shit. Like, just like really, really small items that you used to be able to get from China for like fucking $5, for like 100 of them that now have like unbelievable tariff rates on them and have to go through a really, really convoluted customs process process. There have already been sort of massive supply chain disruptions in a large number of industries. It's going to continue to get worse. Sophie was talking about metal imports hitting the construction industry because there's, you know, there's tariffs on a bunch of different kinds of metal as we've covered on the show.
- [222:31]
Host 2
Aluminum. God knows what's going to happen to Diet Coke.
- [222:34]
Host 3
We'll put it in lead like God intended.
- [222:37]
Host 4
Maybe that'll finally change. Trump's outlook is when his Diet Coke.
- [222:43]
Host 3
Yeah, Trump and Musk both become inoperable.
- [222:45]
Host 2
You know, Garrison, we will know when that's hit. When the missiles are in the air. Like, oh, shit, he ran out.
- [222:53]
Host 4
Federal occupation of the Coca Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
- [222:56]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [222:58]
Host 6
So, you know, there's, and this is also like, this is, this is going to have a profound impact on Chinese economy. Again. We're still in sort of the waiting room until sort of mid summer when all of the rest of the tariffs that were supposed to go into effect go back into effect and literally everything collapses.
- [223:13]
Host 2
You're probably three to five weeks out from really starting to see it hit hard in like the stuff you buy on a day to day basis. Right. People who are doing stuff like remodeling houses or building houses are starting to notice now. Yeah, I think people, car, car repair businesses and whatnot, People have to order parts. That is starting to hit. But your grocery store, that's really going to be most noticeable somewhere between three and five weeks from now, maybe, maybe sooner, probably not much longer.
- [223:38]
Host 6
Well, and other things are about to get significantly worse. So this has been talked about for a long time. The buzz right now is that they're happening soon. I don't know exactly what that means, but there has been for a long, long time Trump has been doing, talking about doing tariffs on pharma. So congratulations. Get excited for all of your medication costing a lot more money. He also put into place a 100% tariff on foreign movies.
- [224:02]
Host 4
Well, we'll see.
- [224:03]
Host 2
Yes. Yeah, but then he walked that back. He had a conversation with Jon Voight and announced getting to that 100. 100% tariff on all movies.
- [224:12]
Host 3
Movies, yeah.
- [224:13]
Host 2
Not made in the Us. No one knows what that means. How can you do that movie? What are we talking about?
- [224:20]
Host 7
It's literally, it's literally just like, like.
- [224:22]
Host 6
He'S doing tariffs in the way that, like there's that, that guy from the Wolf of Wall street is like, what guy walks out of the room, goes short everything he's ever touched. Like it's like that thing. Yeah, like he's going to be tariffing like fucking ocean currents in two months.
- [224:34]
Host 2
The responses to it have been, have been so funny because Gavin Newsom, arch dipshit of the Democratic Party, was immediately like, we love the idea of working with our president to keep film jobs in California. You know. Meanwhile, Trump immediately was like, well, maybe we won't do that. I think because they're still at the very head of the studio system, some scary old mob type dudes, right? And I think a few of them also.
- [225:00]
Host 4
Tom Cruise is terrifying.
- [225:02]
Host 2
Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, like sat down. Listen, Donald, you know, no one's heard from David Miscavige, his wife in a long ass time. And they don't have to hear from you either. Like you don't want to with me.
- [225:15]
Host 6
Yeah.
- [225:16]
Host 3
Either that or Trump believes he actually is the Mission Impossible guy and you could convince him.
- [225:23]
Host 2
Somebody convinced him.
- [225:25]
Host 3
Yeah, some.
- [225:26]
Host 2
Somebody convinced him. Daos is.
- [225:28]
Host 3
Didn't he reopen Alcatraz after the Alcatraz film aired on the local.
- [225:33]
Host 4
There is evidence, yes, but it was.
- [225:35]
Host 2
The, it was the Clint Eastwood one and not the much better Alcatraz film, the Wrong Walk, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. A banger ages perfectly. Watch it, everyone. Watch it tonight. Fuck reading any more news.
- [225:49]
Host 6
Okay. There's more news though, unfortunately.
- [225:51]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [225:52]
Host 6
Well, okay, there's one funny thing and there's the, like the actual news here is. Part of what's going on here is just everything is just chaos. And this is something that like, I mean, I've had this conversation with like a bunch of people who work in shipping over the last couple of weeks. Is that like it's just chaos, right? Like everything is changing all the fucking time. And this means every time one of these things changes a bunch of like the import codes and shit, like stuff just changes on the level of like the customs people and like just like literally the process of importing this stuff changes and it's just a complete fucking disaster. People are getting laid off constantly too. So like every single part of the government that's supposed to be doing this suddenly has less people. It's an absolute rolling catastrophe. It will continue to get worse. There's also good evidence that like, they know that it's gonna get worse. I'm gonna read this quote from USA Today quote, this is from Trump. I don't think a beautiful baby that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. Trump told Meet the Press host Kirst I think they can have three or four dolls because what you're doing with China is just unbelievable. We have a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars for China. I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five. Five pencils, everyone.
- [226:58]
Host 4
Five pencils and three dolls this Christmas. Imagine if Joe Biden announced like, all right, we're going to have to cut down on Christmas gifts this year. We can't do it. The Fox News would be like freaking the fuck out. We're like, like, Joe Biden's taking away your kids Christmas and the pencils and. Yeah, who cares?
- [227:18]
Host 6
Yeah, but I mean like, like the actual sensitive thing here is like. Yeah, no, like these people understand that you're going to suffer. They don't give a shit.
- [227:24]
Host 4
They want you to suffer. That's the whole point of their political project.
- [227:28]
Host 6
Yeah. So, you know.
- [227:29]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [227:30]
Host 3
Owning the libs.
- [227:31]
Host 4
Anyway. Is that all for tariff talk? Beer?
- [227:34]
Host 6
Yeah, that, that, that, that's all we got on. That's all we got on the tariff nerves.
- [227:37]
Host 4
I am excited for, for Trump to meet Ethan Hunt on his last mission. There's still hope. All right, I have a few more updates before we close out here. One on the federal judge back and forth of last week, US District judge blocked the Trump admin's efforts via executive order to require what they deem as proof of citizenship to register to vote. The judge stated that this case was about separation of powers and undue presidential interference in how states and Congress run and regulate elections. Elections writing, quote, our Constitution entrusts Congress and the states, not the president, with the authority to regulate federal elections. No statutory delegation of authority to the executive branch permits the President to short circuit Congress's deliberative process by executive order.
- [228:21]
Host 3
Yeah.
- [228:21]
Host 4
So we'll see how that develops. For now, I'll also be doing an update on the SAVE act as it, as it makes its way through Congress as well. For those interested, another kind of voting suppression bill that's getting pushed through. This Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the trans military ban, at least for now. It'll still process through appeals, but the Trump administration is now allowed to enforce the ban. Which they previously couldn't because a lower court put the enforcement on hold.
- [228:49]
Host 6
Yeah. So I think like the, the actual scariest part about that is if, if you read the, if you, if you read the language of, of what the court was talking about, they've been describing it as, as like someone who thinks that like they are a woman when they're actually a man. Like, isn't someone who can perform at like the, the standards of like honor and whatever that like a soldier needs. And this is I think a ramp up to the really, really dangerous thing that is coming, which is their attempt to just straight up brand being trans as fraud.
- [229:13]
Host 4
I mean, this is the, this is the Trump admin's argument, correct? This is what they were writing.
- [229:17]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah.
- [229:18]
Host 3
This is the statement, I guess that the, the DOD is claiming that expressing a quote, false gender identity, divergent from an individual sex can't satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. And they specifically talk about a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one's personal life. And they then go ahead to, to claim that being trans inherently contradicts that.
- [229:44]
Host 4
That's the Trump admins argument, which is going to be like, used to undermine transgender rights in the future, possibly threatening Title 9.
- [229:52]
Host 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very concerning.
- [229:55]
Host 4
So the fact that, that they were able to, to, to like at least at this point, win this case in the Supreme Court, extremely worrying.
- [230:03]
Host 3
Yeah. I will just say that if this impacts you, someone you care about, someone you know, you can reach out to us. Obviously there's very little we can do about it, but we are here to listen and to report the news and you can do that at Cool Zone Tips Proton me. It's only an encrypted email, end to end. If it comes from an encrypted email address to our encrypted email address, we.
- [230:30]
Host 4
Are reading all of those. We may not, may not respond to all of them, but we are taking note of them and we'll report on stuff in the future. The, the last thing I, I do want to add is like a raid that happened last week in California. Homeland Security investigations, ICE and Secret Service raided a house in Southern California looking for a man who months ago posted flyers around Los Angeles last January warning about ICE agents in the area with names, photos and phone numbers reading in Spanish, quote, careful with these faces, unquote. The feds served a criminal search warrant on the home of this guy's parents even though he moved to New York last March. At least 15 armored vehicles pulled up to this upscale neighborhood with full militarization, Federal swat. They seized routers and hard drives.
- [231:22]
Host 3
Yeah, that's not great.
- [231:24]
Host 4
Acting ICE Director Todd Loynes was on the scene for this operation. He told Fox News that he took it personally that someone would put a target on his agents in an effort to interfere with them and put them at risk, saying the person will be held accountable. What they're using here is probably likely US Code 119, Protection of Individuals performing certain duties. Whoever knowingly makes restricted personal information about a covered person. Person or a member of the immediate family of that covered person publicly available with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that covered person or a member of the immediate family. So this is. This is likely what they're using. Arguing that posting a photo on a flyer with the person's name and phone number is enough to threaten, intimidate or facilitate the commission of a crime.
- [232:13]
Host 3
Yeah. What constitutes covered persons. Aren't it is.
- [232:16]
Host 4
That's a good question, James.
- [232:18]
Host 3
That's a screenshot, right? So you can't click that.
- [232:20]
Host 4
That is a screenshot and probably a question for a lawyer, but they are. They are arguing that. That the ICE agents, like, fall under this. This purview.
- [232:29]
Host 2
Yes.
- [232:30]
Host 3
The term covered person means A, an individual designated in section 114B, a grand juror, petty juror, witness or other officer of the court. An informal witness in a federal criminal investigation or prosecution, State or local officer or employee whose restricted personal information is made publicly available because of the participation in or assistant provided to a federal criminal investigation. So it's part C. Yeah.
- [232:54]
Host 4
So that's what they're going to argue. The people's addresses weren't posted here. It was just their names and photos. But ICE and HSI are being very protective of the faces of agents doing immigration raids and student crackdowns. Right now. They're really nervous about agents possibly being targeted. Targeted. So any attempt to identify these is being treated as like a threat.
- [233:16]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [233:17]
Host 4
A Homeland Security spokesperson told Fox News, quote, these pathetic activists are putting targets on the backs of our law enforcement as they shield Ms. 13 trend, Delagua and other vicious gangs that traffic women and children, kidnap for ransom, and poison Americans with lethal drugs. These individuals will be held accountable for obstructing the law and justice. This shouldn't be controversial.
- [233:39]
Host 3
Yeah. So five people died after a panga carrying migrants capsized off Del Mar, which is in North County, San Diego. The search is ongoing. I believe another five are still missing. One of those is a 10 year old girl from India. And Christine Noem has said she wants the DOJ to pursue death penalty charges against the smugglers who bought these people. People over these boats have been a thing for a while, but this is not the first of these tragedies. And it's obviously like we shouldn't lose focus of the fact that someone's little child died, which is horrific.
- [234:21]
Host 6
Yeah, yeah.
- [234:23]
Host 4
Tough news week as usual, I guess.
- [234:26]
Host 2
Tough news week.
- [234:28]
Host 6
The only way to feel better is by fighting.
- [234:31]
Host 4
But we did report the news.
- [234:33]
Host 2
We did. We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
- [234:47]
Host 6
It Could Happen Here is a production.
- [234:48]
Host 4
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 Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [234:59]
Host 7
You can now find sources for It.
- [235:01]
Host 4
Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
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Host 2
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This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.
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Host 2
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Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I'm Clayton English.
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Host 2
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Host 4
And this is season two of the.
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War on Drugs by sure. Last year a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.
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This kind of star studded a little bit, man.
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It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast.
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Season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Sam Mullins, and I've got a new podcast coming out called goboy, the gritty true story of how one.
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Host 2
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Has spent 24 of those years in jail.
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But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex con to a literary darling from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts.
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Host 2
Listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Host 1
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.