It Could Happen Here Weekly 228

Summary

Podcast Summary: Behind the Bastards / It Could Happen Here Weekly 228

Date: April 18, 2026
Host: Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts
Panel: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, David Forbes, Andrew Sage

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode is a heavily loaded news compilation, diving into:

• The unprecedented and sweeping trans healthcare ban by the Catholic Church in the U.S.
• The crisis and collapse of Rojava’s autonomous project in Syria
• The viral spread of misinformation around U.S. warehouse fires as “class war”
• Updates on the ongoing U.S./Israel war with Iran and fallout in the region
• Executive Disorder: The collapse of Hungary’s Orbanist regime, U.S. surveillance debates, ICE legal proposals in California, and U.S. political theater

The tone is urgent, critical, and often darkly humorous, typical of the show’s mix of activism and bleak news.

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1. The Largest Trans Healthcare Ban in U.S. History (03:06–42:56)

Background & Scope

• Not a Government Ban: Unlike state-level legislative bans, this ban came directly from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in November 2025. Every Catholic-affiliated healthcare system in the U.S. (covering 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 Americans annually) is now barred from providing any trans healthcare — youth and adults, all medications, surgeries, and related care.
• Media Silence: Despite the ban’s magnitude, it's received almost no media attention outside of Trans News Network (TNN), even in queer media.

Key Discussion Points

• Institutional Power:

  • "This wasn't put in place by a legislature...On November 12, 2025, a complete and total trans healthcare ban...was put in place throughout every healthcare system run by the Catholic church in the U.S." (David Forbes, 04:41)
  • Catholic hospitals are often indistinguishable from secular ones, given their sprawling networks and ongoing acquisitions.
  • Many health insurance plans steer people to Catholic systems by covering only their networks.

• Impact Stories:

  • Working Class Focus: Trans people disproportionately rely on ACA plans tied to Catholic systems due to affordability.
  • Sudden Loss of Care: Access to vital care evaporated overnight — even in states like Oregon and Washington, where over one-third of hospital beds are Catholic-affiliated.
  • Examples: Individuals traveling long distances, only to find supposedly “secular” clinics now refused them after the bishops’ decree.

• Precarity Within Institutions:

  • Pro-trans staff and doctors previously found loopholes to deliver care but are now completely barred under threat of firing or worse.
  • "In a hierarchical institution, it kind of doesn't matter what the people on the bottom believe, because...200 reactionaries...can just come in and be like, no, fuck you. None of you get health care." (Mia Wong, 22:09)

• Why No National Response?:

  • National queer organizations—despite enormous budgets—have failed to organize, sue, or even talk much about the Catholic Church’s role: "You will look in vain for a major national organization that's like taking the Catholic Church to task for this..." (David Forbes, 23:36)
  • Knee-jerk deference to religious institutions and PR-fueled perceptions of “progressive” Pope Francis are critiqued as enabling abuse.

• Call to Direct Action:

  • Recalling successful militant organizing of the ACT UP era and urging a revival of “anticlericalism” and grassroots, non-hierarchical struggle.
  • “Anyone who wants any kind of liberatory future...anticlericalism has to be part of it. It’s not the same as being against every individual of a certain religion.” (David Forbes, 33:27)
  • Trends of gay/queer organizing shrinking away from direct conflict with organized religion are critiqued.

Memorable Quotes

• "Four in ten of the largest healthcare networks are Catholic...Trans healthcare is banned in all of them." (David Forbes, 11:06)
• "The moment your religion is able to dictate the behavior of people who are outside of it...You have crossed the line into clerical rule in ways that I think everyone should be deeply opposed to." (Mia Wong, 35:01)
• “The first part of fighting it is to talk about it, to be vocal about it, to be loud and talk about how it is unacceptable. ...To do otherwise I think is just an act of unforgivable cowardice and treason in wartime.” (David Forbes, 38:08)

[Segment ends 42:56]

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2. The Fall of Rojava: Crisis in Northeast Syria (46:43–81:42)

Background & Context

• Rojava Project: An unprecedented attempt at multi-ethnic, directly democratic, and gender-liberatory governance emerging from the Kurdish-led PYD in Syria during the power vacuum left by the Syrian civil war.
• Global Admiration: Widely supported among anarchists and leftists worldwide, with armed struggle against ISIS, patriarchal forces, and Turkish aggression.

Key Discussion Points

• Democratic Confederalism:

  • The system rejects the nation-state in favor of federated assemblies, with roots in PKK ideology and inspired by Murray Bookchin. "Anarchism didn’t have to be an ideological construct that only exists in our little punk houses. It existed...where millions of people lived." (James Stout, 49:01)
  • The project’s women’s movement (“Woman Life Freedom”) featured gender parity in governing bodies and the famed all-female YPJ fighters.

• Challenges & Critique:

  • Rojava built pragmatic alliances (U.S., Russia, Iraqi Kurds, etc.), sometimes at odds with its ideals.
  • SDF and allied groups are multi-ethnic, not “just the Kurds,” as Western media often misrepresents.
  • Internal critiques and an honest approach: “Engage with the Spanish Civil War as it was, not as we wished it to be.” (James Stout, 59:32)
  • Scrutiny toward allegations of war crimes, acknowledgment of complexity and competing tendencies within the movement.

• Collapse:

  • Assad’s fall and rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda-linked militia, with Turkish and Western backing, led to encirclement, mass violence, and siege of Rojava’s key cities (esp. Kobani).
  • “Civilian infrastructure was systematically hit, and homes, schools, mosques, and public buildings being shelled, while abductions, torture and executions were reported...” (Andrew Sage, 72:37)
  • Rojava was forced to surrender and be absorbed into the new Syrian state; its autonomous administration dissolved, rights awarded on paper only.
  • The fate of YPJ and non-Syrian fighters is unknown.

• Legacy & Reflection:

  • Western powers treated Rojava as a disposable chess piece.
  • “We shouldn’t forget the sacrifice that those people made at that time.” (James Stout, 67:25, on the Yazidi rescue)
  • “The blame does not lie in their failures to play this game of geopolitical chess as ruthlessly as other powers… the blame lies in… this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region… as tools to be used and discarded.” (Andrew Sage, 83:23)
  • Hope remains that the liberatory spirit and organizing principles persist, even if the project is forced underground.

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3. Warehouse Fires: Viral Labor “Rebellion” or Selective Reporting? (89:10–112:27)

Background & Event

• Trigger Event [91:34]:
  • April 7: Warehouse worker Shamel Abdul Karim allegedly sets fire to a huge Kimberly Clark warehouse in Ontario, CA, uploading self-filmed videos voicing a clear labor protest motive: "If you're not gonna pay us enough to live...at least pay us enough not to do this."
  • Damage: Over $600 million, took 12+ hours to contain; no injuries.

Viral Response

• Social Media Narratives:
  • TikTok and left-leaning influencers claim a “revolution is brewing”—alleging multiple warehouse/retail arsons are erupting across the country as class warfare.
  • Example: “Apparently that guy… was not the only one with that idea… at least 4 to 6 other warehouses… have burned down or been set on fire.” (David Forbes, as cited in viral video, 95:04)
  • Amazon and other warehouse fires (NY, Ohio, NJ, GA, CA) are widely cited. Video posts rack up views in the hundreds of thousands to millions.

Reality Check

• Data & Debunking:
  • Warehouse fires occur ~4 times daily in the U.S., overwhelmingly accidental (electrical, flammable materials, equipment failure, etc.). Only 7% are arson, per the National Fire Protection Association.
  • Most viral-claimed fires were not arson or labor-related. E.g., the Amazon warehouse fire in Ohio was due to solar panel malfunction; the Bakersfield warehouse was abandoned; other fires were accidental chemical/battery blazes or wildfires.
  • Viral narrative is a classic “selective reporting” spiral—national headlines create a lens through which unrelated local events are misattributed to the same cause.

Commentary

• Class Consciousness vs. Illusion:
  • The response ("Luigi Mangione" arson memes, “eat the rich” content) reflects a widespread longing for class conflict, but channeling that only into meme engagement risks becoming a cathartic substitute for real organizing.
  • “This whole warehouse fire news cycle is an instance of selective reporting... just because you're more aware of warehouse fires... doesn't mean these fires are actually happening at a higher rate.” (Garrison Davis, 108:14)

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4. The U.S./Israel War with Iran – Operation Epic Fury (123:55–150:32)

Situation Overview

• Context:
  • Full-scale U.S./Israeli bombing campaign in Iran, massive strikes on infrastructure (energy, desalination, schools), and attempts at blockade of ports and oil exports. Causal rationales shift—from “preventing a nuclear bomb” (a claim repeated for decades) to generalized regime change and resource access.
  • Iranian missile and drone attacks hit U.S. interests/proxies across the region. Kurdistan (Iraqi and Iranian) is particularly devastated due to erroneous reports and targeting by both sides.

Key Developments & Analysis

• Civilian Tragedy:

  • On the first day, U.S. missiles strike a girls' elementary school in Minab, killing over 175, mostly children—mirroring the “shock and awe” tactics of previous U.S. campaigns (124:51).
  • Significant civilian casualties reported by organizations like Hengor (~7,650 dead in the bombing campaign, including ~1,030 civilians, as of reporting), and ongoing execution of political prisoners inside Iran.

• No One's Clear Objective:

  • Israel's aim is to permanently cripple Iran; the U.S. wants regime change or pliant resource access. No consistent goals or plausible justification.
  • Armies, especially the IRGC and Basij, are deeply woven into Iranian society; regime change via bombing alone is deemed extremely unlikely.

• Global Fallout:

  • Strait of Hormuz, key for global oil/gas trade, is blockaded by Iran; U.S. attempts its own blockade, with tension over ship passage and threats of food shortages in Iran.
  • Ongoing ceasefire negotiations (notably in Pakistan) appear to be largely cover for military regrouping on all sides.

• Kurdish & Regional Suffering:

  • Kurdish groups in Iran and Iraq bombed repeatedly; civilians in refugee camps and urban areas continue to die despite “ceasefires.”

• Memorable Quote:

  • “The only thing the US seems interested in liberating is oil. Iran’s nuclear threat remains like Schrodinger’s cat – at once terrible and non-existent, destroyed last year and the justification for thousands of deaths this year. As always, our solidarity should be with people and not with states.” (James Stout, 149:16)

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5. Executive Disorder: Global & U.S. Political Updates (153:41–216:39)

Quickfire News Highlights

• Turkey: Two school shootings prompt 162 arrests for online “incitement”—globalization of American mass shooter culture (154:14).
• U.S. Military: Southcom’s killings in anti-drug operations signal ongoing U.S. violence in Latin America.
• Nigeria: Military bombs market, justifies treating any bystander as an enemy (156:21–156:49).

U.S. Political, Legal, and Immigration News

• War Powers Resolution: Congressional attempts to end U.S. war in Iran narrowly fail in both House and Senate.
• FISA Section 702: Warrantless surveillance of foreign (and by extension domestic) communications debated; potential for targeting left-wing activists noted (159:49).
• Orban Falls in Hungary: Peter Magyar and TISZA party oust Orban/Fidesz after years of right-wing illiberalism; Magyar’s populist-conservative politics are outlined—possibly less hostile to LGBTQ people, but not a leftist savior. (162:49–172:31)
• ICE in California: Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer releases a platform to not just abolish, but legally pursue and jail ICE agents/leaders for crimes—most detailed plan to date; discussed in depth with caveats about legal strategy and practical obstacles (184:58–192:19).
• Detention Center Abuse: Allegations of severe abuse at the South Florida ICE “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, including attorney-client privilege breaches and violent beatdowns, expose the underbelly of U.S. immigration enforcement (192:19–196:18).

Additional Items

• Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ PR Flop: Photo ops and misleading claims around a tax break for tipped workers are debunked as PR spin to distract from gig company wage theft and union-busting (177:01–182:47).
• Sam Altman Molotov & AI Extremism:
  • Attack on the OpenAI CEO’s home tied to a “Butlerian Jihadist” (Dune reference) with rationalist, Yudkowsky-influenced AI-doom beliefs, but actual threat to humanity posed by corporate AI is harm to labor, news, and information, not science fiction scenarios (203:25–212:07).

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6. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Trans Healthcare Ban:
  • "I have to say, I think part of this, as you've seen, especially...gay Inc. groups use [progress on marriage] to become the gatekeepers...[Now] they've backed away from ever criticizing religious institutions." (David Forbes, 28:10)
• Warehouse Fires:
  • "This whole warehouse fire social media news cycle is an instance of selective reporting, which happens when there is a big national news story...causing people to share what they believe are related stories, even if the connection is minor or tangential at best." (Garrison Davis, 112:57)
• On U.S./Iran war:
  • "Iran's nuclear threat remains like Schrodinger's cat—a once terrible and non-existent, destroyed last year and the justification for thousands of deaths this year." (James Stout, 149:16)
• Rojava:
  • "The blame does not lie in their failures to play this game of geopolitical chess as ruthlessly as other powers in the region. I think the blame lies in this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region as a whole as tools to be used and discarded." (Andrew Sage, 83:23)

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7. Timestamps for Important Segments

• Trans Healthcare Ban: 03:06–42:56
• Rojava’s Fall: 46:43–81:42
• Warehouse Fire Viral Meme: 89:10–112:27
• Operation Epic Fury (U.S./Iran): 123:55–150:32
• Executive Disorder News Roundup: 153:41–216:39

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Conclusion

This week’s episode provides a panoramic view of reactionary violence (both state and private), viral misinformation, the tragic complexity of revolutionary experiments, and the pitfalls and flashpoints in organizing against entrenched powers—whether that’s the U.S. military-industrial complex, religious healthcare monopolies, or exploitative gig economy giants.

Throughout, the hosts argue for historical memory, direct action, mutual aid, and grassroots organizing—challenging liberal deference, media blindness, and surface-level “hope” disconnected from radical material engagement.

Transcript

[James Stout]

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[Robert Evans]

Cool Zone 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.

[Mia Wong]

Welcome to A Cadaven here, a podcast about things falling apart and how to put them back together again. I am your host, Mia Wong and today we are going to be talking about, frankly, the largest and most draconian trans healthcare ban in the country and the unexpected place that. Well, I don't know if unexpected is the right word, but the ignored place that it's come from. And with me to talk about this band is David Forbes, who is an editor and a journalist with the Trans News Network. David, welcome to the show.

[David Forbes]

Always good to be here.

[Mia Wong]

Once again, back to my. I wish I could have people on the show to talk about like cool and normal things, but you know, we get that sometimes this is not one of those stories.

[David Forbes]

I mean, we're trans journalists in a dying empire, you know. Yeah, let's. Let's. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

So speaking of bad things happening in dying empires, do you want to take us sort of to the start of this health care ban and what we're even talking about here? Because it's not a government healthcare ban in the way that I think people expect.

[Andrew Sage]

No.

[David Forbes]

And, and that's actually really important to all this story because a lot of the attention in healthcare bans has been on governments.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And occasionally hospitals, like secular hospital systems refusing to provide care because they're scared of the federal government. So it's been a portrayed as a fight between governments or a fight over stuff happening at legislatures. And to be clear, that stuff is absolutely important.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Forbes]

However, this ban wasn't put in place by a legislature. It's not any institution that people have even the facade of an ability to really influence. On November 12, 2025, a complete and total trans healthcare ban, medications as well as surgeries, adults as well as youth, was put in place throughout every healthcare system run by the Catholic church in the U.S. yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And that has not really, like, I don't know, like I've talked about it like we've mentioned it on the show before. I don't know if I've really seen any other, like, systemic, large scale coverage of it. I mean, there was like a couple of articles when it came out, but other than tnn, like this has been almost completely ignored, even though it is more draconian than any healthcare band that has gone into effect anywhere in the country. It is a. It's again, as you said.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

This is a total healthcare ban for children and adults.

[David Forbes]

Yes. And for all. All types of trans healthcare.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. For everything.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And. And that's the thing. So I've honestly been a little surprised by that, even old and cynical as I am. But tnn, as far as I know, is one of the only outlets, including in queer and trans media. I won't say the only, but one of the only that has done ongoing coverage on this, let alone in depth. Extensive. What are the roots of this? How did we get here? Yeah, kind of coverage. I've done two articles on it and those were in December. So a few weeks after it passed, we kind of went in detail on what it meant and the implications of which were and have proven to be pretty horrifying.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And also the Catholic Church has pretty horrific history as an institution, while individual Catholics have a. As we'll get to have a wide range of beliefs, including on trans rights. The institution itself has always been highly abusive, highly reactionary, and incredibly opposed to our very existence. And that just hasn't changed. It's actually escalating. And then we did one just last week that was on the actual impact, like we talked to trans people around the country who'd encountered the impact of the bishop's ban, as I've heard a few folks call it, and I've called a few times myself, and what it means for their lives in the ground.

[Mia Wong]

So I guess there's two points we should hit immediately. One is sort of how this happened and like how this band sort of came together and was voted on by like, who? And the second one is how many people this affects. Because I think this is the point that's really been ignored, which is that, like Catholic hospitals, it's not like they're running like 10 of these. I mean, it would be bad if they were running 10 of these. But this is a significant part of the entire US healthcare system.

[David Forbes]

Yes, a massive part of it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

So I think that's very important to kind of touch on. So this was passed in November at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which they have regular meetings and Decide policies and stuff. And it's one of the things, and this is going to be a recurring theme in this, is the degree to which I think even people think of themselves as progressives, fairly left, have kind of bought hook, line and sinker. Some of the propaganda, and it is overwhelmingly propaganda coming out of the Catholic church since the mid-2010s when Pope Francis got in. So you were seeing from this conference the big news in a lot of progressive circles was, oh, well, they made this statement against the Trump administration. Immigration.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

But here's the thing that was a statement. Certainly it's, you know, better than if they supported ice, but it was a symbolic step, largely. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like they didn't even do, like the very baseline thing, which would be like excommunicating JD Vance, a thing they could do and didn't. Because they're fucking cowards. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

But they didn't even do that.

[David Forbes]

Yes. And we're gonna get back to that. And often worse than cowards. Yeah. So at this conference that got most of the headlines, but they also passed this very draconian anti trans healthcare ban. Yeah, it passed overwhelmingly. This was not like some narrow victory by the conservative faction.

[Mia Wong]

No, it was almost everyone.

[David Forbes]

It passed 206 to 7.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Jesus Christ.

[David Forbes]

Interestingly, it was interesting listening to some of the proceedings of this, which may not be great for mental health, but was quite informative.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And one of the. One of the bishops involved, Robert Barron, cited Pope Francis, who was held out, even sadly, by some queer media as being this, you know, step forward for queer and trans rights, which I think was completely a farce. Held out his rampant transphobia, which he was always very clear about, and quoted him saying that viewed the existence of trans people. They used the far right term gender ideology as, and I quote, repugnant to the Bible and to our tradition. You could not ask for a more clear statement of hatred and extermination against trans people.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

I mean, that's it. That this is not an institution that, you know, is slowly but surely getting better. This institution that outside of the pr, it's getting worse.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Is digging in on doing really very reactionary harm. And so the effects of that were pretty devastating. And immediately, I mean, we'll get into some folks who dealt with stuff later that same month due to this ban in a little bit. But like, the Catholic Church's healthcare networks are massive. By some estimates, 1 in 6, 1 in 7 of all people in the US go through a Catholic healthcare system at some point in a given year.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

It doesn't just include a few hospitals. It includes an incredibly sprawling network of clinics and specialists and doctors practices. Plenty of them are not outwardly Catholic. Even. So, yeah, people may be going to a practice owned or under the Catholic Church and not even be aware of it. It's also expanding. It's taking over and buying out previously secular practices. And this is, you know, a multifaceted problem. It goes along with cuts in federal aid. It goes along with the general like, capitalist fervor that kind of grips secular health cares as well. So if they cut services, the Catholic Church often buys them up and expands. So it affects everyone in that. Yeah, everyone who deals with that. And the Catholic peers has never been pro trans remotely. But previously, prior to this ban, there was kind of a hodgepodge and some local ambiguities and there were cases, we'll get into some of them in a second, where local pro trans Catholics or folks working at those networks could indeed provide pretty substantial trans care through like one ambiguity or loophole or another that just ended all of it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

So throughout that entire network in some states and ones you wouldn't necessarily think, including, you know, ones like Oregon and Washington that are ostensibly supposed to have like pretty strict trans health care protections, Catholic hospitals comprise like over a third of hospital beds and I think Washington is over 40%. So we're talking about, of health care beds. We're talking about a substantial part of, of the American healthcare system. Four in ten of the largest healthcare networks are Catholic. That's how extensive this was. And now trans healthcare is banned in all of them. Absolutely.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And that's something that has an absolutely massive rolling impact. Right. Because again, it's not just that it's like outwardly Catholic hospitals and something I think you're going to talk about more later. But it's also like it's people who have healthcare plans through like something that's affiliated with the church. There are all of these ways in which, you know, suddenly just enormous numbers of people had their healthcare taken away effectively overnight. Because the primary way that anti trans healthcare repression has been understood has been through the state level. And I understand why it's like that because like a lot of it has been coming from the state. Both on. This is where you get into confusing American terminology, but both in terms of the federal government and the state level governments.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Like there's been a huge focus on that. But the distribution of the Catholic healthcare system is cutting through the lines of what people sort of had previously assumed to be safe.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And this is something that is a threat to trans people effectively everywhere. And it's compounding, as we were talking about earlier, with the sort of crisis of affordability and coverage. Because a lot of these.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Healthcare clinics and hospitals and practices are the ones that are actually covered by insurance.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And you can switch, like they're secular ones, but you can't go to them because they're not covered by your fucking insurance. So they're unbelievably expensive.

[David Forbes]

And this gets to a reality that goes through a lot of our coverage, which is that trans people are an overwhelmingly working class demographic.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

I don't think that gets said enough. It doesn't get depicted even in some queer and trans media. But that is incredibly important here. I began the second story with an interview that we published with an interview with Beth, who's a trans woman in the Midwest and found it nearly impossible to find health care outside of their networks. Because like a lot of trans people, Beth has an ACA plan. And because the secular networks are a little more expensive, some cases a lot more expensive, the ACA plans that are available to most trans people, you know, that they can remotely afford don't cover health care there. So you kind of have to. And then they don't provide your health care at all.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And in that case, this was someone she'd been going across state borders, which she noticed kind of wild to get healthcare anyway to go to Planned Parenthood. Finally thought that she had found a practice closer to home. Went there before the Bishops ban, like right before it hit. They seemed very welcoming. She knew other trans people that had gotten care of there before and everything seemed great. Goes back after the ban and it's like, oh, I'm sorry, we can't help you. And this wasn't a practice that was obviously Catholic, you know, didn't. No giant crucifixes or anything hanging on it. Yeah, it was just one that was. Oh, it's a doctor's office. Some other trans. You've gotten care there. It beats driving at least an hour each way, if not more.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Again, you know, when you're working class, a two hour round trip commute is a lot that's, you know, especially with gas being up more like that's a lot of money. And it strained things even further. And so she had to go back to traveling across state. But, you know, I think some folks assume. And she points out, like, oh, you just go to the provider. You often can't. There's not that option.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, there isn't.

[Garrison Davis]

1.

[David Forbes]

Even in some fairly major cities there is not that option unless you have a lot more money or health care through a fairly well heeled employer. And a lot of us don't.

[Mia Wong]

You know, this is another one of the problems here, which is that trans people are overwhelmingly working class. It is one of the worst demographics of poverty rate of any of like any demographic group in the U.S. yes. The unemployment levels are like, like this was like 2023 back when the economy was like working was like 1936. Great depression levels.

[David Forbes]

Yes. Incarceration rates, education rates. It's all among the poorest of the poor. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. It's all apocalyptically bad.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Then there is the issue, and this is an issue that we've covered on the show from, from other lenses, which is that like, yeah, like we're dealing with these like large scale waves of hospital closures.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And the less hospitals that exist in an area, and particularly in the sort of working class areas where these people are living. Right. The more those hospitals close because those are the ones that are closing because they're losing a whole bunch of funding from the government. And, and you know, there's like, there's, there's a series of other economic pressures there. The more those options disappear, the more reliant people are on, on these Catholic hospitals which have just implemented an adult health care ban. Yeah, like the Republicans in Congress aren't pushing that right now.

[David Forbes]

No.

[Mia Wong]

Like I cannot emphasize how unbelievably draconian and reactionary this is.

[David Forbes]

Yes. Well, and also they're doing at the same time that you have major progressive media figures, legislators praising the current Pope for uttering some words about universal health care. They don't practice universal health care networks, not just with trans people, but definitely not with trans people.

[Mia Wong]

It's like they have the money to like they could.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And they don't.

[David Forbes]

Like there's a story in investigating this that really stood out to me. And it was from a pharmacy intern, basically someone who's studying to be a pharmacist and did a, you know, a stint, a training stint in a Catholic hospital right before the bishop's ban hit and said that they were doing at least one gender affirming procedure a week.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[David Forbes]

A week. And that actually, you know, this was someone who had dealt with a Ford and had not got great experiences and was actually heading into this, you know, kind of this 12 week stint expecting to have to deal with, you know, the problems of being a trans person with a religious institution and actually said, no, that this, this particular hospital, the folks who work there were super pro trans, super accepting. They were actively providing trans care. And mentioned even because it was a moral area and that's that stat alone, that was, you know, a gender affirming care procedure. Most weeks should be a reminder that a lot of trans people also don't live in major cities.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

They live in smaller cities. They live in small towns, rural areas, even by a mile. Actually the region of the U.S. with the largest trans population is the South.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And the Midwest is very closely tied with the west, which includes the west coast for second. So they mentioned that there's. This was a sentiment of the staff, like look, if you're in la, okay. There's a bunch of Catholic hospitals, a bunch of other ones too. So the people seeking out Catholic hospitals may be a bit more conservative. There are more likely to be other alternatives now. So healthcare access can be a problem there too. But in war era the kind of staff had a sense, look, if, if we don't do it, no one else will.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And so they, they didn't be pretty pro trans. The loophole they used, the ambiguity. I guess the very reason they used was if an insurer, secular or otherwise said hey, this procedure is necessary, they didn't question it. And under the previous pre bishops ban situation there was kind of that bit of that leeway.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

This is an example of, you know, some of them Catholic pro trans folks in a rural area actually doing some real good. And then because they kind of maneuvered in this gray area and this band just completely ended that.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

They also described because they actually had top surgery scheduled at this same hospital and the ban hit. And they're very thankful to the doctor who did, you know, surgeries at that hospital, who intentionally just kind of kept them on the schedule.

[Mia Wong]

Incredible. Incredible.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, but, but like we need way more of that. But also it just got a lot more difficult and a lot more hurdles were placed in the way of that. So like what was happening just got cut off.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And this is also a really, a really significant issue because trans health care is already even before this, you know, like the wait list for think for things like top surgery, things like bottom surgery are sometimes years long. Even in places that have like quote unquote, like good health care. Right. Like even in places like Oregon or like.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

You know in places like L. A. Like you're, you're dealing with multi year wait lists to get these procedures.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And suddenly like a seventh of all people doing this are just gone. And that Just contributes. Even if you can get.

[David Forbes]

And some places half.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. And the number of people who do these procedures is so small that if you are looking to get these procedures, like you can talk to the trans people in your area and they will know every single doctor who does it. Yeah, right.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Because there's like three maybe if you're lucky, there's like three. Usually there's like one, like even on

[David Forbes]

the HRT front sometimes.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And I can speak from experience on this. You know, it's often kind of an icebreaker of like, oh, you know, which medical practice is giving you your HRT and down. Because there's like two, maybe three if you're lucky.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[David Forbes]

And that's maybe for a whole region.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And you know, a lot of transfer, maybe even most live outside of what you think of as a few, you know, major metropoli. But also there was a. While I was looking into this, there was a case in 2017 before the bishops ban where a Catholic hospital in California, which on paper at least, has fairly strong trans health care protections for the U.S. yeah. Where a priest with no medical experience comes in last minute, vetoes the top surgery for a trans man and they kick him out on the streets. Still on the drugs, the pre surgery drug.

[Garrison Davis]

What the fuck?

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[David Forbes]

He sued them. Rightly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Like, you know, this is, this is a hospital in New York, California. We could go into it a little bit in the story. So like that was happening before, but that's now everywhere. And the few cases like the hospital that, that we mentioned, where there were folks working around that to still provide some healthcare, that's probably gone now. I would say it's almost certainly gone. Unless folks are really just breaking the rules, which they should.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. You know, but this is sort of the systemic problem with having the church hierarchy having control over these healthcare institutions, which is that.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Even if you are just like in the institution trying to do good and you believe in the right thing and you're trying to do the right thing, it doesn't matter.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Because suddenly just the hammer can come down on you from above. And even if you keep doing it right, there's always just the risk that like, they're just gonna fire you all.

[David Forbes]

At best. It is highly precarious.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And it's. It's this really kind of, I don't know, this kind of like brutal demonstration of the reality that in a hierarchical institution it kind of doesn't matter what the people on the bottom believe, because at the stroke of a pen. 200 reactionaries who run your fucking institution can just come in and be like, no, fuck you. None of you get health care.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, well, and not just that, but run a substantial amount of the entire American health care system.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Forbes]

I mean, and this is actually why. And this is a larger factor. I have survived literal fundamentalist Christian violence when I was, when I was younger. And I think this is actually something we will probably get into in a little bit. Like, I've never gotten the aversion, especially from queer and trans organizations to criticize religious institutions and didn't always used to be this way, but it's definitely been this way, including on this issue. Because, you know, you will look in vain for a major national organization that's like taking the Catholic Church to Haskell for this.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Ones with millions dollars of budgets, you know, apparently their higher ups are too busy, you know, taking first class flights and raking in nearly a million dollars a year while trans people can't find jobs, you know, but like, yeah, so I've never gotten the aversion because for a lot of us on the ground, for a lot of us who, you know, among the, the many, many, many trans people that are working class that live outside some of the like, you know, handful metropolis that we often get depicted as exclusively living in fundamentalist violence, you know, to be and to be clear from plenty of like Protestant evangelicals as well. Yeah, never stopped. It never stopped being a very serious and real threat. Their numbers have gone down since the 90s, you know, in the early 2000s.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

But it's never stopped being something you really have to have to account for, whether it's institutional, even if it's totally illegal, they'll still do it like they did in California, or literal, like street violence, literally, like people attacking you with weapons. So I think that's definitely a factor in all this and I think it's a sad factor in why folks haven't heard about it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And you know, in some of the stuff I've talked about before on the show and elsewhere, I've mentioned that I think that whatever in the intent behind it, the Gay Inc. As it were, the structure of, you know, these larger nonprofits which even send down to like the local and state level at some points, that and the culture from them that kind of is more status quo and more so, kind of dictates a lot of like official, at least queer and trans politics has been a disastrous failure. And I think that's even, you know, even more apparent here. This is again the largest, most draconian trans healthcare in the U.S. it's already happened, it's already in place. And you will look in vain for any organizing from the institutions. They're supposed to protect trans rights against it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

There aren't like big lawsuits being filed. There's not like, you know, expose being run. They have far more resources than they are, you know, worker run newsroom. We do a lot with what we have. We encourage people to support us, but like they have a lot more resources to make those things a large national issue. They have chosen not to. And a lot of people are going to suffer for that. Are suffering for that.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I should mention too, on an actual policy level, like a full scale health care ban on adult trans health care is like hideously unpopular. Like there's a reason the Republicans haven't done it. Yeah, right. Because it's not popular. So this is like, this is a winning issue.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Right. And they won't fucking take up the

[David Forbes]

fight because they're too busy glazing the papacy. Not just them, I mean progressives in general are lately glazing the papacy way too much.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And it's just this issue that trickles down too to like the fact that the sbc, right. The Southern Baptist Convention, the fact that there hasn't been a sort of broad scale offensive against them, you know, even though they've been like driving.

[David Forbes]

Still a massive problem.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, driving like all of this shit for fucking ages. And they were like, you know, like there was a point like a couple of years ago where they were genuinely seriously weakened by their series of like, of internal abuse scandals.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And like, even though like these are like the church groups that are also backing the healthcare bans on the legislative level, there's no sort of political will to actually go to war with the right wing churches that are doing this stuff.

[David Forbes]

Well, so this is an interesting difference and it relates to what we were just talking about, the sentiments I hear among trans folks on the ground, you know, working class trans folks. It's pretty anti clerical like to put it, to put it mildly. It tends to be more gentry types, especially ones more in Scots and institutions or like, you know, official political culture, the gang stuff we've been mentioning that have more of this aversion. And I will have to say it wasn't always this way. I am old enough to remember when queer organizing, taking aim at mocking, even go directly going the attack against suing. Definitely.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Religious institutions was a pretty common fixture, a prominent example. And I deal with this in the earlier piece, as well as touching on the more recent one, was Act Up's 1989 Stop the Church action, which you imagine a queer org doing an action with that title today, in which case they militantly Disrupted services of St Patrick's Cathedral in New York because of the ridiculous homophobia of the Catholic Church and its role in the Asian asides.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And if there's some video of this that we. That we linked in that first story from ACT UPS archives, and I find the signs hilarious, but there's stuff that you would immediately see tone policing about, even from some trans, queer and trans media today. Yeah, you know, oh, we shouldn't alienate normies. All this, all that. And hey, there's a big backlash the time. A huge one. The president condemned it. You know, the federal officials condemned it. Congress critters condemned it. You know, there was this giant attack. This was unacceptable, beyond the pale. It also worked. The Catholic Church did start backing off their stances because they didn't want to be attacked more. And I think it's a good example that stop looking at the damn polls and just fight them.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

You know, it's generally a much better approach. And I think, I have to say, I think part of this, as you've seen, especially with how, you know, the co option of some of the results of equal marriage, when you saw after that era, gay in groups use that to become like the predominant force and gatekeep a lot of other organizing and queer and trans activism. You saw this backing away from ever criticizing religious institutions. I mean, the advocate named Pope Francis In 2013 their person of the Year.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And like, this is the guy who said that. She said that gender ideology is more dangerous to the world than nuclear weapons.

[David Forbes]

Yes. Again, you know, individual Catholics have their own sets of beliefs and differ. Some are very obviously pro trans, but, like, the institution is very unequivocal on this. It has never stopped being that.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And longtime journalists covering the Catholic Church, you know, cautioned that, look, the term they use was changing the tone, but keeping the same music for Francis's papacy.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And Leo is very much in that now. I think that actually opens up a weakness because with the, you know, revelation of the horrific levels of serial child abuse within the Catholic Church, with the, you know, atrocities on massive scales, involvement, indigenous genocide, with the attacks in the 80s and 90s and 2000s about their homophobia and their role in the age genocides as well, like, there was actually starting to be this giant institution, despite how hierarchical and unaccountable it is. Was starting to be on the back foot. And you know, in some places, like Ireland, this has led to its. Its power numbers being like taking a massive hit. So there was a shift like any institution to give a kinder face. And the depressing thing is that among a lot of people should know better. It's largely worked.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And I really wish people be less taken in by symbolism.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[David Forbes]

It's also like de facto a theocracy because one of the people we talked to, Allison, would try to get testosterone right off the bishop's ban. They're not Catholic. Their doctor isn't Catholic. Their pharmacy's not Catholic.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

So you think, okay, well, you should be able to. No, no, no. The insurance that their spouse had was technically provided through a Catholic healthcare network.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

So it took them months before they finally got the testosterone. Not. And so now they have to pay out of pocket for it. They can for the time being. But for working class trans people, that's one more cost on top of everything else. And eventually those are costs you often can't bear. So like that. That's the reality.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And the reality is, is is unaccountable theocratic rule.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

In areas where it's not supposed to be happening.

[David Forbes]

Exactly. Well, in potentially any area. You know, if you have a secular practice today delivers you hrt, no issue.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

It could get bought out by one of these networks tomorrow. Yep.

[Mia Wong]

Why the fuck do these religious institutions have the ability to influence like healthcare at all? Yeah. Right. This is something you, you, you would think would be not a place where someone else's religion can suddenly.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And not even like that person's religion. It's like the religious hierarchy of a church should not be able to dictate whether someone gets health care. And yet.

[David Forbes]

Yeah. This goes well beyond the, you know, even supposed power in a secular society that, you know, religious have all we can do. You know, they can make this pronouncement that applies to those who believe in that religion or that. That specific denomination or institution or whatever. No, this is affecting plenty of people who have never set foot in. In a Catholic Church.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Who aren't remotely Catholic. Even the providers that they're going to aren't Catholic.

[Robert Evans]

They.

[David Forbes]

And this is still happening because that's the kind of sway in power they have. And it's not been seriously challenged, including by liberals and even too many leftists. And you mentioned the Southern Baptist Commission earlier. It isn't just the Catholic Church, but because of the sheer scale and the centralized nature of its hierarchy they are certainly probably the single most damaging institution on this front. The SBC is a problem. While they operate on far too vast a scale, they don't operate in the scale the Catholic Church does.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And this is like, this is, you know, fundamentally like part of the issue here is just, there's a, I don't know if advantage is the right term here, but like the centralization of the Catholic Church relative to like the sort of divided Protestants denominations allows them to wield power like collectively in a way that is a lot harder for something like the sbc where just like it just doesn't have the scale that like that the church does and like that the Catholic Church doesn't. Because the Catholic Church is this large, is able to just buy out this much of the hospital system and then because of the, of the top down structures where the bishops can just go in and vote and do and implement this stuff, it's a really, really, really significant problem.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

That is just not being dealt with. This is not a problem that you can just like snap your fingers and solve by like running stuff through a state legislature.

[David Forbes]

No.

[Mia Wong]

Like you actually have to go after the institution. You have to fight them on their ground.

[David Forbes]

Yes. And also this is, you know, it's, it's kind of what I ended the December piece with. But also it's something I emphasized in the second one. Anyone who wants any kind of liberatory future, regardless of whatever their personal beliefs are, anti clericalism has to be part of it. It's not the same against, you know, being against every individual of a certain religion. It is specifically against this kind of theocratic hierarchy and its power over people's lives.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

You do not get to anything remotely liberatory without directly attacking and challenging that. And for too long that struggle's largely been abandoned.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And not shockingly fundamentalist of various varieties. And let's be honest, primarily Christian fundamentalists have played a major role in American fascism and in stripping rights from entire groups. And it's interesting because you mentioned the council bishops beside this. But that's true. But it gets even more centralized than that. The, you know, progressive Pope that's getting praised for, you know, condemning the Iran war and it's always condemning or statements or this or that. Yeah. The Catholic Church is still kind of an absolute theocratic monarchy in some ways. You know, he could just say, hey, American bishops don't do that. Like I'm overruling you. You do have to provide trans health care under whatever circumstances or ideally all of them. He's chosen not to. And if you look at his history of transphobia before he became Pope.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[David Forbes]

That's not particularly surprising.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. I think sort of like the very baseline kind of anti clerical stance here is like the moment your religion is able to dictate the behavior of people who are outside of it.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

You have crossed the line into sort of like into this kind of clerical role in ways that I think everyone should be deeply opposed to.

[David Forbes]

Yes. Like universally that should be regarded as unacceptable and oppressive.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And this is what we're dealing with here, which is that when there isn't this, you know, because like, we talk a lot about sort of this, the separation of church and state, which has always been kind of a joke in the US to like a broad extent. Right. But like, you know, there are like other spheres that exist in our lives. Right. There's, you know, like there are economic spheres, there are health scare spheres, there are like social spheres. And you know, like the fact that a church can just be like, no, fuck you, and cut off unbelievable numbers of trans people from their healthcare in a way that even the sort of like right wing theocrats in office wouldn't be able to do.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Is something that has to be. That has to be opposed because fuck that it does.

[David Forbes]

And I will add while, you know, obviously, and we deal with some in this story of, you know, an example of pro trans folks at a Catholic hospital, even a Catholic hospital, overwhelmingly the staff were pro trans. But I do think, and polls, to the extent that they matter, you know, do show repeatedly that opinion within Catholics themselves and Vigili is pretty split on this. There are a substantial number who are pro trans rights and pro trans healthcare. I also have to say though that at this point, I think there is a specific obligation among them to speak up and act against this loudly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And, you know, I think the example of the, the doctor who one people I interviewed, you know, get around the band to get top surgery. I think that's the minimum, honestly. Like, yeah, like, okay, if you support trans rights, start here. Because I think pressure from that quarter, as we've seen, hits even harder on some of these institutions, you know, because while they claim to be this above everything kind of hierarchy, we have seen worries about losing numbers of Catholics being involved in the church has driven their decisions before. And more pressure will drive them again potentially, you know, like. Yeah, I think it will. Like, what we've seen pretty clearly just in my lifetime is when these institutions are under attack, when folks go on the offensive against them culturally, you Know, socially, with direct militant organizing like ACT UP did, then we see some of our rights and liberation advance shockingly quickly in some cases compared to where they were.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And when that is relaxed on, when they are given space to gather power and plan and go back on the attack, then things get a lot worse very quickly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

This can be fought. The first part of fighting it is to talk about it, to be vocal about, to be loud and talk about how it is unacceptable. I think, frankly, a lot of pressure can also be exerted on some of these gay inc. Orgs.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Like, if they want any donations or any support, I don't think they should get a lot of nations supporting. I think there's better places to put it. But if they don't want to become pariahs and queer and trans communities, that needs to be the message. Like, you need to fight this. You need to fight this hard. You need to fight this now.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

Because to do otherwise, I think it's just an act of unforgivable cowardice and treason in wartime. To kind of use a metaphor.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

But, you know, we always end our pieces at tnn because I think. I mean, there was a joke about it I saw recently of, like, it is the sacred role of trans journalism to, you know, unnecessarily scare trans people beyond all measure.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And I think people should take that to heart that among, like, trans folks, some trans journalism is getting that. And I've termed these pieces panic slop when they're badly sourced. Exaggerate something.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. The day we're recording this, the episode came out. So I don't know if, like. If, like some other unhinged thing has happened between now and then. And you're like, wow, why are you not mentioning, like, public mass executions of trans people or some.

[David Forbes]

Like, I don't. That is, like, panics up.

[Mia Wong]

Like, that's why. Because this is. This is being recorded on the day in which our episode about this dropped. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this panic slop shit is just like.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, but it's, you know, it's become a real problem in some quarters. And yeah, I, you know, I think kind of it's to be a nerd. Like, any reckoning with conflict and even like, the warfare level of conflict is always like, you have to have accurate information. You need to know what actually is a threat, what is not. And I think communities under fire, which we're all part of, have to have that even more so and especially now. So I tried to exaggerate the very real Threats and the Catholic Church's ban is definitely one of them. But also like people have fought this stuff. They fought this stuff even when the odds looked more dire. It can be fought again.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Like during the age genocide.

[David Forbes]

Exactly.

[Mia Wong]

They fought them and won.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, exactly. And it can be fought against again and won. But it has to be fought and has to be fought hard.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, but, and I think, I think the last thing I want to mention is this is something I say a lot with union organizing. But like the people in ACT UP who went and fought are just you.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

There's nothing like special about them. They were just people who were forced to act.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And who took up the fight and did it. Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And I think that actually kind of can transmute something that has been seen as a bad trend within trans communities. I don't think that always is of like, oh, trans communities like crucify their heroes too much. They pillory people too much. In a lot of cases, if it's a public figure, Yonaxar McBride that's done some really terrible stuff. They're acting out of frankly a just sense of grievance. But also I think there should be a shift away from individual figures on pedestals from looking to a set of leaders guide everyone else. I think we're at our strongest when the organizing is coming from everywhere. The fight is coming from everywhere. It's not singular figures. And honestly I think pedestals are bad for everyone involved. And that's exactly what you're saying. People can start acting now. They don't need to, you know, certainly I think it's good to pressure large organizations and figures with power partly because I think it gives people a sense of empowerment as well as occasionally fear works and they concede and you know, something improves a little bit or something worse is avoided. But also just for like it's just us, y', all, you know, like, yeah, that's what's going to have to solve this.

[Mia Wong]

And that is why we start. I don't know, I don't know if percentage on the episodes that we start with things falling apart but also putting them back together again because we can and we can make it better.

[David Forbes]

They're building something better entirely. Yeah, definitely.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

And on that note, if people want to support Trans News Network, they can find out how to do so. At transnews.network we are a worker run non profit and kind of trying to set a model for transmedia that's in depth and hard hitting and underpinningly radical.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[David Forbes]

But that also is, you know, is goes in depth and investigates stuff and gives an accurate, accurate picture of what's going on. The threats, but also real victories.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And the best reporting on us is going to be done by us.

[David Forbes]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

So you can help make that possible.

[David Forbes]

We appreciate any support we get. We do a stunning amount on a fairly shoestring budget.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's unreal.

[David Forbes]

I appreciate that compliment. But yeah, it's an awesome crew of people. I am incredibly fortunate to work with all of them and actually shout to my editor, Myra Lazine, who did a great job of going, going through this piece and also has done some incredible coverage. But yeah, everyone who works at TNN I'm really fortunate to work with. And you know, this is trying to set kind of an alternative in trans journalism that is worker run and is is unrepentant.

[Mia Wong]

Hell yeah. You too can go to war with the bureaucrats and the theocrats and the politicians who are trying to destroy your life.

[James Stout]

Indeed foreign.

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[Andrew Sage]

Woman Life Freedom Such was the slogan of the women's movement considered key to the project of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava. Though originating in the Kurdish liberation struggle, the project quickly became polyethnic. There are Syrians, Arabs, Armenians, Yazidis and other groups involved in that project and in fact the internationally recognized name Rojava has fallen out of use by the project administration in an effort to de ethnicize the project. I'm going to keep using Rojava simply because it's quicker to see than Daanes or Danyes or any other combination, but just wanted to put that disclaimer out in the beginning. So in the midst of the Syrian civil War. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 and pursued a somewhat unique political experiment for grassroots governance and social legal reforms that have attracted significant international favour and support. Though not recognised internationally as autonomous except by the Catalan Parliament, for obvious reasons, for the past decade plus, the people in the region have fought fiercely for independence from isis, patriarchy, Turkish incursions and other Syrian opposition groups. But recent events led to the newly minted Syrian government having seriously jeopardized the autonomy of the project. Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage, Also Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm joined once again.

[James Stout]

It's me, it's James.

[Andrew Sage]

Yes. And I had to talk to you about this because I know that you have contacts there, you have experience with that project, with the people involved, and. Yeah, we're here to discuss the fate of Rojava.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I'm always excited to talk about Rojava and I think it's super important that we talk about it right now. Like, yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff happening currently, but this is really bad. Like in Rojava, we had the opportunity to see people living without gods or masters, people building democracy without the state. We had the opportunity to. And we have the opportunity. Right. So Rojava's not gone, but like, anarchism didn't have to be like an ideological construct that only exists in our little punk houses. It existed in it, in an area where millions of people lived and. Yes. So we should talk about how we can be in solidarity with them in this very difficult time.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. In fact, as we're on that topic, I think it's useful to have a brief explanation of the history and ideology behind the Java Project before we talk about what's happened most recently.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So in brief, the project really began in Turkey, where the Kurdistan Workers Party, or pkk, was banned and some of its supporters moved to Syria and founded the Democratic Union Party, or pyd. This party shared an ideological foundation with the PKK and its founder, Abdullah Uchalan, with the ideology of democratic Confederalism, which I'll explain in a second. Rojava came into being following the Arab Spring of 2011, as various factions of Syrians rose up against President Bashar Al Assad. And in such a climate of conflict, ISIS rose to prominence to threaten the region as a whole. So while Assad was dealing with other opposition groups in Damascus, he withdrew forces from North Syria, which left the region vulnerable to ISIS and Turkey. Kurdish groups in North Syria then formed the Kurdish National Council to secure the area. But after an ideological split, the project of Rojava would emerge as a polyethnic polity composed of the cantons of Afrin, Jazira and Kobani. The PYD operates Rojava within a political coalition called the Syrian Democratic Council, or sdc. The ypg, or People's Defence Units, and the ypj, or Women's Defence Units, are the paramilitaries forming the bulk of the political assembly's military coalition, which is called the Syrian Democratic Forces, or sdf. I know it's a lot of acronyms being thrown at you at once.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's an Alphabet, too. I think until relatively recently, the bulk of the SDF forces were Arab. You have ideological groups that are allied. Right. The Northern Democratic Front, a Jaishal Fuwa at one point. And then you have these groups which are more tribally based. And those groups had. Allied to the SDF to fight the Islamic State.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, yes.

[James Stout]

Yeah. They always want to push back on it being a majority. It is now, but that's. That's a. That's a creation of the last eight weeks.

[Andrew Sage]

Right. Okay. I remember reading that they were. The YPG and YPG were forming a good chunk of the sdf. I suppose maybe that was more recent information that I had seen then.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think it probably would have been. Or like, you will see that published in broadsheet newspapers and have done for decades. Like, it's just wrong. But there was this tendency in the. I guess, the Western press. Right. And some of this is somewhat Orientalist in a way. Like, they referred to the SDF as the Kurds because Kurds were somehow seen as closer to European people than Arabs. And like, it attempted to sort of, I guess, to make it more palatable to an audience.

[Andrew Sage]

Right. A kind of a racial elevation of some kind.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And I think the friends, and we can talk about friends versus whatever else later, but would push back on that. They would. They would tell you that SDF was majority Arab, certainly at the time it fought the Islamic State. And of course, there were Assyrians and Armenians and Yazidis and international volunteers as well.

[Andrew Sage]

For sure. For sure. So you had the Syrian Democratic Council or the sdc, led primarily by the pyd. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

They were taking on the task of both fighting the Islamists while engaged in an ideological project to bring democratic Confederalism into practice in North Syria. So democratic Confederalism is a transitional political movement that tries to move beyond the nation state by refusing to seize state power instead of organizing society through the state they seek to organize society through local assemblies that manage their own affairs, while coordinating action through confederations. Democratic confederalism emphasizes pluralism over nationalism and secularism over religious government and restorative justice, gender liberation, ecological sustainability, cooperative and communal economic forms. Democratic and federalism was seen as a. Seen as a pragmatic way of building collective self organization within the purview of the existing dominant state model of the world while gradually undermining its authority. Now, the gender liberation component in particular has received a lot of international attention thanks to the PYD's efforts to put it into practice. They established gender parity quotas in all administrative, political and decision making bodies and leadership roles. They established women's councils to address women's issues. They established the Women's Protection Unit, or ypj, which is an all female army, which is very popular. And they established laws to ban honor killings and child marriage, while strengthening the divorce rights of women. So these efforts and others within Rojava have garnered worldwide admiration for the project, and many international volunteers have visited Rojava to help them fight. And if you're in a lot of online anarchist circles, you've probably heard a lot about Rojava and solidarity with the Liberation. But I think it has created a misconception that the solidarity that anarchists feel with Rojava is equivalent to one to one ideological alignment. Yeah, right. What they're doing is not anarchism, it's kind of its own thing. It's democratic and federalism.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

And this has been abandoning solidarity with the people, of course, but it just means, you know, being clear that we are fighting for a world in which many worlds exist and so are they. And we are just willing to stand with and observe that project and, you know, wish for the best and hope for the best and see what comes of it.

[James Stout]

Yeah. There are anarchist formations within the sdf. Right. Tecohsin Anarchist means anarchist struggle. It's like a more doctrinally anarchist formation. And the way that they would phrase their participation is that they are there in solidarity. And like you say, we want a world where many worlds can exist and so they can offer. And you go to Rojava, people will ask you to offer feedback. Right. The Kurdishword is tech meal, report or feedback. They are willing to hear an anarchist critique and engage with it. That doesn't mean that they are anarchists, but it doesn't mean that they are like opposed to anarchists either.

[Andrew Sage]

They're more willing to engage with anarchism than most.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Than almost anywhere else. I've been in the world, maybe aside from Myanmar. But yeah, they will engage with and have these discussions and they're on an ideological journey.

[Andrew Sage]

Right.

[James Stout]

That the movement began within what they would call the nation state paradigm.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, I mean the PKK was originally Marxist.

[James Stout]

Lenness and Orjilan thinking has very much been like his journey, has led the movement on a political philosophy journey, I guess. And there are different interpretations of different movements in different parts of Kurdistan that draw on his political philosophy. But as his thinking while he was detained in Turkey moved towards this democratic Confederalist outlook, influenced by reading Murray Bookchin among others, the movement also moved and I think it was very well placed when the assadist state withdrew to try and implement this. Like you've mentioned, self governance, brotherhood of peoples, all these things. But it wasn't always there. And it has been willing to change and willing to move its ideology over time.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the thing. We don't want to look at people and projects and judge it based on where we are and our position and our ideological alignment. Because none of us necessarily started off as anarchists. Right. And while we may wish that as an anarchist, I would wish that, you know, these projects would move closer to anarchy and would pursue and explore and experiment with that ideal and that idea. Everybody's on their own journey and you know, at this stage in capitalist global dominance and status global dominance, we have to let whatever experiments exist, explore the different angles. You know, there's no one right way quite yet or there may never be. You know, as well. On the topic of disclaimers, I suppose I think it is important to address that, you know, the SDF is not all sunshine and roses. You know, there have been allegations of war crimes, including the recruitment of children and the allegations of forced targeted displacement. Now, not all of these allegations have been conclusively verified. And there are a lot of actors that have been involved in Syria over the years that are pushing narratives and counter narratives that have to be scrutinized on a case by case basis. Some of the war crime allegations, for example, have been made by Turkey, which is pretty suspect considering their track record of both hostility towards Rojava and the Kurdish autonomy and also their practice of war crimes on a still regular basis.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Themselves, you know. Yeah, but still Hypocrisy has said, I think it is important to not turn a blind eye to these kinds of problems and allegations when they are made.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I totally agree. Like if people are being compelled to do things through violence, that is what the State is right, and that is what we want to stop. And so if that is happening, then we should condemn it. Right. Be that where they're being compelled to fight or compelled to leave their homes. That is a thing that we are opposed to inherently. Right. And it doesn't matter who's doing it. It's the action itself is. Is something that we are opposed to. And yeah, we should, again, like, we should look at this like, not through, like. Rose, I know I talk a lot about this, but I translated a piece from French a couple of years ago from an anarchist who had fought in Spain, and it was called Refuting the Legend. And the main thesis of the piece was that we should engage with the Spanish Civil War as it was, not as we wished it to be.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And that way we could learn from it and get better, as opposed to just creating a hagiography and like a, you know, like Saints lives. Exactly. Same applies here, I think.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. Because the anarchist experiments have been, you know, few and far between, unfortunately. The major experiments, that is the massive ones, the ones that make historical headlines. And I think there is a temptation to, as you're saying, construct a hagiography to glorify and venerate these attempts. I think it's very important for us to treat them with scrutiny, you know, to hold them up to certain standards and to evaluate their missteps and to highlight their missteps even more than we highlight their successes, because that's the only way we're going to succeed in the future is if we're willing to address and engage with those mystiques.

[James Stout]

Yeah, absolutely. I think on that point, the way that I see what's happening, Rojava is not in a monolithic way. There are tendencies and organizations within the revolution. Right. There are some who are probably operating in a paradigm that is not that far from the ethno nationalist or kind of nationalist Marxist paradigm. There are some that are operating closer to an anarchist paradigm. There are some who are somewhere in between those two things. Right. And there are some who would just want the Islamic State or the new Syrian state or the Assadist state to go away and leave them alone. And that's why they picked up arms and that's what they're fighting for. And like, yeah, again, right, we, we shouldn't. We should be suspicious of a movement which is entirely homogeneous. We should be concerned about. And that I have concerns about the way some dissenting voices have been treated in the AANES in the past year. We should raise those concerns. But like, it would be inaccurate to view this movement as a monolith.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. It's important to raise concerns. It's sad that this phrase has been bastardized because it's a useful phrase. Right. That is, you know, critical support.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Or critical solidarity. It's been taken by certain Internet actors to, you know, to propagate apologia for atrocities and erasure of state violence. But it is a useful way of, I think, framing the way we should engage these projects. That solidarity doesn't imply that you keep your mouth shut, that you don't seek to learn, that you don't respectfully criticize. That is, I think, the best way to engage these projects. Not to, you know, close your eyes and just follow.

[James Stout]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew Sage]

Getting back to, I suppose, what's been happening more recently. Recently, things have not been easy for the movement, really, since the beginning in 2012. It has for a long time been caught in a web of conflicting and converging interests. In addition to fighting ISIS and other jihadist groups, Rojava managed to receive backing from the US out of a coincidence of interests and tactical necessity, as I would put it, which is confused in some circles with the idea that Rojava is a US designed puppet through and through. Right. So after the SDF liberated Raqqa, they began taking more heat from Turkey, which saw the YPG as inseparable from the PKK and thus a threat. Remember, the YPG is the defensive army, the protective services rather, and the PKK is the Kurdish party in Turkey. So they launched several military operations to prevent the Kurdish regions from linking up and having territorial continuity within Syria. At the same time, Rojava faced economic blockades, restricted movement, and strained relations with their fellow Kurdish political groups in Iraq that were aligned with Turkey and aligned with the PYD's political rivals, which had lost influence since the establishment of Rojava. Then you also had the occasional alignments with Russia as a strategic leverage against Turkey and similar coincidences of interest with the governments of Iraq and Iran, and even cooperation between Rojava and Assad's government. It's interesting to me that the US alignment is what receives the most attention when it seems to me the Rojava had quite a roster of affiliations of convenience. Not to say that those partnerships or affiliations necessarily benefit them in the long run, but it's important to place those affiliations in context. Rojava has been seen and treated as a chess piece essentially by both global and regional powers as they attempt to put out a voice of their own and eke out their own autonomy. So Just before the 2019 Turkish invasion, the US abandoned Rojava entirely, withdrawing its troops and certainly leading to the tragic fall of several settlements to Turkey and turgish aligned groups. However, that move to withdraw also raised the international profile of the Rojava struggle, as people on both sides of political spectrum were pointing out this American decision to abandon its allies in the Middle East. So before we get to the fall of Assad, is there anything critical that you'd say I missed?

[James Stout]

I think pretty good summary. I've literally written a book about this, so there's always things I want to say. I was there during a time when Turkey was bombing.

[Andrew Sage]

Right.

[James Stout]

In addition to going to report on them, I just saw places as I was going about my day to day life that had been bombed the night before. Right. I think there's this misapprehension that America is. And by America, I'm using that incorrectly. The United States is allied with the pyd. That's not the case. The SDF was a US partner force, specifically in what's called Operation Inherent Resolve, which is the operation against the Islamic State. Right. While I was there, the US shot down a Turkish drone because it flew too close to their bases. They also didn't shoot down the dozens of other Turkish drones that killed little children while I was there. Right. And I don't think anyone would reasonably expect them to because the US was not there in solidarity with the revolution. It was there fighting alongside them in this one specific thing.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And while that doesn't take away the fact that it is disgraceful to abandon these people who gave 10,000 plus of their children alongside the United States. Right. That is shameful. It is also what we should expect from the United States.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

People that use the word haval, people, which means friend. Right. As opposed to like the way a Marxist movement might use comrade. Their friends there understood the terms of their agreement with the US doesn't mean that they were not disappointed. Doesn't mean that they would not ask for assistance when their children are dying. Of course they would. But those are the terms on which the US was allied with them. And certainly the US did not ideologically influence them. Perhaps the opposite is the case. There are certainly some people in the US military who, who went over there and came back seeing the world differently. Turkey actually called the US government because some of the US soldiers were wearing Abdullah or Shalom patches at one point and raised complaints about it. But yeah, I think it's important to understand the terms of the arrangement between them. Otherwise, I think that's a pretty good precis of the way things were. Do you have anything about Shangol?

[Andrew Sage]

No, I don't.

[James Stout]

I'll do my potted people can read my book if they'd like to hear more about its operation. I've sent one to you, Andrew. Hopefully it's making its way across the ocean.

[Andrew Sage]

Awesome.

[James Stout]

So Shanghal, the sacred mountain of the Yazidis. Right. The Yazidis are a group of people, ethno religious group whose religion is probably closest to Zoroastrianism. They have like a peacock angel. The Islamic State targeted the Yazidis because it considered them to be apostates and it subjected them to genocidal violence. Right. This is the Yazidi genocide. The states of the world largely abandoned the Yazidi people. They tried to defend their communities, but they were overwhelmed by the Islamic State and they gradually fell back to Shanghai, which is their mountain, and they went to the top of their mountain to make their last stand, I guess. Right. Like that was their. Their place where they had always gone back to. And there were some US Special forces on the mountain and from what I understand, also some British special forces. But it was the friends from Kurdistan who decided to go. It should be noted that they're fighting the Islamic State at home at this time. Their own villages, their own towns are being subjected to the same violence. They went onto the mountain and they built humanitarian corridor to extract the Yazidi people with their bodies, with their blood. And if they had done Nothing else since 2012, that would be reason enough for us to stand in solidarity with them. Right. Like in that moment when the world letting the Yazidis die. Right. When Obama and the United Kingdom and everything else was letting these people be subjected to genocide. It wasn't a military superpower who went to their assistance. It wasn't the French or the British or anyone else who was willing to risk. Again, there were small numbers of special forces, but it was regular folks from Kurdistan with Kalashnikovs who went to save them. And I think at this time, when Western analysts who perhaps either don't have a proper grasp of what's happening in Syria or do and are just willing to lie about it, are condemning the AANES as some kind of Kurdish ethno nationalist project, we can point to this and we shouldn't forget the sacrifice that those people made at that time.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, that's an important event that I didn't come across in my research, but thank you for sharing.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Of Course.

[Andrew Sage]

So I suppose we are now approaching the critical moment in Rijawa's recent history. Assad's government collapsed at the end of 2024 and the Hayat Tarir al Sham, or HTS, an Islamist militia with roots in Al Qaeda, stepped into the vacuum and rapidly took control of large parts of the country. Then HDS leader Ahmed Al Shara was recast on the international stage as Syria's new president. Welcomed by regional and Western powers, received in diplomatic capitals and rewarded with the lifting of many sanctions. Turkey emerged as its strongest backer as they were pretty cold with Assad and they aggressively lobbied on behalf of the HTS government, reframing it as a stabilising partner. And not long after the fall of Assad, in fact, Abdullah Uchlan himself called for the PKK to disarm. The sdf, which is only loosely affiliated with the pkk though said, well, you know, not us, we will continue to fight.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So Western governments, particularly the United States and its allies, appeared willing to accept this transformation of the hds. They calculated that a fragmented and internally weak authority could be more easily steered to serve their long term geopolitical interests. So the HDS Syrian government had a little press tour, but within Syria they moved pretty predictably, engaging in violent repression, displacement and massacre of the Alawite, the Druze and the Kurdish communities in Syria. And for the Kurdish initiated project of Rojava, the rise of the HDS government would mark the beginning of an end, greater isolation and a renewed pressure from within and outside of Syria's borders. After consolidating power, the HDS government pushed into the Kurdish regions and encircled Kobani, the historic border city that once symbolized resistance to isis. So for days, coordinated attacks targeted Rojava itself, threatening not only the survival of Kurdishv government but but the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians as food, water and electricity were deliberately cut off and the city placed under siege. The violence had been especially devastating in Aleppo. From early January, the Kurdish districts of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiya became the focus of sustained assaults by Turkish backed militias and units aligned with the Syrian Transitional Government.

[James Stout]

They would tell you that Sheik Maqsud was a diverse district and I've probably used described it as Kurdish as well. But they will point out that Yazidi people and a lot of the indigenous Christian peoples of the region who lived in Aleppo tended to live in Sheikh Mac Sud as well.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. Okay, thanks for that context.

[James Stout]

Yeah, of course.

[Andrew Sage]

So civilian infrastructure was systematically hit and homes, schools, mosques and public buildings being shelled, while abductions, torture and executions were reported near medical facilities. The bombing of Zaleed Fakir Hospital devastated the local healthcare system. And with mounting casualties and entire neighbourhoods emptied, local councils in the SDF agreed to a ceasefire and withdrawal on 11 January, 2026 to allow evacuations. More than 300,000 people fled, many seeking refuge in areas still controlled by the autonomous administration. But fighting expanded eastward. Jihadist forces began targeting Raqqa, Deir ez, Azor, Hasaka and critical infrastructure like the Tishran Dam. Prisons holding thousands of jihadist detainees were located in these areas. And amid the chaos, Islamist fighters escaped. ISIS symbols reappeared and memorials to Kurdish fighters were destroyed.

[James Stout]

There's one example which I think is particularly revelatory. It was consistently cast, once again by, like, think tankers who either know that they're talking to, speaking things that aren't true. I was going to say something else there. Or they just don't know and they're being paid to pretend they know. But though the one in Tabka that was destroyed, it was a statue of a YPJ fighter, but she was an Arab. It was portrayed as, like, local people celebrating their liberation from the sdf, but it was a whole group of men destroying a statue of a woman, a woman from that community who had fought to liberate that community from the Islamic State. Right. And I think that, like, when that context is deliberately excluded, that tells us an awful lot.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, that's. That's an extremely critical point, I think.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew Sage]

So as the Syrian forces pushed through the east, some non Kurdish villages in the region defected from Rojava to the new Syrian government.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Mostly in, like, Deir Ezor. Right. Which is an area where you have this long standing. They're referred to as tribal communities, like that. I guess that's a fine phrase, but sometimes the word tribal, I think, is used in a derogatory way in the West. So I want to be clear that's not what I intend to mean here, just that they have a different form of political organizing.

[Andrew Sage]

Right. Of course.

[James Stout]

And like, there had not been among those communities buy in, I guess, to the AANES project. There was to the SDF as a military force, but not. Not so much to the project. And it was those communities that switched their allegiances. Right. This happened even in Aleppo, and we can look at various economic and political and social reasons for that, and maybe at some point we should, but I don't think, like, now is the time we're concerned with ongoing Struggle there. But, yeah, especially in Deir EZ Zor, what really saw the SDF frontline crumble was that people who were in the SDF suddenly became allied with the stg. Syrian Transitional Government. Syrian government.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. And so these defections and with this onslaught of violence, Al Shara delivered an ultimatum to the Kurds and to the other groups involved in the Ottoman administration of Northeast Syria was to dissolve the SDF and submit to incorporation under his command or face annihilation. So in response, the SDF commander, Masloom Abdi, appealed outward, calling on the support of anyone who might be willing to assist. And this is something that particularly made headlines. The anyone included Israel, which had previously intervened in Syria for the claimed justification of aiding the Jerusalem community. I think the way that question was posed to the SDF commander was definitely leading like they were fishing for a headline. For sure, from what I saw of that exchange. But in the context of the Palestinian genocide and the world's awareness of that genocide, I think that even with that desperation for survival in mind, that statement was, I think, a misstep.

[James Stout]

Yeah, we constantly see, like, this allegation that the SDF specifically is like some kind of Zionist force or funded by Israel that's been around for decades. Right. I will say a couple of things. First of all, like in the early Kurdish freedom movement, Kurds died for Palestine. Right. With their Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine at Beaufort Castle. If the Israelis were genuinely allies of the Kurds, no one would dare touch them. We have seen what Israel is prepared to do to Muslim countries. They don't need much excuse. They would do the same in Syria. Furthermore, Israel has continued to invade Syria and has held Syrian territory for decades and has continued to take more of it under Al Shara, and Al Shara has not done anything about it. So I find the idea that he's eliminating Zionism to be very frustrating when the IDF is literally inside his country, invading it. And the Kurdish freedom movement as a whole has been pretty forthright about the genocide. So on October 7, 2023, I was in Kurdistan and we watched what happened first in Israel and then in Palestine. Right. And they were pretty forthright about that. No one should be killing civilians. And as the genocide in Gaza began, they were forthright about calling it a genocide. And I think they didn't have to. No one was particularly asking them in 2023.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

And they did. And they made statements about it. I think seeing them somehow ideologically inclined towards Israel when it largely wasn't Israel who was fighting The Islamic State.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

It was largely them in the us. I think it's just people understanding the politics of the Middle east in terms of Marvel movies. There can only be two sides. And I'm sure at the time when they were facing genocide themselves, they would have welcomed any support. But that doesn't mean that they support the murder of civilians in Gaza. They have been extremely clear about that for an extremely long time.

[Andrew Sage]

Absolutely. I don't think that should be called into the question just because of the statement of one commando.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So after much fighting, the SDF signed agreements relinquishing control over Raqqa, Deir Azur and remaining territory west of the Euphrates, retaining only Hasaka and Kobane after withdrawing from the Tishrin Dam. But even after conceding so much, government forces violated ceasefire terms. So the SDF declared general mobilization across the Kurdish regions of Syria and neighbouring states as a last desperate attempt to rally resistance. By the end of January, the autonomous administration had lost roughly 80% of the territory it once governed. The SDF was forced to retreat almost entirely into Hasaka governorate. And on 30 January, the SDF formally announced a ceasefire with the Syrian government and accepted a framework for folding both their military structures and civilian administration into the Syrian state. Syrian authorities set timelines on this agreement. Within a month, they would retake control of border crossings, oil and gas infrastructure like Kremeilani and Al Suwaydi, detention camps holding ISIS members and their families, and strategic sites such as Qamishli International Airport. Interior Ministry units were scheduled to deploy to Hasaka and Qamishli almost immediately. And Syrian security forces would oversee the absorption of the Kurdish internal security apparatus, the Asaish, into the state's policing structures. Militarily, the SDF is stated to be absorbed under the Syrian Ministry of Defense, but on an individual vetted basis. Up to now, the fate of the female fighters and non Syrian fighters within the SDF is unknown. And on the civilian side of things, the institutions created by the Rudjav administration are to be absorbed as well. Kurdish officials have thus far secured the governorship of Hasaka and limited command roles within the military. In exchange for their surrender, the Kurds gained some recognitions. On paper, the government claims to affirm national civil and educational rights, promised the return of displaced populations and issued decrees recognising Kurdish as a national language taught in schools, declared the Kurdish celebration of Nowruza public holiday, and reversed decades old citizenship policies that stripped tens of thousands of Kurds of their citizenship. Thus far Most of these promises are on people, as I said.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think they'd see it as like a rebranding, not a surrender, as an agreement. Like from what I understand, the EPIGE still see themselves as the epig. The YPG still see themselves as the ypg. The YPJ very much still see themselves as the Women's Defense Force. And so like, as you say, like all of this is a paper agreement currently and we will see how. I mean there are now Syrian Ministry of Interior forces in Hesaka and in Qamishlo. But like some of that has come to pass. But what this means talking to my friends there, like we will continue to see exactly like what extent they still have autonomy in and to what extent they are integrated into a state which has in some instances banned women from wearing makeup, for instance.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. So the US and France co signed this agreement and pledged to oversee its implementation. And the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has also welcomed this agreement. But it still remains to be seen what happens next.

[James Stout]

Yeah, did see a hundred people who are non Syrian Kurds. I would imagine they would mostly be Turkish. So from northern Kurdistan had withdrawn from Syria and gone to Kandeel, which is kind of the stronghold of the various other parts of the Kurdish freedom movement. So that's in southern Kurdistan or Iraq. It's nearly a border with Iran. But I saw that a number of them had withdrawn post disagreement. That was probably on the 10th of February or somewhere around there.

[Andrew Sage]

So yeah, sadly this is an outcome of the imperialist world order that empires and regional actors will crush any threats to their power or will attempt to crush such threats. And as long as such power remains concentrated in these states and militaries and ruling classes, whether they are secular or nationalist or Islamist or anything else, none of us can be free. Yeah, we could sit around on our armchairs and speculate, but what moves or Java could have done differently, whether it be a failure to advance further, whether it be a insufficient integration of and buy in of other groups into the project, whether it be the alliances or agreements or affiliations that they engaged in. We can also sit around and look at all the limitations they face. Some they managed to overcome and others not so much. But the blame does not lie in their failures to play this game of geopolitical chess as ruthlessly as other powers in the region. I think the blame lies in, in this game of geopolitical chess, in this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region as a whole as tools to be used and discarded. In the end, I continue to hold to the position that only a shared uprising from below, one that refuses compromise, one that cuts across nationalist lines, has the potential to create a new world. And that fight must happen both within Syria and beyond, around the entire Earth. The fight is not over in Rojava. I find it hard to believe that a people engaged in such a project would let go of that instinct and that drive toward greater and greater freedom. It remains to be seen what happens with them, but it also remains to be seen what happens with us, what we decide to do to push our what's going forward. And that's all from me for today. All power to all the people. Peace.

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[James Stout]

That's innerbalance.com this is Julian Edelman from

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[Garrison Davis]

This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. A revolution is igniting across America, at least according to viral posts on social media and TikTok videos with hundreds of thousands of views claiming that anywhere between three to six to nine warehouses have been set on fire this past week for not paying their employees a living wage.

[James Stout]

The revolution might be happening.

[Garrison Davis]

Got a warehouse fire in Ontario, warehouse

[David Forbes]

fire in New York, warehouse fire in Bakersfield, Amazon warehouse fire in Ohio.

[TikTok Influencer]

So they set a mall on fire too. It hasn't just been factories at this

[James Stout]

point, it's also malls.

[Mia Wong]

It seems as though people have begun to eat.

[Garrison Davis]

The rich workers of the world ignite. Like most instances of viral misinformation, there is a kernel of truth to this story, and one worth focusing on. But through a massive game of cross platform telephone, facts and causality get warped and misconstrued. Selective Reporting of similar but unrelated events can be used to assert a connection between certain events, even if there is none. But let's start with that kernel of truth. Just after midnight on April 7, a 29 year old warehouse worker named Shamel Abdul Karim allegedly set fire to a toilet paper warehouse in Ontario, California after multiple pallets of paper products were lit on fire. The flames overwhelmed the fire suppression system and collapsed the roof. The Blaze took over 12 hours to contain and ultimately destroyed the 1.2 million square foot distribution center leased by Kimberly Clark, the company behind Kleenex, Huggies and Cottonelle toilet paper. Local officials and the Justice Department has said the fire caused over $600 million of damages. The 20 employees who were working midnight shifts the warehouse when the fire started, all evacuated safely and there were no reported injuries the day after the fire. Videos uploaded to social media the night of the fire resurfaced, appearing to show the suspect intentionally lighting three fires inside the distribution center while speaking aloud about low wages, corporate profits, shareholders and poor working conditions.

[Andrew Sage]

You know if you're not going to

[James Stout]

pay us enough to live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this.

[David Forbes]

All you had to do was pay us enough to live.

[Mia Wong]

All you had to do was pay

[Andrew Sage]

us enough to There goes your inventory.

[Garrison Davis]

The affidavit filed with the criminal complaint alleges that Abdul Karim filmed himself setting fire to multiple pallets of paper goods inside the warehouse. And as he lit the fires, he stated, quote, if you're not going to pay us enough to live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this. Unquote. Beyond the short videos Abdul Karim posted to his social media, the affidavit alleges he made further statements to friends and co workers on the phone and via text message related to his motive for setting the fires. He allegedly texted, quote, I just cost these expletive billions and wrote that the, quote 1% is an expletive joke. U.S. attorney Bill Asale said in a press conference that after setting the fire, quote, in a phone call to one witness, Abdul Karim compared himself to Luigi Mangione, unquote. Abdul Karim also allegedly texted, quote, all you had to do was pay us enough to live, pay us more of the value we bring. Not corporate. Don't see the shareholders picking up a shift, unquote. This past Monday, Abdul Karim pleaded not guilty to arson charges in court. Though the warehouse stored Kimberly Clark products, Abdul Karim was actually employed by NFI Industries, a third party distribution company. NFI Industries is a family owned private company and does not report its profits, but last year said they generated more than 3.7 billion in annual revenue and had over 18,000 employees. The average executive at the company has a $235,000 salary, with the highest paid making $700,000 annually. Meanwhile, the average pay of an NFI Industries warehouse worker in California per job listing sites is 1874 an hour, with forklift operators and warehouse specialists making $22.39 an hour. The median household income in Ontario California is $82,806 a year and the average salary is over $73,000 a year or $35 hourly. Ontario California has a 28% higher cost of living than the national average. Last year Kimberly Clark made 2.4 billion in operating profit. The footage of this worker allegedly lighting the warehouse on fire went super viral on TikTok with millions and millions of views sparking meme edits and hype videos. Then in the days after the toilet paper fire, footage of other warehouse fires started to spread around Tick tock leading some people to believe that copycat incidents might be taking place across the country. Here's a clip with over 300,000 views of a left wing TikTok influencer claiming that since the toilet paper arson, more people have begun setting their workplaces on fire.

[David Forbes]

So apparently that guy that burns down the toilet paper warehouse because they were not paying him a living wage or anyone the living wage for that matter, who the Internet has dubbed Wal Luigi for Warehouse Luigi was, was not the only one with that idea or to execute on it. And I will say I am not 100% sure on the timelines of all of these.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, you're not 100% sure? Well then that's, that's fine, continue. Anyway, this guy goes on to say that since Waluigi he's seen quote 4 to 5 to 6 other warehouses that have, quote burned down or at least been set on fire, unquote. A lot of this social media reporting does not differentiate between a warehouse completely burning down and a small fire that is quickly put out. Neither do these social media reports provide evidence to the cause of these fires. One of the most circulated videos of one of these other fires is from Queens. At 7:30pm on Friday night, someone reported smoke at an industrial complex in College Point, Queensland. Firefighters soon responded to a rapidly growing fire inside a lumber yard warehouse. After the building was searched and no one was found inside, 300 firefighters worked all night to contain the blaze to the 64,000 square foot warehouse. The lumberyard did burn down but no injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. But a post on X, the Everything app with almost a million quote unquote views read, quote another disgruntled employee strikes at the heart of American capital. That tick tock influencer I already mentioned was very excited to share news of an Amazon warehouse on fire, despite not being quite sure of the details or how many warehouses were actually on fire,

[David Forbes]

at least one of which I am beyond happy to announce was an Amazon warehouse, which is not to say more than one weren't affected. I've seen multiple videos of an Amazon warehouse on fire. I'm just not sure if it was multiple Amazon warehouses on fire or just multiple people recording the same Amazon warehouse that was on fire. Either way, either way, bottom line, people are setting Amazon warehouses on fire.

[Garrison Davis]

There is no evidence anyone set this Amazon warehouse on fire. And yes, it is just one warehouse, not multiple. On April 8, firefighters responded to a fire at an Amazon warehouse in West Jefferson, Ohio. The fulfillment center was evacuated as smoke billowed from the roof of the warehouse. The fire was extinguished quickly and caused, quote unquote minimal damage to the underside of the roof. According to Jefferson Township Fire Chief Dan Gatley, there is no evidence that this fire was intentionally set by an employee or by anyone and was possibly caused by a simple solar panel malfunction. Investigators believe 75 to 100 solar panels on the roof of the warehouse caught fire, which burnt through just a little bit of the rubber membrane on the roofing and some of the insulation. According to Fire Chief Gatley, this insulation fell onto two racks of Amazon products. But Gatly estimated that more damage was caused by the water used to put out the solar panel fire than from the smoke or the fire itself. The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation. A post on X, the Everything app with 1.1 million quote unquote views and 27,000 likes shared video of smoke billowing from the roof of the Amazon warehouse and was captioned this is beginning to feel like something of a movement. Another post from a monetized Blue check account with 1 million quote unquote views and 26,000 likes. Also shared footage of the Amazon fire with the caption another warehouse fire, this time in Amazon Fulfillment center in West Jefferson, Ohio. Warehouse employees across the country are using their unique position to attack the substructure and base of the Epstein class unquote. We'll return to talk more about these fires after this ad break. Okay, we're back by the weekend. This warehouse fire meme really exploded and people started collecting reports of warehouse fires from all across the country. This next video went viral across TikTok and also spread to Reddit and Instagram.

[TikTok Influencer]

I was tagged about this. This is an Amazon warehouse that also just caught on fire. So this is the third one after we just heard about New York and Queens and then the other one in California where we saw the big video behind it. Right now I this, this is breaking news. I don't know much about it. I was tagged in this, this happened. I think perhaps today.

[Garrison Davis]

I'm going to pause right here because next she includes a severe weather alert warning for risk of fire spreading in the Northeast as if wildfires and this weather alert was somehow related to warehouse fires on the other side of the country.

[TikTok Influencer]

And I haven't been able to find any news about it online yet. But there's, there's this special weather statement moderate for a fire spread in Pennsylvania right now. So that's four, five right here where somebody said a jean store was set in fire in California. Again, I can't corroborate these things right now. These are just comments. And somebody also said New Jersey for another warehouse fire. So that is literally California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. I'm getting comments and reports in right now that there have been five different warehouse or storefront fires in the last three days. This is wild. Holy six. I think that's six because it's two in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And again, I'm trying to find these items online right now. But like, I don't think the news cycle has caught up fast enough to it. So like Who Class War 2026?

[Garrison Davis]

This person describes herself on TikTok as a quote unquote guerrilla journalist. And that video got almost half a million views on TikTok and 74,000 likes by baselessly claiming that a string of fires that may or may not even be real are actually intentional arsons in an escalating class war. Hashtag eat the rich. Let's go over some of the details of a few of the fires that she and others have mentioned in New Jersey. There were actually three fires this past week. One at a chemical plant, one at a battery warehouse, and a wildfire which sent smoke into Pennsylvania. On Thursday, April 9, a three alarm fire spread through a chemical warehouse in Newark, New Jersey. Over a hundred firefighters brought the fire under control that afternoon. No employees were harmed and the cause is under investigation. On the morning of April 13, there was another three alarm warehouse fire in Rahway, New Jersey. While searching the structure, firefighters discovered the blaze emerged from pallets of lithium ion batteries. The exact cause of the fire still remains under investigation and this past weekend, a wildfire spread through south New Jersey, burning up to 160 acres and sending smoke into Pennsylvania. The National Weather Service warned beforehand that there was an elevated risk of wildfires last Saturday due to low humidity and 25 mile per hour wind gusts. On the afternoon of Friday, April 10, firefighters responded to a commercial structure fire at a trash disposal business near Atlanta, Georgia. The blaze stemmed from a garbage fire in the warehouse that grew out of control when adult was sent to the hospital with non life threatening injuries, per a Gwinnett county news release. Quote the incident presented several operational challenges including a downed power line, a deep seated fire within large debris piles, structural components exposed to prolonged heat, and nearby hazards involving liquid petroleum gas tanks and a diesel fuel reservoir. Firefighters brought this fire under control in less than four hours. According to employees, the fire originated from a small trash fire near the edge of the warehouse. Workers attempted to remove the burning debris before the fire rapidly intensified and spread to the structure. The fire was ruled accidental and department spokesperson Lt. Jessica Joyner said that it appears to have been caused by trash piled in an unsafe manner which can combust when mixed together at such garbage facilities. But two days later a viral post read quote Atlanta, Queens, Bakersfield, Ontario I'm starting to lose track. Many people are saying only living wages can prevent warehouse fires. Speaking of Bakersfield, a quote unquote communist Twitter account quote tweeted a video of a warehouse fire in Bakersfield, California from a monetized news aggregator account and got 21,000 likes by writing let it be a pattern. Another account shared a different video ripped from TikTok captioned It's almost like electing billionaires was a bad idea. A socialist branded monetized account hosted another angle of the Bakersfield Fire getting 14,000 likes with the caption, Is a rebellion actually brewing in the Imperial Corps? On the afternoon of April 11, firefighters responded to a fire at a 30,000 square foot warehouse in East Bakersfield. The Kern County Fire Department said. This is the third time buildings at this warehouse complex have caught on fire in the past few years with similar fires in November of 2024 and January 2025. The cause of this new fire is still unknown and under investigation, but we know it was definitely not caused by warehouse employees because this is an abandoned warehouse. The previous owner of the buildings told local news that the fires have been started by quote unquote vagrants. A Massive fire engulfed another lumber yard last Saturday night in Wayne County, Ohio. It took 24 fire departments across three counties working together to extinguish the flames. This lumber yard was home to a wooden pallet manufacturing business. On Sunday afternoon, the owners of the pallet manufacturing plant said in a statement, quote, we are grateful no one was injured and that the fire was contained. We are working with investigators to determine the cause and with our insurance carrier to begin recovery. Southwood Pallet has served this community for 42 years and we intend to rebuild and be stronger than ever. Unquote. Footage of this fire racked up over half a million quote, unquote views on a socialist branded monetized X account. Captioned now there is a five alarm fire at a lumber pallet warehouse in Wayne County, Ohio. There are too many fires to be a coincidence. The working class has had it. And quote, tweets of the video got tens of thousands of likes with users writing, quote, love to see people finally standing up against their employers. Eight in a week and no more thoughts and prayers, only fire. Unquote. Here's another video with over 300,000 views from that tick tock gorilla journalist going through a few more of these warehouse fires that I've mentioned based on all

[TikTok Influencer]

of my comments and my research online, based on what people are telling me and from what I can see, the ones that I can corroborate right now was that last one was Ohio in a lumber yard. And then we had the Ohio Amazon, which was apparently due to the solar panels, we'll say. And then we have one in the Queens, New York one which was lumber as well. New Jersey was a chemical warehouse. Georgia was a commercial structure. And then lastly, the one that you all been tagging me in is the California Jean store which spread throughout the mall from what I can hear and have seen online. So that is a total of 37 since our original Luigi man set fire to the toilet paper facility, the that one. So that's where we are right now. A total of seven in about 3, 4 days of warehouse storefront fires throughout the United States. Now, we don't know about all of them, but these are the ones that are that are on the radar right now. So if there's more out there, let me know. But we're up to seven now.

[Garrison Davis]

Out of all the fires that she's talked about, the only one that we know is arson besides the toilet paper warehouse is this fire at a mall in the same city in California where a man who does not work at the mall allegedly lit multiple fires across several stores. The mall reopened later that same day, and authorities have said there's no connection to the warehouse fire, though the investigation is still ongoing. Before I discuss what's actually happening with all these warehouse fires, let's go on one more ad break. All right, we are back. So what's really going on with all these warehouse fires? Is all this reporting just a coincidence? Are these fires really labor related? Are these all disgruntled employees? Is there even more fires happening than usual? All good questions. Even if the exact cause of most of these fires hasn't yet been determined, it does seem from watching all these videos that there's been an increase of warehouse fires since the first toilet paper inferno, though. Just because you're more aware of warehouse fires happening across the country doesn't mean that these fires are actually happening at a higher rate. A report from the National Fire Protection association found that from 2020 to 2024, an estimated 1544 warehouse fires occur every year. That's an average of four fires per day. Warehouses are home to a lot of high heat equipment and materials that are easily combustible, like lumber, paper products, batteries, and chemicals. The recent National Fire Protection association report found that most warehouse structure fires had an unintentional cause. 29%. 10% were caused by failure of equipment or a heat source. And intentional fires accounted for just 7% of warehouse fires. Operating equipment was the leading heat source in warehouse fires, responsible for 43%. And shop tools and industrial equipment were involved in the ignition of 19% of warehouse fires. Misuse of material or product and electrical failure are the leading factors contributing to ignition. Improper storage of flammable materials and human error are also contributing factors. Intentionally set fires or arson does happen, but it's not the most common cause of modern warehouse fires. And again, warehouse structure fires happen four times a day on average. So not only is there no proof that underpaid employees have begun a spree of lighting fire to their workplace, but there hasn't even been a recent increase in warehouse fires. On Monday afternoon, footage spread online of another warehouse fire outside Miami with the caption, living wages prevent warehouse fires, but this fire actually took place over a month ago on March 5, 2026, at an inventory storage warehouse. An employee told NBC Miami, quote, Apparently there was a short circuit and a spark fell on one of the carpets we have, and that's how the fire started. We tried to put it out, but it happened too fast, unquote. Officials have not yet confirmed those details and the exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, but it is literally impossible for this fire to in any way be related to the toilet paper warehouse because it happened a month prior and the footage is just circulating now to boost social media engagement. The video of the employee allegedly setting fire to pallets of toilet paper channeled such a strong feeling across American workers that people invented and circulated a whole fake news cycle about a string of copycat incidents.

[David Forbes]

Something tells me we're not done with the warehouse fires. Just a hunch, because only if you

[Andrew Sage]

had paid us a livable wage and

[David Forbes]

I'm pretty sure everyone is over corporate America at this point.

[James Stout]

Like over it.

[David Forbes]

People are starting to realize that there are more of us than there are of them and the only thing that they care about is their profits, not the people. So if you burn down the profits, the people will find other jobs. Companies have insurance.

[James Stout]

The message really sense.

[David Forbes]

I'm not condoning it or encouraging it, but I am saying it makes a point.

[Garrison Davis]

That TikTok clip demonstrates why people are so primed to share these fire spree claims and memes of Smokey the Bear saying only living wages can prevent warehouse fires. This whole warehouse fire social media news cycle is an instance of selective reporting, which happens when there is a big national news story, like someone filming themselves burning down a 1.2 million square foot warehouse, and then that causes people to share what they believe are related stories, often from local news reporting, even if the connection is minor or tangential at best. A local report from Wayne County, Ohio ordinarily would not circulate as national news. But on social media, a relatively unremarkable lumberyard fire can become part of a new increasing trend. Sometimes local news agencies themselves may be incentivized to cover smaller stories in a certain way to ride the coattails of a national story that shares a few similar details. Or national news outlets fishing for clicks may themselves cover what would typically only be a local story if it relates to a currently viral topic. A post on X the everything app with 1.4 million quote unquote views and 67000 likes read quote we're up to six warehouses set on fire now across the country and I feel like it's being severely underreported. Unquote. If anything, these fires are being over reported. Another example of selective reporting is aviation accidents, where in the weeks after a high profile commercial airline crash, local news reports will spread around social media about even more plane crashes, even if these are mostly small private planes which get into accidents semi regularly a la Harrison Ford or Minor Runway incidents that usually don't make the news. A 2025 poll from Data for Progress showed 72% of likely voters believed plane crashes were becoming more frequent. A CNN report analyzing National Transportation Safety board data from January 2024 to March 2025 found that out of 1,208 flight safety incidents, only 60 incidents involved commercial carriers. Some of these incidents included turbulence or incursions, that's unauthorized aircraft, vehicles or pedestrians on the Runway. Half of these 60 incidents resulted in injuries and two involved fatalities, the helicopter collision in Washington D.C. and a plane crash in Alaska. While those fatal tragedies and other high profile incidents like the Runway flip in Toronto and the door flying off an Alaska Airlines plane mid flight have sowed fear in the general public, statistically, air travel is not getting more dangerous. The number of yearly safety incidents have remained mostly steady the past decade and only dropped around the pandemic due to a decrease in total air travel. In fact, on average, flying has only gotten safer. Even including private and recreational flights, the average number of annual deadly incidents has fallen by more than half since 2000, excluding 9 11. Despite viral news clips of near misses on the Runway and an air traffic controller shortage, those Runway incursions have also steadily dropped in recent years. But such data can be hard to stomach if in the days after a high profile aviation incident, you keep seeing more reports about plane crashes all across the country. But that itself is selective reporting. On average, three to four planes crash every day. And these are typically small private planes, not commercial airliners. And typically a small Cessna crashing in Kentucky doesn't make national news. The same thing is happening with these warehouse fires. Lefty TikTok influencers and many others participating in this warehouse fire meme are ascribing the motive of one person onto a collection of unrelated incidents, trying to create a pattern when there probably isn't one.

[David Forbes]

Saw that this one guy said that he did it because of his, like, anger towards capitalism. And I don't know if that was the original toilet paper guy or like another one of these warehouse fires, but to each and every one of them, period. Keep it up.

[Garrison Davis]

Again, out of all the incidents I mentioned, the only two we know were intentional was the toilet paper warehouse and the Ontario Mall. And the only one we have a suspected motive for is the toilet paper warehouse. An Emerson College poll found that 41% of young voters thought the actions of the United Healthcare assassin were acceptable. Another 19% said that they were neutral on the question. Luigi Mangioni Memes and reactions to this toilet paper fire do demonstrate a form of class consciousness. This same week people have cheered the attacks on the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Even if influencers are just trying to make a profit, there is an active willingness among the consumers sharing memes and this living wage warehouse fire content to rally behind such action. The working conditions at these warehouses can be inhumane. Just Last week a 47 year old worker at an Amazon warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon collapsed and died. Supervisors prevented someone with CPR training to assist with chest compressions and instructed employees to continue work as usual as the body laid still on the floor. Oregon OSHA has said the death was not work related in a Catastrophic Vibe shift let's go back to our left wing TikTok influencer for his analysis.

[David Forbes]

I really hope this is a sign of of what we all hope it's a sign of. I can't be the only one who has felt like the tides are turning, the tables are turning, the winds are shifting. It really feels like there's actual movement being made in just the last few days. And now all these warehouse fires. Which sure could be a coincidence, but I don't think so. At least I hope not. But what do you guys think? Comment below and if this really is truly the beginning of it all ending, give me a follow for more like this.

[Garrison Davis]

Everyone knows the most important thing to do when the revolution starts is to give me a follow. Speaking of, there is just two days left of Webby voting for It Could Happen Here behind the bastards and migrating to America. And we may need a super majority to beat the msnow filibuster. So go make your voices heard before voting ends on April 16th. That does it for me today at It Could Happen Here. See you on the other side.

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[James Stout]

it's been more than a month since the US and Israel began raining down bombs in Iran. We've covered the weekly developments every week on Executive Disorder, but I decided it was high time and made a full episode to get people up to speed with the USA's latest aggression and the IDF opening up another front in its multi front war against the people of the Middle East. Normally one would expect a major war with a major power like this which has fundamentally destabilised the region and ground world trade to a halt, cause massive inflation, to have some kind of very clearly defined set of goals. That is not the case here. We have seen various justifications, but the most common one seems to be that Iran is just weeks from creating a nuclear bomb. This is a claim that specifically Benjamin Netanyahu has been making for almost the entire time I have been alive. Here he is saying something similar. A decade ago, the foremost sponsor of

[Garrison Davis]

global terrorism could be weeks away from

[James Stout]

having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons. His claim was fanciful then, and it remains even more so now after 2025's Operation Midnight Hammer saw the USA and Israel attempt to bomb nuclear facilities. Indeed, the White House itself published a statement On 25 June following Operation Midnight Hammer, in which they quoted the Israel Atomic Energy Commission saying, we assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with the Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran's military nuclear program, has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years. The achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material. It also included a quotation from Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, saying, quote, based on everything we have seen, and I've seen it all, our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. That was less than a year ago. It seems unlikely that they destroyed much or any of the uranium that was stockpiled, but they certainly would have delayed plans to enrich that uranium or to build it into a bomb. Nonetheless, on 28 February this year, a massive campaign of airstrikes, himars, barrages and ballistic missile attacks on Iran began under the codename Operation Epic Fury. The acronym OEF will be familiar to many as the same one used by the USA for more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and other parts of the world during what it called the Global War on Terror. On the day I'm writing this, it's exactly 23 years since United States Marines tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein that stood outside the 17th of Ramadan Mosque in Firdah Square in Baghdad, removed his regime from power. Since then, for my entire adult life and much of my childhood, the USA has been dropping bombs on the Middle East. This month, the tempo and ferocity of the aerial bombardment took a step up to a tempo we haven't seen since perhaps the peak of the coalition war against the Islamic State, or perhaps even the shock and awe bombing campaign of 2003. And I want to go back to that campaign to explain exactly how we got to this one. The shock and awe campaign was based on a doctrine called rapid dominance that sought to establish a post Cold War military ethos for the United States. The theorists behind it, named Alman and Wade, explicitly outlined that to work, the shock and all bombing campaign had to achieve a level of national shock like that of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, and that power and other civilian infrastructure might well be targeted. In an interview in February 2003, Ullman said, quote, what we want to do is create in the mind of the Iraqi leadership and their soldiers this shock and awe so they are intimidated, made to feel so impotent, so helpless that they have no choice but to do what we want them to do. So the smartest thing to say is, this is hopeless. We quit. The US attempted to pummel the adversary so hard in 2003 that it would demoralise troops and lead to a rapid victory through the use and display of overwhelming force in Iraq. 23 years ago, it sort of worked. The regime crumbled. In less than a month, the USA got its quote, unquote victory. And by the first of May of that year, George W. Bush had landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego and given a speech in front of a large banner that read Mission Accomplished. 23 years later, the Lincoln is in the Middle east and bombs are once again raining down on Iran and Iraq, while one way, drones and missiles from Iran slam into targets all over the region. In Iraq, 23 years later, the United States Embassy is once again being attacked, a US journalist was kidnapped, and the State Department is telling citizens to avoid the region. The US bombing campaign in Iran this year dwarfs the 2003 Shock and Awe campaign, with the first day of operation Epic Fury being almost twice the scale of the 2003 bombardment. However, they do have Several things in common. Just like the bombardment of Iraq, even 23 years later, the US and Israeli air war showed us that there is no such thing as a precision bombing campaign on this scale. On the very first day of the war, 28 February 2026, a missile slammed into a girls elementary school in Minab. Then another, and then another. When the dust settled, more than 175 people had been killed, mostly schoolgirls between the age of 7 and 12 years old. The school was located near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base, but the school building itself had not been part of a military facility for a decade. And yet, despite targeting technology that allowed three missiles to scream across a continent and hit a relatively small target in quick succession, apparently the US military had not been able to ascertain, or perhaps did not care to ascertain, that the result of their strike was the death of as many as 100 schoolchildren. The fact that I am reporting this 40 odd days into the war suggests that despite an even larger scale campaign than the USA deployed in 2003, despite the killing of little girls, the Iranian state has not said, this is hopeless, we quit. As all one hoped they might. Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei was assassinated in initial attacks, but power has since passed on to his son. Iran remains very much in the fight despite the massive display of force by the US and Israel. Instead of quitting and giving up, they have been sending ballistic missiles and one way drones into targets throughout the Gulf states, Israel and Southern Kurdistan. This is in part because the United States and Israel had no clear shared plan for this war. In 2003, the US aimed to remove Saddam Hussein and it did that. It made a massive cock up of everything it did after that. But this time we have two belligerent nations with very distinct goals who share a common interest in bombing the people of Iran. Israel, which by some accounts hit more targets than the USA early on in the war, is fighting to totally cripple the Iranian state in a no holds barred, no laws of war respected campaign that has seen it bomb factories, oil infrastructure and most horrifically of all, desalination plants. The goal for Israel is to make it impossible for Iran to recover. It seems to leave the region mired in poverty and resource constraint and make sure that no Iranian state, be it this one or a different one, can ever be a threat to Israel again. It has assassinated many of the figures who have the ability to negotiate for peace. And the recent ceasefire seems to be something that Israel does not feel itself to be beholden to. For the us, the goal seems to be to use something similar to shock and awe to force Iran into conceding its position and allowing the USA some access to its significant petrochemical resources. Perhaps emboldened by its success in Venezuela, the US might be expecting a similar client state relationship here. However, this has not been the outcome. Over the weekend of the 11th and 12th of April, JD Vance, Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff flew to Pakistan as part of a Pakistani brokered ceasefire to engage in peace talks with Iran. Before these peace talks, we saw both the US and Iran circulating very different bases for negotiation, with Iran demanding tolls for ships passing near its coastline, an end to sanctions and the removal of U.S. forces from the region. The U.S. demanded an end to the nuclear program in Iran, and at one point the President proposed a joint US Iranian toll on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the areas where there has been significant disagreement and so I want to explain a little bit about what the Strait of Hormuz is for listeners who are not familiar. Geographically, the strait connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, thus the Okanoshan. It's just about 39km wide across its narrowest point, with about a quarter of the world's liquefied natural gas and seaborne oil passing through the strait. Because of its geographical location, Asia and Europe are especially reliant on these energy products. Many of the Gulf states will have no maritime export routes without transiting the strait. In response to the United States and Israel's bombing campaign, Iran effectively closed the strait through a combination of missile threats claimed mining, very high frequency radio broadcasts, warning ships of the two previously mentioned threats, and uncrewed surface vessel attacks that blew up and damaged vessels, including oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. At the time of writing, Iran is threatening ships transiting the strait, and the US is attempting to blockade all ships that aim to go to Iran. Iran has previously allowed some ships a right to pass safely if they pay a toll payable in cryptocurrency or Chinese Yuan. Some ships appear to have certainly transited the strait, but many more have not, and this presents a serious issue for global trade. Luckily, the problems with global trade have not affected our advertisers. So here are some goods and services that will probably cost more than they did a few weeks ago. The United States has a lack of capacity when it comes to minesweeping. Many of the ships it does have which can do that are not currently very close to the Strait of Hormuz. On 12 April, it did send two destroyers into the strait normally to begin mine clearing operations. But these aren't really the sort of ships that would do that so much as they would work alongside the ships that do that to provide them with security. There is currently a safe lane through the strait that Iran seems to be sending ships through, but it's a little unclear to what extent, if at all, the strait is mined and what kind of mines were used. Naval mines can vary. They can be pretty simple contact fuse mines like the ones you might have seen in the minesweeper computer game, or bottom mines triggered by a number of mechanisms. Clearing a body of water this large would take a significant amount of time. Stopping transits through the street was not Iran's only response to the attacks. They have launched a massive fusillade of one way drones and missiles at targets across the region. Their Shaheed drones are one of the most significant military innovations of the last decade. They're cheap one way drones that can do tremendous damage at a very low cost. If you've ever heard of Shahid drone, you won't forget what they sound like. It's like a lawnmower flying over you. These drones have been so successful that the US has cloned captured drones to make its own one way drones, which it calls Lucas drones, and Iran has licensed production to Russia which uses them in massive numbers against Ukraine. These drones have provided a cheap and relatively easy to launch platform for Iran strikes which is focused on US allies Israel and Bashur Kurdistan. Bashur, meaning southern or Iraqi Kurdistan, has taken a particularly heavy toll. Much of this has been due to reporting in the early days of the conflict, which began with notorious fact check evader Barak Ravid. Much of this reporting heavily implied or outright said that Kurdish ground forces were repairing an assault into Iran. Ravid's piece, which reported that Trump had spoken to two major Kurdish leaders, was particularly shocking because it erroneously conflated Iraqi Kurds with Iranian Kurds, those from eastern Kurdistan and Rojalat. It's true that the majority of anti regime Kurdish armed groups from Iran retain bases in Iraq, but it's extremely unlikely that the KDP and the puk, the major actors in Iraqi Kurdistan, will be storming the border into Rojalat anytime in the near future. However, I have spoken to several of the Rojalati armed groups who are part of the alliance of political forces of Iranian Kurdistan. The groups involved are the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan or the pdki, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan The Kurdistan Freedom Party, two of the Kamala parties, and Habat, or the organization of the Iranian Kurdistan Struggle. The alliance predates United States and Israeli campaign. It came around earlier this year. Arash Saleh, a spokesman for the pdki, told me, quote, at this point the whole coalition is built upon some type of self rule inside Iranian Kurdistan as the main demand for all of them. And that is the main demand for all the Kurdish people in Iranian Kurdistan. This unity of groups is a positive step and it represents a real opportunity for liberation of the people of Rojalak. But none of these parties are willing to be the spearhead of an American and Israeli offensive without guarantees that they will receive support for their own goals, which are very different to those of the USA and Israel. In more recent weeks, President Trump has insinuated, and Fox News has claimed that he said this, but I haven't seen any recording of it, that the United States sent weapons to Iranian protesters through Kurdish groups, but that the Kurdish groups kept them instead of giving them to the protesters. Here's a clip of Trump implying this. And you'll have to forgive me for the jarringly awkward light jazz background music here.

[David Forbes]

They don't have guns.

[James Stout]

You know, we sent some guns, but

[Robert Evans]

the group that was supposed to give,

[Mia Wong]

which I said would happen to my people, I said it, I called it. Exactly.

[James Stout]

We sent guns, a lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against, against these thugs.

[David Forbes]

You know what happened? The people that they sent him to

[James Stout]

kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun.

[Mia Wong]

I think I'll keep it. So I'm very upset with a certain group of people and they're going to

[James Stout]

pay a big price for that.

[Robert Evans]

But the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not

[David Forbes]

going to be shot and as soon

[Mia Wong]

as they can get weapons.

[James Stout]

The Kurdish groups I've spoken to have denied this, and it's not really logistically feasible. Hamno Nox Bandi, a member of the general command of the Kurdistan national army, which is a Peshmerga associated with the Kurdistan Freedom Party or Pak, said that, quote, donald Trump's message is unclear to us. What is there is that we as our army have in no way received weapons from the US or any other country, not even a single bullet. And the Pak confirmed that statement to me this morning. At the time you're hearing this, that will be yesterday morning. I checked in with them then transiting the mountains of that part of Kurdistan and then smuggling weapons all the way to Tehran. Is not what they do and it will be very hard for them to do it. Also, at the time of the large anti regime protests in Iran in January, we saw groups, notably the Pak, the Kurdistan Freedom Party, using weapons that really don't appear to be US supplied, like pump action shotguns. Nonetheless, this rumor, combined with the fact that Trump really did call Iraqi Kurdish leaders at the start of the conflict, presumably to ask for support, has led to Iraq's Kurdistan region being targeted a great deal. These drone and rocket strikes have not just hit military targets, but also the refugee camps where the families displaced from Rojalat live and many other civilian targets in major Kurdish cities. To quote a PDKI statement quote since the beginning of the war with the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran has so far targeted the family camps, medical centers and educational facilities of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan with more than 110 missiles and drones. These attacks have continued even during the ceasefire between Iran and the United States. But it's not just Iraqi Kurdistan being bombed. In fact, Iraq has a distinction of being the only country bombed by both sides in the conflict. This is in part because Popular Mobilization forces, sometimes referred to by the Arabic name Hasht Al Shabi in Iraq, have strong ties to Iran. The Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, if you're not familiar, were formed in 2014 and fought against the Islamic State in Iraq. But some factions within the PMF are also now listed as terrorist groups themselves by the United States. I want to resist doing the rather puerile Sunni Shia Kurd analysis here because I don't think it explains the whole situation and is far too often seized upon by commentators seeking to oversimplify things. Many Kurds are Sunni, for example, but some are Shia. Some Kurds are Christian or Jewish or have no religious belief. There are other groups in the region who are not Muslim or Christian. I think it's unnecessarily reductionist, but nonetheless it is worth noting that the PMF are mostly Shia, as is the regime in Iran. The PMF have been using drones, rockets and mortars to attack both US bases and those of the Kurdish peshmerga who they see as tied to the US on their telegram channels. PMF groups have shown successful attacks of what used to be Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport and against the US Embassy facilities. While we can talk to Rajelati groups and see PMF statements on telegram, getting information on the conflict from inside Iran, that's not regime propaganda is very hard. An Internet blackout by the Iranian government has lasted more than a month. The information that we see coming out of Iran is either state sanctioned or from people going to the border with Iraq to get cell phone signal or from people using satellite Internet devices like Starlinks. Iran has been actively hunting people using Starlinks and further militarizing the Kurdistan region near the Iraqi border where people might get cell phone signal. Zeni Abazizi and Siavan Amini, a Kurdish couple, were arrested on the 7th of March this year and they have been detained ever since for the crime of using a Starlink. This repressive capability is not unusual or unique to Iranian Kurdistan. I think we need to understand the structure of the Iranian state to understand why it will be very hard for the United States to achieve regime change simply with an air campaign. Iran has a conventional army known as the Artesh. It also has the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, better known by the initials irgc, which has a specific remit of protecting the Islamic Republic. Within the irgc, people may have heard of the Quds Force. The Quds Force sort of acts like Iran's CIA and Green Berets combined by assisting other actors, mainly non state actors in the region like Hezbollah for example. Then there's also the Basij, which is an element of the IRGC but is a paramilitary auxiliary force with as many as half a million members available for immediate call up and many more in reserve. The Basij are in theory directly loyal to the Supreme Leader and they have participated in significant oppression of the population. Combined, these forces represent a massive apparatus for state violence that is dispersed among the civilian population. Recent reports say they are even garrisoning schools and other civilian buildings. While the United States may, for example, have destroyed Iran's conventional navy, its big grey boats with the Iranian flag on them, it has not and cannot destroy all the small civilian craft that these groups could easily use to harass shipping or even plant sea mines. Nor can it destroy the many one way surface drones Iran has along its coastline. If you're not familiar with these, think of a remote control boat that explodes when it hits its target. Israel has killed many IRGC figures, but many more IRGC units and Basejis remain untouched and willing to turn their weapons on any potential uprising in the country. With this in mind, let's talk a little bit more about those peace negotiations that happened last weekend in Pakistan and particularly let's talk about the composition of Iran's delegation. Amongst Iran's negotiators was Mohammed Jafiri Sahra Rood, who participated in the murder of Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlu during negotiations between the PDKI and Iran in 1989. Dr. Gassemlu had been a notable Kurdish leader for some time, was sentenced to death by the Iranian regime and then killed when he came to the negotiating table. In a statement sent to me, the Pak said, quote, the composition of the Iranian delegation, largely made up of military and security figures, clearly indicates that the primary objective was not to advance a genuine diplomatic process, but rather to manage the situation in line with strategic goals. Iran seems to have chiefly seen negotiations as a way to buy time. It's been able to dig out many of its missiles which were buried but not destroyed by strikes. And in this pause, it can shore up its posture against domestic dissenters as well. It does not seem, in short, to be acting in the way the Shock and Awe doctrine might suggest and hope that it would. Indeed, in recent weeks, it's been able to mobilise civilians to go to power plants in the hope that their presence will prevent bombing of those facilities. Despite this, and despite it being a violation of various international treaties, some of which Israel has not signed up to, Israel has continued to hit power plants, oil infrastructure and bridges despite the civilian costs. It certainly seems that after a weekend of negotiating face to face in Pakistan, the United States was not able to get what it wanted out of negotiations. They have chosen not to accept our terms, Vice President J.D. vance said. Here's him talking about negotiations at a press conference on Sunday morning, local time.

[Garrison Davis]

But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools

[Mia Wong]

that would enable them to quickly achieve

[James Stout]

a nuclear nuclear weapon.

[David Forbes]

That is the core goal of the

[Garrison Davis]

President of the United States, and that's

[James Stout]

what we've tried to achieve through these negotiations.

[David Forbes]

Again, their nuclear program, such as it

[James Stout]

is, the enrichment facilities that they've, that

[Mia Wong]

they had before, they've been destroyed.

[James Stout]

But the simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for

[Garrison Davis]

the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon? Not just now, not just two years

[Mia Wong]

from now, but for the long term.

[James Stout]

We haven't seen that yet.

[David Forbes]

We hope that we will.

[James Stout]

Trump, however, has been talking about a more diverse range of goals than Barnes lists here. Talking about, ending, quote, 47 years of extortion, corruption and death. In one truth, this suggests regime change, which Trump then went on to falsely claim he has already achieved, saying in a truth quote, however, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? This was incidentally in the very same truth in which Trump said, a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. This was part of a threat which he hoped would result in Iran reopening the Strait of Whole news. Trump also posted on Easter Sunday, quote, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Obviously this statement seems at odds with any idea of liberating the Iranian people, and when it comes from the guy with the nuclear arsenal, it sounds like a threat of genocide. While Trump has not launched any nuclear weapons at Iran, this does not mean that the death toll has not been heavy. According to a report by human rights organization hengor, at least 7,650 people have been killed during the US and Israeli bombing, including 1,030 civilians. Iran has also continued attacking its own population. Despite the massive scale of the killing, Iran has not ceased, for example, executing political prisoners. Hengor estimates that at least 160 political prisoners have been killed in the first quarter of this year. United States troops have been killed as well, 13 of them, according to the Military Times. Hundreds more have been wounded. Survivors of one deadly drone attack on a US facility in Kuwait have disputed official accounts of the attack, saying their facility did have vertical blast barriers but no overhead protection against the kind of drones that killed six of their colleagues and the kind of drones they could reasonably expect to be attacked by. Given that Iran has been using these very same drones for a long time in Syria and other parts of the Middle East. To quote cbs, who interviewed one of them on condition of anonymity, quote, painting a picture that one squeaks through is a falsehood. I want people to know the unit. And then there's ellipses here where they've removed part of the quotation was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position. So where are we now? While the US government continues to edit super cuts of bombs hitting buildings and vehicles to music Lightly does not have permission to use families in the United States and Iran are both burying their loved ones despite the ceasefire the US and Iran are theoretically held to There has been no ceasefire for the Kurds who are still being bombed, no ceasefire for Lebanon where Israel is still carrying out a massive bombing campaign. And on day two of the USA's blockade of Iranian ports, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains in the single digit numbers of ships we have not achieved and it seems that we likely will not achieve liberation for the people of Iran. In fact, it may be the case that the regime moves closer to the irgc, becomes more hardline, more repressive, more violent, just like in Caracas. The only thing the US seems interested in liberating is oil. Iran's nuclear threat remains like Schrodinger's cat, a once terrible and non existent, destroyed last year and the justification for thousands of deaths this year. As always, our solidarity should be with people and not with states. We can perfectly coherently hold that the people of Iran do not deserve to be killed by the US or their own government, and that what we want for them should be what we want for ourselves. Peace, freedom and a beautiful life.

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That's innerbalance.com support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures kids pets, life.

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[Garrison Davis]

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 by James Stout, Mia Wong and Robert Evans.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, happy to be back once again stretching the definitions of the word here

[Garrison Davis]

across time, space and the Internet. We have gathered to discuss the news and this episode. We are covering the week of April 8th to April 16th. James, you want to start us off with some short news items?

[James Stout]

Yep, I got quite a few this week, so lock in. There have been two Turkish school shootings this week. One killed 10 people, the other wounded at least 16. Since then, there have been 162 arrests for either sharing footage of the shooting or suggesting that similar attacks might happen at other schools. One Suspect, according to BBC, made references to US mass killer Elliot Roger on his WhatsApp profile, which. Yep, not great. Just. Yeah, I do find it somewhat frustrating when people say this stuff only happens in the United States.

[Robert Evans]

No. No it doesn't. Now it is a fair point to note that like most foreign mass shootings these days are inspired and influenced by American mass shootings. We are foundational to global shooter culture. But it ain't just us.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's not just us. And unfortunately, culture is global and this is part of that. We also have, like your regular terrorism, but this is not that. This is part of that culture. Secondly, southcom, the United States military command responsible for, among other things, the Eastern Pacific, as it calls it, has announced four strikes on small boats again this week, killing at least 11 people, according to the totals I added up from their announcements. It's probably worth noting that this either suggests that they are not striking drug boats or that their strikes on drug boats are so spectacularly unsuccessful that they are still coming across in such volumes that southcom is having to kill people at this continuing rate. Either way, it doesn't point to a successful operation. Next, the Nigerian military seems to have doubled down on its strike in Julie. If people haven't been paying attention to this, Gili is a place where a market was bombed. They claim that the market contained Boko Haram fighters. More than 100 people were killed in this strike.

[David Forbes]

And I want to mention what happened

[Andrew Sage]

recently at Jili to tell them that now our new strategy is anybody a friend of a thief is a thief. I've said that severally. Anybody that is doing any trading, any support to them, we find you together with them, we're going to deal with you like, like the bandit, like the terrorists. So people should know, if you don't want to be harmed, please avoid where those terrorists are and don't give them any support.

[James Stout]

The suggestion here is that being present in a market where these people who are terrorists who are also present justifies targeting them.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's worth noting the US has been supporting this campaign, Right? And this is not the first incident in which civilians have been killed. I've written about this in my newsletter. An appeals court in the D.C. circuit has prevented Judge Boasberg from continuing an investigation into whether Trump officials sent migrants to El Salvador despite his order. D.C. judge Rao wrote, the government has a clear and indisputable right to termination of this judicial investigation because it is premised on an order that is insufficiently clear and specific to sustain a charge of criminal contempt. A longtime court interpreter, the only one for several South Asian languages in Texas, has been detained by ICE in airport. She has withholding of removal to India, but with third country removals now increasingly on the table, that is presumably what they intend for her. Finally, in court news, another DOJ attorney has been fined for missing deadlines in A habeas case. And once again, that attorney cited a crushing caseload as the reason why they'd missed those deadlines.

[Garrison Davis]

This week, both the House and the Senate failed to advance a war powers resolution compelling the President to cease military action in Iran. The House vote in particular was very close with 213 votes to 214, with only one Democrat, Jared Goldin, voting against it, while one Republican, Thomas Massie, voted in support. On Monday, the Trump administration agreed to restore the Pride flag to the Stonewall National Monument as a part of settling a lawsuit over its removal. This weekend, President Trump got into a fight with the Pope over his statements against the US And Israel's war in the Middle East. The president truth that the Pope was, quote, weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy, unquote, before sharing an AI image of himself depicted as Jesus Christ. The next day, Trump claimed, quote, I thought it was me as a doctor, unquote.

[Robert Evans]

Great, great stuff, great stuff.

[James Stout]

Just to briefly fact check, he is neither of those things.

[Garrison Davis]

No.

[James Stout]

As far as I'm aware.

[Garrison Davis]

Or a doctor.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Legally.

[Mia Wong]

I think it is notable and very funny that this has now shifted. No, not as significant, but it shifted a discourse on the right to whether or not Trump is the Antichrist, with enemy of the show Rob Dreher saying, quote, he's giving off Antichrist energy. So incredible things are happening for Donald Trump among his nominal base.

[James Stout]

Meanwhile, Franklin Graham thinks it was an honest mistake.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I'm sure.

[Mia Wong]

I'm sure.

[Garrison Davis]

I'm sure he does.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

On Wednesday, police responded to a bomb threat at the Illinois home of one of Pope leo's brothers about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. So no explosive was found.

[Robert Evans]

So Congress is in the process of deciding whether or not to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, or FISA. It's going to sunset on April 20th. We're recording this on the 16th. So in four days, if Congress does not reauthorize it. Section 02 is what lets intelligence agencies in the US collect email, phone, text communications from foreign nationals outside of the United States, which often leads to communications of American citizens being caught for obvious reasons. Right. As well. They get kind of swept up in that big net. The FBI once has asked for and has gotten some permission to, like, look into that database to get information on American citizens. Congress put some limitations that in 2024, but it remains very controversial. And basically, like one of the. The big debates over this is. And there was a vote in 2024 as to whether or not to require intelligence agencies to get a warrant before accessing Americans communications. And that failed to pass by a single vote in the house, 212 to 212 split in 2024. So right now, you know, there's both the question of is this going to get reauthorized by Congress, in which case is like the FBI is certainly going to use it to go after like the communications of quote unquote antifa right. Of like people who have been caught because they've been naming foreign groups, anti fascist groups, like, like foreign terrorist organizations. That's very obviously like one of the things this is going to be used for. It's kind of unclear like what is going to happen here where Congress is going to land. I did find there's an interesting article in Just Security where they're very worried that because of how very obvious it is that, that federal law enforcement will abuse this section 702 will just kind of go away entirely. And the useful aspects of it as they see it will no longer be possible. That's not my primary concern. But it's interesting to read someone being like, oh my God, if these guys go so crazy, like if, if they keep refusing to like allow warrants to be entered into the process and keep insisting on going after like anti fat, like left wing domestic terrorists, they're going to lose our ability to like surveil foreign nationals entirely is kind of the concern from a lot of security people anyway. Just probably good that you're aware of that. So probably the biggest international piece of news this week that we're covering is the defeat of Viktor Orban, who was often considered to be like a quasi dictatorial figure. I mean he arose to power in Hungary legally, but his party, like as soon as he took power more than a decade ago, he's basically been cracking down on the ability of counterparties to like organize. There's been like massive crackdowns on the like, ability of like it's a lot of prototype Trump stuff. Like they went after professors, they went after colleges, they went after like public funds to educational institutions, to libraries.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, he, he pioneered the modern tactics of undermining liberal democracy via the legal system.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes.

[David Forbes]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

It's like him and Erdogan are sort

[Robert Evans]

of like the two went after the LGBT community, tried to criminalize like criminalize like Pride events and stuff. And also like, and a big, a big part of like Orban was obviously very anti migrant, like anti. We don't want to take in, you know, particularly during the Syrian refugee crisis that Was like a big moment for them. But he was also really anti eu. You know, Hungary is a part of the eu, but Orban's party was very like the Fedez party was super EU critical. And in the last decade and change that they've been in power, the, the Fidesz party has been massively corrupt and in fact has kind of turned the Hungarian government to the extent. Like, you know, there was corruption before obviously. But he's woven his party into the very workings of the government primarily as a way to collect money from people and to distribute government funds to like these right wing pet projects that they had, which we'll. I'll talk about a little more in a second. But this started to piss people off in Hungary, particularly because the government wasn't doing a good job of governing. Like, the Hungarian economy remained one of the worst in Europe. Unemployment remained high. Like none of the promises that like, well, if we're, if we kind of push the EU away and if we keep all, if we keep these migrants out, the economy will get better. What really happened was Fidesz robbed everyone blind and Orban robbed everyone blind and put his cronies in positions of power in the hope that he would never be forced out. Now Orban's an interesting figure in part because he got his start as a pro democracy figure during the latter years of communism in Hungary. He was a liberal, like democratic activist. And in fact the guy who just beat him, Peter Magyar, we'll talk about his name also in a second, grew up with like a poster of Orban on his like bedroom wall. Because Orban, you know, again, communism was coming to an end. Everyone was very excited. All the young people were very excited about democracy. And Orban was like a figure. And I think he was still. He was never like a leftist figure when I say liberal, but he was a figure of like democratizing values. Now Magyar himself is an odd guy. He's 45 years old. And the party that he ran with, the Tisa Party, T I S Z A was a party before him, but like not a living one really. Like it had been a political party and it had basically died out to irrelevance. I think they had a couple of dudes kind of kicking around. It's almost like if there were still a tiny wig party that like four or five guys met in like twice a year to like have their little wig meeting.

[James Stout]

Yeah, the Bull Moose Party coming back, accident.

[Robert Evans]

Some guy who's like a Barack Obama level political mind in terms of his skill in organizing and Charisma came in and turned that party into a fucking electoral powerhouse that completely annihilated the previous leading party in an election. Like that's basically what happened in Hungary. It's a very weird story. And Magyar is definitely brilliant in terms of he is someone who is objectively very intelligent when it comes to how to build power in a political organization and how to win elections and how to message to people. He's very good at all of that stuff. Now this is not like a leftist or a progressive like hero type figure. And he is not pretended to be. To be very clear, that's not how he built himself at all. In fact, in some ways he's more conservative than Orban. His party, the TIS A party is like even like Orban at least had like a guest worker program and stuff. And Magyar is against even a lot of that stuff. Like he is actually more hostile to having like, like immigration. But he's not anti EU and he's not. What's, what's interesting is like he's really kind of hedging in between, like hedging his. I don't know entirely how to describe this. He's like writing a very weird line because he is not anti Ukraine, but he's also against Hungary sending weapons aid directly to Ukraine. But his whole attitude is like, I'm not super pro what you guys are doing, but I'm not going to fight anything in the EU parliament. Hungary's going to stop. Hungary has been like a spoiler in EU politics for a while where they would just kind of vote to fuck with whatever the EU wants to do. Especially with regards aiding Ukraine. And Magyar's whole thing is like I'm just going to stop. Like I'm not going to full throatedly support the stuff you guys want to. I'm just going to stop being an anchor weighing you down. Which is enough like for the EU to be excited about this. Yeah, like finally this guy Hungary is not going to be. And it's. Hungary has a weird history of, of acting like an anchor on other polities sometimes. That's kind of what was going on in the Austro Hungarian empire in like the Pre World War I era where Hungary saw itself as very separate from the Austria Hungary aspect of things and would vote to like fuck with the military because they wanted their own military to get more powerful. It's not entirely the same. It's just interesting the level of like contrarianess that's kind of baked into a lot of Hungarian politics. I mentioned something about Peter's name. So the Magyars are like the original, like, nomadic horse warrior people of the area we know as Hungary today. The name Magyar just means Hungarian now. But it came from the most powerful of these, like, tribes of nomadic warriors. And someone had made a point of this on. I was either Twitter or bluesky around the election that, like, Peter Magyar is basically, if a guy was named Johnny American, right? Like, that's like, literally, like, his name could not be more patriotic.

[David Forbes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Adolf Hitler defeated by a man named Germany.

[David Forbes]

Like.

[Robert Evans]

And Magyar became a force on the political stage in Hungary very suddenly. He wasn't really a major in figure. He was kind of actually connected to a lot of. Because again, he was a supporter of the Fidesz party. He had a lot of friends who were members of Orban's government. One of his buddies was Orban's chief of staff. In 2006, he married a woman, Judit Varga, who was the minister of justice for the Fidesz party under Orban. Right. And he'd worked as like a diplomat in Brussels. So he's like a guy who's part of this government apparatus that Orban puts into place. But in 2024, there's this huge scandal where the Ministry of Justice and like, his wife, by which I mean his. Well, now his ex wife because they split. And then his ex wife pardons a man who had gotten convicted for covering up a sex abuse scandal at a children's home. And Magyar becomes like one of the most visible figures on the backlash being like, this entire party is corrupt. This is super fucked up. And he's coming from a position of. And I was a part of it. So I know, like, I'm an insider who's broken from the group because how corrupt and bad this is. And there's some messed up stuff in there. Magyar does attack Orban and Fidesz because his. His ex wife gets fired along with another woman when this scandal becomes a problem. And he accuses the government of like, hiding behind women's skirts. But he's also got. He's an odd. Per. He's.

[James Stout]

He.

[Robert Evans]

There's some uncomfortable. Not. Not damning or anything, just some, like, uncomfortable realities about him. And I want to read a quote from an NPR article that came out recently that talks about some of this. Magyar has blamed the end of his marriage to Varga, at least in part on political disagreements. Notably, just months before their divorce was finalized in 2023, he secretly recorded one of their conversations. In it, Varga was talking about an attempt by government aides to interfere in a corruption case. Magyar released a recording in the wake of the pardon scandal the following year, which only added fuel to the fire and credence to his corruption claim. And his wife resigns from public life altogether after this. She has accused him of verbal and physical abuse, including like locking her in a room and obviously, like the whole recording. There's a lot of. There's some uncomfortable stuff about this guy. But that said, she's also super corrupt and like doing a lot of really. So I, I don't know and no one really does. If you read a lot about this guy, one of the things people point is that we don't actually know a lot about him other than he's really good at whipping a party into shape and winning an election. Right? Like, he proved that much, but we don't know much about him even. Orban has made anti LGBTQ rights a big part of his. His platform, especially as his, his position has gotten weaker. He's tried to like, supercharge that as a way to, to hold on to power. Magyar is not pro queer rights, but he's not anti queer rights. He has, he has criticized the Orban government from going after LGBTQ people and says that they're doing it to distract citizens from the issues, which is true. He said that he supports the right to assembly. He has not said that he supports LGBTQ rights. That said, if going from a guy who's like, I actively want to prosecute people for being queer to a guy who's like, I just don't want to talk about it, is probably an improvement.

[Garrison Davis]

It's worth noting that in his victory speech, he did make two references to LGBTQ rights, saying that, quote, everyone can live with whoever they love as long as they do not violate laws or harm others. And also said, quote, we want to make a country where no one is persecuted because they think differently or because someone loves in a different way to others, unquote.

[Robert Evans]

This is again, broadly a really good thing. And it's also good, good. It's good in Hungary. It's also good worldwide because Hungary has been for years not a major supporter of far right groups. One of the things Magyar pointed out as soon as he won election is that there's evidence that they have found that the Fidesz party was using Hungarian governmental funds to support a couple of, number one, to support cpac because they hold like a foreign CPAC gatherings in Hungary. So like, CPAC has been getting money from the Hungarian government and Magueire said, like that's not fine. We're not okay with that. I think that's actually illegal. And he has also noted that government money was going to support the Matthias Corvinus College or mcc, which was receiving funds from the Orban government. And that that is going to stop. Now the MCC is both like it's a, it's an organization in Hungary, but they also have a bunch of like foreign, they've got one in like Romania, there's one in Brussels. They have like a bunch of foreign branches and they use the MCC and fund it in order to fund the far right in other European countries. Right. Like the, the MCC supports like the one in Brussels, supports in Brussels local far right groups. And it's been very, a fairly effective way of like funding some of these like and oftentimes like Nazi adjacent organizations. And that money is looking to go away. And there's an interesting Politico article about some of this that talked to the MCC Brussels people like the offshoot of this in Brussels. For its part, MCC Brussels said that Sunday's election result will have no bearing on its work in the city as an independent organization. We will continue to research, analyze and advocate around our core concerns and continue to hold the European Union institutions to account. That's the communications manager. And the article goes on to note, MCC Brussels gets almost all its cash, 99% coming to just over 6 million euros according to its listing in the last financial year as part of a grant from Matthias Corvinus Collegium, which received a 10% stake in Hungary's lucrative oil and gas company MOL from Orban's government in 2020. That's certainly going away too. This is a major blow to far right organizing in Europe and in the United States. And it's more than just losing money, losing a space to gather, it's losing a proof of concept. Right. Orban was, the guy they pointed to is like this is what we want to do in America. Not just America, but very directly. And Orban just flamed the fuck out because he sucked at governing. Now what happens next is gonna depend on whether or not Magyar prosecutes Fidesz party members, prosecutes Orban and his cronies. He said he's going to, so we'll see. And that's all I gotta say for now.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think it's worth noting that like in Europe we had this somewhat with Donald Tusk in Poland. Right. And what we have seen there, for instance on immigration has been a continued movement to the right, Tusk has been talking about not complying with EU immigration rulings. And I think that's probably something that people who are interested in which way this might go should look at. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing that Orban is out. No, that Orban conceded. Right. He had multiple US politicians, including the vice president, campaigning for him and he lost. And he admitted he lost. And that is a very good sign.

[Robert Evans]

Part of why he conceded is he thinks that he's got enough people woven into the government that he can return to power, or at least his party can. So, again, Magyar's big challenge is going to be making sure that doesn't happen.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. And whatever else, I think it's very, very unlikely that Magyar is going to be doing shit like, hey, we're gonna use face. We're gonna threaten to use facial recognition on everyone who shows up to a pride protest and a pride march and arrest them. So, you know, hopefully getting better.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Although again, he was willing to wiretap his wife. You're right. There's no evidence that he takes, like, pleasure in fucking with people like that. Doesn't seem to be his vibe, so hopefully not.

[James Stout]

Yeah. All right. Should we take a break?

[Garrison Davis]

We shall. All right, then we will be back for more news.

[Mia Wong]

So one of the other pieces of news coming out of the right wing sphere is this really incredibly staged photo op that Donald Trump had where he like got this really well photographed, like, fake doordash order and then tipped tip the woman $100. That was supposed to be a promotion for his no taps on tips thing. There's a lot of stuff going on here. I. There's been a whole bunch of stuff because people immediately figured out that this person is someone who's been basically used to lobby for this policy a bunch. She shows all up all over the place, like testifying in front of congressional committees and stuff about no tax for tips. And like, or like in legislatures all over the country, there's a whole bunch of kind of funny stuff where she gets asked if she would vote for Trump and whether she supports trans athletes. And she's just like. There's also a whole story about sort of DoorDash's PR person just having a crash out and getting extremely mad online.

[Robert Evans]

Just no, Mia, don't put it in the newspaper that they got mad.

[Mia Wong]

It's really amazing. But I think the actual story here is about no tax on tips as a political project. And I think the actual most egregious Part of this whole event was the White House. They operate like, 55 Twitter accounts. One of them, the Guardian points out, is this, like, rapid response thing. And it posts this video where that's captioned about how this woman said she saved $11,000 in taxes on tips. That's not true. It can't be true. It's just mathematically a lie. Like the actual policy. And the Guardian's doing some good work on this, lays out, quote, but the no tax on tips policy is only a temporary deduction of up to $25,000 in tips for eligible workers annually. Tipped workers still have to report their tips as income. So there's a lot of things going on here. One, this is all, all of the tax on tip stuff is temporary. We talked about this when it came out. It was designed to sort of phase out the moment Trump leaves office or supposed to leave office. And B Doordash also later had to say, oh, no, no, no, no, she did not save $11,000 in tax money on tips. They were like, no, no, no, she made $11,000 in tips and didn't have to pay taxes on it. But first off, she did not make $11,000 on tips. Like, you can't make $11,000 in tips doing doordash delivery. It's basically impossible. And I'm very sure that she didn't do this because also, if you look at the Guardian with these or not, the Guardian ink went through some of the earlier, you know, interviews, because she's been on a PR circuit about this for a while. She was on Fox News, and on Fox News, she claims that she'd saved three to $4,000. And then eventually that like, number, the amount of money that she saved eventually gets bumped up to 11,000. I think that what happened is that she maybe got, she's claiming originally that she got like $3,000 in tips. There's also another issue here, which is that, like $11,000, it's like, not clear if that's even enough money to qualify as having to pay, like, income taxes in Alaska. Like, this is all. This is all basically just a nightmare. And. But the reason this is all actually happening is that the no tax on tips thing is this giant PR campaign that DoorDash, particularly DoorDash, but also some of the other, some of the other companies have been doing as basically a propaganda thing in order to avoid there being attention on the fact that they just don't pay their workers a living wage. And so one of the really important things that's almost never talked about with DoorDash and with all of these sort of like these delivery apps, right, is that if you are a restaurant worker and you're making something for a doordash order, and this is particularly like, you know, for example, if you work at a coffee shop, right, you don't get tips on doordash orders. So when, when, when, when, when these things, when these orders started coming through in like sort of the past like five, six, eight years, right, what happened was that this was basically a giant. Everyone who's working like in a restaurant or in a, in like a cafe or whatever you're getting it from, those people all had massive speed ups where they just don't get, and they don't, and they don't get paid the regular tips that they would, you know, be relying on to even sort of have a living wage, right? So these people all got speed ups. And then on top of that, right? So you are, if you're ordering from one of these sites, right, you're probably are paying a tip. But that tip money has basically been, you know, it's been extracted from the restaurant workers, but then now it's being used as a way to subsidize, right, as a way to subsidize DoorDash not paying actual fucking wages. And so what this entire project is, is, is it's, it's this, it's this giant attempt to basically continue this process and solidify this process and stop all of the organizing campaigns that have been happening against DoorDash to get them to like actually fucking pay people. And what's happening instead is that they're trying, they're trying to shift everyone's focus to like, oh, hey, we can give you like no tax on tips. Even though what these tips are and what the system that they've built is, is a, is a system to basically exploit both restaurant workers and also specifically to make sure they don't ever have to fucking pay their workers any amount of money. And that's the actual, that's the actual political ramifications of what's happening here beyond guy has funny crash out in social media. And I think it's very bleak that there's been basically no coverage of

[Garrison Davis]

the

[Mia Wong]

sort of totality of what this is doing to people.

[Garrison Davis]

To circle back to the potentiality of the new Prime Minister of Hungary prosecuting the former corrupt administration. Let's turn to California. The former frontrunner in the California governor's race, Eric Swalwell, dropped out of the election last week and subsequently resigned from Congress amid sexual Assault allegations from multiple women. The new front runner is billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran for president back in 2020. You might remember him from the. Yeah, good. Okay. Clip of where he tried to talk to Bernie Sanders as Bernie and Elizabeth Warren were beefing on stage after a presidential debate.

[David Forbes]

Wait, is.

[Mia Wong]

Is he the guy. Is he the guy who had that story about killing someone in Vietnam? Or was that. Was that another one of the unhinged guys that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I don't think Styer wasn't super unhinged. He was a little bit boring. But nominally one of the more progressive people in that overstuffed race. Despite being a billionaire. A lot of his poem is talking about, we should tax billionaires like me more. I know I'm a billionaire. I'll be fine. That's kind of his. That's kind of part of his shtick.

[Robert Evans]

Look, my opinion is, as a former Californian and just someone who's voted in California, in the long, grand history of California Californian governors, he would be one of the better options that Californians have had, which is high bar, really low bar.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And the race this year is just shite.

[Robert Evans]

It's again, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor and, like, firmly middle of the pack.

[James Stout]

It's absolute bollocks now. Like, sorry, I know I'm saying very British words, but it is upsetting to me.

[Garrison Davis]

It is funny to describe the California governor's race as bollocks.

[Robert Evans]

It's bollocks. It's happened many times.

[James Stout]

I have to live here. I have to pay taxes to these clowns.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, it's California, baby. Like, you're gonna periodically have governor races that are just like shit shows, largely to provide content for the media.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Now, this week, Steyer released part of his immigration platform titled How California Can Put ICE in Jail, echoing cries that activists have been trying to circulate into popular consciousness for the past year. Now, Steyer doesn't just advocate for ICE to be abolished, which he does, but says in this new platform released on substack, quote, it's not enough for Democrats to simply engage in rhetoric and quote, unquote, stand against ICE or Trump. California must build a system that fights fire with fire to stop this authoritarian takeover. We must counter ICE head on and go after both their agents on the streets and their leadership within the dhs. How do we do this? The same way we took on the mob. Put ICE agents and their leadership in jail for their crimes. Because that's how you take on a violent extremist group and Win, unquote. Steyer promises to do five things as governor to build this strategy to take on ice. First, passing aggressive legislation building on current California statutes to outlaw any law enforcement agency from profiling based on race, ethnicity, language, occupation or location. This directly takes on the Kavanaugh stops, which were approved last fall, and a

[James Stout]

lot of other Supreme Court decisions that, for instance, Border Patrol operates under.

[Garrison Davis]

Then Steyer says he'll grant the state Attorney General authority to hold ICE's leadership accountable for violence by pursuing, quote, unquote, supervisory liability. Steyer writes that, quote, this body of law empowers the California justice system to criminally prosecute and imprison not just the ICE agents who are committing these crimes, but the leadership directing them to do so, unquote. Steyer promises to appoint and fund a special investigative unit that's specifically tasked with enforcing these California laws, quote, including laws related to the conditions at detention facilities. This unit will collect the evidence the Attorney General can use to prosecute offenders and their leadership, unquote. That's how he plans to take on ICE and leadership at the DHS US and to prosecute crimes committed by ICE agents. Now, Steyer also says that he will, quote, bring those detained and kidnapped by ICE back home, unquote. By expanding the immigration legal defense infrastructure in the state of California, including funding for, quote, more attorneys, investigators and accredited representatives, as well as legal aid and law school programs to assist and help those who have been imprisoned without due process, unquote.

[James Stout]

This is the one like that I'd like. There are counties in California that fund that. We had an episode about this about two years ago.

[Mia Wong]

Right.

[James Stout]

That will fund legal defense for migrants. Traditionally this has been. ICE works around this by moving people who have that legal representation out of the state as quickly as they can and then refusing or making it very hard for WebEx motions for their attorneys to attend their hearings remotely. And what that does is effectively bleeds the program. Right. Cause then this attorney has to fly to Texas for a 15 minute hearing about rescheduling or something similar. I would need to. There's a lot of other stuff here, like law school programs that's interesting. I don't know what those would be. There needs to be something that stops them doing that because that is what they did under Biden too. This is not a Trump era thing. This is very much something that happened under Biden and it will happen again if the state of California does this on a statewide level, I would imagine. Especially let's entertain the idea that we have an election in 2028, that we have a Democrat president. ICE still has a massively expanded detention capacity. It could very easily move people out of California very quickly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And so we need, like, there needs to be awareness of that. I would also say that, like, one of the tools that I don't see mentioned here that I think should be mentioned is SB54 in California. SB54. Obviously, there are different SB54, but I'm talking about the California Values act here, the one that prohibits law enforcement cooperation except for certain exemptions with immigration authorities. That already exists. It's already used there. And his statement's pretty brief. His PDFs only three pages. It might not go into all this detail. I would like to see that flagged at least in further detail when he's speaking about this. Because SB54 prosecutions of cops are important. Right. Because there are California agencies which appear to be flouting California law in order to comply with Trump's immigration goals. And if we don't do that first, then I have a lot less faith that any of this other shit is going to matter.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I mean, obviously funding legal representation for immigrants regardless, like, is a good thing.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

But it could. But the effect that it could have could be curtailed by ice, as James has said, by moving people quickly out of state. And it's unclear if. If Steyer is also talking about trying to help. Trying to help residents of California.

[James Stout]

Is it people who. Is it people who reside in California and have been taken by ice, or is it people who are in ICE detention in California?

[Garrison Davis]

California, yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Like those. Those are different categories. Right. Like, anyone or any other people in immigration detention, broadly in California, to include anyone who would cross the southern border and then be detained. Right. Like, this is all stuff that I'd like to see fleshed out. Maybe it will be. I am going to email his office and ask some of these questions.

[Garrison Davis]

The last thing that Steyer has in this five list of promises is promise to launch a statewide know your rights public education and public awareness campaign. And Steyer writes, quote, backed by expanded protections against racial profiling, legal representation empowers detained individuals to report ISIS crimes to the special investigator and California's Attorney General and take the agents to court, unquote. So he sees all these things, like, working in conjunction together to. To prosecute ICE agents and give immigrants legal representation so that this. So that the investigative unit can be aware of certain crimes by ICE agents. It's the most that I've seen any politician, like, put down as, like, an actual Plan to go after ice like some other people have employed this sort, this sort of rhetoric. But in terms of actually producing a plan to, to go about this, this is the most detailed that I've seen. And as James said, it'll be good to learn more about how he envisions this actually going into effect. And there's certain details that it would be nice to have more detail on. But as, as, as rhetoric and as, as an actual policy proposal, this is like the most advanced thing I've seen on actually trying to prosecute ICE and dhs.

[James Stout]

All right, so let's talk a little bit more about immigration, seeing as we're on the topic. First and foremost in this. What I want to talk about is this court filing by the ACLU and associated groups pertaining to the South Florida soft sided facility, south, a.k.a. alligator, Alcatraz. Right. The court filing has some really disturbing stuff and it basically details what they claim to be the continued abuse of detainees despite a court order that should have prohibited some of this or prevented it rather. In their filing, they alleged that attorneys were prevented from meeting with their clients, forced to make appointments, and we've seen some reporting on the physical abuse. I have not seen as much discussion of this, which I think is extremely concerning. Attorneys have been asked to submit copies of legal documents that they are bringing to go over with their clients. Right. Like this would be a very clear violation of their attorney client privilege. Right. That those communications should be private between the attorney and the client. The facility denied detainees access to phones. This was part of the previous court order that they were to have access to phones and communications with their attorneys, as well as some other stuff. They had to be advised of their rights posters explaining some of this stuff. This resulted in demands on the parts of the detainees to restore their access to phones. I want to quote at length from the filing here just so I don't make any false representations, quote. After not having access to phone calls all day, people in their cages were getting frustrated with the situation as these phone calls are the only way people can contact loved ones, speak with and secure an attorney. Detained individuals in Mr. Morphy and Mr. Hernandez Galban's cage began complaining loudly about the phones not working. Mr. Morphy and Mr. Hernandez Galban both reported that several guards who work for crs, it's an entity managing the facility, came to the cage and were taunting the detained individuals inside. Detained individuals began raising their voices in protest. The guards got more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to enter the cage. Mr. Hernandez Galban went to the guards to try and de escalate the situation and advised the guards not to enter the cage at that time, fearing it would lead to violence. Mr. Morphy and Mr. Hernandez galban both reported that another detained individual then went to the guards and an officer punched that person. Then the officers targeted Mr. Morphy. Neither Mr. Morphy nor Mr. Hernandez Garba know why they targeted Mr. Morphy. The guards threw Mr. Morphy to the ground and severely beat him up. An officer came in and punched Mr. Morphy in his right eye and began to beat him. He was taken out the cage and thrown to the ground and beaten by multiple guards. He suffered injuries to his shoulder, an arm, and was kicked in the head. A guard placed their knee on his neck when the guard was trying to restrain him. Mr. Morphy does not know which guards are involved, as they do not wear ID badges, but he believes he would recognise them. The officers beat several other people during this incident and broke another detained individual's wrist. The officers then pepper sprayed everyone in the cage. A detained older gentleman passed out as he could not breathe. That's pretty horrific. Like,

[Garrison Davis]

this is just one day in one detention center.

[James Stout]

That's exactly what I was gonna say. This is one cage on one day in one facility. And if these people had not been brave enough to speak out, then we wouldn't know. Or if these people had been deported before they could speak out, we wouldn't know. Right. They didn't even have telephones to report this. If they hadn't had attorneys, we wouldn't know. Yeah. This is an insight into what's happening in this facility, and it is horrific. There are images that go with this. If people want to look them up. You can see some very clearly injured people, or you can see at least one very clearly injured person.

[Garrison Davis]

Let's go on an ad break and then talk about Iran and some Molotov cocktails.

[James Stout]

All right, we are back. And in our final segment of today's show, we're going to talk about the ongoing war with Iran. Right. This past weekend, J.D. vance and Jared Kushner, as well as Steve Witkoff, master negotiator, a guy who doesn't know the difference between a tweet that is public and a DM that is private, credible. They flew to meet an Iranian delegation in Pakistan, which serves to mediate and host ceasefire talks between the United States and Iran. Ultimately, this did not result in an enduring agreement between the US and Iran, and as a result, the United States has begun blockading Iranian ports. So far, several vessels have been turned around by the US blockade, and at least one that tried to run it was eventually turned back even though it attempted to hug the Iranian coastline in order to avoid consequences. The US Navy has also issued instructions which seem to suggest that it could target Shadow fleet vessels globally as part of the blockade if they're carrying a number of contraband items, which includes basically Iranian oil, all its derivatives, weapons, some metals and industrial supplies. It's a very broad list of contraband. In the 13 claimed instances of ships being turned around, so far, I have not seen any in which there's a physical interdiction. It seems that the United States ships contacted them by radio, advising them of the blockade. The blockade has not currently stopped some types of cargoes entering Iran. The notice to mariners suggests that humanitarian supplies can enter, but those vessels are subject to inspection. If this causes a cooling effect or just a reduction in the ability of Iran to bring in more food, this could cause serious food shortages. There's already been massive food price inflation since the war began, and Iran had previously tried to work around this. But a complete blockade would make that harder. It does seem that negotiations between the US and Iran are ongoing. We're recording this on Thursday. And the latest thing that I had seen has suggested that Iran is saying it might allow traffic through the strait if its assets are unfrozen. This hinges on the idea that Iran gets to decide who goes through the strait. Right. The strait is wider than 12. 12 miles is generally the territorial waters, so it is international waters. So the idea that Iran controls it, if the US signs some kind of deal, which implies or outright says that would be a massive victory for Iran. Right. At least in that area. Meanwhile, the United States is amassing a massive naval force in the region with three carrier strike groups either there or heading there. That is approximately 40% of the USA's Navy. Navy. Interestingly, the George H.W. bush is going around Africa to get there.

[Garrison Davis]

The ship, not the man.

[James Stout]

That's correct. George H.W. bush himself. He's swimming. He's got a wetsuit. No. Yes. The United states ship. George H.W. bush is going around the southern tip of Africa. Geography understanders will notice that that is the long way. The short way would be through the Suez Canal, right?

[Mia Wong]

Oh, no, they're doing the Russia, the recent Japanese war thing. This always goes great for the imperial power. Moving the ship around.

[James Stout]

Moving the ship. Yeah. I'm guessing they're doing it because they don't want to get hit by Yemeni groups. Right. Going through the Red Sea. And that seems to be the only explanation I can think of. 2 Avenger class Mayan countermeasure ships also left Singapore and they will also likely be headed to the region. Right. For demining the strait.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that this ceasefire has not been universal. Red bombing has not ceased in Kurdistan this week. A peshmerga of the Kamala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, Ghazal Moulin, a young Kurdish woman died after sustaining injuries in a strike on Tuesday. It seems that it was very hard for the Kamala to find medical care for her. I'm going to quote from a piece by the Hana Human Rights Organization here, quote she then required urgent higher level treatment including advanced imaging specialist, trauma care and intensive care support. Hana has received serious allegations that the necessary treatment was not provided and that the subsequent efforts to secure admission or transfer to other hospitals hospitals were delayed or refused. The central allegation under review is that once the case was understood to be connected to a drone strike and to carry political sensitivity, non medical considerations may have affected decisions concerning her admission and treatment. That's pretty bleak if it's true, right? Like if it turns out this person could have survived. But hospitals either feared political consequences or being struck themselves, they decided and you could look at the show notes, right, that they talk about a number of hospitals, that they basically drove her around trying to find care. It's really heartbreaking. Again, other strikes have hit civilian facilities including refugee camps that are associated with the Rajelati groups in Kurdistan. And that seems to be that there is no ceasefire for the Kurds.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

It's the long and the short of it, Iran, Iran is taking this time of peace negotiations to kind of reorganize its military and to reassess its supplies even they have dug out some missiles and anti air systems that were buried but not destroyed by strikes. And so they will be preparing for whatever comes next. If people want to know more about this, I made a whole episode which will have come out the day before this in the same feed so you can listen to it there.

[Garrison Davis]

This morning also, Trump announced a cease fired deal for 10 days between Israel and Lebanon. We'll see if that turns out to be real, if Israel will abide by this. But that is like as of for like an hour ago while we record Thursday afternoon.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, and it's worth noting there were literally thousands of violations of the last ceasefire that Iran had supposedly agreed to with Lebanon.

[Garrison Davis]

So Israel or not Iran, sorry, Israel,

[Mia Wong]

it agrees with Iran. Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

Trump had said that it was a quote, separate skirmish in Lebanon and thus didn't it wasn't included in the ceasefire, which is a hell of a way to describe what's happening there.

[Garrison Davis]

For our last story, let's talk about Sam Altman. Last week, a 20 year old college student named Daniel Moranogama traveled from Texas to San Francisco, California and at 3:30am on April 10, allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail toward the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The Molotov hit the top of the security gate on the driveway leading to Altman's residence. Then at around 5am, Murano Gama arrived at the open AI headquarters and tried to use a chair to break into the building through the glass doors, but was stopped by security. According to security personnel on site, Moran Ogama stated that he came to the headquarters to burn it down and kill anyone inside. A federal affidavit alleges that after detaining Moran Ogama, officers recovered incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and an anti AI document. This document was a three part manifesto apparently authored by Morano Gama. The first part was titled, quote, your last warning and allegedly states that Murano Gama, quote, killed, slash, attempted to kill Sam Altman. Also writing, quote, if I'm going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, that I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message, unquote. The document then listed the names and addresses of investors, board members and executives of AI companies. The second part of the document was titled Some More Words on the Matter of Our Impending Extinction. This section discussed the purported risk AI poses to humanity. The third part of the document was a letter addressed, quote, to Sam Altman if you make it, and reads in part, if by some miracle you live, then I would take this as a sign from the divine to redeem yourself. Unquote. Murano Gama's Instagram username was Butlerian Jihadist in reference to the crusade against AI in the Dune novels. Yeah, this account had a collection of Instagram stories saved about the existential threat of AI. Now, we don't have a copy of this three part manifesto in full, but his substack is still online and contains other writing about his belief that AI poses this existential threat to humanity. In this writing, his opposition to AI is not based on fears of disruptions to the economy, loss of jobs, or labor rights, but the belief that AI will become a superior race and wipe out or enslave humanity. In a post from January 6, 2026, he writes that AI will, quote, lead to human extinction because of the, quote, rapid progress in artificial intelligence, unquote, as well as that AI models are not aligned with humanity's interests. To quote this essay, ignore for a second these models current limitations or questions on how truly intelligent or conscious these models may actually be. The truth is, all of these nuances are completely irrelevant to my argument. There are only two questions we should be concerned about at this moment. Is it willing to kill to preserve itself? And is it capable of doing so? Signs indicate that AI is willing and becoming potentially capable of doing both these things, and that is all that matters. We are dead if we do not act now, unquote. He recommended that people read Eliezer Yudkowski's book. If anyone builds it, everyone dies. And other posts on his substack also mention Yudkowski's work, who's one of the forefathers of, quote, unquote, rationalism, rationalist thought, and writes a lot about AI, like, doom, that AI will bring apart the end of humanity.

[Robert Evans]

This is very much a normal, like, less wrong kind of mindset, right? Like, this guy's not normal. He's clearly suffering from some disordered thinking and is not. Like, this guy does not represent the average person who uses those things. But his justifications for what he did and his media diet is clearly all, like, less wrong stuff, all rationalist stuff, all Yudkowski stuff. So he's been kind of marinating in that. And, you know, this is what somebody who's not, like, this is unfortunately kind of the logical extent of Yudkowski's ideas. Like, he would say he doesn't want anyone doing stuff like this, but his literal contention is that this is going to kill everyone and everything. Like, and it will inevitably do it unless stopped. And if you really do believe that, you're kind of, like, left to act like these guys do. I think the responsible thing is for there to be an anti AI movement that's not rooted in nonsense, which is, again, why we do the stuff that we do. Because I'm very much against a lot of this shit. Not because it's going to create a God that kills everybody, but because it makes the Internet a lot worse and makes human thinking a lot worse and puts a lot of money into shitty people's hands and is just often unnecessary in many of its applications and outwardly, like, making some things worse. And that's not great.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And, like, you know, if you want to talk about, like, oh, this is actually going to, like, end humanity, it's like, well, yeah, it's also intensifying climate change, the thing that you would think these people would care about.

[Robert Evans]

But yeah, not, I mean, sure, yeah, it's like, that's the, that I, I, I'm not, I don't tend to focus on the, the water use aspects of people complaining about AI because there's so many things we do that are like horrible in those terms.

[Mia Wong]

Well, it's also, but I mean also just like, like the, the energy, like the, the, the, the just general energy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, like the energy cost thing is massive.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Yeah. And like that is like we're just burning a lot of our resources for. But like scam bots.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's just useless in a lot of, like, a lot of what it's being used for is pointless. Like, if you're able to, you know, create machines that are more accurately able to like scan for cancers or whatever, fine. I don't have a problem with that. But like, we don't need to be burning the resources that we're burning to replace like people writing local news articles with slop advertisements. You know, like, that's not a benefit to society and I'm really angry at it. And it's frustrating to see people getting radicalized to literally attack AI people for bullshit reasons. Like, and honestly, Altman's partly to blame for this. He's one of the people who has fanned the flames of we might be making an evil God.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Because that is really good for investors because it makes your product seem actually

[James Stout]

impressive, but it like will change.

[Mia Wong]

This is their preferred opposition.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

If you are getting rich by saying, I might be making Skynet, somebody stop me. Someone might stop you, Sam. You know, like, realistically, don't do that.

[Garrison Davis]

This substack also contains writing on pseudo spiritual philosophy about the, quote, tree of ultimate reality, the aberration of man, the genealogy of being, and the warrior and the martyr, unquote.

[Robert Evans]

Sure, man.

[James Stout]

A little too much Internet.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff there. But I want to briefly touch on this other essay about political extremism where the writer Moran Gama describes himself as a consequentialist, defends discrimination and advocates for, quote, ending mass migration and initiating mass deportations. He proposes a system of IQ or merit based nationalism, basically a country where citizenship is determined by IQ and a program to advance, quote, ethical eugenics in the third world to promote IQ growth genetically, unquote.

[James Stout]

Jesus.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, that's also, that's like, amazingly, this is one of these, this is one of those sort of like you look at the Hong Kong protests. And it's like there are Maoists on both sides where both of like, both him and his enemies also believe this.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I mean this is a certain strain of like rationalist. Post rationalist is really into this sort of like IQ merit based.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Intelligence meritocracy.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And then like, and so are like a bunch of the tech people who are building the AI stuff.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean this essay specifically is very disordered in its thinking. I do not think a lot of other rationalists would, would take some of the sort of beliefs and statements made in this essay at face value or like wouldn't, would not agree with the way that he. I would not agree with the way

[Robert Evans]

that

[Garrison Davis]

writes, writes about these sorts of like policies or ideas. It's very self contradictory. He writes both kind of in favor and not in favor of like IQ to, to vote or to, to become a citizen. It's all very kind of confused. And on Tuesday, Murona Gama's public defender said in court that he has, quote, a history of autism and mental health illness and that his actions, quote, appear to have been driven by an acute mental health crisis, unquote. Now, interestingly, two days after the Molotov cocktail attack, Stan Altman's home was apparently targeted again in a drive by shooting. A man and a woman in their mid-20s have been arrested connected to that. And on Tuesday morning, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the entrance of a Tesla sales office in New Orleans, igniting a fire at the front door. No arrests have been made connected to that incident. I think I should also just briefly mention the warehouse fire thing, which I did a full episode on earlier this week that you can listen to, but kind of. In short, just after midnight on April 7, a 29 year old warehouse worker named Shamel Abdul Karim allegedly set a toilet paper warehouse on fire in Ontario, California, leased by the company Kimberly Clark. Abdul Karim allegedly filmed himself igniting three pallets of paper products on fire while saying aloud, if you're not gonna pay us enough to fucking live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this shit. All you had to do was pay us enough to live. There goes your inventory. Unquote. According to the doj, this fire caused over half a billion dollars in damages. That's 500 million in profit and 100 million in infrastructure. In the days after the fire, people started sharing viral clips of other warehouse fires across the country, asserting that a wave of copycat incidents were occurring where underpaid employees were setting their workplaces on fire. None of these subsequent warehouse fires have yet been deemed arson. Most are still under investigation, but some do have suspected accidental causes, such as electrical failure, exploding lithium ion batteries, and improperly mixed waste. At least one fire was at an abandoned warehouse, so there was no disgruntled worker setting his workplace on fire in that instance, most certainly. And warehouse fires themselves are actually pretty common. A report from the National Fire Protection association found that from 2020 to 2024, an average of four warehouse fires occurred per day. The idea that the number of warehouse fires has suddenly increased is an instance of selective reporting, where a big national news story causes people to share local reports that appear connected, even if there is no direct connection. This happens a lot with aviation incidents where after news like of an accident involving a big commercial airliner, people will share local news reports of plane crashes, even if these just involve small private planes, which crash much more frequently. Now, I wrote about the warehouse fire story and the viral misinformation associated with it because I've been pretty consistent about the need to have an accurate understanding of the world in order to change it. But also, even if viral claims of copycat fires are unfounded, the memes and the reactions to the story, like Luigi Mangione, do demonstrate a form of class consciousness and do show an active willingness to rally behind such action. The toilet paper arson story specifically is really compelling because this is just an everyday worker. Like, this isn't like a Maoist bombing plot. This isn't an anarchist affinity group. It's not hard to grasp the motivation and politics of a worker saying, all you had to do was pay us a living wage. That said, passive engagement with content promoting individualist adventurism can serve as a cathartic substitute for taking political action, including the relatively tedious and difficult work of union organizing. Memes like this warehouse fire trend can have a positive outcome if the sort of energy that's channeled through this direct action and associated content could then be utilized towards actually building a labor movement instead of just being a way for influencers to attract engagement. Which is why a lot of this story has kind of perforated through Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, and Blue sky and Twitter. So that's kind of why I talked about the story the way I did in that episode. And if you want more details about this viral meme, you can check out that episode from a few days ago. Let's see. I think that's everything.

[James Stout]

There is no more news left.

[Garrison Davis]

We did it. We did all the news.

[Robert Evans]

All right.

[Garrison Davis]

We reported the news Goodbye.

[James Stout]

If you want to email us, you can do so with your story tips. You can do that by emailing cool zonetips@proton me. If you want to email us with your marketing or to suggest that your boss be a guest on our podcast, just don't.

[Garrison Davis]

We reported the news.

[Robert Evans]

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

[David Forbes]

It Could Happen.

[James Stout]

Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Mia Wong]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

[James Stout]

Visit our website cool zone media media.com

[Garrison Davis]

or check us out on the iHeartRadio

[James Stout]

app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find sources

[Mia Wong]

for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions.

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