It Could Happen Here Weekly 231

Summary

Behind the Bastards – It Could Happen Here Weekly 231 (May 9, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of It Could Happen Here (a Behind the Bastards weekly compilation) explores a cross-section of the week’s news through the lens of political violence, far-right movements, and ongoing global instability. The hosts launch into a deep-dive on the recent death—and attempted martyrdom—of a young French neo-Nazi, Quentin D., the international far-right’s fascination with his demise, the dynamics of French and Dutch identitarian movements, and the tactical use of victimhood and media savvy by right-wing groups. The second half brings coverage on attacks against journalists in Lebanon, global supply chain breakdowns amid blockade, U.S. electoral politics, and the bizarre political theatre of the present.

With a blend of gallows humor, frank analysis, and first-person insight, the episode wrestles with the moral, social, and political consequences of violence, the mythmaking mechanisms of fascism, and the slow-motion unraveling of our interconnected world.

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Main Topics & Key Discussion Points

I. Far-Right Martyrdom & Quentin D. – Context, Life, and Death

• Setting the Stage
  • The episode kicks off with hosts Mick, James Stout, and Molly Conger introducing Quentin Diran (often referred to in the episode as Quentin or Quinton) – a 23-year-old French university student, Catholic convert, and committed far-right activist who died after a street brawl in Lyon.
  • The incident quickly became a flashpoint for international far-right groups, who leveraged his death for propaganda and targeted a Dutch left-wing community center (AKU in Utrecht) in retaliation.

Opening Discussion

• Humor & Irony in Nationalism
  • Early banter about the hosts’ varying relationships with French identity, lampooning the "academic racism" of the French far-right, and the English-speaking affectations of European Nazis.
    • Quote: "All these groups are so proud of the Netherlands, but never use Dutch language... they're doing it in English." —Mick (07:24)
    • Quote: "I find when European Nazi groups use primarily English it is because it is for an American audience." —Molly Conger (07:37)

Quentin D: Behind the Myth

• Quentin grew up in Lyon, was passionate about philosophy and Catholic theology (Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine), and was regarded by friends as gentle, bookish, and not overtly violent.
• His online footprint told a different story: virulently racist, antisemitic, and fascist, fluent in esoteric and academic slurs and concepts, with increasing engagement in far-right "self-defense" groups.
  • Quote (on Quentin’s social media): "One of the first posts he made was about his support for the repeal of French laws that prohibit Holocaust denial... Posts throughout the following years were frequently antisemitic, racist, Islamophobic, fascist, and homophobic." —Mick (14:10)
  • Quote (on academic racism): "He compared African migration to German occupation, expressing his preference for dolichocephalic blondes over blacks... That's a very 19th century anthropological term—a caliper guy, scientific racism." —Mick (18:05)

The Incident: Brawl in Lyon

• Nemesis Group and the Street Clash:

  • Nemesis, a far-right “feminist” group, staged a protest against a leftist Palestinian speaker at Lyon’s political institute, protected by fascist security (including Quentin).
  • A confrontation between Antifa and the far-right broke out. Quentin was beaten, refused medical help, staggered away, went into a coma, and died days later.
  • Quote: "He walked for at least one and a half kilometers after the fight, refused to go to the hospital despite bystanders’ pleas, and collapsed—dying two days later." —Mick (33:03)

• Moral Reflections:

  • The hosts weigh the tragedy and cynicism of his death, the hypocrisy of far-right martyr-making, and the larger context of street violence.
    • Quote: "It’s a tragedy. As much as the world would be a better place without his politics... he's still a son, a friend, a family member..." —Mick (10:25)
    • Quote: "Far-right groups try to use people’s deaths as political tools... it’s not about the tragedy for them, even to those who claim to care." —Molly Conger (11:16)
    • Quote: "He was not a particularly innocent philosopher or saintly person... Rather, he was someone who acted on his beliefs and was deeply involved in violent neo-Nazi organizations." —Mick/Molly (24:31, 24:44)

II. Gender, Propaganda, and Far-Right Strategy

• Nemesis and 'Femationalism':
  • Nemesis described as an identitarian “feminist” group fixated on blaming non-white men for violence, demonstrating media savvy and victimhood tactics.
    • Quote: "They are identitarian ‘feminists,’ blaming all sexual violence on people of color and Muslims... But they’re notably silent about equal pay or abortion rights." —Mick (27:17, 42:48)
    • Quote: "This is a fucked up arranged marriage of feminism and ethnic nationalism." —Mick (43:38)
    • "Femationalism" coined by sociologist Sara R. Farris for this exact phenomenon (43:07).
  • Quotes on media manipulation: "They pick high-visibility locations, provoke their opponents, and when confronted, play the victim card. It’s a clever strategy—the media keeps falling for it, like the Richard Spencer problem all over again." —Molly Conger (39:16)

III. The Dutch Connection: International Martyrdom Rituals

• Far-right group 'Defend Netherlands' called for a vigil at Utrecht’s AKU (a left-leaning community center), showing the international spread of right-wing propaganda.
  • "They used a bad AI-generated picture of Quentin to whitewash and idealize him for propaganda; most holding those banners don’t even know what he looked like." —Molly Conger (63:48)
  • Flags at the vigil referenced historical Dutch colonial symbols (Dutch East India Company), serving as an overt dog whistle for imperial nostalgia and racial nationalism (65:20).

IV. The Math of Martyrs: Why the Right's Mythmaking Fails

• The hosts discuss the failure of the far-right to successfully create lasting martyrs in the social media era.
  • "In order to have a martyr, the person needs to have had value in their eyes to begin with... The right doesn’t care, so their martyrs rarely stick." —Mick/Molly (75:45)
  • "It worked on the left because the martyrs are generally blameless people victimized for just existing." —James Stout (76:14)

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V. Segment Highlights – Notable Quotes & Timestamps

Humor as Coping & Satirical Self-Reflection

• [06:04] “Podcast Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... podcasting is just the id of every man. Every white guy has a podcasting id. Freud would have loved this era.” —James & Mick
• [21:00] "You could argue, in some disciplines, having a PhD is pursuing a career in professional racism..." —James Stout (on history of anthropology).

Political Violence – Ethics, Outcomes & Responsibility

• [34:45] "If you die after being hit in the head, the person who hit you in the head killed you. That’s how it works." —Molly Conger, on criminal liability.
• [57:22] "People have died from a single punch to the head that started and ended their life at the same time. People think you can fight and not die, but that’s not how it works." —James Stout

Absurdity of Far-Right Identity Construction

• [66:24] “They added the Dutch East India Company logo. You long for the days of killing hundreds of thousands for spices you don’t use in your cuisine.” —Mick

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Global News Rundown

Lebanon – Attacks on Journalists

• [83:44 – 111:58] Danielle Kurt interviews Justin Salhani on the deteriorating security and working conditions for journalists in Lebanon amid Israeli attacks. They describe systematic targeting, “double tap” strikes, and psychological warfare (leaflets, text warnings, sonic booms) intended to induce terror and prevent coverage.
  • Quote: "There is a systematic means of trying to control the narrative through killing journalists." —Justin (86:28)
  • “There is psychological effect... Many people will not take the risk and will leave after threatening calls.” —Justin (95:14)

Global Slow-Motion Crisis – Strait of Hormuz & Systemic Fragility

• [112:13 – 133:40] Garrison explores global supply chain disruptions due to military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, explaining why the economic impacts are staggered but severe, especially in East Asia (fuel, rice, fertilizer).
  • Quote: "Capital was designed to avoid precisely this sort of choke point — but the Strait of Hormuz is the one big exception. The entire system now collapses in slow motion." —Garrison

U.S. Politics & “Executive Disorder” Discussion

• [134:00–196:00] News collage featuring:
  • California gubernatorial debates and the spectacle of political branding.
  • The DOJ’s gun control lawsuits and the Supreme Court’s upcoming decisions.
  • Ongoing border militarization, ICE funding bills, and the controversial White House ballroom.
  • Giuliani’s illness, airline bankruptcy (Spirit Airlines), and the potential invasion of Cuba.
  • Ongoing legal battles over abortion pills and changing laws.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Humor

• [180:12, 180:28] Kamikaze Dolphins
  • Reporters query military officials on "suicide dolphin" rumors.
    • "Is it a suicide dolphin if you’re pressing the button? Isn’t it just a murdered dolphin?" —James, Karesta, Garrison, laughing at the absurdity
• [165:41] “Someone needs to Photoshop Spirit Airlines in heaven with the Ayatollah Khomeini, two beautiful souls lost too early.” —Robert Evans

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Key Chronological Timestamps

• 00:00–07:30: Intro, banter, French/Nazi context
• 09:29–11:16: Quentin D’s background, online persona, and early signals of his politics
• 22:00–26:41: Nemesis, girlboss fascism, and gender + race in far-right propaganda
• 33:00–34:56: Quentin’s fatal injury, bystander response, and legal concepts of causality
• 42:48–44:49: Femationalism and far-right “feminism”
• 55:20–58:50: Recriminations, “martyrdom,” and how fascists use death for propaganda
• 61:10–66:24: The Dutch right-wing vigil, flags, colonial nostalgia
• 83:43–111:58: Lebanon, journalist targeting, psychological warfare
• 112:13–133:40: Strait of Hormuz, global supply chain breakdown, oil/coal analysis
• 134:00 onwards: U.S. executive disorder/weekly political news, from weird campaign ads to ICE budget bills

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Overall Tone and Style

• Darkly Ironic, Wry Humor: The hosts use banter and sarcasm to cope with bleak material, frequently calling out fascist absurdity with biting wit.
• Analytical and Candid: While often lighthearted, the hosts are clear about the gravity and human cost of violence and the dangers of contemporary right-wing movements.
• Critical of Media and Power: The podcast critiques media complicity and naiveté in amplifying right-wing victimhood narratives.

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Conclusion

The episode is a sweeping, cross-continental look at reactionary movements, martyrdom, and myths—dissecting not just the events, but the stories and symbols that fuel far-right politics. It moves fluidly from street-level violence and its fallout to the slow, grinding gears of global crisis, all the while lampooning the hypocrisy, cowardice, and performativity of those who build their movements on empty gestures and borrowed grievances.

Notable Final Quote:
"People have been complaining I never talk about weird little girls... Now you can." —James Stout (43:43)
Reflecting the podcast’s adaptability and dark sense of humor even amid rising global chaos.

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For detailed references, full interviews, or to support Utrecht’s AKU community center (volunteer-run and central to the episode’s story), links are available in the show notes.

Transcript

[Molly Conger]

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[Mick]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Karesta Davis]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Karesta Davis]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Garrison]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Karesta Davis]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Molly Conger]

chores feel like a breeze.

[Robert Evans]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Garrison]

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[Robert Evans]

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.

[James Stout]

Hey everyone, it's me, James. I just wanted to do a very quick introduction to this episode. We have split it into two parts because it went longer than we expected. So you'll hear the first part today and you will hear the second part tomorrow.

[Mick]

Welcome everyone to It Could Happen Here. My name is Mick and I'm here with the lovely James Stout and the lovely Molly Conger. How are you guys doing?

[James Stout]

I'm great. I'm so excited. I just love I love France. I love all things French. I've had such great times in France. I particularly love, like French identitarianism. So I'm excited.

[Molly Conger]

You love French identities.

[James Stout]

No, I just love it when like France.

[Molly Conger]

James Stout, huge fan.

[James Stout]

I just love like, like the, the idea like, of the Hmong nations, like France has chosen one. It's just like, I'm not particularly anti French, but it is quite funny to me.

[Molly Conger]

James travels to France every year to go to. Do they still have generation identity?

[James Stout]

Yeah. And every year they say, oh, well, your accent is not correct. You've not used vous in the requisite time, therefore you are no longer welcome here. I went to France once with some Quebecois friends. This is a funny low key identity story. I've already derailed this fucking.

[Mick]

Don't worry, don't worry.

[James Stout]

I went with two Quebecois friends and we let go doing something official and I did it. Conducted my thing in French. It was fine. I speak French, so this wasn't an issue for me. And then they went up and this woman just went, you don't speak French, sir? And then began addressing them in English because she was unwilling to accept the Quebecois in France.

[Molly Conger]

They're so mean. Yeah, well, I for one am excited to hear about. I don't know a lot about this guy.

[Mick]

No, he's a weird little guy.

[Molly Conger]

My favourite kind of guy.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

Notably.

[Mick]

Which is why I asked you. I'm also just recovering from like an English person here saying that they love France, but that must. There must be like, historically a first time that that happened.

[James Stout]

Place to race bikes. It's a good place to. If you like to hang out in the mountains and race bikes. Pretty much. France, Spain, maybe Italy is where it's at.

[Molly Conger]

I visited once and I didn't. I don't know. People are always saying that they're so cruel to Americans. That wasn't my experience, but most French

[James Stout]

people are really lovely.

[Molly Conger]

Long enough.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's.

[Molly Conger]

And you know, I'll always treasure the week that I spent in Paris because it is the only reason I didn't get deported from Germany for visa violations.

[Mick]

Okay, that is a story I actually want to hear after we're done recording, so. But yeah, we're talking about French identitarianism, French Nazis. But before you start, James, I wanted to ask you a very important question first. You have a podcasting honorary degree. A Ph.D. i've heard.

[James Stout]

That's right. Yeah. Me and Joe Rogan both.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly. And I just must ask, how do you deal with the recurring trauma of having to hear your own voice on recording.

[James Stout]

I play it at 1.5 times speed, so it doesn't sound like me.

[Mick]

I was very curious about that. I've also a fair share of having to hear my own voice, and it just doesn't get any easier.

[Molly Conger]

No, I thought I would struggle with it because I hate the sound of my own voice in casual context, but like, listening to my own podcast, I guess, because I talk like this on my podcast and it sounds a little different. Right.

[James Stout]

So it's like, oh, you go into podcast mode. Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I have sort of a Terry Gross thing cooking.

[Mick]

Okay.

[Justin Salhani]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's. I'll try that.

[Mick]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I'll do my Molly voice next time.

[Mick]

Well, see, this is the kind of information that I need to. To cope with now.

[Molly Conger]

You have to form an alter ego,

[Mick]

like a.

[James Stout]

Into your podcast self.

[Mick]

A podcast to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[Molly Conger]

Exactly.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Podcasting is just the ID of every man. Every. Every white guy in the world has a podcasting id. This is.

[Mick]

Freud would have loved this era.

[James Stout]

He wouldn't. You don't have to psychoanalyze anyone anymore because they just say shit.

[Molly Conger]

Just say it. They'll just say it, but they put

[James Stout]

it on true social. Like, it's not fun anymore. He'd be bored.

[Mick]

Well, that would be counteracted by, like, the higher quality cocaine that we have right now compared to his era. He would also be prosecuted for feeding his children cocaine. So, you know, you win some, you lose some.

[James Stout]

You never know. Jeffrey Epstein got away with a lot of shit. Maybe Freud could have joined the club.

[Mick]

That's a horrifying mix of worlds that

[Molly Conger]

tell us about this French Nazi getting beat to death.

[Mick]

Okay, okay, I'm starting with a bit of an introduction because this story actually happens in my whole hometown of Utrecht.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, no shit.

[Mick]

Yeah. Somewhere midway through February, a message started to circulate in far right circles in the Netherlands. It originated from a group called Defend Netherlands who made a public call to visit the AKU on the night of Thursday 26th to remember Quinton killed in a cowardly manner by Antifa in Lyon earlier that month. Small side note, all these groups are so proud of the Netherlands, but never use Dutch language. And it's.

[James Stout]

Huh.

[Mick]

My. It's my personal pet peeve.

[James Stout]

They're doing it in English.

[Mick]

Yeah. They call themselves, like, Defend Netherlands.

[James Stout]

Oh, it's called Defend. It's not translated as defender.

[Mick]

It's not translated.

[Molly Conger]

That's so interesting. I find when European Nazi groups use primarily English it is because it is for an American audience.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they're trying to communicate something because

[Molly Conger]

Americans only speak English.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But anyway, that was the message that was circulated on Instagram and Telegram. The top of the image that was shared showed a Celtic cross, a symbol with Christian and pagan origins, but politically often used by white supremacist and neo fascist groups. At the bottom is an Italian slogan in orange letters, the national color of the Netherlands, reading, pertuti camarati kaluti presente. The slogan originates from the Italian fascist movements and means for our fallen comrades present, signaling that the fallen comrades are present in spirit. I can hear you all thinking, what the fuck has the death in France to do with the political community center in the Netherlands? Because that is what AKU is. It's a community center. There's concerts, there's a bar, sometimes there's fundraisers. There's nothing openness going on there, but lots of more left leaning people visit there, which is, I think, why it was the original target, so. But to understand how it came to be that the death of a French Nazi caused threats to a Dutch bar, we'll have to explore the circumstances of the death of Quintin Derank. Derank?

[Molly Conger]

You're asking the wrong crowd.

[Mick]

James speaks French. Yeah, she's French.

[James Stout]

I guess it's Diran. Like, what's D E, R a N,

[Mick]

K e u e?

[James Stout]

Oh, de rank, Q U, e. Yeah, okay.

[Mick]

I will butcher this pronunciation.

[James Stout]

It's okay if it's a Nazi.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[Molly Conger]

It's okay if it's French.

[James Stout]

Molly's now going to get kicked out of Paris. Never again can you make German visa law, Molly.

[Mick]

Okay, I'll help you circumvent Dutch visa law. Don't worry. But Quentin Dehen Diran was a far right activist who died on February 14 after a violent altercation between the far right and the far left. I also want to make like a broad disclaimer. Regardless of where anyone listening to this stands politically, I'm still going to say this was tragic. Quinton was only 23, barely an adult, and as much as his worldview and politics were vile, cruel, and pretty much everything I'm personally opposed to, it was still a son, a friend, and a family member that's not coming home.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I think it's always a tragic thing for someone to get beaten to death in the street. Or at least almost always.

[Mick]

Almost almost always.

[Molly Conger]

But, you know, I'm not saying it's wrong to punch a Nazi in the face, but I think beating A young man to death is probably not necessary in this case.

[Karesta Davis]

Definitely.

[Mick]

And I don't want to make it come off like this. It's a celebration of some sorts, because it's not. It's a tragedy. And as much as the world would be a better place without his politics, I still think it's within my own moral lines to say, like, fuck, this shouldn't have happened.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And I think that's important to acknowledge up front because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know exactly where the conversation is going, but from what I have seen in, you know, following a bunch of telegram chats from Nazis all over the world, I haven't engaged really with this story. I don't know a lot about it, but I see his name a lot. So his death has become something that isn't really about him. It's not about the tragic death of a young man. Even to the people who are celebrating his life and using his death as. As a political tool. Right. It's like. It's not about the tragedy of his death for the people who would have been his friends.

[James Stout]

No.

[Mick]

And I think we could add some asterisks later on with friends, because he

[Molly Conger]

wasn't white, was he?

[Mick]

He was half. I think his mother was Peruvian. Half Peruvian, exactly. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Anyway, sorry. Sorry to derail us.

[Mick]

No, that's. That's fine.

[Molly Conger]

His death is tragic, and I think that is a much more generous read of the situation than many of his comrades would actually have.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mick]

And also, it's like, if I'm going to celebrate it, then I'm no better than they would be, other than being on another different political aisle.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

So. But those two things can exist at the same time. But to get back, who was Quinton? He was a student at Lyon University. I've read contradictory reports on what it exactly was that he studied, but it was in the general area of mathematics and data science. Around his late teens, he converted to Catholicism. And outside of his studies, he was passionate about philosophy and ethics, specifically St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. Those close to him who have spoken with the media describe him as more of a bookworm than violent activist. Few quotes here to underline that he was a normal young man who had reconnected with his roots, who loved his country, his people, his civilization, his religion. Quinton belongs to legend. He is already a hero and a martyr.

[Molly Conger]

Well, yeah, these are the things said by the people who loved him.

[Mick]

This was a friend. A friend of his who spoke to the media.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah. I mean, you always hear this about. I mean, I don't know anything about Quentin specifically, but just because someone close to him said he was. He was a nice boy, he was never violent. You heard that about mass shooters?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Grain of salt.

[Mick]

Exactly. And apparently he was so devout in his Catholicism that he managed to convince several family members to convert, which led to him becoming his own father's godfather.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, wow.

[Molly Conger]

If you're an adult convert, anyone can be your sponsor. Any other baptized Catholic adult. If anybody can. Confirmed Catholic adult.

[Mick]

But it still feels weird to me. It's like, who's going to give who presents in that dynamic?

[Garrison]

Or.

[James Stout]

Yeah. What's the Christmas dynamic now? Does he. Do you get. Do you get two?

[Mick]

Exactly.

[James Stout]

Otherwise they've just shorted you. Right. Like someone else could. Any adult Catholic could have done that and his dad would be cashing in now.

[Mick]

Exactly. And now it's just an equal trait. Sort of.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Because they have to give each other presents.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

The image painted of Quinta in the early days of the coverage after his death overwhelmingly attempted to paint him as, like, this devout person, as a curious bystander who was either at the wrong place at the wrong time or ominously targeted by left wing militants. This narrative seemed to dominate until his Twitter accounts were found. So you already know where this is going.

[James Stout]

Great.

[Mick]

One of the first posts he made was about his support for the repeal of the Pleven and Guisot laws, which are French laws that prohibit Holocaust denial, among other things. Subsequent posts throughout the following years were frequently anti Semitic, racist, Islamophobic, fascist, and homophobic. There will be some quotes later on. What stood out to me most is that he seemed to have, like, a very theoretical underpinning for his beliefs. This is also a recurring theme that he seemed much more ideologically constructed in his beliefs rather than your run of the mill, you know, proud boy who are just like street thugs, essentially.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, the French really do excel at sort of academic antisemitism.

[James Stout]

So he's really.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, that's. He's getting back to his French identity. Right?

[Mick]

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And like most French academics, half of the things are completely impossible to understand. So another quote from Quinton here. A fascist is someone who supports fascism, someone who affirms supremacy of the state over the individual. He wants the state to be a regenerative force of a moral order and to unite the nation. He opposes liberalism and Marxism.

[James Stout]

So if he hadn't added that last caveat, he could be describing, like, a Stalinist Right.

[Mick]

Like Yeah, I think that's why it was added. It just copy pasted us.

[Molly Conger]

And also, by the way, fuck those commies.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

All right, Quentin.

[Mick]

Yes. The anti tanki brigade has arrived. So sometimes he would also correct others or less informed right wing activists. And he said fascists and anti fascists literally have two opposing visions of society. Political violence is not unique to fascists. It is intrinsic to politics. When you have a bit of character,

[Molly Conger]

a bit of character, that's.

[James Stout]

Oh, well, well, yeah, that's.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, ironic, I suppose.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's one.

[Molly Conger]

Or actual, rather, I guess it's not ironic.

[Mick]

Yeah, there is a broken clock moment in there in that like political violence is not unique to fascists. But then.

[Molly Conger]

But they tend to use it more. I would like, you know, I was racking my brain thinking about, you know, sort of street deaths of this nature that I'm familiar with in my work about, you know, white supremacist violence. They're usually the ones doing the killing. Sure, there's political violence. It's not unique to fascism, but they sure do love it.

[James Stout]

They have embraced it. Yeah.

[Mick]

But when thinking about the state and then how the state itself is like a violence machine.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, absolutely.

[Mick]

Sort of supports the status quo. That's where I'm seeing the broken clock moment. And yeah, good that you noted, Bolly, the bit about you need to have a bit of character because that also comes back later on the Twitters. He also commented about voting for Fortress Europe, a fringe French political party led by Pierre Marie Bono that made its campaign revolve around the repeal of same sex marriage, reproductive rights and the creation of a nationality codes and a new form of the country's population census with additional religious and ethnic related criteria. So, like, already you know exactly what type of conservative this guy was.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

There were also a lot of instances of very racist terms against black and Muslim people involving hard R N words, including explicit calls for murder. He used the acronym tnd, which stands for total N word death.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, yeah. So I can kind of guess where he was hanging out online.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah. Wow, he's really in deep.

[Mick]

Well, Twitter should have been enough of a red flag for that to be honest.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's true. You could get that whole worldview just from X.com, the everything.

[Molly Conger]

But if he's reposting like T and D type content like, this is. This is not a guy who was just reading Thomas Aquinas.

[Mick]

No, no, no.

[Molly Conger]

You get what I'm saying.

[Mick]

But no one should read Thomas Aquinas to be honest, neither. St. Augustine. I've read both some and did not stick. What I do find very interesting was a particular tweet in which he compared African migration to German occupation where he expressed his preference for dolicho salethic blondes over blacks with large nostrils and disproportionate lips.

[James Stout]

Oh, that's gross.

[Mick]

And that, that's a very nice Scrabble word for those of you that play. It's a fascinating choice of words. It comes from 19th century anthropology, back when anthropology was more problematic than it is now. Yeah, it's like scientific racism pretty much. It comes from cephalometry, the measuring of skulls and crania.

[James Stout]

Yes, I love a good caliper guy.

[Molly Conger]

Ophrenology.

[Mick]

No, this was like a branching off ophrenology.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Mick]

I dove into this because I was like, what the fuck is he saying? Yeah, but yeah, essentially it was used to make different races. And of course the Aryan race was the best one. Doli kocephalic refers specifically to the Aryan white race. What he essentially said is, I prefer to be occupied by white people. So great guy. And then this is also how I come back to like how well read he was in this garbage because those are not terms that you typically find when you're researching Nazis or like the Nazi discourse. It almost is like an academic level of.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, that's very French. It's very French.

[Mick]

Well, it reminded me of like quaintness of yours, Molly. Richard Spencer, who I think once. I'm not sure if I can.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, he does. He does love to let you know that he's read philosophy.

[Mick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

He's not a common gutter racist. He's read papers. Yeah, he's read anthropology.

[Mick]

Okay, we can bleep the following word out because I'm not too into like American discourse to know if I can say this, but I think at some point he referred to like people of African ancestry as octoroons.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah, that's an.

[Molly Conger]

It's a very obscure like old racial slur. Like it's something like my great great grandparents would have said.

[Mick]

Yeah, exact.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's a fascinating. Yeah, they, they love to flag. So they have read a book.

[Molly Conger]

But the NW is for common racists. I know. Old fashioned racial slurs.

[James Stout]

They genuinely do see themselves above in the hierarchy of people who say that though. Like with.

[Molly Conger]

Well, James, he has half a Ph.D. right?

[James Stout]

Ph.

[Molly Conger]

He had. He had to drop out of his PhD program to pursue a career in professional racism.

[James Stout]

To be fair, many people in the, in the PhD academia world could have Done that.

[Molly Conger]

Pursued a career in professional racism.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's a thing I have observed in the academy.

[Mick]

I believe that instantly.

[James Stout]

Yeah. You could argue, in fact, that in some disciplines having a PhD is pursuing a career in professional racism.

[Mick]

Now, I'm very curious as to what those disciplines are.

[James Stout]

Anthropology, more than 50 years ago.

[Mick]

Oh, yes.

[James Stout]

Oh, definitely would be the obvious one.

[Mick]

Yeah. It's as an anthropologist. Very much, very much true. I can say it's less bad nowadays than it was 50 or years ago. But still there. Yeah, definitely there's still improvements to be made. And speaking of improvements, here are the products and services that support this podcast.

[Molly Conger]

Good save.

[Mick]

And we're back. So we left off with Quinten being on. On the Twitter, so. And saying Twitter things there. And what you all gathered from this right now is that despite what his friends and family and fellow fascists said, he was definitely not as peaceful or as harmless as they tried to portray him. In the wake of his death, he was also getting increasingly involved with far right self defense groups. Among possible others, Active Club France.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that's a Nazi group.

[Mick]

Oh yeah, you don't say. My poor philosophy students with those people. He had regular interactions with them also with Odaz Leon, who provided combat trainings in a local park. Their slogans are nothing new or interesting. White people need to defend themselves against migration and the left. What was interesting was one of these training sessions was with toy knives where they had to practice like dueling against each other. And to everyone's surprise, Quentin managed to defeat several people because he was very.

[Molly Conger]

He's kind of a scrawny little guy.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

He studied the way of the blade.

[Molly Conger]

The toy blade.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Specifically, I have not found a Ben Shapiro ninja photo of him, but it would have been appropriate at this point. I'm now quoting a little bit from media parts. That's also the ones who unearthed a lot of his tweets. In the spring of 2025, Quentin launched a small group in Bourgeois Jalieu. The ad Alex Brouge, Bourgeois. Sorry to the French speakers.

[Molly Conger]

Sounded good to me.

[Mick]

Yeah. On May 10th in Paris, he was photographed wearing a partially covered by a neck warmer and participated with a small group into a neo Nazi march that was organized annually in homage to a member of the group Louvre Francois who died in 1994. Hello, Briges. Bourgeois also paid tribute to Jean Marie Le Pen one year after the death of the founder of the National Front. They now go by Resublament national rn. Yeah, I suppose it's a rebranding exercise. So at this point, I think amongst ourselves, we can agree that he was not a particularly innocent philosopher or good hearted, saintly person. It feels much more like he was someone who acted on his beliefs.

[Molly Conger]

A neo Nazi. Someone who is a member of several violent neo Nazi organizations.

[Mick]

Yeah, that tends to be like a very strict causation between hanging out with those groups and being one.

[Molly Conger]

And I would be very curious to know sort of what order these things happened in. Was his conversion to Catholicism part of his descent into these neo Nazi groups? Because this the sort of traditionalist Catholicism he was involved in? Because it looks like he was involved in Academia Christiana, which is not. That's not normal, that's not church. That's a Nazi group.

[Mick]

Definitely. Insofar as I can tell, I think his conversion happened earlier.

[Molly Conger]

So it was maybe a sincere conversion to Catholicism, but then he got involved in traditionalism, maybe as part of his entry into far right politics. I don't know. These things are very intertwined given the. Like this, this Academia Christiana group was founded by one of the founders of Generation Identity. These things are overlapped completely.

[Mick]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

He wasn't just going to Catholic church, he was going to a very extreme right wing, anti Semitic, identitarian traditionalist subgroup. Yeah.

[Mick]

To the Westboro Baptist Church, pretty much French Catholicism. Of French Catholicism. I don't know how many groups we've insulted with that comparison.

[Molly Conger]

It's fine.

[Mick]

We'll have to have a tally.

[Molly Conger]

It's legal.

[Mick]

Ah, okay then that's good. But with that bit of context about, like, Quentin's background behind him, we're going to go to the faithful day of February 12, when he was beaten. He was not fatally beaten, I have to say. But more on that a tiny bit later. On the day of February 12, a French Eupol mortarian, a Palestinian woman named Rima Hassan, was giving a speech at the Lyon Institute of Political Studies. Hassan is a member of the French far left party, La France Sumise French Unbout. A counter protest was announced by the far right feminist group Nemesis, for which some fascist groups volunteer to do security at the protest.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, James, I see the look on your face. Girls can do fascism too.

[James Stout]

Okay, I'm sorry I doubted you all.

[Mick]

Get. Get on the train, James.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, yeah, okay. Women's rights and women's wrongs.

[Mick]

This is the only women's wrongs I will ever support.

[Molly Conger]

I am curious what neo Nazi feminism looks like, because they're not just like a women's fascist group, they're a. Yeah, fascist feminist group. What do you think those words mean, babe? Yeah, I'm going to find out more about that on my own time.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yes. This is going to be Molly's evening is locked in now.

[Mick]

Yeah, I can give you some pointers.

[Molly Conger]

I'm familiar with women doing fascist organizing, but it's usually in sort of very confined to a traditional female role. So what are fascist feminists?

[James Stout]

There was like the session feminina of Francoist if that's any indication. But maybe.

[Danielle Kurt]

So.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, he was just being a gentleman providing security for these girl boss Nazis.

[Mick]

Mm, pretty much. There is a very girlboss photo I found. I'll pull it up in a bit. But yeah, they are identitarian air quotes. Feminists who blame all sexual violence on people of color and Muslims.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, great.

[Mick]

Yeah, we knew this was coming.

[Molly Conger]

I bet their white boyfriends never. Never mistreat, never.

[James Stout]

No, they respect a woman.

[Karesta Davis]

No.

[Mick]

Depending on her race and her politics, of course. And.

[Molly Conger]

And the beauty of the white Harry and woman. James, please.

[Mick]

Founder and frequent guest on various French right wing platforms. Alice Cordier was the one who founded this collective. They seem to have like a few hundred people in the collective, but like a very small inner circle of like 12 people. And Alice Cordier was already at the center of a controversy. On March 10 this year, journalist Ricardo Pereira posted a photo on Twitter of Alice mimicking an SS symbol with her hands. And in this photo, she's together with former Leon popular member who is allegedly now fighting with the Azov battalion in Ukraine.

[Molly Conger]

Wow.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Molly Conger]

It's all coming together.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly. So this is Alice doing an ass symbol with her hands.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[James Stout]

She's got the lightning bolt.

[Molly Conger]

Look at her.

[James Stout]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

[Molly Conger]

That looks very intentional.

[Mick]

This doesn't seem like a gesture you would make by accident,

[James Stout]

Alice. Called the based question. What does this sign mean?

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly. And just because we were talking about the. The girl boss. Can you see it?

[Molly Conger]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. What a vibe. Yeah.

[Mick]

Definite girl bosses.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Pantsuit fascism.

[Molly Conger]

Business casual fascism for the woman in the workplace.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's the other pantsuit nation.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

An all white pantsuit nation.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Although two of those women don't actually look Anglo Saxon. It's so interesting to me.

[Mick]

That's something for the French to figure out.

[James Stout]

French identity and national identity is different.

[Mick]

It's no more immigrants.

[Molly Conger]

Your grandparents were fine.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Ladder up.

[Mick]

Exactly. Now, now it's time to punch down on the. On other people who've had. We don't have the opportunities. My My parents had.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Not a phenomenon that's unique to France.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, no, not at all.

[James Stout]

I mean, settler colonial country of the United States.

[Mick]

French and colonialism, James. Really?

[Molly Conger]

No, they never would do that.

[Mick]

Not the French. And they.

[James Stout]

All those places were parts of France.

[Molly Conger]

They're not still doing that.

[Justin Salhani]

No.

[Mick]

I think Algiers would like to have a word with you, Molly. That was Alice from like the Nemesis Collective.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah. That's a collection of my nemeses now.

[Mick]

Yeah. Like that is the name I used when I was 14 and I had to make up a character name when I was playing video games or something. It's like, it's not original.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It is extremely teenage.

[Mick]

Like angel of Darkness. Levels of cringe. Something like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But what I find most frightening about these people though is they seem to be incredibly media savvy and cunning as a group. And to give you an example, In June of 2024, several members of this group infiltrated an anti far right protest in Paris. They had brought slogans highlighting legal convictions or trials from several high profile far left French politicians. This includes Jean Luc Mellishon, who was convicted of inciting rebellion or revolution in 2019. That's for the CV right there.

[James Stout]

What a thing for the French to make illegal.

[Molly Conger]

That one cool thing we did. We'll never do it again. Never again.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah. The best thing about France pulling the old ladder up behind them again.

[Mick]

Exactly. Like there's no return to tradition if that's the thing you're going to make illegal.

[Molly Conger]

And I thought these guys were traditionalists.

[Mick]

Exactly. Like same with the Dutch. We can't do it anymore. But I think back in the 1700s, we literally clubbed some high functionary to death and ate him and his brother.

[James Stout]

We can't do it anymore.

[Mick]

But we can't do it anymore.

[James Stout]

Because of woke.

[Mick]

Because of woke. Exactly. This is the one Dutch tradition I full heartedly support. If you're upset with your elected official now. Elected air quotes, because I don't think they were elected, then, you know, some casual cannibalism might just do the trick.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, well, if you guys bring back clubbing out of control elected officials, we could look the other way on some of your more questionable Christmas traditions.

[James Stout]

Oh, I don't know if we could.

[Mick]

That's not a Christmas tradition, but I know what you mean.

[James Stout]

I think I'm going to look the other way on that one.

[Mick]

No. Okay.

[James Stout]

It's a chimney sweep, guys. It's just a chimney sweep. It's fine.

[Mick]

Yeah, that's.

[James Stout]

That's what's called an Easter egg for listeners. You can Google that on your own time.

[Mick]

Don't Google it.

[James Stout]

Yeah, you're going to see some racist shit.

[Molly Conger]

Back to this guy getting beaten to death.

[Mick]

Yeah, not to death, just being beaten.

[Molly Conger]

But he did die.

[Mick]

He did die. But apparently when everyone had fled, he refused to go to the hospital despite several non activist bystanders emphasizing like, hey, you should go to the hospital. And he did not. He walked for at least one and a half kilometers, like a little more than a mile for, for the Americans.

[Molly Conger]

Thank you.

[Mick]

And he then collapsed and he was in a coma for two days in the hospital. And then on Valentine's Day he died.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that's a real bummer.

[James Stout]

So.

[Mick]

Yeah, and that's also why I'm going to say like that he wasn't fatally beaten because I don't know if.

[Molly Conger]

Well, so I mean, at least in American law he did die of injuries inflicted from that beating. So you would say, say the people who inflicted that beating on him did cause his death. Yeah, but so I mean under American law, like if you get shot today and you die from a disability from that shooting, 10 years from now, you were murdered.

[Mick]

Yeah, I hate that. I'm surprised by this because you would

[Molly Conger]

not be dead but for those injuries if he had not been hit in the head.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

He would not have died.

[James Stout]

Indeed. You can in fact not be the person doing the shooting and still be charged for murder. In the US as someone, that's a different problem.

[Molly Conger]

The felony, the felony murder problem is, is very serious here. But, but no, I mean he would not have died had he not been beaten. So he was beaten to death. It was just that it would, it's perhaps possible that he could have survived.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Had he, had he attempted to survive.

[Mick]

I don't know if he, he would have survived if he had gotten, if he had called an ambulance straight after.

[Molly Conger]

That's the other thing. That's the other thing is if he had that, if he had that much probably intracranial bleeding, that he collapsed pretty soon afterwards, he may have died regardless.

[Mick]

We'll never know. Probably.

[Molly Conger]

Right. But I would say he was fatally beaten because he would not have died if not for the beating.

[Mick]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

At least under American, under American law that would be the case. I don't know about in France.

[James Stout]

It's probably worth noting that like the American phenomenon of not wanting to go in an ambulance to hospital because you know that you will have life altering medical bills like this is, believe me, as someone who did not grow up in the United States and now lives here is a unique and quite disturbing character trait of people living in the United States. Like, because people are thinking, oh, but like I just got an ambulance. Yeah. Like I personally have not gotten an ambulance when I should have done in the United States because I knew that I wouldn't be able to pay the bills.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, if I'm conscious and able to walk on my own two feet, I'm not getting an ambulance.

[James Stout]

Yeah. This is just, just so people understand like that this is not a thing that people tend to do as much, at least not for that reason in Europe.

[Molly Conger]

He just didn't want to be a pussy, I guess.

[Mick]

I don't know. I can also imagine that maybe like after authorities were alerted that maybe he would have been visited by police in the hospital due to the fight.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Because he was involved in a conflict.

[Mick]

Yes. And I have some photos later on of like images taken by I think a journalist where you just see the black clad like fascists with like iron bars in their hands and everything.

[James Stout]

Oh, shit.

[Mick]

So I would say that the self defense motive is very indefensible. You know what, let's take an ad break. You know who, who won't beat you

[Molly Conger]

to death with a bar?

[Mick]

Who won't beat you to death with a bar? Allegedly.

[Molly Conger]

I, I'm pretty sure none of their advertisers have ever beaten someone to death with a pipe. Oh, no, I can't guarantee that. I can guarantee.

[James Stout]

Yeah. We can't be a mining company who

[Molly Conger]

can say they will not beat you. The listener to death. Probably.

[Mick]

I was about to pluck the Washington highway, State patrol, but I'm not sure if I can do that. They can get to me in the Netherlands. I'm safe.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, that's.

[Mick]

And we're back unbeaten with iron bars. So when we left off, we were supposed to talk about more about Nemesis. So we'll continue there. Yeah. They were carrying slogans with like accusations and trials of like left prominent left wing politicians, but they had them covered up with like regular slogans. So at some point they unveiled their actual slogans and they repeatedly chanted to the crowd of anti far right protesters, you're not feminists. This action only took about two minutes. A combination of chants being spat on and the general hostility that I imagine followed very quickly.

[Molly Conger]

I'm feeling general hostility and I'm not even there.

[Mick]

No, no. But you've seen the girl boss photo now, so you know why. Yeah, that's why you feel hostile. Maybe it's just the pantsuits. Those two Minutes were enough, though, because they had the content and the images that they were after. They also brought bodyguard to protect them, which again, it's this savviness and this, this cunningness that I said earlier. Like they know they're going to be provoked and possibly attacked, so they're already preemptively bringing bodyguards.

[Molly Conger]

Well, they're not going to be provoked. They were going there due to the provoking.

[Robert Evans]

They went.

[Molly Conger]

They went to someone else's rally to do a provocative stunt.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And so they. I mean, it makes sense you'd bring. Man, if I was going to. If I was going to cause problems on purpose, I would bring a bodyguard.

[Mick]

Okay, okay, I'll. I'll make sure to watch out for you. If you ever bring a bodyguard and I see you. Yeah, but, yeah, those two minutes, they proved enough. They had the content and the images they were after, which were quickly published by far right magazines, social media accounts. Four members of the collective were later interviewed by Sea News and Cordier herself was hosted on Europe 1. Both of these stations are owned by Vincent Bellore, who is sort of Rupert Murdoch ing portions of the French media ecosystem. Yeah. So again, not surprising to anyone, I suppose. And insofar as I can tell, this is also nemesis preferred method of getting attention. They're a modus operandi. They pick high visibility locations or events where they provoke their opponents through their messaging. And when confronted by people opposing their racism and their views, they'll play the victim cards.

[Molly Conger]

Classic maneuver.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And it's the best way to get positive attention while not actually having enough numbers to hold your own rally that anyone would notice.

[Mick]

Exactly. But, and again, we're coming back to this. This feels much more savvy and thought out than.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a clever strategy, but it's like the media keeps falling for it. Like, you don't have to interview the head of this little Nazi group just because they put on a nice outfit. It's the Richard Spencer problem all over again.

[Mick]

Yeah. Just because they dress nice doesn't mean

[Molly Conger]

just because he owns a little suit jacket.

[Mick]

Now, this is why I don't own any suits. Like, just to avoid being associated. In November 2019, they infiltrated a Paris march against sexual and gender based violence. And then they brandished signs referring to foreign rapists.

[Molly Conger]

I hate these women.

[Mick]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

You'd have to have a woman on so that we could. So someone can say exactly. Are dumb bitches. It's legal for me to say yes.

[Mick]

In hindsight, I'm very glad that you're here to say those things, Molly. Because I won't talk about women's wrongs. But you can.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, it's just. It's so cynical and so nasty to show up to an anti rape march to displace the blame for sexual violence onto immigrants, to just like, yeah, ooh, gross, Gross.

[Mick]

Yeah, that's. That's like 90% of right wing politics at the moment.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Molly Conger]

But for the women themselves to be doing, because you see men do it all the time. But these women know better because I guarantee you at least half of those women have been sexually assaulted and it probably wasn't by an immigrant. Like, you know better. You know better.

[Mick]

Alice Gaudier says she has. She suffered from sexual assault by immigrants, but there's no way to prove it because it was allegedly when she was 13 or 14. So it's just this after the fact justification that you can't prove or disprove either way. And even, even if we're going to say, okay, you know what, we'll take that argument at face value.

[Molly Conger]

I won't.

[James Stout]

That.

[Mick]

That is your prerogative.

[Molly Conger]

No, I just. You see, I don't. It reminds me so much of this. This funny little, you know, Nazi con artist that was. She testified in the Oklahoma City trials. She had this like. Her origin story was like, oh, like I became a racist because I was listening to racist radio shows while I was recovering because I was attacked by a gang of black teenagers and I broke my legs. She broke her legs because she got drunk at the park and she jumped off a giant crucifix set up for a passion play.

[Mick]

Okay, okay.

[Molly Conger]

So this whole like, oh, my origin story is like, I was assaulted by a gang of like, of people of color. Like, I don't believe you.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Anyway, completely valid. But what I meant to say is, like, even if that were true, that is no argument to like generalize it to an entire population.

[Molly Conger]

No. Or just show up to the anti rape march to cause a scene. Girl, go home.

[James Stout]

Yeah. You'd think, yeah, if you've been subject to sexual assault, you would want to be in solidarity with other people. Maybe make sexual assault stop happening. Like, period. Not focus on a subset of human beings.

[Mick]

James, what you're forgetting there is that sexual violence is okay if it's done by white people.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Mick]

According to nemesis in a biblical way.

[Molly Conger]

You know, within the bounds of marriage.

[Mick]

Yeah. In the holy bounds of matrimony. So, yeah. What this group essentially does is they tie feminism or their brand of it.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Thank you. For the air quotes. Yeah, they tie it to their nationalism, but they focus solely on sexual violence and even then only the violence that is connected to like migrants.

[Molly Conger]

So it's no feminism at all.

[Mick]

It's just.

[Molly Conger]

It's a lie.

[Mick]

You won't, you won't be surprised that they're awfully silent about equal pay or abortion rights.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, well, I imagine they're probably anti abortion.

[Mick]

How did you guess that?

[James Stout]

Well, it depends who's getting the abortion, I would assume.

[Mick]

I will send them like an email to ask for a verification to specify

[James Stout]

I need more coverage. That's the way we should respond to this.

[Mick]

Exactly. And I want to know which abortions are okay and which are not. So I can accurately make, you know, a harrowing story of it. Anyway, this exploitation of women's issues by far right groups to proliferate their bullshit worldview and pull people in is called femationalism. It was coined by the British sociologist Sarah r. Ferriss in 2017, which might be a broader topic worth exploring in the future.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I'm very interested.

[James Stout]

Me too.

[Molly Conger]

People have been complaining that I never talk about weird little girls.

[James Stout]

Well, now you can.

[Mick]

Here you go. For now. It is love to see this, what they're doing as some sort of fucked up arranged marriage of feminism and ethnic nationalism that views gender issues explicitly through the lens of ethnicity. Yeah. And as I said before, they're notably very quiet on bodily autonomy, workplace equality, equal opportunity abortion and maternity care.

[Molly Conger]

So like actual sort of safety and well being and equality for women. The things that I think of as feminism.

[Mick]

Yeah, yeah. Like the maternity care was like the sprung out to be because like in

[Molly Conger]

my feminism, I don't die in childbirth because it's woke.

[James Stout]

They want to return to tradition and have 30% of childbirth result in one, one or other party dying.

[Mick]

Ah, great, great, great stuff.

[Molly Conger]

It's beautiful.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I guess if you were trying to invent feminism but the only text you had is the 14 words, this is what you would get.

[James Stout]

You had a dictionary with the word feminism and the 14 words and that was all you had to go.

[Molly Conger]

David Lane, famous feminist.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

I guarantee you that Alice Cordier has said the 14 words on probably multiple occasions. It's a garbage group of people and I hope they have the hiccups the rest of their life.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that's hurtful. I like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good one. And with that, that is the end of part one. If you'd like to find out more about Quentin and various other French fascists, please Join us again tomorrow.

[Mick]

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[Molly Conger]

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[Mick]

Book with vrbo Another podcast from some

[Robert Evans]

SNL late night comedy guy not quite

[Mick]

on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffian to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

[Garrison]

help make you funnier this week.

[Robert Evans]

My guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head

[Mick]

writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band

[Garrison]

with their between songs banter. Who's the worst singer in the group? The worst?

[James Stout]

Yeah, Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got

[Garrison]

in because your parents made a huge donation to the group the Yard Birds?

[Danielle Kurt]

Right?

[Mick]

That's the name. The Harvard Yard.

[Garrison]

But they're open.

[Justin Salhani]

Do you have a name suggestion?

[James Stout]

We're open.

[Mick]

Since you guys are middle aged, one erection.

[Garrison]

Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel

[Robert Evans]

and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

[Mick]

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me.

[Garrison]

I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

[Mick]

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not

[Garrison]

only legal but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games.

[Mick]

Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it

[Justin Salhani]

all, embedded in the Games and with

[Garrison]

the athletes for a full year.

[James Stout]

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on £10.

[Justin Salhani]

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

[Mick]

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app,

[Garrison]

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Marco Rubio]

Foreign

[Mick]

Picking back up at the rally where Quentin was in the capacity of security for Nemesis. At some point a confrontation developed between anti fascists and brownshirts. Clearly the instigator depends on the political orientation of the media that reports on it.

[Molly Conger]

But, like, we've all seen scuffles like this. It's just they don't usually devolve to a point where someone dies. Like, I can. I can imagine. I don't know. I can imagine the outbreak of this scuffle because we've all seen it.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly. I'm not going to litigate on who started or who not. I'll never know. And it doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But I found an independent wildlife cleaning media website, Contra Attic. They published several pieces on the events with claims that the fascists started to roll. I find that one personally also more credible because they have multiple videos of photos of the far right being there with weapons, including iron bars, crutches, motorcycle helmets, and at least one smoke grenade.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, they showed up to someone else's event to disrupt it, to cause a problem. They got in the middle of it. They brought weapons. It's hard to say who started the fight, but I can tell who wanted to, exactly.

[Mick]

Like, I've. I've seen security at events and protests, but I've never. Okay. Unless they were cops. I've never seen them carrying weapons.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I have. Well, that's more common in the United States. It's very common here.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, is that a pipe in his hand?

[Mick]

Yes, it. It. It is.

[Molly Conger]

So he's wearing a balaclava and carrying a pipe.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

It's not a great look.

[James Stout]

It's kind of classic. You're a Nazi fit. Skinny jeans.

[Mick]

The sneakers. Always the sneakers.

[Molly Conger]

Always the little. What are those? Little Adidas?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. You got to pick a brand that.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Has been there since the beginning. Maybe some Pumas in there, too.

[Mick]

Of course there's also Pumas in there. Here's another picture. This, like, you can also see the motorcycle helmet in here in disguise. Hands.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, yeah.

[James Stout]

Okay. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Motorcycle helmets. Great. Because it's. You put it on to protect your head, or you can hit somebody with it because he's holding it in his hand. He is not wearing it. That is a weapon.

[James Stout]

Yeah, but then it.

[Molly Conger]

Look, you have the plausible deniability of, I rode my motorcycle here. Or this is for defense.

[Mick]

That's what I also found. They often use, like, things that you could really have with. Like, they also use belts or sticks and stuff that you could carry with you. Flagpoles, like, stuff that you could carry with you. With you without it being as immediately recognized as a weapon. Like if you were carrying knives after

[Molly Conger]

you use it as a weapon, it doesn't look like premeditation because I just had this.

[Mick]

Yeah, the pipe.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know why you would just have a whole pipe. No, he was on his way to do some plumbing. Mario and Luigi.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Maybe he found. Maybe he found it.

[Mick]

I can imagine myself carrying a sledgehammer. Be like, no, officer, this is my.

[Molly Conger]

I was on my way to break big rocks into small rocks.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

I'm offensive.

[Mick]

I don't think that would fly.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

To be honest. But those I wanted to share as well.

[Molly Conger]

So he did show up with a pipe.

[James Stout]

That wasn't him. I don't think he wasn't.

[Molly Conger]

That was one of his friends.

[Mick]

That was one of. That was one of the far right activists that was present there. Yeah. One media account said he was wearing a blue hoodie, Quentin. And I haven't seen that in the pictures that I could find.

[Molly Conger]

Well, it looks like the only confirmed photograph of him is that one that was provided by his family's lawyer to the media. So we don't know if any of those other photos even are him. Right?

[Mick]

No, there's also not that much footage of it, to be honest.

[Molly Conger]

Right. I mean, I guess there is the footage of him, like, lying on the ground, but I mean, like. Yeah, like the only. The only picture, like, of his face is that one that was provided to

[Mick]

the media by his family, insofar as I found. Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mick]

And then in one of a few of the articles, there's like one where he's like half balaclava up, but then that was at some Nazi rally in Lyon, so.

[Molly Conger]

So it still wasn't his first Nazi rally.

[Mick]

No, it was. It was not.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Mick]

In any case, I think he would have a hard time defending that it was purely self defense on part of the security of that counter demonstration.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Again, no one is saying that he deserved to be beaten to death. We're just trying to figure out what happened here.

[Mick]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Contra Attic also published Another article on February 20 about acts of violence from fascist militants. In just Leon. There had been around 102 acts of violence as of 2010.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's one of their spuds. From what I understand, there's lots of

[Mick]

groups that formed in response to like, the fascist threats that were there. And also a lot of the fascist violence is them just harassing brown people or like Muslim people. So it's hard to get a proper estimate. But I found this one very detailed. They mentioned, like, from the top of their heads. Like 25 different instances. The article for that will be in the show notes so people can read it themselves. Yeah.

[Justin Salhani]

Okay.

[Mick]

Now I'll cite this from franceinfo franchise. I witness accounts from residents who saw the fighting take place. Christine also witnessed the violence. I saw a fight over there with lots of young people. They were hitting each other, hitting each other, hitting each other. And then I saw a young man fall, she recounts. Maxim also saw the attackers flee. They shouted disperse. When they saw. I think that they might have hit him hard. They went off into all the streets. Everyone got out of their cars. Some guys on scooters stopped. They put him, I assume, Quinton, in the recovery position. The resident explains neighbors then came to aid the injured. Another neighbor, Willem, saw him get up after being beaten. I went outside. I saw someone with blood on his hands. He looked a bit dazed. He was just standing. But he refused to go to the hospital, even though they offered to. I just saw the people talking to him who told him to go to the hospital. In any case, what is certain is that he refused.

[Molly Conger]

So this was a much larger. It wasn't like 10 on one. It was like a group versus a group.

[Mick]

It was a group versus a group.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

It was a melee.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Okay.

[Mick]

I'm not sure which article it exactly was, but said that the fighting went on for like five minutes, which is a long.

[Molly Conger]

It doesn't sound like a long, but for a fight that's like a long. That's a lot of minutes to be fighting.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Fighting is normally pretty fast, especially fighting of this level of violence.

[Molly Conger]

Especially if you're getting hit in the

[Mick]

head with a pipe or a motorcycle helmet.

[James Stout]

Yeah. There's a little video of it. Like, I've seen a couple of very small videos of the actual confrontation. It's not like it gives the impression, like, because of the big repercussions, this was like a huge set piece, but it's not. It's like, what, three dozen people maybe, at most. Yeah.

[Mick]

And it was just like in some street.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Looks like street corner.

[Mick]

Yeah. It wasn't a battle of thermo Thermopylae or something.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

I'm sponsored by not being able to pronounce foreign words outside of English.

[Molly Conger]

Well, you could just tell us that that's how it's said in Dutch and we would all have to believe you because we're not going to find out.

[Mick]

I'm. I'm going to use that as a caveat the next time.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, that's how we say it. In the Netherlands. Stupid Americans.

[Garrison]

Yes.

[Mick]

I'll be saved by the fact that, like, Denmark and the Netherlands, nobody speaks Danish or that they confused Danish with Dutch, which is also very funny. But also.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I did see some kind of funny posts regarding Greenland with that.

[Mick]

Okay, then we're entering a whole nother discussion.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But anyway, after the fighting, about half an hour and a half later in the Fulcheron district on the banks of the Seine, Quinton was evacuated in serious condition by firefighters. To get there, he had to walk more than a kilometer and a half, cross two bridges, and traversed the Lyon peninsula. His route between the attack and his arrival at the hospital is unknown.

[Molly Conger]

So it sounds like he's just sort of staggered off, disoriented, something like that. Because he was probably bleeding in his brain.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he, like, he has a tbi, right.

[Mick]

I would imagine so. I just find it incredibly sad, to be honest.

[Molly Conger]

It is sad, but also that, like, so, like, these bystanders are saying, hey, man, like, let's get you in an ambulance. Where were his friends that he walked off alone?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Where were the guys he came with? Were the guys that were fighting on his side? How did he manage to walk off alone? So these people want to make him a martyr, but, like, they're the ones let him die.

[Mick]

Yeah. This is also why I'm, like, I'm not going to say that he was fatally beaten because, like, who knows?

[Molly Conger]

It sounds like a lot of people have some responsibility here.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

If you die. If you die after being hit in the head, the person who hit you in the head killed you. That's how it works. But, like, why did his friends let him walk away alone?

[James Stout]

Yeah. Knowing he was injured. Right.

[Molly Conger]

No. Even if he weren't injured, you never walk away from something like this alone because someone could follow you and keep beating you.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. If there are people who are trying to hurt you, the best time for them to do it is when you're on your own.

[Molly Conger]

Like, you never leave an action alone.

[James Stout]

Yeah. That whole thing, like, I guess I should just say, like. Like, I don't know. When you fucking hit people in the head, this is one of the consequences that. That is on the list of possible consequences. Like, I fucking hate people who kick and hit people in the head. Come from a place in the world where, like, that kind of violence is more common because guns are less accessible to people. And, like, yeah, people are going to fucking die. Sometimes when you do that, like, it's serious.

[Molly Conger]

You don't have to intend to have killed them. Like, you one good punch to the head in an otherwise very fair, normal fight. Yeah. Someone could die.

[James Stout]

Yeah. People have died from a single punch to the head that started a fight and ended their life at the same time. I think people sometimes, you know, you watch boxing or wrestling or whatever and you, you see people fighting very hard and not dying. But like, you punch someone with your bare knuckles to their bare head and they could die, even if it's only once. You didn't mean to.

[Mick]

Yeah, it's just one, one small vein in one vein that gets nicked that can cause a whole lot of trouble in the head.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

And even if it's not death, then

[James Stout]

there's still like life altering consequences.

[Molly Conger]

Be careful with your brain, kids.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Which is why you need to wear the helmet on your head instead of

[Karesta Davis]

in a hand instead of just using

[Molly Conger]

it as a bludgeon.

[Garrison]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mick]

I can only come back to, like, I find it sad because it's a death that may, may have been preventable with like, proper medical intervention. Also with, like, friends that, that should have backed him.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's pretty sad that this guy felt like he was part of something, that those guys left him to die alone on the street.

[Molly Conger]

Like, so now that now they're trying to take his death and, and profit from it politically and then.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he's only useful to them when he's dead.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, you know, he's, he's, he's a little horse vessel.

[James Stout]

Yeah. That's the nature of fascism.

[Mick]

But yeah, it's almost exactly like Charlie Kirk where he was more useful as a martyr than when he was just a propagandist, but then he turned out

[Molly Conger]

not to even be good at that.

[Mick]

I don't think we can fault him for being a bad martyr. For of all the things, of all the things we can criticize Charlie Kirk for, that is not one of them.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's not on him. Right.

[Molly Conger]

But I think in order to have a successful martyrdom, you have to have someone to blame. And there was just not enough publicity around the guy who actually killed Charlie Kirk. You know what I mean? Like, you know, horse vessel was killed by communists, so we're mad at communists,

[James Stout]

but, like, there was an attempt to pin that on the trans community. Right. Like it did. It didn't seek the landing and it didn't work. Should say that that guy is accused of killing Karlie Chirk as well.

[Molly Conger]

Exactly. I don't know. But the right is constantly trying to create a horse vessel and it just kind of never works.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's how the Spanish Civil War started as well. Right. Like, they. It was probably easier in an age with less information and, like, party propaganda.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, these days. These days we would all be talking about, like, was Horse Vessel a pig? It kind of seems like maybe he was.

[James Stout]

Horse Vessel would have had a Twitter account and we would have.

[Molly Conger]

And we would have said, what was he doing with all those girls?

[Mick]

Or we would have found his racist tweets. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Oh, well, that wouldn't have been a barrier.

[Molly Conger]

He seems like a local. The head of his local Sturm Up Thailand. Of course he had racist tweets, but being a pimp is not conducive to traditional Aryan values. Mick, please.

[Mick]

Okay, okay. There goes my career change. God damn it. I'm now going into the last section, which is about what happened here in Utrecht. They attempted to martyr him, and the Netherlands had said, we're coming to the AKU to hold a vigil for him. Defend Netherlands is man. Umbrella term is not the perfect word. There's lots of local defense chapters, but they have, like, where they organize, but they also have, like, a main telegram group. So these are people who explicitly came to Utrecht to hold this visual. The reason why, I think, is because they think acu. ACU stands for Antifa Center Utrecht.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow.

[Mick]

Yes. It used to be a former auto garage back in the 80s, I think. So it stands for Auto Center Utrecht.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, my God.

[Mick]

Yes.

[James Stout]

I'm at the auto shop. I'm at the Antifa Center. I'm at the combination auto shop. Antifa Center.

[Molly Conger]

I'm at the. I'm at the Four Seasons. Total landscape.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's what it is.

[Mick]

Yeah. But it was a pretty big deal.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Because for reasons that I still can't understand, like the mayor didn't like, instantly ban this very obvious intimidation attempt and threaten. Hold a fiction in your backyard or something. It's like there's absolutely no reason to travel to Utrecht to hold that vigil other than to being threatening and intimidating.

[Molly Conger]

But I think that's part of why they love trying to make these martyrs is because it. It again, it's this, like, being the victim. Like, ah, they. They killed one of us. How could. This isn't a politic. Isn't political. You can't ban our event. Right. This isn't a Nazi rally. It's a vigil.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

It's this victimhood thing. And it does make you harder to. To suppress.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mick]

I still find it unbelievable that the local authorities didn't do it.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, it's tack. It's tacky.

[Mick]

I was also there that evening because when I do activist stuff, I mostly do like first aid at events or protests.

[Molly Conger]

Very noble. Somebody's got to do it.

[Mick]

I'm not a confrontational person, so. Yeah, I'll give you a band aid later. That's. That's. That's where I'm good.

[Molly Conger]

You're a non combatant.

[Mick]

Exactly. And I actually came from the office that day, so I was also looking very inconspicuous, which was good because I ended up standing between on my left all. All the anti fascists and on my right all the black lives fascists. And I was like. And two lines of like, riot.

[Molly Conger]

I'm just the band aid guy.

[Mick]

Yeah. It's like in a narrow alley. So left I'm enclosed, on my right I'm enclosed. And then this girl boss cop comes up to me like, do you want to get out of here? I was like, yes. It seems like it could go wrong. And then she guided me through the fucking fascist.

[James Stout]

That must have been fun.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I like to be a lot closer to an exit than that. Good on you.

[Mick]

It's even worse because I was with someone who was also doing first aid and we tried to get back to the location and we accidentally went into an alley at a dead end. And when we turned around, there were Nazis walking there.

[Justin Salhani]

I was like, oh.

[James Stout]

Oh, fuck no.

[Mick]

Yeah, but I think they just thought that it was a way around and had just followed us because they thought it was a way through. They didn't actually like, confront us or anything.

[Molly Conger]

That makes my tummy hurt, Vic. I don't like that.

[Mick]

It was one of the more scary moments. I'm going to admit that. Anyway, the Netherlands mostly carried that picture I sent you of like the bad AI sketch of a photo of Quinton.

[Molly Conger]

Okay. I'm sorry. If I ever get murdered and you're holding a rally for my memory, use a real fucking picture.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is really.

[Molly Conger]

They're using. They're using a fake picture of a more handsome guy.

[Mick]

Yeah. The other didn't flag that you said.

[Molly Conger]

Yes, like, I'm saying, like, use a good picture of me. You know, like. Like a cute picture, but like they're using a fake picture of a more handsome guy because this guy was weird looking.

[James Stout]

Yeah, the person who is on the. The flag in the BBC article, that's just straight up, not him. It's not. It's not a guy who looks like him. It's not a rendering of him by AI that is like Old school German

[Molly Conger]

propaganda of like an Aryan, like an Aryan specimen where like this was like a skinny little guy who's half Hispanic.

[Mick]

Latina. Latino.

[James Stout]

Latino.

[Mick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Like it's just disrespectful to his memory to whitewash him and make him more handsome.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

You were not a good enough martyr. We had to find a better looking guy to pretend was you so we can profit politically from your murder.

[Mick]

What picture of you do we need to use, Molly, in the event?

[Molly Conger]

Oh yeah, I should, I should, I should pre select.

[Mick]

Exactly. And then you can also select which. Which photo we're going to use and which we're going to put on the banners.

[Molly Conger]

But it's like they don't actually care about this man. Most of the people holding those banners don't know that's not him.

[James Stout]

Yeah, 100%.

[Mick]

It's a very empty performance.

[Molly Conger]

I'm performing outrage over the like the theoretical death of a guy whose politics were similar to mine.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But defend Netherlands. They also carried what we call the princess flag in the Netherlands.

[Molly Conger]

Princess flag?

[Mick]

Yeah, the flag of the prince.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, princess.

[Mick]

Yeah. And it's a, it's a variation on the flag that we have right now, but it was co opted by the Dutch National Socialist Party prior and during World War II.

[James Stout]

Oh dear.

[Mick]

So it's now heavily associated with those groups and that is the flag they choose to carry.

[Molly Conger]

I'm just skeptical of all flags. Like, unless I'm 100% sure what I'm looking at. I'm skeptical of a flag because usually a guy with like, I don't know what you're doing. What does that mean?

[James Stout]

It is always telling when people are like, oh, this nationalist flag is the flag of our nation is not nationalist enough. Let me, let me find an obscure one from the past. It has only been revived by fascists.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Like anyone in South Africa carrying something other than the current official South African flag. Yeah, because there's a lot of variations and they're all bad.

[Mick]

Well, we're getting to those variations, Molly. Because like the flag. Flag was not only used by collaborators, but they've also added. Because just alluding to like the collaborationists is not enough. They added a VOC logo from the Dutch East India Company onto the flag.

[James Stout]

Fuck me

[Molly Conger]

for what?

[James Stout]

That honestly hit me. That came from fucking nowhere. God, it just like these people fucking hated people who weren't white as well. Like.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, just.

[James Stout]

Sorry. That is incredible.

[Molly Conger]

We are evil.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Fuck me.

[Mick]

That's amazing.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I can't believe we've opened that. Can of worms. Because it's going to be. That's going to happen in Britain now.

[Mick]

Unfortunately, I've put it in the chat, like something like that.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, it's just like, comedically,

[James Stout]

it's a shit logo as well. It looks like a ranch brand. It looks like somebody didn't want their cows to go missing and they did that.

[Molly Conger]

I would stamp that on a horse for sure.

[Mick]

It probably was probably also on people,

[James Stout]

because I was going to say that's an unfortunate series.

[Robert Evans]

What the.

[James Stout]

Though, Like, I can't believe they did that. Is that a thing on the Dutch. Right. Like. Like make Dutch East India Company great again.

[Molly Conger]

Nostalgic for the dusty. My loyalty lies with the Dutch East India Company.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Such a niche. This is what you get from, like, European ultra nationalism is these incredibly niche racism.

[Molly Conger]

I'm a monarchist for spice trading.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Yeah. This is something they actually do. I've seen it at multiple, like, far right rallies where they're just waving that

[Molly Conger]

shit and like, that rocks.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

It's like the poorest dog whistle that any normal human being can also hear. Like. Okay. You long back to the days of, like, killing hundreds of thousands of people for the spices that we don't use in our cuisine.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Wow. That is so niche.

[Molly Conger]

That's so good. That's so good. I hope those guys get pressed into service on a ship.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mick]

You know, they might be shipped to Iran soon. Who knows?

[Molly Conger]

Like, enjoy sailing around the world. You love it so much.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Going to Bengal by sail because you. You love fucking racism. Getting scurvy to own the libs.

[Mick]

You know, they will get scurvy because they won't be eating fruit.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Because they're exclusively eating what the Americans call French fries because of the erasure of Dutch cultural brilliance.

[Molly Conger]

That's true. They are.

[Mick]

Or like, fermented meat or something. Just exclusively.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Because it return.

[Mick]

But yeah. Anyway, with the rally in the end, nothing really happened. There were some chants going up and down. I think there were only two arrests for insulting police officers. I think one on either side.

[Molly Conger]

But that's illegal there.

[Mick]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I can never go.

[Mick]

You can also just avoid police. That's the thing.

[James Stout]

Wow.

[Mick]

They won't. They won't immediately chase you with a gun here. But I've never had any experience with American cops, so there's no comparison for me. Yeah. Also hope that never happens because heard stories of what happens.

[James Stout]

Yeah. American cops not good. Yeah. That's one of. One of the founding principles of this. This here podcast work.

[Mick]

Well, we Have. There is one cop in Utrecht who was allegedly a member of like an openly touched Nazi group, but I think he's since left it.

[Molly Conger]

That happens a lot here.

[James Stout]

Yeah. That's not an uncommon occurrence.

[Mick]

No. What's a. Cops and clan go hand in hand.

[Molly Conger]

We say it for a reason.

[James Stout]

Yeah, well, we can add cops in company bracket. Dutch East India.

[Mick]

Those were not cops. Because it was a corporation, James. Yeah, that's enforcers.

[James Stout]

You can't be a fascist for the Dutch East India Company because it's something a little bit different.

[Molly Conger]

That's true. That's true. They were not a state.

[James Stout]

It's a non state entity. It's like an autonomous. It's autonomous fascism of its own kind

[Molly Conger]

of cucked for a fascist to be nostalgic for a company.

[Mick]

Yeah, yeah. But as long as it's a nationalist company, then it's okay.

[James Stout]

This is great. I'm going to revive some like. Like, like 18th century pirate shit, you know, when like, like the British were like attacking the Dutch East India Company ships. I'm going to bring that back.

[Mick]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Now because these people.

[Mick]

You have my personal permission to attack Dutch sailing ships. I have that authority. But to get back.

[Molly Conger]

Back to Quentin.

[James Stout]

Yeah, Sorry.

[Mick]

No, there was one other thing that happened because the day after the rally there was an unknown person who threw a smoke bomb inside the aku.

[James Stout]

Oh, shit.

[Mick]

Person was never caught. I'm going to make a wild guess and say he was probably involved with Defend Netherlands or some other similar fascist groups. No one in attack who was hurt. It was mostly just an inconvenience. And that is pretty much the story of how the death of a French Nazi involved threats to a community center in the Netherlands.

[James Stout]

Wow. Yeah, I think you mentioned that someone called him Francis. Charlie Kirk.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But it's wild how like, this one has been so seized upon. Right. By people who, like, as we said, they did not give a about this guy when he was alive.

[Mick]

No, I think rn

[James Stout]

national rally would be the English or like National Assembly.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I think national rally is how they do it in English.

[James Stout]

Okay. Yeah.

[Mick]

Those guys held like, also, like on a political level. It was like a national thing that happened where they were memorizing it and they were blaming a French unbout for whatever happened because one of the people who was arrested for the violence was an aide, I think, to someone from French unbout.

[Molly Conger]

That's not great.

[Mick]

Yeah, that's not great.

[Molly Conger]

I imagine their boss would have preferred that they had not done that.

[Mick]

Probably. Probably. But it was a huge thing And

[Molly Conger]

I mean, like, from. From my end, like, I mean, obviously I don't read a lot of French news, but I subscribe to a lot of Nazi telegram channels and I see his name a lot. Like the active club sort of networks. Like, not. It's not always directly the active clubs, sort of these sort of ancillary telegram groups that spin up around them. Yeah, but in that milieu, they're talking about him a lot. They're talking about, like, you know, training in his honor, punching communists in his honor. You know what I mean? Like this. They're trying to make this a rallying point to inspire more violence.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know that if it'll work long term. I've seen many such attempts that do not work long term. But it's been two months and they are still talking about, you know, hurting people in his name.

[Mick]

I also have my doubts on whether

[Molly Conger]

that will work because they try a lot. They try a lot.

[Garrison]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I put together a bunch of examples of attempted martyrs that let. Just like nobody remembers.

[Mick]

I can't think of anyone.

[Molly Conger]

Exactly, exactly.

[Mick]

Besides the one we already talked about, whose wife is now running the foundation.

[Molly Conger]

And for the most part, it's. I mean, at least in America, most of the right wing martyrs are people who died in prison or were killed by the police. We don't have a lot of sort of street deaths like this.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Although, like, I do feel like right wing martyrs killed by the police. Like if they. Like if the Weaver family were killed by the cops today, the members of the Weaver family who were killed by the FBI. Vicki. Yeah, like if. If that happened today, I think half of the right would be like, hell, yeah, get him cops. Like, like the bootlick attendance.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, like, they tried to make. Lavoy Finicum was killed during the Bundy standoff in 2016. Did you remember lavoy finicum? No.

[James Stout]

Yeah. No one.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, Ashley Babbitt. Ashley Babbitt should have been their martyr. They moved on.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And they've been doing some Ashley Babbitt stuff. Like, I think they.

[Molly Conger]

But it's just. It didn't work.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it still hasn't worked. They're trying to bury her, I believe, with like military honors now and get her Air Force pension or something, and then she can sue Capitol Police now. But it hasn't worked. In terms of popular culture. No one cares.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah. I mean, the closest thing we have are when white women are killed by black men or immigrants that sometimes will.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

That flash in the pan lasts a little Longer, but even still, like Kate Steinle, Molly Tibbets, like Irina Zarudska, like.

[James Stout]

Well, they stuck the landing with they can Riley. They had the Lake and Riley Act.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

They managed to essentially create a system where immigrants are guilty until proven innocent.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[James Stout]

Now. Yeah. They have not spoken about her since. But like the legal version of the legal tendency on the Right. Right. The right legislative movement kind of did with that.

[Molly Conger]

But they are. They're like constantly scrounging around for a martyr and trying to make one happen. Like in 2020, like right after George Floyd Canon Hnant, that five year old boy that was killed by his neighbor.

[James Stout]

Oh yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And they're like, this is our George Floyd. You never heard about it again.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they tried a lot in this. Trying to try to learn the State of the Union. Right.

[Molly Conger]

And then what was it, two weeks ago he posted that video of a woman being beaten to death.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

It just, it doesn't work like. So the sauce isn't there for them to create martyrs. But they love to try.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But in order to have a martyr, that person needs to have had value in their eyes in the first place. And I think that's what missing.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Because they don't care.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Well, they posthumously tried to kinda.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Stack it on old Quintin here.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But I think that this person needs to have a reason.

[Molly Conger]

They needed to have really died for an actual cause.

[Mick]

Died for an actual cause, but also someone who was like broadly known and looked up to.

[Molly Conger]

Well, not necessarily. I mean, you don't have to be somebody before your death to be an important martyr. I mean, Emmett Till was not a civil rights activist. He was a little boy.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Fair.

[James Stout]

I think it's worked historically more on the left because it is people who are there tends to be people who are victimized for just for being themselves.

[Molly Conger]

They're blameless.

[James Stout]

Yeah. People who are just existing in the world.

[Molly Conger]

Right. It's like if you got into a fight at a Nazi rally, like, I'm not gonna blame the victim. But it's not a. It's not a blameless death.

[Mick]

No. Like, more like Renee Goode, I think was her name. Where she was just.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

You know, looking out for her, for her neighbors and. But then.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Was murdered.

[Molly Conger]

You have to have been a good person in the first place.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Maybe that's where the right goes wrong.

[Molly Conger]

That's where it really goes wrong.

[James Stout]

That's the root cause. Yes. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

The only ones I can think of that really stick are older and maybe that is like you're saying James. Because it was like a lower information environment, but they still do Martyrs Day for Robert Matthews, and that was 40 years ago.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It was easier. Right. For them to do it back then.

[Molly Conger]

And Matthews got sort of enshrined into this. This martyrs pantheon at a very important time in the movement. I just don't know that his death would be that important if it happened today.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I think a lot about the Vicki Weaver thing because we had Bill Gore, who was a sheriff in San Diego, had been an FBI agent who was part of the operation at Ruby Ridge. It was very interesting, San Diego, because initially, when Gore became sheriff, you had all these people on the right, like, specifically posting on. The sheriff's department lost a lawsuit for deleting comments on its Facebook page regarding this. They can't delete comments. Right. Like, they're a public agency.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[James Stout]

Then 2020 happened, and that same tendency, those same groups, not. Not the individual who bought the suit, but, like, those folks were showing up with their blue Lives Matter flags, but then, like, also struggling to, like, line that up with, like, oh, we should bring guns. Oh, but that would be illegal in California. Oh, but we have a right under the Second Amendment. Well, who would be the person who enforced the law that you think contravenes the Second Amendment? It's the cops. Right. And you're also here to.

[Molly Conger]

They're so stuck. They're so stuck.

[James Stout]

Yeah. They just kind of backed themselves into a corner there where, like, they were, in a way, more ideologically consistent back in the day, at least. Like, they're, like, loving the cops thing, that they made part of their identity largely in the George Floyd moment. Right. And the riding has really fucked them when it comes to people who get killed by the cops.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

So hopefully this one fades away like all their other martyrs.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know where his family are at either. Like, his family may not have been bigots.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Like, have they come out and tried to capitalize on this? Like, does he have a crying mother on the news talking about evil antifa.

[Mick]

They don't have a crying mother on the news. I do know they have a lawyer, and I think there is some form of legal action being taken.

[Molly Conger]

And that makes sense because, like, there were people arrested who were responsible for the death. Like, somebody to be a legal process to move forward. Yeah, but I mean, like, there's not, like, a member of his family out there doing propaganda against, like, antifascists.

[Mick]

Not. Not that I'm aware of, but they were very quiet insofar as I could. Could see.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Like, I've written this over the space of, like, two months, so I may have missed something somewhere. But they were pretty quiet on his activist activities, so I'm not sure how. I'm not sure if it's something they didn't know or if it was something that maybe they didn't know.

[Justin Salhani]

How bad it was, how bad it.

[Mick]

It could also have been kept quiet in order to.

[James Stout]

Like, they're doing a lawsuit.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[James Stout]

They.

[Molly Conger]

They should say less if they're pursuing litigation. That makes perfect sense. So it seems like most of the propaganda around his death is being produced by the groups he was in. Right. You said he was in an active club. I'm mostly seeing this from active clubs, so it makes sense that they would be doing that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. It's just if they're not, like, if it happens that, like, any someone in his family is. You said like a migrant to France themselves. Like, it would really fucking suck to know, first of all, to find out that this kid in your family had these reprehensible views and then to see their face everywhere.

[Molly Conger]

Well, luckily, it's not his face.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. To see someone else's face and his

[Mick]

name, it's just vague resemblance.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

So, yeah. Before we close it out, though, I do want to plug something because I do know when the aku, they shut down, they had a concert and the entire venue was closed the day of the vigil. So they did miss a lot of income. And I also know, personally, know a few people who spent quite some money on just barricading the door, getting iron grates for the windows or steel grates.

[Molly Conger]

That's dark.

[James Stout]

Yes. Yeah.

[Mick]

So there is a donate link for the AKU because it's also entirely volunteer run. Like, there's no paid employees there. Everyone's just, oh, wow. Doing that in their spare time.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

So if there are people who have some money to spare and they think that's a worthy cause, then in the show notes, you can find the donate link to support the local community center.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And it'd be nice if people did that.

[Molly Conger]

That's beautiful.

[Mick]

Yeah. It was very heartwarming to see. I think at the demonstration itself, I think that the Nazis were outnumbered, like three to one, maybe more.

[Molly Conger]

Usually are.

[Mick]

Usually are. But it's still very heartwarming to see such a. Yeah. A quick and rapid response of people just being like, hey, we don't want them here. Go back. Go back to your backyard. Hold the vigil there. And it was A thing that happens. Yeah, but after we've spoken so much about weird Nazis. Molly, I. I've been told you do also something with weird little Nazis.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I love a weird little guy. I talk about them every week on my show. We're little guys.

[Mick]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

You can find it anywhere. You get your podcasts.

[Mick]

Great.

[Molly Conger]

And now I'm. I'm actually so curious about these weird little girls. I might have to check this out.

[Mick]

Okay.

[James Stout]

It's new fascination unlocked.

[Mick]

I'll share some of the links with you then. You have a starting point. Although I think you're a much better researcher to this than I am, so.

[Molly Conger]

Although unfortunately it's all going to be in French. That's a nightmare.

[Mick]

Just auto translate. That's true, because I also don't speak French and auto translate saved me a lot.

[James Stout]

Just made a powerful enemy. Oh, the Francophone world.

[Molly Conger]

They're so uptight about their silly little language. Get bent.

[James Stout]

I love to speak French. French speaking people, please. Then

[Mick]

next time I read French articles, James, I'll send the link to you and ask you to translate them for me.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I'm really worried that I'm gonna have to translate some heinous shit now.

[Mick]

Here's like the French version of Mein Kampf. Could you please translate it for me?

[Molly Conger]

I do have some Holocaust denial text I need translated, James.

[James Stout]

Perfect. Yeah, just make sure I'm not in France when I receive them and be a crime.

[Molly Conger]

True.

[Mick]

You might have visa problems as well.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I'm not going.

[Mick]

Okay.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And I'm no longer a EU citizen, so I now have to get visas for places.

[Mick]

Too bad. And you have to be. Not be declared Persona non grata.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Okay then. Yeah, I think we can wrap this up. Thank you guys for being here and making it a lovely time. Talking about Nazis.

[Molly Conger]

Yes. Thank you for introducing me to some terrible new concepts. I'm very excited.

[Mick]

You're welcome.

[Danielle Kurt]

Hello, everyone.

[Mick]

And this is.

[Danielle Kurt]

It could happen here. My name is Danielle Kurt. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined by Justin Salhani, who is a non resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and a writer and journalist based in Beirut. He has worked with Al Jazeera Digital and has contributed to a number of different outlets in the past and has been reporting on the region since 2011. Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Justin Salhani]

Thanks for having me.

[Danielle Kurt]

So since you are, you know, based in Beirut, I'm so intimately knowledgeable of what's been going on. I Thought we could start by just kind of laying out what conditions are like in Lebanon right now.

[Justin Salhani]

So right now, as we speak, we're in the midst of kind of a tenuous, fragile, incomplete, we can call it ceasefire. In Beirut proper, there still is occasionally, you know, a drone overhead, this kind of infamous drone that buzzes incessantly and keeps everyone constantly on their toes. But there's been almost two weeks or a little, maybe a little bit more now without an attack on Beirut. Basically, we had that day, April 8, which is being called locally Black Wednesday, where around the country, I think the numbers are now over 350 people were killed, and many of those were in Beirut in areas that came without warning. You know, there is this kind of dynamic now where the Israeli military will at times announce warnings for certain areas, though many attacks come with no warning, and they brought down buildings without warning in some cases as well in central Beirut. So the conditions right now are, you know, relatively, I guess we can call it quiet here. Of course, that's vastly different. In the south, where there was an intensification, particularly yesterday, there wasn't really any cessation of hostilities. We can talk about how the minutes leading up to April 16, when the ceasefire went into effect, you know, throughout the country in Lebanon, the Israelis were attacking around the country, not Beirut, but in other parts of the country, particularly in the south, and in the city of Sur, they bombed. You know, I was down there the other day, and people were talking about what time the Israelis dropped their last bomb, whether it was 12 on the dot or 11:59pm or 11:57pm and so these are the conditions that essentially journalists and media workers are forced to live with on a daily basis.

[Danielle Kurt]

I mean, it's. It's wild how conscientious they are. You know, they have to take every single minute to bomb their neighbors. So, yeah, maybe tell us what the situation has been like for journalists in particular. I imagine different parts of the country are struggling with maybe different challenges.

[Justin Salhani]

Yeah, this exists on a sliding scale. Obviously, since 2023, the first week post October 7th, there was a Lebanese journalist by the name of a who was killed. He was a Reuters photographer. And that was a strike that wounded other journalists, including journalists from AFP and Al Jazeera. So, I mean, it's been over two and a half years now that there has been a danger. And that first strike that killed Isam changed the way that media assesses risk in this country. Since then, a number of other journalists have also been killed. So in that sense, there still is a fear that targeting, you know, much like in Gaza, is a thing that happens. Of course, in Gaza it was way worse. There was a way higher threat level. And I think part of that is because there were no foreign journalists in Gaza during that period. So it was killing of Palestinians. Until now, there has been at least one foreign journalist who was wounded in that initial attack. Since then, most of the attacks have targeted Lebanese journalists and particularly Lebanese journalists working with outlets who have some sort of, we can call it, line that supports or is differential to Hezbollah. I mean, of course this is not an excuse, right? They're still journalists, they're still working in the media regardless of what their political affiliation is. These are people who are there to assess information. Recently in this latest intensification, there have been more killings of journalists, of course. And these are typically journalists who are working on the front lines and in the south, you know, we can't know what's in the minds of the Israeli military. But based on my conversations with media professionals and media watchdogs in the recent years, I wrote a piece for Al Jazeera back in 2024, I believe it was about the killing of journalists in Gaza. And you know, people at outlets like Reporters Without Borders were telling me that at that point we're talking, you know, a year and a half ago, it was already systematic. There was a systematic means of trying to control the narrative through the killing of journalists. And this is a big thing for these groups that work really hard to share only things that they've backed up with data. They're not bombastic spokespeople who have some sort of political lean. You can say these are people who really have to and organizations that really have to be careful with the language that they pick and choose. So I thought that was a really interesting framing. So what they had told me at the time, and I think this is inevitably still true if you subscribe to this idea, is that the goal was to prevent the information from getting out from the front lines, to stop people from knowing what was happening. And this has been clear as lately we've seen journalists targeted. And you know, this isn't a case whereby journalists were killed. And I'm speaking specifically in Lebanon. This also happened in Gaza, but specifically in Lebanon in the last few weeks, we've seen cases where there were double tap strikes on journalists that had targeted journalists. And then the Israeli military came out, particularly with an incident that happened, I think just a little over a month ago now. They came out and photoshopped journalists from the TV station Al Manar in Hezbollah fatigues and claimed that he was part of this elite fighting force, the Raw Adwan forces. They offered no proof for this. The Israeli military, a spokesperson, I believe it was later admitted that this was a doctored or, you know, an AI created dated photo that they, that they released. But these are the conditions that journalists are working with. Unfortunately, Lebanon is not signatory to the the ICC or the icj. And so these cases, though there's been pressure by media watchdogs and other bodies to get Lebanon to sign up to join the ICC and the ICJ so that they can put forward cases against Israel for specifically the targeting of journalists as well as many other actions the Israelis have taken in Lebanon, particularly south Lebanon over the last two and a half years. These are essentially the conditions that Lebanese journalists are working under where their lives are at risk. I might point out one other incident where a journalist from RT was reporting on a bridge in south Lebanon. It was one of the last bridges to not yet have been bombed that would connect south Lebanon to the rest of the country. He was reporting when it was caught on video that a strike had happened. I think there are legitimate criticisms about this journalist's conduct in terms of placing himself, he wasn't wearing a helmet at the time. Those are legitimate criticisms for kind of here's how you can do better sort of thing. That still does not excuse the fact that the attack happened while the journalist was there covering. And again, regardless of the outlets lien, regardless of what their agenda is, etc. Etc. These are still media professionals working. I believe that a warning had happened at that time. So again, questions over maybe decisions that were made. Still that does not excuse the Israeli military action. And I've heard people say, you know, that if you work through this logic, if we go back to the logic of what happened in Gaza, for example, with the first attack on a hospital, and this was in the first few weeks after October 7th, you may remember at the time there was this whole kind of debate between analysts and pundits and talking heads and what have you. You know, Israel would never do that. They would never attack a hospital. And then months later, here we are and every hospital in Gaza, you know, at one point multiple hospitals in Gaza were completely unoperational attacks that happened around hospitals, at hospitals, claiming hospitals were militant centers or centers that were hosting militants and all these other sort of things. Forensic Architecture has done fantastic work on the Gaza example of how the Israelis had structurally gone in and dismantled Gazan healthcare, Palestinian healthcare in Gaza, and I think it might be fair to say that there's a similar logic that is working here in Lebanon, is that, you know, because after the murder of Ay Sam Abdullah, essentially there was a period where journalists were not killed for at least, you know, a short period of time. Then two journalists from the outlet Al Mayadeen were killed. And then since then, we've had others from Mayadin, from Manar, et cetera, that have been killed by the Israelis. So you see kind of a pattern that, okay, we can get away with killing these journalists that are ostensibly working with outlets who have some sort of affiliation or lean towards the Hezbollah narrative. That's also the case for Al Akhbar with the newspaper that Ahmad Khalil worked with. She was killed in a really horrific targeted strike just a few days ago where her and a colleague were in the south. An attack happened. They fled into a building. Then the Israelis attacked that building. She was stuck under the rubble. And the Israelis prevented Red Cross medics and first responders from getting to her for a series of hours, I think it was around seven hours, the official reporting says, and she died. There's no way to frame this other than that Israel attacked her and then prevented her from receiving the treatment that she needed to be able to continue to live. And Amad was somebody who I didn't know personally, so I can't speak to her character in my sense, but from the reports, people reported her as a person that was incredibly generous with her time, was incredibly helpful, was very kind to animals. She was somebody who was in the south for years and years, was often in the south, was constantly in the south, was always on the front lines, felt it was her duty to report from the front lines as much as possible. You know, these are the people that the Israelis have targeted until now. Without maybe going too much into, you know, an attempt to draw some sort of pattern, I think that what. What seems clear is that those people are targets. But we have to ask, are the Israelis maybe trying to expand that a bit? Because this is the first journalist they've killed from Al Akbar, right? If they've killed Manar before, they've gone on to Mayadeen, or they've killed Mayadine and gone, and, you know, Manar and Maya Dean in one way, gone on to Akbar, Are they widening the scope? Are they challenging more people? Are more people at risk? And so I think what this does is inevitably now journalists will think twice about going south. They'll think twice about going to the front lines. Security advisors will put more caution into allowing their journalists to go south. People will take less risks, obviously. People who will see themselves, who work as targets, maybe with outlets that the Israelis are openly in opposition to, might take different decisions. So I think this is where we end up at basically after such killings and such actions.

[Danielle Kurt]

Referring back to the killing of Amal Khalil, we're recording this April 27th. As far as I'm aware, no other journalist has been killed since she was the last person who was killed, but we'll see what happens. But Amal was. Was not only double tapped, they had been threatening her over text message, right?

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Justin Salhani]

So this is a phenomenon that has happened. Obviously, it's not just journalists, but it's others as well that have gotten threatening messages. There have been cases, reported cases of people receiving texts saying, we're going to attack you. Now you can die by yourself or you can die with your family. And I want to be clear, until now, that's not a journalist that this has happened to. Amma did receive threatening text messages. Other reporters have followed up and messaged the number that messaged her. It's really hard to deduct if this is an actual campaign, if this is somebody within state capacity, or if these are individuals that found her phone number and did that. However, there is a psychological effect that takes place here. Right. There has been a phenomenon of different municipalities around Lebanon receiving phone calls from Israeli officials or Israeli military officials warning them of hosting displaced people. You know, this has been reported in outlets including in the New York Times and others. So essentially a psychological effect has began to take hold with that as well. There have been a number of calls that are essentially fake calls. So, you know, for example, a few weeks ago, a neighbor of mine or a neighboring building just a couple streets over reportedly received a warning, a threatening call threatening them that there might be attack on their building. Now, that attack never manifested and never developed, at least not at that precise building. Though there have been other attacks within a walking distance of my house in the last few weeks. That being said, that has a psychological effect because many people will not take the risk. They'll leave. Other times, you'll find cases where people will get some sort of call or people in the building will get some sort of call, they'll write it off as fake and they won't leave their house. And so there have been people who have seen warnings coming one way or another. I'm not saying it's directly through a phone call, but through one way or another and thought, whatever the case, we're not going to leave our homes and they end up dying in strikes. So there is absolutely a psychological effect. And we have no way of knowing if these fake calls are coming from the Israeli military or officials or individuals or just other people playing pranks. All those things can be true to varying levels. A neighbor who lives above me got a call from a. Ostensibly a Cuban number that was like an automated recording of sorts. And through her mind she started thinking, you know, what are the different possibilities of these calls? What sort of chances do I want to take? Incidentally, a day or two later, I got a call from a Cuban number as well, and I just chose not to pick it up because at that point we had figured out it was very likely to be fake. But this has a psychological effect. And this is one of the many things that Lebanese people are dealing with when we talk about the sort of psychological warfare through the things like, you know, calls, warnings of your neighborhood or of your entire village at times, or maybe even of your building, sonic booms, distribution of leaflets. All these things are happening simultaneously. When we talk about the things that Ahmad received. Again, this is the targeting of media workers and journalists. And you will see kind of this international indifference. Luckily now there's been kind of more voices, I think, picking up on the fact that journalists are a threat. And it is a case where it seems like yesterday it was Palestinians and today it's Lebanese and tomorrow who could be next? And maybe this is starting to ruminate a bit with journalists and the international community. But, you know, these are the things that, you know, we've seen happen with Lebanese journalists, that they are directly attacked. There's been huge indifference. There's. There is always kind of this, you might call it not an indifference, but maybe kind of a hedging of sorts. Of like, yeah, of course we don't condone the attack of media workers, you know, but the affiliation with Hezbollah. Right. Because this thing exists on a sliding scale of sorts. International humanitarian law is not a super cut and dry thing all the time. There are nuances and exceptions and whatever have you. Under international humanitarian law, as I understand it, I mean, media workers absolutely are off the table. They're not somebody you can attack unless they're actually caring and taking part in. In battles. Even combatants who are not actively on the field of battle are not legitimate targets. However, Israel does not play by those rules. Israel will target people who are ostensibly in Hamas or Hezbollah or other such groups, even if they're at home with their families. Till now, nobody has held them accountable for this. Right. This is why they've been able to attack Beirut at will, to attack the Beirut suburbs at will. This is why they can bring down buildings in the capital or in the south and say that, you know, there were Hezbollah figures in the building even if they were not carrying weapons, even if they were not active combatants. And the burden of proof has not been on them, though it should be. So this is a sliding scale. So it starts with these kind of militants and they get away with, with, you know, attacking maybe somebody who was a former militant who's no longer carrying a weapon or somebody who's not an active combatant. And it goes all the way to media workers who have this sort of, you know, what we might call kind of, it's not clear cut affiliation or whatever. We should be clear that it doesn't matter what their affiliation is. As a media worker, as a journalist, they should be protected. But because of these affiliations, they're not. Again, in Gaza, it started with such media workers. It ended up with more recently seeing, for example, a Palestinian journalist who worked with the Associated Press being killed on a live stream. So this is kind of the sliding scale that we're seeing happening now.

[Danielle Kurt]

Like you said, it's widening. It's a testing of the limits. Some outlets will get no outrage, but then they widen the scope of it. The entire landscape and dynamic that you're describing can only be described as terrorizing. And we've seen this in the past, of course, like in Gaza, they drop leaflets to terrorize people. They send those text messages to Gazans. I mean, I don't encourage anybody to look for these. But there have been videos of people fleeing their cars because they're about to be droned after receiving a threat saying leave or your family will get droned with you. Like, it's unbelievable. And of course, as you said, we're talking about journalists now, but we've seen a targeting of like medical professionals. Like we've seen quadruple taps at this point of medical professionals to prevent people from helping those under the rubble, to prevent, helping those who have now then been targeted for being in an ambulance. I mean, it's a really outrageous state of affairs. Has there been an exodus of foreign journalists? What's the situation like for those who are in Lebanon?

[Justin Salhani]

No, there's not been an exodus. You know, I think that many foreign journalists still feel that they're protected. It's an interesting dynamic, you know, because I think as you, you'll know very well. Right. Like whenever there are active hostilities or things like this, we have this flock of journalists who come in and then once it kind of calms down, they leave. And I always find that bizarre because I feel like so much of the work to be done happens when ceasefires go into effect, because that's when you can see the extent of damages. That's when you can actually investigate and see, okay, now that the firing has stopped, you have better access to places you can spend more time in, places you can get deeper stories. I mean, unfortunately, the way that media works today, there's not the luxury of time. Oftentimes, you know, media outlets are understaffed and underfunded, and so it's a difficult prospect. There's still actually quite a lot of foreign journalists here. Luckily, some of them even covered Ahmad Khalid's funeral. They covered her memorial, they covered what happened to her because it was such an egregious example. At the same time, I think that there is this sort of dynamic. The Israelis are aware of that if they kill a foreign journalist, right, they have killed a Lebanese journalist who worked for a major international outlet. And that led to some troubles for them because Reuters and others collaborated to do an investigation. Human rights organizations are reporting on this. Killing other Lebanese journalists that worked for less prominent outlets still led to certain condemnations, certain reports were written. But I think that, you know, it's kind of this effect. It's like an avalanche effect. It's that the more. The more sort of attention goes towards these sort of incidents, the more of a more problem it becomes for Israel with their international partners or their international relations, right? And so I think there's an acute awareness about that from the Israeli side, they know kind of how far they can get away with things to a certain extent. You know, I think a lot of journalists are aware of that as well. And so they feel that for until now, they can still go into these places. But like you said, it's. It's a widening effect, right? It's trying to see how far you can expand and how much you can get away with. Now, let's say that, you know, for example, this RT journalist, if they had killed him, he's a British citizen, you know, does that suddenly change the calculus or the fact that he worked for rt, does that count against him? How many politicians, let's say, in Europe will come out and say, you know, this is wrong, the fact that it was an RT journalist, Hopefully they still would, but it creates this kind of, you know, indecision, if you will.

[Danielle Kurt]

It seems to me from your answer that, like, they still expect the deterrent effect of their foreignness, essentially.

[Justin Salhani]

Yeah, I think so.

[Mick]

They.

[Justin Salhani]

They still carry that. And I think they. They have an awareness of that. You know, I wouldn't want to speak on their behalf. And there's always layers, right? There's the ones who parachute in, who may be a good basis in the region. There are those who are based here and have been here a long time. There are those who speak the language and understand the culture. There are those who. Who don't. And I mean, like, this is not to single out foreign journalists. There are local journalists who are amazing, and there are local journalists who are horrible, obviously. Right. But I think that there is kind of a thought process that, yeah, carrying, you know, a foreign passport, working for a major organization still comes with some sort of protection. But, I mean, at the same time, this also means that the Israelis killing the journalists that they have killed, it's not a mistake. Right. I can think off the top of my head of at least two journalists who were killed in their homes. And so, again, this is attacking civilian infrastructure, attacking buildings. And that comes with a different sort of criticisms. But if we're talking just about the operation of journalists while they're doing their jobs, you know, while they're driving in cars, while they're covering sometimes conflicts, sometimes, you know, maybe just moving from one place to the other, it becomes very clear that, you know, if you feel protected by the fact that you have a foreign passport, that also means that the Israelis are aware of who they're attacking and when they're attacking it. You know, we've seen things, for example, like recently, you know, compared to the killing of people, this might be a minor example, but we saw this thing that got a lot of international attention of an Israeli soldier destroying a statue of Jesus in a Catholic town in the south of Lebanon. And then more recently, there was the destruction of solar panels in another Christian town in South Lebanon. And the Israeli military will come out and say things like, you know, this does not represent the values of the Israeli military. So, okay, then there's the targeting and killing of journalists. Does that represent the. You know, and then. And then additionally, I think it's important to say that with the level of data, with the level of precision that the Israelis have, that they've killed at times. You know, I visited a scene in a Christian town just east of Beirut in a place called Aina Sade, where our, you know, mutual friend Elia Ayub grew up. And we saw the attack, the site of the attack. And I went to a building behind the building that attacked that had, you know, we had the view from up top, and you could see that two holes were in the rooftop of the building that was struck. And it's because the shells went through, or the rockets went through the top of the building, through the roof, went down a floor below, and then exploded and killed what ended up killing a local Christian official. And that, that was, according to Israelis, not the target of who they wanted to kill. But the point being is that they have this technology that they can attack precisely certain areas. They can attack to the apartment. They can blow out the walls of one apartment and leave the one a floor below or two floors below intact. And they've done this. They did this at a hotel just five minutes away. Some ostensible Iranian officials were staying in a hotel. They destroyed that room. It doesn't mean that at times there aren't other people nearby that are hurt. But if you're able to attack and you know the figures that you are going after and it is this precise, then what is the need to take down entire buildings or what is your excuse when you're going after media workers? Now, they say it in a sense of, you know, like they did with this Minar correspondent, that he was a member of the Dragwan forces. But again, they've provided no information to do that. These are people who have very public facing social media accounts. These are people who are in the public eye, who are on tv, who are doing all these sort of things. So it really begs to ask many, many questions of the Israelis.

[Danielle Kurt]

Yeah, statues are off limits, but people are okay. Yeah, yeah, fair game. So there's a ceasefire now. What are people expecting for Beirut and what does that ceasefire look like? As you said, the attacks are still going on in the south, but what are people expecting for these different parts of Lebanon?

[Justin Salhani]

Yeah, the south is still very active. And yesterday was a particularly brutal day with attacks across the area. There was forced evacuation orders for areas above the Litani river, which for anyone following. There's been this whole kind of dynamic about disarming Hezbollah below the Litany river, which runs across south Lebanon. The Israelis have previously issued evacuation orders for above the Litany as well, reaching up to another river called the Zahrani. According to Human Rights, someone at Human Rights Watch who I spoke to. These evacuation demands to comply with international humanitarian law. They need to be precise, they need to be exact, and they need to be temporary. You know, you need to leave your home now because we're attacking a target. But, you know, they can't be open ended the way that they've been with the. With the Israelis. And they cannot be indiscriminate the way that they've been of demanding the entirety of south Lebanon to move north or the entirety of the southern suburbs. So attacks on Beirut after Black Wednesday have come to a halt. And this is also true for the southern suburbs, which have been an area whereby they've suffered many, many attacks. And so it's a bit of a strange respite. At the same time, I think people have gone home to check on their houses. Some people have gone home to just stay in their houses for a variety of reasons, either because they might feel that it's safe for this moment, or they're hedging their bets. But still a lot of people have not returned home. Many of them cannot. These are obviously people of the south, or you cannot, if you've had your home destroyed in the south or in the southern suburbs or parts of the eastern Bacao Valley. You know, I've got a school by my house which is hosting displaced people, and it's still filled with the displaced, either because they cannot go home or because, as many have told me, they don't trust that this ceasefire will hold. Obviously, in places like the south, it has not held, and it's still ongoing with attacks coming from, from both sides. In Beirut, it's calm in a sense, for this moment. Like I mentioned, there's still a drone overhead at times. There have been reports of warplanes flying over different parts of the country. So there's still this doubt if this ceasefire, this truce, will hold. So we're kind of expecting or waiting any moment. But I should say that this was also true of the 2024 ceasefire to an extent. Now, in 2024, immediately, the next day, people went home, they drove home, they drove south, they went ahead with it. Of course, the attacks from the Israelis did not stop in the south. In Beirut and the southern suburbs, predominantly, there were a few attacks in the southern suburbs, but not regular attacks. You know, a kind of normality returned a bit. However, there was still kind of this attitude of waiting and seeing what would happen, because very few people trust the Israelis to stop the attacks. Very few people trust that the Israelis want to stop the war. At this point in time, they're stronger. They're the hegemon in the region. They control the skies to a large extent, they control the seas. And now in southern Lebanon, they also, to an extent, control parts of the land. And so I think that the attitude here is very much One of this truce is tenuous. We're living day by day, we're waiting to see if tomorrow we have to return to kind of a pre April 16th reality where we're checking our shoulders, we're deciding which streets to go down. Those of us who are lucky enough to maybe have relatives or friends in other parts of the country that we feel we can go to to be a bit safer are waiting to do that again. Maybe initially there was something of an exhale kind of okay, we know that we're going to be okay for, or we hope we'll be okay for at least a few days. But as the days go on and as there's been no conclusion to this issue, and of course we know that these are connected to the Iran US Discussions, which are in a whole other place themselves, I think everyone's just kind of waiting to see what develops. But, and there is this sort of bated breath.

[Danielle Kurt]

And of course the reality, I mean, even if the ceasefire holds for a bit like the reality is that the situation on the ground has changed, whether it's how much land they've taken. There's like a new yellow line in Lebanon, the same way that they've constricted Gaza, and also the damage that's been left behind, not just of the infrastructure, but of the herbicides that they're spraying and the environmental destruction. So there's just so much to think about. Thank you so much for coming on and making time to, to talk about this and please stay safe.

[Justin Salhani]

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much. Don.

[Garrison]

Welcome to Get Happened here, a podcast about things falling apart and although not today, putting them back together again. Today we are going to be talking about some of the ways in which the world is falling apart and the ways that they've been invisibilized. Now, there are obviously a wide and broad variety of ways in which the world is coming to pieces. But one of them is the impact of the continued dual blockade now of the Strait of Hormuz. The sense you get reading the papers, if you were looking at the economic reality of the situation, is that everything is broadly fine. The economic impacts have been less bad than expected. The economy is proving more resilient. Economies, particularly in East Asia, are hanging on better than predicted. China has been resilient. America has been resilient. Trump will eventually back down, which will head off the worst case scenario, long range forecasting of material shortages, shortages. Now, the rest of you, I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, you live in reality and not the distorted mirror world of the stock market. Stock market, as I think everyone has been able to see by this point, is increasingly unmoored, if it ever was moored to begin with, from the reality of how the global economy is actually functioning. And Trump has been able to play a game by which he makes the appearance of backing down every time the stock market seems to be actually tanking. And the markets have simply come to believe as an axiom, that if they simply bet that Trump will eventually back down, it will simply happen. No, it hasn't. The war is continuing apace, and it seems to have no signs of slowing down. But the markets are behaving as if they know that it's going to happen. And this has created a kind of paradox where on the one hand, there is us living in this world, and on the other hand, there are the markets living in a world where everything is going to be fine. And in the world that we live in, things are not good, but they are breaking, I think more slowly than people tended to expect. Now, part of this, and we will go over this in this episode, is that the impacts of this have been worst felt, obviously, in Iran itself and then across Southeast Asia, which are markets that are incredibly and economies that are incredibly reliant on not just oil, but things like naphtha and also fertilizers that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But if the markets are Wile E. Coyote hovering in the air through the sheer power of not looking down, the rest of the economy is a kind of slow moving train wreck. It isn't collapsing all at once, but the more you poke through and the more you go past the first page of the newspaper and start looking at the later ones, and the more that you look at the pressure in other countries, the more you begin to realize that things are going quite, quite badly. Now, in the west, the sign of this has been $5 a gallon gasoline. In vast portions of the United States. We are, quite frankly, seeing the better side of it. There have been widespread shutdowns of transportation across south and East Asia. Buses simply aren't running, both public and private. There have been strikes and protests over high gas prices by people who normally drive buses. Even in the US you can talk to people who try to do Uber deliveries, and it's becoming effectively impossible even to do that simply because gas prices are so high. But they are simply nowhere near as bad here as they are in places like the Philippines. Now, the interconnected nature of the global economy means that there are things that are being broken Right now that are going to break more things later down the line and are continuing to break things down and across the supply chain. But the ripples are moving slowly. Transportation costs are something that we tend to think about in terms of moving people around. Right. We tend to think about it in terms of buses, in terms of cars. However, one of the very significant issues that we are running into across particularly Southeast Asia, also Southeast Asia, to combining

[Mick]

all sort of, I don't know, three

[Garrison]

of the regions, a bunch of the island nations in the Pacific are dealing with this too, to various extent. Sri Lanka has been one of the worst hits to the extent that we're seeing a bunch of these countries are doing kind of like miniature government shutdowns. And obviously there's a bunch of different versions of this. Pakistan, for example, is going into more debt in an attempt to sort of keep the economy running. But returning to transformation costs for a moment. It is important that we also understand that goods are transported and increases in the price of gasoline to the point where it's simply impossible to afford also affects shipping and in particular affects things that are delivered on trucks. I'm going to read this quote about Vietnam and rice production in Vietnam. In today's abnormal times, rice buyers are hesitating. Shipping delays of 10 to 15 days have become common as carriers slow steam to conserve fuel. Basmati rice from India bound for the Middle east has been unable to get through the Strait of Hormuz in the Philippines. Wholesalers are not sure when there might be enough diesel to move imports around the country. That means rice has been piling up across Asia, creating a short term paradox. Wholesale prices declining as production costs rise after a year of healthy harvests. Traders are paying farmers less right now to hedge against future risk. So this is a really complicated fucking mess, right? What the New York Times is saying here is that buyers aren't buying the massive amount of rice that has already been planted, right? But on the other hand, there's also. Now we're running into fertilizer shortages because of a bunch of elements for fertilizers that is used in a lot. I mean, this is also affecting the United States too, but it's significantly worse in places like the Philippines and places like Vietnam. Some of the important elements needed to create fertilizer pass through the Strait of farmers they're not getting through. And this means that on the one hand, farmers are facing enormous rising production prices. But production is a process that takes place over and through time, right? And this is something that very importantly, most economic models are really, really bad at dealing with conventional macroeconomic models. Assume time and space don't exist to a large extent. Like this is like a real issue for a, for a lot of large scale economic models. Unfortunately, they exist here. And so what we're dealing with, right, is that there has been production that's already happened because there's already have been harvests. But now farmers can't sell the stuff that they've harvested because the transportation costs are so high that the buyers don't want to buy it. But that means also on the other hand, food is still getting more expensive on your end because even though the people making the food can't get enough money for the food they are selling because again, the buyers won't buy it because it's too expensive, you're now also paying like people in the region are now paying increased rice prices because they have to pay the shipping cost. So even though, on the one hand, right, the actual price that consumers are paying is going up, right, and the cost to produce the rice is also going up, the actual price at which these people can sell the rice is going down. And this is a fucking nightmare. It means that crops are getting planted. It means that crops are also just rotting in the fields because there's, there's no way to sell and move them. This is causing really, really significant concerns that we are going to be, you know, like, we are looking over the coming months at a kind of agricultural catastrophe where you're, you're starting to see sort of projections of people going, oh God, like, hey, what if people simply stop exporting food? There's a great quote in this New York Times article from a guy who's a senior fellow in food security at Singapore's is EAS where he says, quote, complex systems have a habit of creating wicked problems. The way that like capitalist markets interact with food shortages is a complete fucking nightmare. And this is something that we have seen that has caused famines all over the world, is that once you get into the point where food genuinely becomes scarce, which is not quite the point where we're at now, we're in the beginning of the process by which this could happen, right? The part of the process we're in right now is these farmers who also, by the way, and this is also very important, these rice farmers are not operating on particularly high margins, right? They are not very wealthy. When I say low margins, right. They are not making all that much money. And so, you know, being unable to sell your rice or being forced to sell it at an extremely Low price and then having your production costs rise because your cost of fertilizer is skyrocketing is how these things effectively go under if this stuff continues. This is how you get waves of people being forced off their land because they simply can't afford to do the farming anymore. Right? But then, you know, you also have sort of, in some sense, you have the reverse of this in other places where if you look at what's happening in India, we talked about this on an executive disorder a few weeks back. You know, like a bunch of the ceramics industry is just like shut down and like 400,000 people are out of work from this. And this is causing those people to. Okay, what do you do when you can't get work in sort of urban industrial centers is you go back to a lot of the rural places where these people are from. But the thing about oil is that oil price increase is something that hits people across the board. It hits both rural and urban economies because they both are heavily oil dependent. This is something that New York Times mentions when you're talking about rice problems in Vietnam. Part of the other thing that's been making rice, like harder to farm is that their irrigation system is powered by like diesel engines. It's pump driven diesel stuff. And so because of that, you know, there's sort of like broad scale shortages in Vietnam and you have to choose whether you're, you know, using, using the limited amount of diesel that you have in cities or in rural areas. And so these things are just kind of rapidly becoming a nightmare now. You know what isn't a nightmare? It's the products and services that support this podcast. And we are back. So I want to talk a bit about why the system is structured like this and why, you know, on the one hand, like, we are starting to see things that are very incredibly alarming in east and Southeast Asia on varying levels. That. And I guess I should be really clear about this, right? The actual economic impacts of this are really dispersed. It depends a lot on how wealthy of a country you are in and then also like how reliant on oil your economy is. So the Chinese economy, for example, is not been that badly affected because they have large oil supplies. The Taiwanese economy, you know, like, there's kind of plastic bag shortages. And that's been another element of all of this is like people panicking about are there going to be enough trash bags? Because for reasons that I will get into in a second, like, plastic is made of oil, right? Everything around you that is plastic is just oil. And it does turn out that you do need crude oil in order to produce plastics. And this is. This has been causing lots of production issues across like a whole variety of sectors that use plastics. Now, the bottom hasn't just completely fallen out yet, and it's worth taking a little bit of time to examine why. And the reason why it hasn't immediately collapsed is actually strangely the same reason why we're in this mess from the first place, which is that in a lot of ways, the way that our system of production works, the way that we produce things in the world and the way that we move things around is made in the image of oil. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that the system of production is very nodal, right? It operates on a whole bunch of these nodes, and you have a node where a part of a production is happening, and then that node moves an item from one thing to another, where it goes to another stage of production process, and inputs and outputs come in in these nodes. And the thing about these nodes, right, is that in theory, the way the system is supposed to be designed and the way that it's been sort of, they call it like flexibilization to some extent, the way that it's supposed to work is that, okay, so if you are a company that needs to get, I don't know, you're like a ramen company. To take an example that's been in the news, at least in East Asia, there's been disruption to ramen making companies. And you need plastic. You have one plastic supplier you're normally going to, but there are a bunch of other ones, right? Or maybe a better way to explain this would be using the example of like the way that like fast fashion works and the way that like drop shipping works, right, where there are like, there are all of these different, like small sort of factories around China or like these small, like sort of garment production places where you can like very, very quickly crank out the same, like dress or whatever. And if you're doing the drop shipping, you can like source your drop ship stuff from one of like a hundred of these places, right? Now, this is what I mean when I say that it's nodal is that it's designed in such a way that a blockage in one part of the system isn't supposed to be that bad because the system isn't designed in a way where, you know, there's like one railway from one place to another and you have to move all of your goods along this one railway. And you can only get it from, like, one buyer who produces the thing. You do produce another thing, produces another thing. You're supposed to be able to get it from, like, a broad distributed network of people. And if one node of the network goes out, you're supposed to be able to pivot to another one. And this is the way that the economics of oil works, right? There are a shit ton of different oil producers, and in theory, you're supposed to be able to pivot around between different oil wells in a way that's different from, for example, the way that coal worked with coal. And a lot of this I'm sourcing from Timothy Mitchell's book Carbon Democracy, which is very, very good. You know, with coal, right, you're usually not moving it by ship, which is. This is like another thing that we're going to get to in a second. But with coal, it's very easy. The way that coal is mined and the way that you have to move it, right, it goes from one place to another to another to another in a line. And if one part of that process shuts down, there isn't like another coal thing you can get your coal from, right? You're just fucked up. Like, there's not like another mine that feeds into your factory. This is sort of the way that coal production worked in sort of the 1800s and early 1900s. Oil works in basically the opposite way, right? Where there's just like a shit ton of things. And because you're mostly moving it by water and to some extent by pipeline, the way the production process works and the way that it's sort of easier to move, and just like the way that it flows means that it's harder to block off the entire supply of oil in the same way that it was actually kind of easy to just like completely stop up huge swaths of the economy by just blocking off their access to coal. And capital has, like, long realized the danger of choke points. This is called foreshadowing. This is a literary device, et cetera, et cetera. You know, the choke point used to be coal mines and the railways on which, like, coal was moved, right? And one of the things that Timothy Mitchell argues is that a lot of the militancy of the 19th and 20th century labor movement is a direct product of the ways in which these coal miners were both extremely militant and also very, very easily able to shut down production in a line by mobilizing a force that was greater than their numbers. A relatively small portion of hyperbiligent coal miners can shut down, like the rest of the economy because everyone else is relying on their being coal. But oil has the opposite problem where like the problem with coal is that there's not enough of it, so you have to constantly extract it. The problem with oil is that there's too much of it, right? If you shut down coal production, it's a nightmare for the companies that produce coal because they can't make any money because they, there's like a fixed number of mines and it takes like large scale capital investment to like get them out. And it's also true that like it's expensive to extract oil. But the thing about oil is again, like there were just, there are too many refineries, right? This is sort of why OPEC was formed. If you shut down production, if you restrict the amount of oil that comes onto the market, that's actually how you make money versus if you shut down coal production, suddenly nobody's making any money versus oil, where it's like, if you shut down oil production, usually it just means that like the oil companies make more money because the price of oil goes up. And the specifics of why this is true, I would encourage people to go read Carbon Democracy. I could spend another like two hours talking about the materiality of oil and why it specifically works like this differently. But yeah, oil has the opposite problem of coal. Like there's too much of it. And so this goes to a point where Mitchell talks about how in the early 1900s, companies are deliberately setting off oil strikes, right? Because it'll raise their production prices. Because shutting down their own production and having an excuse to shut down their own production, like, will let them just knock off oil refineries so they can reduce the amount of oil in the market. The system of oil is designed to get around these blockades, right? This is, this is a big part of the reason for the transition from coal to oil was specifically it was, it was like the US and the Marshall Plan was trying to defeat these extremely militants, like French unions after World War II. And these unions were largely coal mining base. And they were like, oh shit, we can, you know, we can do like a pivot to Saudi Arabia to move to oil. And this can be like, this can be our solution to like crush these coal mining unions. Because oil is extremely hard to unionize. It has like a highly divided workforce, you know, and so they tried to design this system that doesn't have choke points. But the problem is there's one fucking big one. And that one big one is the straight of Hormuz. And at this point the sort of advantage of the system, right, which is that it's all these different nodes that are, like, bound together in this, like, extremely convoluted weave. The strength of the system is also its weakness. It means that we're all getting dragged down together with the system when it stops working. Because we all rely on stuff from all over the world. The way that the system has bound us altogether means that we're all reliant on every other part of the economy and we're all reliant on oil. And this is sort of the root of the catastrophe and also the reason why. Why this crash is operating in slow motion in order to stop the international, like, labor movement. Right. The system was set up in a specific way where it works along nodes and is supposed to be designed to deal with a crisis like this. So instead of collapsing immediately, it collapses in slow motion, but it is still collapsing because capital, and I guess, like the presidency of the United States has taken the action that the system was designed to avoid, which is like, you know, like a large scale blockade of production. And the consequences of this are both dire and expanding as we speak. Yeah, this has been. It could happen here. Things are only going to get worse before they get better.

[Robert Evans]

I enjoyed the new Devil Wears Prada movie. It was weirdly relevant. I did not expect Meryl Streep to deliver like, a monologue about how AI is destroying independent Internet writers or comedy writers or whatnot, any kind of independent Internet writer. But I guess that's what we got, so that's good.

[Karesta Davis]

And thinly veiled Jeff Bezos villain.

[Robert Evans]

Thinly veiled Jeff Bezos villain. Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Well, this isn't our movie review podcast because we don't have one of those. Because I would be bad at it. This is electile disorder function.

[Karesta Davis]

It could have been.

[Robert Evans]

What are we doing?

[Karesta Davis]

Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening.

[Robert Evans]

Did I ruin your intro in the White House?

[Karesta Davis]

No, it's fine. The crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Karesta Davis. Today I'm joined by Robert Evans, James Stout, Mia Wong, and maybe Sophie Lichterman. This episode we are covering the week of April 30th to May 6th. I want to roll things back to just before we recorded because Sophie brought up the California gubernatorial debate that happened Tuesday night.

[Robert Evans]

Gubernatorial Garrison. You got to make it sound silly,

[Karesta Davis]

which I tried watching as that kind of is my job, only to discover it was not streaming anywhere online and only available the same CNN channel on television. Like, you know, like actual TV channels. Which prompted Sophie to ask the good question, who is this for? Why. Why is. Why does this even exist then? If only people watching cable can watch it? And then I realized the real reason this exists is to generate short video clips for social media. And that's, I guess, how most people are actually engaging with this debate in contextless 52nd. That's generous chunks of time.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

In which Steyer came off the best. Did not come off great, but came off okay.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[Karesta Davis]

He. He came off fine. He had this weird tick where he would be. He would ask a question and when he would respond, it would sound like he was deflecting the question even when he wasn't. But the sort of, like, defensiveness of his framing sounded like he was deflecting a lot of questions that actually he was giving kind of good answers to. Porter was. I don't know. Sophie, can you speak about Porter? I. I don't Porter.

[Robert Evans]

I hardly know her.

[Molly Conger]

I don't have a mic, so I'll be really quick.

[Robert Evans]

That was pretty good.

[Molly Conger]

Porter kind of overcompensate y snarky remarks, but she's only polling like 8 or 10%, whereas Hilton and Stier are both pulling closer to 20. So also Steve Hilton. Ew.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Short video content has not been kind to Katie Porter in the. In the last couple of years.

[Karesta Davis]

It was interesting. Earlier that morning, Katie Porter released an ad that ended with a joke about her abuse of her staff. It like, ended with, like, a reference to a line that she said that was in those articles. And like, she had all these background extras. Laugh at the joke referencing the abuse allegations against her to her staff. Interesting choice.

[Robert Evans]

Crazy move.

[Molly Conger]

Who is that for? Who is that for?

[Robert Evans]

I mean, you know what it is, actually? It's her trying to be like Trump. Like, one of the lessons that Trump has taught the political class is that if people come at you for, like, being corrupt or fucked up or evil or irresponsible, you just kind of barrel right through that. You don't acknowledge it. You don't like, acknowledge any validity in it. And like, you. You kind of make fun of it. You try to, like, make it a selling point for yourself. And I don't. I'm not saying she's doing a good job of it, but I think that's what is she's trying to do. I think that's the attempt.

[Karesta Davis]

She's like, tough. No nonsense.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

You know.

[James Stout]

Yeah. The amount of money being spent on anti Styer attack ads is judging by the amount of them that get beamed into my home. Every night now. Pretty significant. As a resident Californian, I didn't watch the debate because the choices we have make me very angry and upset and I didn't want to think about that.

[Karesta Davis]

That's politics.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

James, do you want to start with a few of yours I see are at the top of the dock here?

[James Stout]

Yeah. Well, let's begin with the biggest news of the week, which is that the White House Twitter account has shared the Newcrest for. Nice.

[Karesta Davis]

I gotta see this.

[James Stout]

Oh yeah, click on that.

[Robert Evans]

Oh good. Thank God.

[James Stout]

Share that screen. Garrison. Garrison. You can't have a treat and not share with everybody.

[Karesta Davis]

I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting.

[James Stout]

There we go.

[Robert Evans]

Okay. Yeah. That looks like shit. Yeah, it looks like lazily AI generated garbage. Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

If you asked AI to generate a crest for a US law enforcement agency,

[Robert Evans]

the most basic that could possibly be.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Karesta Davis]

Oh well.

[James Stout]

National Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nice.

[Karesta Davis]

Always good when you throw national in front of any, any acronym. That's never, that's never turned out bad.

[James Stout]

As many people have shared with me, several television shows had already come up with the idea of rebranding ICE as nice. I don't think this is going to stop them. Moving on. The DOJ said that it is suing Denver for infringing the second Amendment. This pertains to their assault weapon ban which bans a lot of semi automatic rifles including AR15s. Interesting kind of precedent for DOJ behavior in that obviously lots of states have assault weapons bans and previously we have not seen the DOJ intervene against those. There are a few. No cases about them on their way to Supreme Court. The Supreme Court hasn't shown any particular desire to urgently get into the.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this has been an interesting thing for a while is that even as the Republican. The right has had control of the Supreme Court for years now, they have shown a distinct unwillingness to visit the matter of like assault weapons and like magazine capacity bans.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

As well as. Because there's definitely been some, some folks. This is less popular, but some, some folks on the pro gun side who want them to look at like state level restrictions on like you have to like waiting periods and stuff. And it's just kind of been this detente that's existed where like they have not pushed too far in a certain direction to like limit what blue states can do with their gun control. And if, if they are. That's an interesting shift.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's interesting that this has gone after. It's a civil rights suit or it's through the Civil Rights Division. Right. I guess they're using the HELA precedent.

[Mick]

Right.

[James Stout]

Which was the last time. HELA wasn't the last. The previous one was Bruin.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Bruen.

[James Stout]

The Bruen decision, which was the last time that the Supreme Court really made a major change to national firearms rules. Right. It's interesting they're going after Denver and not like for instance, California.

[Robert Evans]

Well, Denver has a specific specifically banned VAR 15 as opposed to California doesn't ban any specific guns. They ban features on firearms. So I suspect that would be. Why is that Denver is going, Colorado's going after this specific firearm. That and the argument that's going to be made is that the AR15 is the most commonly available rifle. It's absolutely the equivalent of a musket in its day is the argument that they will be making because Clarence Thomas has made that argument before. So California never tried to ban AR15s. They just made it a giant pain in the ass to own them. And that's, that's a lot, I think safer from this sort of attack. Although I guess we'll see.

[James Stout]

You know, Denver's assault weapons ban is not the same as California's, but nor does it ban AR15s by name. I'm just reading from the Denver Municipal Code, Section 38, 130. The. The categories or the way it defines an assault weapon is a semi automatic center fire rifle with a detachable magazine capacity at 21 rounds or higher. That's, that's subsequent legislation after that which further limits magazine capacity in Colorado. All semi automatic shotguns that can take more than six cartridges and or have a folding stock or a weapon which can be converted into one of those things. So that's actually a pretty. It's not the same as a California ban. It's interesting to see them picking this one. It's also pretty old. Denver started its assault weapons ban story. It's been through the courts quite a few times, but this begins in 1989. But yeah, it's an interesting sort of area that we'll keep tabs on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we'll keep tabs because there's a couple big gun things going in front of the Supreme Court this year. Right. Like earlier in March, the court heard arguments on The United States vs. Hamani, which was a case about the legality of basically if you're using a drug that is illegal, even if it's like a drug, even if it's marijuana and it's legal at the state level, if it's like Federally illegal. You cannot possess, own, do anything with guns. Right. And that's not really constitutional because the second Amendment, like it or not, is like a civil right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And the idea that like you lose a civil right because you're like ingested a substance at some point is like, like a wildly dangerous and ungodly. Anyway, whatever. It's the kind of thing that just again, courts have refused to sort of take seriously even though everyone's known. There's very thin precedents. So the fact that the Supreme Court is finally hearing arguments on this is really interesting. This is a case of a guy who had both marijuana and cocaine on him when he got busted. And yeah, so we'll, we'll, we'll also cover that case. But there's a lot of, going to be a lot of interesting gun stuff happening this year, not all of it bad, because honestly, if the Supreme Court were to rule that like, no, you can't say someone can't own a gun just because they smoked pot, I would say that's a net win. But obviously there's a lot of violations of states rights and whatnot that's going to be, I'm sure, a part of this too. It'll be a messy summer for that. But this is going to be some major stories this year.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. I think we'll certainly see some movement here. Border wall construction crews have destroyed an intaglio sacred to the Ottom people. The seven year old Las Playas intaglio sacred site is irreparably damaged. Despite being very well recorded and having been identified to construction crews by cultural monitors. Tornadum chairman Verlon Jose said, quote, this was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss. There is nothing more important than our history, which is what makes us who we are. As Odham, the site was also an irreparable piece of the United States history, one none of us can ever get back. The nation's leaders have and will continue to meet with senior Department of Homeland Security officials to obtain more information and to communicate the nation's absolute insistence that this cannot happen again. And then finally from me, the United States State Department has approved the sale of JDAMs to Ukraine, which is a significant increase in their capacity. Right. Jdam, if people aren't familiar, stands for joint direct attack Munition. Think big bomb. Like it's a guided bomb. It can either be a bomb that comes guided or you can change a different munition to make it become guided.

[Robert Evans]

These are packages, right? Like these are kits that you take. So you have like A bomb of various sizes because they can range and you basically apply this kit to them and it makes it into a guided munition. Right. So it's, it's a, you, you can have whatever kind of explosive package you want and you can convert it into a guided munition that you then, you know, drop or throw or whatever via, you know, whichever platform you happen to be using. Yeah.

[Garrison]

These are like aircraft fired, right?

[James Stout]

Yes, yes. In these case, they're extended range tail kits. It's not the, the bomb itself, but the thing that allows the bomb to be delivered to a target.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Again, this is a package. You have a bomb that's a dumb explosive and this is the thing that you put onto it that allows it to be like a smart munition that is targeted. It's an air to surface munition. Generally they're like 1,000 or 2,000 pound warheads, I think for the most part.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I guess in this case it would depend on whatever the warhead is. Right.

[Robert Evans]

But like there's, there's 500 pound ones. Like there's a, a variety of sizes.

[James Stout]

Obviously the Ukrainians have used many of their long range assets. Right. To attack Russia, inside Russia. Previously this has been something the United States had kind of drawn a line at. That seems to no longer be the case. This will obviously also be a massive contract right there. The principal contractor here is going to be Boeing, who are located in St. Louis. And the estimated total cost is about a third of a billion dollars. So 373 million to be exact.

[Robert Evans]

There's been like a big push in a couple of different states to increase munition production and it has been very uneven in terms of how it's worked so far. They've encountered a lot of issues scaling up production to the level they need. I'm not convinced in our ability to actually like meet this at the time frame being proposed, but we'll see. That's something. I've been, been reporting on that a couple of times so far this year. Yeah, the munition shortage and our issues in scaling up production. I'll probably do something later this year like a more detailed look at like what the pitfalls have been, but it's actually surprisingly hard. Just because they say we're putting this much money into, you know, creating these facilities or encouraging the production to scale up. It's not necessarily that easy to actually do that.

[James Stout]

Of course, the State Department says there will be no adverse impact on US Defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

[Robert Evans]

I don't see why there would.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's what they gotta say.

[Robert Evans]

These are standoff munitions. The US Military is not short on them for our purposes. But, like, the shit that we're getting cleaned out on primarily is not like, this is not the main thing. I mean, we're definitely being stretched, but this is not the main thing. It's sidewinders. It's like our cruise missiles and it's our interceptor missiles are like the big things that we're straining on right now.

[Karesta Davis]

Speaking of, on May 1st, President Trump, quote, unquote, joked, that's how most people are referring to this, joked that we will be, quote, unquote, taking over Cuba almost immediately.

[Robert Evans]

Great.

[Karesta Davis]

After finishing with Iran.

[Robert Evans]

Sounds real.

[Karesta Davis]

He has made previous comments to this effect the past few months.

[James Stout]

Yeah, his joke was that Abraham Lincoln would stop on the way back from Iran. Right. And park on off 100 yards off the coast of Cuba and they would immediately surrender.

[Robert Evans]

Just kind of knock that out.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I mean, we're going to get onto this. But this is not the only thing pointing towards Cuba right now.

[Robert Evans]

I have trouble knowing how this is going to go because obviously, like, Venezuela was the best case scenario for them. Like, Maduro was not personally popular and he had a. He had like, the apparatus below him was more than happy to just kind of like everyone move up a step and be nicer to the US on paper. Like, whereas Iran. That's certainly not how anything has worked out because you had. This whole state has been built for the last 60 years to endure casualties without, like, losing operational capacity or its ability to resist.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Cuba's not really quite like either government. And I don't know what's going to happen. You know, on one hand, it is a country that's exhausted by decades of sanctions and exhausted by, you know, what has become after Venezuela since they're no longer sending fuel to Cuba, like, their fuel crisis is just devastating. I don't know, maybe it is a case where the government would capitulate fairly quickly and then you just kind of have the, okay, what happens now? Question. Like the humanitarian issue, which I'm sure would be very. I'm sure you'd get a lot of, like, grifters getting flown in there by the Trump administration. It would not be a positive situation. Or, you know, is this a thing where there would be even as exhausted as people are immediate and like, vicious resistance to any attempt by the US to assert its will politically over there? I have no idea.

[James Stout]

And the other thing is that their military, it's more where Venezuela's is at than where Iran's is at. Right. Like, outdated and defunded.

[Robert Evans]

It was the Cuban military that we were fighting in Venezuela to an extent.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know. I don't know. That said, like, it's also at the point at which those carrier groups are trying to do that in Cuba. They'll have been on almost twice as long as they're normally supposed to be out. And who knows, like, what is done in Iran? Look, like, what's that gonna mean?

[Garrison]

Yeah, like that. That war is not ending anytime soon. So, like, I mean, maybe he just tries to do it at the same time, but, like, it's.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison]

I don't know. We're stuck in the mutual blockade right

[Robert Evans]

now, so impossible to know what he's gonna do or what will happen as a result of it, other than I don't expect any of it's gonna go very well.

[Garrison]

Nope, it's gonna be a nightmare.

[Karesta Davis]

In some sadder news on Sunday, America's mayor Rudy Giuliani was sent to the hospital in critical condition. Giuliani is obviously a friend of the pod. We had him on a few years ago to discuss sending weapons to Ukraine. We would love to have him back to discuss this. This recent sale, but unfortunately, Giuliani developed pneumonia after coming back from a trip to Paris and was put on a ventilator this weekend.

[Robert Evans]

It's always the young ones.

[Karesta Davis]

Now, thankfully, he's been sensibly taken off the ventilator. And spokesman Ted Goodman, who I do not like very much, announced that Giuliani's condition has stabilized and he is now breathing on his own. Last time we interacted with Goodman, it was specifically him pulling Giuliani away from us after speaking with him for about 20 minutes. So I really don't care for Goodman personally, but I mean, if Giuliani ever wants to discuss weapons sales to Ukraine on the show again, I'm sure we would love to have him.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You know, Gar, I saved a little vial of the spittle that flew off of his mouth when he and I were discussing weapons sales to Ukraine back at the rnc. And I keep it on me every day and I'm holding it now, and I'm just thinking of you, Rudy. I'm just. I'm just pulling for you, man. I'm pulling for you.

[Karesta Davis]

We'll probably go on an ad break now. Okay, we are back. Robert has just failed to execute a Simpsons themed audio bit.

[Robert Evans]

I know. I wanted to play you Krusty the Clown. Saying the hantavirus. Because we're talking about the hantavirus.

[Karesta Davis]

Well, that's good enough. There. Your impression? I think services.

[Robert Evans]

Did that work.

[James Stout]

It's beautiful.

[Robert Evans]

I'm still sad.

[Karesta Davis]

Eight people are suspected. At least eight people are suspected to be infected with a hantavirus.

[Robert Evans]

Strain 5 confirmed.

[Karesta Davis]

Capable of human to human transmission. This is stemming from an outbreak on a cruise ship. We gotta do something about the cruise ships.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Now they're disease factories. First off, like, everyone knows this happens in cruise ships, which is why we shouldn't have them. We don't know exactly how this went down. We know at least five people are confirmed to have gotten the hantavirus like they've done. And another three are suspected confirmed testing. Three people are dead?

[Karesta Davis]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And I think another couple are in serious conditions still. Yes. It's not known how they got it. It's possible that it's. Some of them were human to human transmission.

[Karesta Davis]

Argentine officials believe that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird watching at a landfill where they may have been exposed to rat poop before boarding the cruise ship.

[Robert Evans]

What?

[Karesta Davis]

A series hantavirus has been. Has been a problem in Argentina for the past year. This has been a known problem. Oh yeah, Some human to human cases. There's multiple strains there now. So far, three people are suspected to have died from the virus, while three others have been evacuated to Europe from the cruise ship for treatment.

[Robert Evans]

To be clear, it's not because this is what I'd read. It's a strain that can be transmitted human to human. But they don't know how everyone who got it got it. They don't know that everyone who got it was human to human or that they didn't all just get exposed to the same droppings. But it's the Andean strain that can transfer human to human. It's, it's, it's. It's a problem, but probably it'll be fine. Right, Garrison?

[Karesta Davis]

Well, the World Health Organization's top epidemic expert, Maria Van Kirkhov has cautioned, quote, this is not the next Covid, but it is a serious infectious disease. Most people will never be exposed to this, unquote. And Reuters included a statement from the World Health Organization in their reporting. They say that the risk to the public remains low and that the variant detected among passengers can be spread between humans only through close, prolonged contact, unquote. Now, there is contact tracing currently in effect by officials in South Africa and Switzerland specifically, who are tracking a few people that departed the ship. Many others are still on the ship. Which is set to land either at Spain or some of the Canary Islands around Spain in a few days. That's what, that's what we know. That's what we know so far. Yeah, it's, it's, this is changing like literally by the hour. So it's possible by the time you listen to this there'll be a whole bunch of more information about what's happened. But that is the, the current, the current situation as of Wednesday afternoon.

[Garrison]

Yeah. And I think we can also say definitively that if you want to avoid the hantavirus, like the number one step you can take is not getting on a plague ship.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah, we're hanging out in a landfill.

[James Stout]

Landfill to cruise ship is a the series.

[Garrison]

Yeah, like we can, we have the technology to avoid this.

[Karesta Davis]

Speaking of rat poop on Wednesday, Mississippi. Now my favorite outlet reported that the FBI is investigating leaks to the Atlantic journalist who published that story about Cash Patel's drinking habits and absences from his job. A story that the FBI has previously called false but now is launching a criminal leak investigation into. These investigations typically focus on leaking classified information which does not appear to be a factor in this Atlantic article. Patel is also suing the Atlantic for defamation for like $250 million. And now through this investigation the FBI may be able to seize the journalists digital records. The FBI has denied though that this investigation exists. And a few hours ago the Atlantic journalist published a follow up story which I wish I'd mention that Kash Patel has been giving away customized whiskey flasks. Like bottles full of whiskey.

[James Stout]

It's Woodford Reserve is what it is. It's a Woodford Reserve bottle.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's got his own bottle of Woodford Reserve.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he's getting, he's getting what Costco has.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's getting like a thoroughly mediocre like middling bourbon with his name on it, which is definitely something an alcoholic doesn't have. Like definitely a normal non alcohol thing to do is to have like a $30 bottle of bourbon with your name on it that you hand out to strangers at work. That's the thing alcoholics don't do.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's not great. This is not a great revelation.

[Karesta Davis]

This, this investigation if real, very, very dangerous.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Karesta Davis]

Really, really bad should to happen to have this like clearly like personally motivated weaponization of the FBI against a journalist going through social media records, databases, digital records. Very worrying. But also Cash Patel. Funny.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But yeah it is it Cash Patel. Is this fascinating like well this is should certainly a legal incredibly dangerous thing to have the FBI director doing and like, what a ridiculous man. What. Just a fundamentally ridiculous guy. I don't know what else to say.

[Garrison]

Meanwhile, in. In the broad world of things falling apart, Spirit Airlines has fallen. It is effectively no more RIP.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Pouring one out, specifically a personalized bottle of Woodford Reserve is what I'm pulling out for Spirit Airlines.

[Garrison]

So Spirit Airlines, I mean, has been in financial trouble for a bit, but it has now filed for bankruptcy. It has grounded all of its planes and fired everyone. So it is gone. And it is gone very, very suddenly. This is not something that was, you know, like, there had been long going negotiation, not long going, but there have been negotiations with the Trump administration to try to arrange a bailout, but they just kind of woke up one morning and sent everyone a letter that said, you're fired, and canceled all the planes, which left a whole bunch of people stranded.

[Robert Evans]

Not ideal.

[Garrison]

Yeah. And this is a real catastrophe for a lot of people because there are a bunch of routes that Spirit was doing that there just isn't really coverage of for anything else. And it's also one of the few of these sort of. These budget airlines are getting just hammered by the increase in fuel prices for people who don't know aviation stuff. As much as airplane companies complain about the cost of labor as they horrifically exploit flight attendants, the actual most expensive part of flying is fuel. And as fuel prices have skyrocketed, specifically jet fuel prices have skyrocketed, that is taking an absolutely enormous hit out of the bottom line of these companies. And companies that were sort of just barely getting along and operated on low margins are getting hit really badly. And this is something that's not just a Spirit Airlines thing. This is happening to airlines across the world. It's particularly intense in south and East Asia right now, where a huge number of their airlines are operating in this kind of, like, they call it, like, emergency management, where they've, like, significantly reduced the amount of flights that they're doing. In cases like Korean Air, they're routes from, you know, for example, like, sold in New York are like, are operating on 200% price increases. This has been going on for a while. Spirit is the first big American one to just go out completely. There are reports that Trump personally really wanted to save Spirit Airlines for kind of weird, personal reasons.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Garrison]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But I mean, it's Spirit also. A part of, like, why it has fallen apart is that it's been a victim of its own success. Like, Spirit introduced to the airline industry the idea of like, no, everyone should be paying for a bag and for a drink for every single thing. We should financialize every single aspect of the, of the airline, of the flying process that we can. And as a result, like, they stopped being particularly cheap and they stopped working any different from any of the other airlines. So there was not really much of a reason to go with Spirit as opposed to any of the slightly nicer airlines anymore. You know, like the. So, I mean, I. I'm not surprised that they are falling. Definitely. Like, the fuel strike is what has. Has been the death blow to them. But they've been. They've been in trouble for a little while.

[Garrison]

Yeah. And because, like, we've known that they've been in trouble. The Trump administration negotiations, apparently the stumbling block was that the US plan was to give them, like, $500 million, but it would involve buying most of their stock. And the rest of the airline industry was like, absolutely not. Well, we're not doing a bailout for just one company if, like, instead of an industry wide one. And so they started putting pressure. And then Trump was apparently looking at, like, using the Defense Production act for this, but the Department of Defense finally found a Defense Production act thing that Trump wants to do that they were like, absolutely not. Like, we are simply not doing national security. Like, we finally found. I've been talking about this in tariff episodes for a long time where we've been looking for the limit of the president's ability to go. This is a national security concern. And apparently the limit is buying Spirit airlines.

[James Stout]

That's funny, because it is a time when the US Is flying a lot of stuff around the world. Like the airlift to Iran has been bonkers.

[Garrison]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Would have been fun to see Spirit.

[Garrison]

The one kind of final note I want to talk about is that there's been a lot of blaming of this from the administration, and there's even been some of this in places like Salon, where there's been a lot of blame on the Biden administration's antitrust unit, because in 2022, there had been an attempt by Spirit Airlines to, like, merge with JetBlue, which is like a slightly nicer airline. There's a lot of people going, oh, well, they wouldn't have gone out of business if they'd been allowed to do the merger. But the Biden administration antitrust people were like, this is a obviously competition issue. And that's maybe kind of true, but it's also, like, it's not clear to me that, like, a JetBlue Spirit airline wouldn't also be in really bad shape right now.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah, totally.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison]

I think the thing about competition, right, is that sometimes you go out of business. And I know this is something that like, business people absolutely despise and like pro monopoly people absolutely despise. But like, in theory, if you are a supporter of the free market, that means sometimes firms go under.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison]

And they're all very mad about this.

[Robert Evans]

We especially airlines. Lots of airlines die out. That's why.

[James Stout]

Madman.

[Robert Evans]

You know, like. Yeah, look at all the dead airlines in Mad Men. Like it. Like it. It's not an unheard of thing. It's a difficult business.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison]

And it's like. And that's like why you've gotten the degree of monopoly you already have in the airline industry is that these companies sort of bought up the carcasses and like, you know, did all of these very monopolistic mergers. So now you just have this thing where like. Yeah, flying absolutely sucks because it's all just these like. Oh, God. There's some economics term for it that I'm forgetting right now, but it's, it's all of these sets of monopolies that have, like, divided up the country into their own bas. Personal fiefdoms. And yeah, that sucks. And it's why, it's why being on an airplane sucks. And opposing monopolies is not the reason that we're here. It's the, the, the main reason that we are here right now with Spirit Airlines dead is that the President of the United States unilaterally decided he was going to fight a war against Iran.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison]

I guess, technically, bilaterally, because Bibi decided to Israelis. But like, you know, the President of the United, like the, the, the, the US's mad dictator decided to fight a war and that's why this airline is gone. Yeah, but that's, that's, that's like the main thing. That's why it's gone, like now in this way.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Somebody needs to Photoshop, like, Spirit Airlines in heaven with the Ayatollah Khomeini just like holding hands together. Two beautiful souls lost too early.

[Garrison]

He's getting on, getting on one final final flight.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

See. See you later, space cowboy.

[Justin Salhani]

God.

[Garrison]

In other wonderful news, we are pivoting from spirits to ghosts. And we are pivoting to a very interesting piece of reporting from CNN who has obtained polling data that suggests that the President's new ballroom, which has expended significant political capital from an assassination attempt to attempt to get Bill is polling in terms of, quote, Americans who support or believe in new White House ballroom is polling at 28%, which is lower than the percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts and 1% lower than the percentage of Americans who believe in telepathy.

[Karesta Davis]

Americans love believing in ghosts.

[Robert Evans]

We do, we do love believing in ghosts.

[Garrison]

Ghosting at 39%. I was expecting telepathy.

[Karesta Davis]

Usually it's higher than that.

[Garrison]

It could also be support ghosts. Right. Like that could be throwing people off.

[Karesta Davis]

The phrasing is unclear.

[James Stout]

And when we say believe in the ballroom, like, do they believe it exists? Like, this is an odd.

[Robert Evans]

I have a lot of questions of the methodology.

[James Stout]

I'm a White House denier.

[Karesta Davis]

Part of the frustration here is, I think, because this presentation is coming from noted enemy of the podcast Harry Eaton, CNN's discount version of Steve Kornacki, who is a, is a noted, noted Kalshi supporter. Yeah, I do not like this man. And I think he manipulates data for entertainment.

[Garrison]

Yeah, no, he, he, he is, he's not good. It is also, also worth noting though that like the opposition to the ballroom.

[Karesta Davis]

Oh yeah.

[Garrison]

Is also like. Yeah, it's about 28. Like everyone hates it. It's, it's somehow it's lower than his approval rating, which the stars really funny rating is like getting lower through the 30s and threatening to go below 30%. And somehow the ballroom rating is worse, which is just astonishing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I do want to talk to the people who still like him, but they draw the line that ballroom.

[Karesta Davis]

They really hate the people that support the people that support the war on Iran. But draw the line at the ballroom is a really disturbing character to me. Yeah, it's like.

[Garrison]

Well, no, it's the converted never trump Republican.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, maybe. I don't know if I agree with that entirely, but yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

Speaking of that ballroom, the Senate GOP has released a 72 billion reconciliation package to fund ICE and Border Patrol after their funding was removed from the long fought after DHS funding package which finally passed last week.

[Mick]

Yay.

[Karesta Davis]

The Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee each released proposed bills and this package can pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than 60 votes. There's also a small provision here for the ballroom, which I'll get to. But let's, let's start with talking about the. The other funding. These bills appropriate over $22.5 billion for U.S. customs and Border Protection until September 30, 2029 for hiring, paying, training, equipping agents and necessary support staff, plus other necessary expenses for mission support, operations and maintenance. I'll draw attention to an extra 3.5 billion allotted for, quote, procurement and integration of new non intrusive inspection equipment, unquote, which they specify as AI tools to combat drug smuggling at ports of entry.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they've been on that one for a while. I'm guessing it will be their, their continued facial recognition or pattern recognition stuff that's listed.

[Karesta Davis]

Also in addition to this AI drug detection inspection tool, because they also have this 3.5 billion going towards, quote, upgrades and procurement of border surveillance technologies and the deployment of technology relating to the biometric entry and exit system, unquote. $38 billion is appropriated for ICE for, quote, hiring, paying, training and equipping personnel, including officers, agents, investigators, attorneys and support staff, to carry out immigration enforcement activities, unquote. This funding also covers transportation costs, information technology, facility and fleet maintenance, and expanding coordination with local and state officials. Both the DHS and the DOJ each get a few extra billion for various uses in these bills. But at the end of the Judiciary bill, it allocates $1 billion of taxpayer dollars for security enhancements to the new White House ballroom. This money would go to Secret Service, quote, for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades, including within the perimeter fence of the White House compound, including above ground and below ground security features, unquote. Now, Trump has touted the ballroom as being entirely funded by private donors, originally costing $200 million, but ballooning to $400 million this year, which means that these security funds are greater than the total previously estimated cost of construction, $1 billion versus $400 million. Now, these security funds do have a stated limitation. Quote, none of the funds made available under this section may be used for non security elements of the East Wing modernization project, which is what they call the ballroom. But what qualifies as security or non security elements is not clear. Like, is bulletproof glass or reinforced walls a security element? Does paying contractors to make adjustments or enhancements to the building count as security elements? We don't know, because this is. This is a lot of money. And this again comes after the Trump administration's deployment of the attempted assassination at the White House dinner to further the development of the ballroom. And now this bill includes extra funding for it in the wake of that, and it's unclear how exactly that money would be used if passed.

[Garrison]

Garrison, my dear friend, you are thinking way too small in terms of what, like, the president just tried to use, just tried to use the Defense Production act to buy an airline so he could, like, run it, right? Like, they're gonna be like, yeah, I had to. I had to, like, put this gold this gold lace on like this column is actually bullet deflecting. It's gonna be like that kind of shit. That's just like the way this entire administration has operated.

[Karesta Davis]

A lot of the construction could have security elements.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Well, this is already something that's been discussed at length in the National Trust for Historical Preservation lawsuit against the construction. Right. And essentially the Trump administration has argued that the project in and of itself is an indivisible thing, that the project is a security project and you can't break out the security from the ball having.

[Karesta Davis]

Yes.

[James Stout]

And the judge has so far not agreed to that. Right. But the Trump administration has argued that like the below ground hospital room, security infrastructure, bomb shelter, et cetera, and the above ground party having room are like all one big security project.

[Karesta Davis]

It should be one secured zone.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And that like you cannot. Because, because the, in this case the discussion is about the injunction. Right. Which paused construction. Yeah. So they're saying we can't do the security construct only we have to do all the construction because it's a contiguous hole. So like that seems like it's relevant to this.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah. We will keep, keep, keep checking in on these reconciliation bills as they, as they move through Congress. But first we will go on this ad break and then discuss Iran and some of the Tuesday elections.

[James Stout]

We are back, back in the Strait of Hormuz, a place where we spend a lot of time these last few weeks. Yep. So let's, I guess let's try and take this in kind of chronological order because it's probably the best way to explain it. Iran has launched cruise missiles and drones at United States ships in the Strait of Hormuz. For a while there, Iranian news sources were claiming that they had hit or turned around US Vessels. This does not appear to be true. CENTCOM certainly denied it, although some news networks did run with this. Apparently based on what the Iranian government aligned media were claiming, it seems that two United States destroyers did transit the strait and they did receive various types of incoming fire from small boats from, from missiles and from drones. Following that, a Maersk vessel sailed through the strait. The Alliance Fairfax is United States flagged vessel and it received assistance from the US Military. And then the motor tanker Anthem of Crowley Maritime also sailed through. Trump has called this assistance, quote, Project Freedom true thing. For the good of Iran, the Middle east and the United States. We have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways so that they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are ships from areas of the world that are not in any way involved with that which is currently taking place in the Middle East. I have told my representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their ships and crews safely out the strait. Exactly what this meant was unclear when the President first truthed it. But what I've seen reported now is that the United States advised them on safe routes and then provided, in at least two cases, security detachment to go on board the ships. Despite this, the UK MTO still has reports of attacks and on Tuesday night it reported that one vessel had been hit. And so it does not seem that there has been like a universal ability to allow vessels to move through the strait. The United States also claims to have sunk seven small Iranian vessels in the strait. Let's hear from Marco Rubio where he's explaining a little bit about why the US Is doing this.

[Marco Rubio]

And we're going to do it as a favor to the world. Understand this. This is a favor to the world because it's their ships that are stranded. It's their fuel supplies that are stranded, by the way. It's their humanitarian. There's humanitarian aid destined for different countries in the world that's stranded in the Persian Gulf right now. It's the fertilizer that they need for their food and crops that's stranded in the Persian. Not our fertilizer, their fertilizer. So we want to be helpful and that's why the President stepped forward, because we're the only ones that can, frankly, we're the only ones that can.

[James Stout]

So the United States, they're wanting to be helpful, help the world with their humanitarian aid. On Tuesday, the President then truthed, based on the request of Pakistan and other countries, the tremendous military success that we have had during the campaign against the country of Iran, and additionally the fact that great progress has been made toward a complete and final agreement with representatives of Iran. We have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in place and will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom, the movement of ships with straight to four moves will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the agreement can be finalized and signed. So that was the 24 hour duration of Project Freedom.

[Garrison]

Rest in peace.

[James Stout]

Then this morning the President truthed, quote, assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a big assumption, the already legendary epic fury will be at an end. If they don't agree, the bombing starts and it will be sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. President DONALD J. Trump the parties According to Axios, not an outlet known for its accurate reporting, appear to be closing in on a 14 point deal. The reporting suggests that Iran has committed to a moratorium of 15 to 20 years on uranium enrichment. The United States would then lift sanctions and release frozen Iranian funds, which is a massive concession. And both sides would lift restrictions on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. However, hours after this was reported, a United States aircraft shut the rudder out of an Iranian motor tanker called the Hasna. They say they warned the ship which was headed towards Iranian ports. It was empty at the time it was heading towards Iranian ports. Right. Then we saw reporting from Analges zero reporter Ali Hashem that instructions have been sent to boats crossing the strait. These instructions include, quote, priority of payment in Iran's national currency, issuance of guarantees in Iranian banks. 3. If a country caused damage to Iran in the recent war, it must first pay the damages before obtaining a passage permit. Countries that have sanctioned Iran or blocked Iran's money are not allowed passage. Four, the correct title, Persian Gulf must be written on all documents. 5. Non compliance with the above result in seizure and a fine of 20% of the cargo value. So it is chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, Right? Like we have at once Trump saying the US would escort ship through and then pausing the escorting of ships through and then the Iranians shooting at a commercial ship and then the United States shooting at an Iranian ship. The Iranians asking for money, this time not in cryptocurrency, and the United States saying that we are about to reach a peace agreement. This of course provides a lot of certainty which markets love. And I'm sure this will result in the gas price not being nearly $7 a gallon here pretty soon. I also want to briefly talk about suicide dolphins. In a press conference, Iranian suicide dolphins were raised. Here's the question being asked.

[Molly Conger]

Can you kind of clarify these reports of kamikaze dolphins that we've heard about?

[Mick]

I haven't heard the kamikaze dolphin thing.

[Garrison]

It's like sharks with laser beams, right?

[Robert Evans]

No, it's not.

[James Stout]

And then if you could play hegseth response as well.

[Garrison]

And I can't confirm or deny whether

[Molly Conger]

we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don't ultimately.

[Karesta Davis]

Well, it's good. We're ultimate on that.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So hexa is pretty definitive on Iran having kamikaze dolphins. It did seem kind of weird that people reporting on this weren't aware the United States has had a marine mammal program. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you can see them in San Diego, they are not, to my knowledge, like, used in a kamikaze capacity. No, mainly because it's just cheaper to do that with drones.

[Garrison]

The US military did briefly experiment with bats, which turned out to be a terrible idea because the bats would just fly back to you.

[James Stout]

The boomerang bat.

[Garrison]

This nearly wiped out a huge portion of US Central Command.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison]

Great stuff.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that Iran doesn't have suicide dolphins either, but people are asking that again, it is just cheaper.

[Karesta Davis]

Unaliving dolphins.

[James Stout]

Unaliving dolphins, yeah, sure, one way dolphins. How we refer to them if they were munitions, but it just doesn't.

[Garrison]

Is it a suicide dolphin? If you're pressing the buttons, though, like, aren't you just blowing up a dolphin?

[James Stout]

No, it's not. It's a murdered dolphin.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah, it's really unfair to the dolphin.

[Garrison]

It's not a kamikaze dolphin either.

[James Stout]

It hasn't made that commitment. Whitman. It's just a dolphin.

[Robert Evans]

It's a homicide dolphin. Let's be clear.

[Karesta Davis]

I can't believe that those reporters would mess up such a basic fact.

[James Stout]

Yeah, well. Yeah, yeah. The people on the suicide dolphin beat really need to get Back to journalism 101. Shocked. All right. Talking about the ocean, Marco Rubio has visited southcom and posed for a photo with General Francis L. Donovan in front of what is very obviously a large map of Cuba.

[Robert Evans]

Hell, yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

I think what you meant to say is DJ Mark Rubio. But continue.

[James Stout]

Yeah, the map is titled Cuba Reference Map.

[Karesta Davis]

That's not good.

[James Stout]

Yeah, like, in terms of, like, subtle signaling, that's not good. Rubio also claimed at a press conference that Operation Epic Fury was over.

[Marco Rubio]

The Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. I'm not going to. You know, we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the President would prefer is a deal. He would prefer to sit down, work out a memorandum of understanding for future negotiations that touches on all the key topics that have to be addressed. A full opening of the straits so the world can get back to normal. And he preferred that be negotiated through the route that Steve and Jared have been working and that all of us have been supporting. That's the route he prefers. That is so far, not the route that Iran has chosen. And so the result has been that the United States has to. To do something about the fact that we're the only nation on earth that can do anything to open up a lane within the Straits of Hormuz to get product and to rescue These people that are trapped in there. And that's what we're undergoing now.

[James Stout]

So that's the end of Operation Epic Fury and the beginning of the United States doing something to open up a lane in the Strait of Hormuz.

[Molly Conger]

Great.

[Robert Evans]

Operation Unclear,

[James Stout]

the goals of which are unclear, but apparently the first one succeeded. So congrats to all the Epic Fury people listening.

[Robert Evans]

Operation is going great. Things are really good. And we're just minutes away from figuring out what we're doing next.

[Karesta Davis]

Really thrilled for when we invade Cuba. And it's like Operation Bacon. Awesome sauce.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right. Like Epic Bacon is the.

[Karesta Davis]

Oh, boy. Before we close, there's a few, a few shorter things that we should mention. And let's first by turning to, as Vivek Ramaswamy has said, not the best state in the nation, Ohio, which.

[Robert Evans]

Not the best state in the nation,

[Karesta Davis]

which for some reason, Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP candidate for governor as of Tuesday.

[Robert Evans]

He has deep connections to Ohio, where he's lived for how long, Garrison?

[James Stout]

I'm sure just long enough to be

[Robert Evans]

on the ballot, like a few days,

[James Stout]

a week or two.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah, it's a, it's a good state. I can't say it's the best state. Incredible stuff.

[Robert Evans]

High praise. High accurate praise.

[Karesta Davis]

We will be following this because if Vivek loses to the Democrat, that would be an interesting indicator not just of support for Trump and maga, but also how annoying Vivek Ramaswamy is.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

But Robert, there's someone that you would like to briefly mention as well.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. So in addition to Vivek doing so well last night, another candidate who did pretty well is Brian Poindexter. Brian is running for. Well, was running and won the Democratic primary for the Ohio 7th district seat. And he will be running against the Republican incumbent in that district, a guy named Max Miller, who initially ran for and. And won his way into Congress in 20. He was a former aide of President Trump and a bit of a sleazeback, if I'm going to be honest with you. If I'm going to talk about this guy. I mean, first off, he's definitely a Nepo baby. His grandfather was Samuel H. Miller, who is the former co chair emeritus of Forest City Realty Trust, which was acquired in this big real estate deal in 2018 for $6.8 billion. So he is like a kid who came from a family with a shitload of real estate money and wound up working in the Trump White House and then got into Congress where He has a 14% lifetime voting score from the AFL CIO when he was initially running for Congress. And he was asked, because I found a fun interview with him where he was asked to give, like, his elevator pitch. And I just have to read this was Max Miller's elevator pitch for why he should be in Congress. So with my background in the Marine Corps, in the infantry, and six years on the reserve side and the work, and working for Senator Rubio and my time in the White House, I've been in these meetings with the President and other cabinet secretaries. And the reason why I'm running for office is because of what I saw when I was there. We send people to Washington, D.C. to represent our values. And for the most part, what we see as regular Americans is they don't. They're so out of touch with reality. And for the most part, these individuals only go there to benefit their own way of life and they lose sight of everyone that they were sent there to protect. And I saw that throughout the four years that I was in Washington D.C. in the White House, and it was extremely eye opening.

[Karesta Davis]

And that's why I'm running to be the Republican representative.

[Robert Evans]

You are asked, okay, what's your elevator pitch? Why should you be in office? That's an amazingly incoherent bit of babble. So he was asked like, why do you think you're the right guy? And he was like, well, I've been in North Korea, I've been in Iraq, bouncing between Al Assad and Erbil. I was in Afghanistan negotiating with foreign delegations on behalf of the President. And I've been in the pressure cooker. And again, he was like a Trump aide. Like, he's like, followed around in meetings where more important people were making decisions. Like, that was.

[Karesta Davis]

He was like a coffee boy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, pressure cooker again, walking around with the President not making any decisions. He was like a Diet Coke boy more than anything.

[Karesta Davis]

Like, those were bad negotiations. Yes, bad at negotiations.

[Robert Evans]

This interviewer finally gets him to pin down and like, what is the issue you most want to deal with? And he's like, top issue, hands down, down is inflation and the economy. And like, he talks about how, like, there's 70, there's $67 billion worth of credit card debt that Americans are. And that's his top issue. So what does he do once he's in power? First off, none of the bills that he co sponsored in his first year in Congress had anything to do. All I made it through is like the first year and a half, but none of those had anything to do with credit card bills, inflation or the economy. And the main bill that he is like, like can attach his name to, that he co authored was the full House act and unfair taxation of gambling losses. So not a great guy. So anyway, while I'm going through this interview, there's a moment here where the interviewer is like, hey, so your girlfriend recently made some allegations against you.

[James Stout]

How did we, how did we see that one coming?

[Robert Evans]

So here's what Taylor Popliar, that's the journalist here, says your ex girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham, who also worked in the Trump White House with you, she has alleged some pretty serious things related to you, that you slapped her, pushed her, threw a dog toy at her, cheated on her. And I know you've denied all that. You filed a lawsuit at one point. Do you still deny all that? And his response was, to be clear, we're handling this in litigation. And her motion to dismiss was denied. So the case will be heard now. So we've already won our first battle in that hurdle. And to be clear, she herself has never articulated the allegations. It was all hearsay by second and third party sources. Anyway, that's not the only scandal this guy has on his record. I just briefly looked into him and I found not only those allegations from this former staffer, that he had become violent in the White House and that the President was aware of that and was like, that's kind of fucked up. Like he and the President and Melania were both saw him become violent and were like, oh God, that's kind of fuck yeah. But didn't actually do anything. Like it's really messed up. Like the allegations here at least. Really messed up.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That's not the only person who has made allegations against him. He, in his like, messy divorce, his ex wife has alleged that he has gotten violent with her. He has countered and said that she got violent with him. But then his representatives had to admit that their client fabricated testimony in court documents in order to obtain a protection order against his ex wife. So this dude is a real piece of shit, like Max Miller, bonafide trash person. And currently he's up by about five points in this election in Ohio, seven against Poindexter. So it's very unclear how are things going to actually go. But I just looking at how sleazy this guy is and how soft his actual base of organic support seems to be, this is one where I kind of see suspect maybe once you actually get a decent candidate. And Poindexter really seems to be like, he's a guy who spent his pretty much his entire year as like a union metal worker and is a reasonably good campaigner. He's been a five term councilman in Brook Park, Ohio. Like he's, he's someone who like, this isn't a dilettante in politics but also has like a real life. I don't know. I could see this being something that like maybe the Democrats are actually able to flip here. If Poindexter proves to be as good at campaigning in like an open election as he was in the primary, I, I'm kind of bullish about him. Anyway, it's something to watch.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah. Last Big Story As a part of the ongoing lawsuit, Louisiana v. FDA on May 1, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary ban on the remote prescription and mailed delivery of the abortion pill mifepristone. Last October, Louisiana brought this case against the FDA for a Biden era regulation allowing telehealth prescription and mail order access to the drug, which Louisiana claimed was unsafe and facilitated illegal abortions in the state. A district court had previously agreed that Louisiana was likely to win its challenge, but it did not grant the state's requested stay on the regulation. In fact, the lower court put the entire case on hold because last year RFK Jr announced an FDA review of mifepristone and its, quote, unquote, reported adverse effects, with RFK Jr specifically mentioning in his announcement that, quote, the Biden administration removed mithapristone's in person dispensing rule without studying the safety risks, unquote. Despite the case being put on hold Due to the FDA's review, Louisiana appealed the lower court's decision to decline a stay on mail order mifepristone. And last week, the Fifth Circuit ruled in the state's favor, temporarily reinstating this in person dispensing requirement while the case continues. But then on May 4, the Supreme Court restored remote prescription and mail order access to mithapristone by blocking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. But this stay by the Supreme Court is only in effect until Monday, May 11. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will consider responses from both parties and then issue a subsequent ruling. The majority of abortions in the United States are now administered through abortion medication like mifepristone. And according to a study published in 2025, 1/4 of abortions are now done through telehealth services, double the rate from before the overturning of Dobbs. Other Republican states, like Texas and Missouri, are also engaged in other efforts to restrict access to mithopro stone nationwide. Yeah, we'll keep up on this as the supreme court issues a more definitive ruling in the near future. The last thing I want to mention very ever so briefly. Big news in mark's land. Biggest update in Marxism in a while.

[James Stout]

Oh, boy.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, good. New Marxism just dropped.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

On Monday, the secret Service shot a 45 year old man from Texas named Michael Marks, spelled the same way, who was. Who was allegedly concealed carrying a Sig. P65A.

[Robert Evans]

P365. Okay.

[Karesta Davis]

P365. Well, between the White House and Washington Monument, Secret service say they tried to approach the man after noticing the imprint of a gun. The man then fled and allegedly fired towards the agents who returned fire, wounding Mr. Marks. While in the ambulance, he allegedly said, quote, the white House and kill me, kill me, kill me, unquote.

[James Stout]

Oh, dear.

[Karesta Davis]

A 15 year old was also shot during this incident. And at first secret service claimed that the armed man man shot the kid. But they later reneged that claim though after Marx was charged, u. S. Attorney Janine Pirro repeated this claim, saying that he, quote, shot an innocent bystander who was simply crossing the street with his family, unquote. After the shooting, Chris McDonald, a congressional affairs official with secret service, told congress that there was no indication that the man was targeting anyone inside the executive complex, writing, quote, president Trump was not in any danger.

[Robert Evans]

So we don't actually know what happened here. Like, was this just some weirdo concealed carrying, presumably illegally, right?

[Karesta Davis]

Illegally, yes.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Just because he's. Does that or was he. Did he have. Was he trying to commit?

[James Stout]

Doesn't.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this doesn't make much sense right now.

[Karesta Davis]

Yeah, no, it's unclear what his intention was at this point. But then after being shot by secret service, that's when he expressed just the White House, kill me, kill me, kill me. But there's no indication he was targeting any elected official.

[James Stout]

Sure.

[Karesta Davis]

But did allegedly shoot at secret service as they tried to approach and chase him.

[Robert Evans]

Interesting. Yeah, yeah.

[Karesta Davis]

Anyway, cool.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, it's bad, but you know.

[Justin Salhani]

Yeah, that, that's it for us here.

[Karesta Davis]

Add it could happen here. Yeah, we reported the news.

[Robert Evans]

Great.

[Garrison]

Put a trans girl on your couch.

[James Stout]

If you want to send us an email specifically pertaining to tips about news, you can do so. Coolzonetipsroton me.

[Mick]

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.

[Mick]

It could happen.

[Molly Conger]

Here is a production of cool zone media. For more podcasts from cool zone media, visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for it could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Danielle Kurt]

Guaranteed Human.