← It Could Happen Here
It Could Happen Here
Executive Disorder: Bovino Calls It Quits, Prairieland Trial, War on Iran Continues
01:04:47
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- [00:00]
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- [02:44]
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media.
- [02:50]
Robert Evans
Welcome to Executive Dysphonia, a podcast about people who are in executive positions but hear well. Right. Isn't that what the show we're doing is?
- [03:00]
Garrison Davis
This is. It could happen here. Executive disorder.
- [03:03]
Robert Evans
Oh, I guess I have Executive Dysphonia,
- [03:05]
Garrison Davis
our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. That was Robert Evans, also joined by James Stout with a segment later on by Mia Wong. This episode we are covering the week of March 11 to March 18.
- [03:23]
Robert Evans
And I was wrong about Dysphonia. That's just hoarseness.
- [03:25]
James Stout
Okay, well, yeah, there probably are people in the executive branch who are. Who are hoarse.
- [03:29]
Robert Evans
Yeah, yeah. Horse. And wearing shoes too big for their feet.
- [03:33]
Garrison Davis
We have to start by issuing an apology.
- [03:37]
Robert Evans
That's right. A serious apology.
- [03:39]
Garrison Davis
We have both failed you, the audience and ourselves as an outlet by neglecting to cover a story the way that it deserved to. Last week, we reported on the Buffalo Wild Wings Espresso Protini.
- [03:56]
Robert Evans
That's right.
- [03:57]
Garrison Davis
And promised an in depth report on the drink upon delivery this past weekend, which was National Espresso Martini Day. And there I was, Sunday, March 15, on my phone, googling to find the closest Buffalo Wild Wings when I discovered that the Espresso Protini was in fact, only to be served in five cities.
- [04:23]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [04:24]
Garrison Davis
In Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, Texas, and the Sea World location in Orlando, Florida. And I failed myself and you by not traveling specifically to the SeaWorld location to try the espresso protein, which would have been the correct choice.
- [04:41]
Robert Evans
That would have been the right move
- [04:42]
Garrison Davis
to deliver the sort of coverage that you expect out of us and deserve. It's going to take a while to win your trust back. And we understand this, and we are hoping to be able to demonstrate that to you in the coming weeks.
- [04:56]
Robert Evans
Gar, this isn't all your fault. You know, I knew years ago that we should have moved the entire production team to the Buffalo wild wings at SeaWorld. This was a foreseeable mistake. You know, Sophie and I are to blame for this as well, is all I'm saying. And we apologize.
- [05:14]
James Stout
Then, obviously, as a British person, the. The SeaWorld location in Orlando, Florida, is our spiritual home. So that really should have been at the very center of my beat. Yeah.
- [05:23]
Robert Evans
Just imagine how much more sunburnt you could be every single day we record this podcast, James.
- [05:28]
James Stout
Yeah, you could be. I'm wearing a red shirt right now for listeners, but you could probably never tell if I lived in Orlando, Florida, if I was wearing a red shirt or just had excessive sunburns. Yeah, yeah.
- [05:39]
Garrison Davis
Let's go over some small news items. Meta is shutting VR metaverse Horizon Worlds on June 15th, and they're just stuck
- [05:52]
Robert Evans
being named Meta, huh?
- [05:54]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [05:56]
Garrison Davis
The Horizon Worlds will continue to exist as a mobile phone only application.
- [06:00]
Robert Evans
That's funny.
- [06:01]
Garrison Davis
Our Metaverse portion is going to be sunsetted, like I said, on the 15th of June.
- [06:07]
James Stout
I'll be on there on June 14, right up till midnight, just enjoying my final moments of beauty. Is there a SeaWorld Orlando that I can visit in the Metaverse?
- [06:17]
Robert Evans
I bet there was.
- [06:19]
Garrison Davis
Too soon, James. Too soon. In the 9th district of Illinois, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss beat Kat Abu Ghazali and Laura Fine. Bis won over 35,000 votes. Kat won over 31,000 votes and fined. The APAC backed candidate got 24,000.
- [06:38]
Robert Evans
Yeah, you know, it's. It was a. It was a really impressive first campaign from Kat, who's a friend of the show. We're proud of, you know, her and her whole team and. Yeah, that's politics, baby. Onto the next thing, I guess.
- [06:54]
Garrison Davis
Columbia student Lika Cordilla was released from ICE custody after over a year in detention after government lawyers declined to appeal a judge's third release order. Her name was one of the four on the list that Mehrmani gave to Trump during their last meeting.
- [07:12]
James Stout
Cuba is facing another blackout amidst its aging infrastructure and a United States enforced blockade on the country. It has been running largely on thermoelectric solar and natural gas sources. Electricity. As imports from Venezuela have ceased, the United States has threatened to tariff anybody sending oil to Cuba. But on Sunday, Claudio Scheinenbaum, president of Mexico, did say that Mexico would continue to send aid to the Caribbean nation. Also checking in on the Shield of the Americas, which we mentioned last week. Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, has responded to what appears to be an Ecuadorian bomb falling on Colombia. So we are a couple of weeks into this and Ecuador's already bombed the wrong country.
- [07:57]
Robert Evans
Oh, good.
- [07:59]
James Stout
Not great. It was in an area very close to the border. But Petro Posted today on x.com the Everything website, I'm blighted by the fact that Grok thinks it can speak Spanish better than me, so I'm just going to read whatever this shitty translation is, I suppose. It has been confirmed that the bomb in Colombian territory belongs to the Ecuadorian army. The investigation continues and a diplomatic protest note will be sent. So, yeah, that's Ecuador playing with fire there.
- [08:25]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [08:26]
James Stout
Finally, PBS is reporting today that an offer is on the table from the White House to end the shutdown. I'm just going to read, I guess, the. The terms that have been offered by the White House. So the first one would be the expansion in the use of body worn cameras by DHS law enforcement. And they will increase congressional oversight by requiring retention of body worn camera footage. The next one, they would limit civil immigration enforcement at certain sensitive locations. They go on to say sensitive locations include places like hospitals and schools, which is current prison practice. There were other places that were considered sensitive locations previously known to be churches. Right. But that is not a definitive list and I don't. Does it mean they will return to the old sensitive places doctrine? It's a little unclear.
- [09:20]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
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James Stout
They talk again about increasing congressional oversight, particularly by creating mandatory review and compliance reporting from the inspector general of dhs. They talk about visible officer identification. And the administration would require officers to clearly verbalize their agency and identification upon request when engaging in official duties. And then finally, they will adhere to existing practices of law and practice of not deporting US Citizens. And then they go on to say they'd only detain them if a crime has taken place. Some of these appear like concessions, but they kind of only matter in so much as you trust them. But they've always got like. Even the sensitive places has an exemption for like a. A terrorist threat. Given that, for instance, it was suggested very shortly after Alex Pretty was killed that he was a terrorist attempting to kill officers, et cetera. Like, like, yeah, none of this matters. And like, it's still going to be. This is. We are policing ourselves. Right. So perhaps we should move on. Talking of dhs, let's talk about friend of the podcast, Gregory Bevino.
- [10:28]
Robert Evans
Oh, Greg. Oh, Greg. Greggy B. Yeah.
- [10:34]
James Stout
He's been a frequent Cool Zone all across the Cool Zone universe.
- [10:38]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [10:38]
Robert Evans
Friend of the pod. But nothing gold can stay, you know.
- [10:43]
James Stout
Nope. And sadly, Greg cannot stay at his job.
- [10:49]
Robert Evans
To be fair, even before Trump took office, he was talking about retiring in like two years. Like, he's been talking about that for a while. So it's not. This is not like, super weird, but the timing of it is earlier than he'd previously talked about wanting to do. And I think Pretty ended undeniably connected to, you know, him being made the sacrificial pawn of the regime.
- [11:10]
James Stout
Yeah. And the fact that he, he, for Instance said shortly after Alex Pretty was killed by CBP agents, Pretty was planning to, quote, massacre agents. We have seen no evidence that that is true.
- [11:22]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [11:23]
James Stout
He's currently the chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector. Previously, he was CBP's commander at large of its Interior enforcement operations, but he was removed from that job in late January. He gave an exclusive interview to Breitbart News. Breitbart have a former Border Patrol agent who writes for them. So I'm guessing that's why saying, quote, watching these agents out there giving it their all in some of the most dangerous of environments we have ever faced was humbling. Cool. He will be retiring just a few days after his 56th birthday. The agency's mandatory requirement age is 57. And I've seen a lot of places citing that that applies to officers hired after the middle of 2008. Pavino was hired in 1996, but at 55 with 30 years of service, he would be eligible for optional retirement under the fers. He hasn't reached the minimum retirement age, so I think that would impact the amount of retirement he gets.
- [12:23]
Garrison Davis
Oh, interesting.
- [12:24]
Robert Evans
Mm. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It usually does. Unless they make a special exception for him or something.
- [12:29]
James Stout
Yeah. Like, because previously. Right. Like, previously, Border Patrol agents were essentially hired as, like, federal employees or civil servants. It was only after 2008 that their hiring, I guess, came slightly more in line with people in the armed services, for instance, or police. And so, like, under first, you'd have to do the 30 years plus reach the minimum retirement age versus under the newer system, when they have a mandatory retirement of 57. I do feel like this, plus gnome, plus the stuff that you've mentioned up top, Garrison, it suggests that the tides are perhaps turning. Plus this. We've seen Republican sheriffs in Florida opposing mass deportations this week. Right. We've seen Republican Congress people making public statements about this. We are probably beginning to see the beginning, beginning of the end of the right being in lockstep behind mass deportations. I don't think that means we're going to see the end of ICE raids. I don't think that means we're going to see the end.
- [13:34]
Garrison Davis
No.
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James Stout
Of massive detention and of massive deportation. But it is clearly, as we are looking towards the midterms, something that some parts of the Republican Party want to distance themselves from.
- [13:49]
Garrison Davis
And there's movement on this, and it shows that these forces are fluid and can actually be changed through taking, like, agency, like, through. Through. Through imparting yourself upon the world. Like, what. What's happened in Minneapolis for those, for those weeks to, to, you know, months showed that the world actually can be changed through, through mass action.
- [14:13]
James Stout
Yeah, like, like Border Patrol and ICE went to Minneapolis to fight and it seems like they came off worse. Right. Like they were not able to subdue the city in a meaningful way and it has resulted in most of their leadership being removed. Yeah.
- [14:30]
Robert Evans
Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about something that's happened this week that I kind of. I felt a deep sense of foreboding reading this article. It's going to sound like this is another piece of kind of Israel, Palestine reporting, but it's really not. I mean, that's where this particular story is set. But we're talking about something that's going to be an increasing factor in the lives of everyone gathering news and everybody consuming it, which is poly Market our gamble on everything happening in the world app that apparently the world needed for some reason. So on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, as you know, hostilities continued between Iran and Israel. A ballistic missile got past Israel's defense systems and landed in near the city of Beit Shemesh just outside of Jerusalem. It did not land near anything, but it looks like trees. You can see there was video captured of the explosion and posted by a journalist named Emmanuel Fabian.
- [15:29]
James Stout
Oh, yeah.
- [15:30]
Robert Evans
Who wrote with his post. No injuries are reported in Iran's latest ballistic missile attack on Israel the fourth today. One missile struck an open area just outside Beit Shemesh. First responders say, and footage shows. And the footage does indeed show a ballistic missile impact. There is an explosion. This does not look like fragments of a missile that were taken down. You know, based on what I know of ballistic missiles and based on what people who I know know more than me know about ballistic missiles. This was an intact ballistic missile hitting. It didn't hit a target. That was valuable. It didn't hurt anybody, as far as we're aware. But it, it got through the missile shield and it hit in Israeli territory. Normally you would wonder, like, why does this.
- [16:09]
James Stout
This.
- [16:10]
Robert Evans
I mean, this matters, you know, if you're a local reporter, obviously, but why would anyone else care? Well, the day after Manny Fabian posted this video and this brief bit of reporting, he started receiving emails. Weir, mostly in Hebrew and like, here's one example from a Times of Israel piece that he wrote. Sorry for reaching out without a prior introduction, but I assume we will get to know each other. Well, I have an urgent request regarding the accuracy of your report on the missile attack on March 10th. I would really appreciate a response if possible. There is an inaccurate report from you about the missile attack on March 10, and it's causing a chain of errors. If you could reply to me tonight, you would be helping me, many others, and of course, the state of Israel. And along the way, you would gain a good source. So that's really weird.
- [16:52]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [16:53]
Robert Evans
The fuck is going. If you're this guy, all you did was post, oh, hey, a rocket hit, but it didn't hit anything. Yeah, like, not a big deal, you know, given the state of the war. And he starts getting spammed with a bunch of similar emails like this. And in addition to that, he's got people, like, on Twitter responding, saying, like, hey, one person responded to one of his posts saying, there are people saying they've received word from you that the missile strike in beit Shemesh on March 10 was, in fact intercepted. Is this true? Or did no such interaction occur? So people start posting and sharing in other places that, oh, I reached out to this guy and he said the missile was actually intercepted and it was just a piece that fell. And he reported it wrong, which is not at all what this guy had reported. So he's really confused. He has, like, why are all these people bugging me about this very minor story? And why are they spreading disinformation, claiming that I debunked my own story when I didn't? Well, the obvious reason why is that people that day on Polymarket on March 10 were gambling on when Iran would strike Israel. There were $14 million wagered that there would be a strike on March 10th. The rules of the bet per polymarket stated this market will resolve to yes if Iran initiates a drone, missile or airstrike on Israel soil on the listed date in Israel time GMT +2. Otherwise, this market will resolve. No. Missiles or drones that are intercepted will not be sufficient for a yes resolution. Right. So that's why $14 million was in the air.
- [18:22]
Garrison Davis
It's people who had a lot of money on this event. Yeah.
- [18:25]
Robert Evans
Yes. On specifically. And these people don't care if anyone was right. They don't care that a missile was fired. All they care about is whether or not the missile made it through the defense network intact. Right. Because these were people who, I guess, had bet against that because they didn't want that to be the case. Right, right. He initially ignores these weird emails, and they start getting more and more aggressive, and people are like, when are you gonna update the article, Daniel? Daniel, update the article. You have to update the article. You know, you were wrong. And after the Weekend, he starts getting messages like, you have exactly half an hour to correct your attempted influence. Despite the fact that you received countless inquiries, you insist on leaving it this way. If you do not correct this by 1am Israel time today, March 15, you are bringing upon yourself damage you have never imagined you would suffer.
- [19:11]
James Stout
That's a Reddit user if I've ever seen one.
- [19:13]
Robert Evans
And like, there's a bunch of shit like this. Someone said, after you make us lose $900,000, we will invest no less than that to finish you.
- [19:23]
Garrison Davis
Like, this is insane.
- [19:26]
Robert Evans
Yeah, but it's inevitable, if you think about how polymarket works, right? That once people are putting fortunes on the line around stupid shit, you know, like betting whether or not, oh, does the missile make it through or not on this? That is dumb, right? Missiles and stuff, that's very serious to a lot of people who live in the region. But betting on it this way is fundamentally stupid. Yeah, but it's all polymarkets, all stupid bets like this. And they are going to increasingly come after people once they realize, hey, maybe I can actually change and get a winning resolution or whatever if I harass the journalist on the ground. There's a vested financial interest in going after people over stuff like this. So this is. This particular story is happening in Israel involves the reporting of an Israeli journalist. This isn't gonna stay limited to that conflict or to that region of the world. This is going to be things that journalists all over the world increasingly deal with. This is an important story and one that I think says some pretty bleak shit about the immediate future of news gathering in this country. Yeah, so that's cool. On the upside, polymarket is about to open a splashy new bar in Washington D.C. called the Situation Room. And I. I found Polymarket made a post on their substack in which they announced this saying, the world's first bar dedicated to monitoring the situation. Imagine a sports bar, but just for situation monitoring. Live X feeds, flight radar, Bloomberg terminals and Polymarket screens. Grand opening this Friday. Imagine the first response.
- [20:57]
Garrison Davis
This is every bar in Washington, D.C.
- [20:59]
Robert Evans
the first response is just someone saying, drink your way through World War Three. Which is also every bar in Washington D.C. yeah. Someone else says, this seems awful, but I guess that perfectly aligns with your company in general.
- [21:13]
James Stout
Good on that person. Cool. Yeah.
- [21:18]
Robert Evans
So I love polymarket. It's good that this is what we've turned society into. No notes.
- [21:24]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I would just add this to the list of things that prediction markets will destabilize geopolitically.
- [21:29]
James Stout
Yeah, great.
- [21:30]
Garrison Davis
Not just the insider trading problems of people with beforehand knowledge of military strikes or certain world events, but trying to influence the reporting of events to sway polymarket or Kalshi's decision on whether the market was correctly fulfilled. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
- [21:48]
Robert Evans
Yep. Interesting. And yeah, foreboding.
- [21:52]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [21:53]
Robert Evans
Anyway, so yeah, here's some ads you filthy animals.
- [22:04]
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- [22:35]
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support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Flag Football
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- [24:42]
Robert Evans
We're back. Here's some James, you filthy animals.
- [24:46]
James Stout
Yeah, lucky you. First, I want to talk about the Supreme Court and then I'm going to throw to Garrison to talk about some other court stuff. This is our Court segment. The Supreme Court has scheduled cases for the tps, that's temporary protected status pertaining to Syria and Haiti for April, meaning these statuses will remain in effect likely until the end of June or July. The justices didn't alter the position of the New York and D.C. judges who indefinitely postponed the termination of the TPS. The Trump administration has hustled really hard to get this to the Supreme Court. They first tried to get the Supreme Court to let them remove people while it waited to weigh in on the case. And then they tried to get the Supreme Court to take the case before the 2nd Circuit had a chance to weigh in. This is called certiori before judgment. It's how the case got to the Supreme Court. This, I should note, is different from the Venezuela case where the TPS was terminated because the numbers are much smaller and therefore it's going to be HARDER for the U.S. government to show harm.
- [25:45]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [25:46]
James Stout
It pertains to 30, 40,000 people, if I had to guess. By contrast, it's very easy for people to show potential harm in Haiti or Syria.
- [25:57]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [25:58]
James Stout
Just to give an example of Syria, there has been violence directed against Ales, Druze people and Kurds, largely unimpeded by the government since Assad fell last year. And Syria remains on the State Department's Do Not Travel list. Yeah, you had some stuff about Prairieland. Do you want to share? And I.
- [26:18]
Garrison Davis
Yes, let's talk about the Prairieland trial.
- [26:21]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [26:21]
Garrison Davis
We're going to be doing a more in depth episode next week, the start of next week on Prairie Land. It's about double the length of today's summary. But I do want to go over some essential information about the trial that concluded last week. So. Yep, last week the Trump administration got their first conviction in an antifa terrorism case. On Friday, March 13, a people were convicted by a federal grand jury on charges of riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and providing material support to terrorists. One of the defendants was convicted of attempted murder of a police officer, and another person was convicted on two accounts of concealing documents, bringing the total number of federal defendants to nine. This case stemmed from what the defense argued was a noise demonstration protest outside of an ICE detention facility in Prairieland, Texas last summer. On the night of July 4, after protesters threw fireworks and vandalized property, DHS personnel called local police for assistance. One officer arrived, drew his handgun and yelled stop. At a person in all black clothes who was running away. One of the defendants, named Benjamin Song, then yelled, get to the rifles. Before firing toward the officer with an AR15 hitting him in the neck. A week into the trial, U.S. district Court Judge Mark Pittman ruled that defense attorneys could not argue that the defendants, including the accused shooter, were acting in self defense or the defense of others against unlawful force just because the officer had already drawn and pointed his handgun before Song fired. Prosecutors compared this to Waco. Judge Pittman ruled that the officer drawing and pointing his handgun at a fleeing suspect is not, quote unquote, excessive as a matter of law because the officer did not actually use deadly force or shoot first. And he listed three federal precedents for this. Uh huh. Let's get into this action and the role of Antifa in the court case. This action was originally planned on the encrypted messaging app signal and via an in person quote unquote gear check meeting. The day before the action, Benjamin Song advertised the action in a larger group chat of dozens of quote unquote trusted individuals. When asked about bringing firearms during action planning, Song repeatedly stated, I'm not going back to prison, I'm not getting arrested, I'm bringing guns, unquote. Throughout the trial, Song was characterized as the de facto leader of the antifa cell or affinity group, but he did not have a close relationship with all fellow defendants. At the gerecheck meeting on July 3, Song proposed to free detainees using quote unquote suppressive fire. But this idea was shot down by other meeting attendees. Some of the defendants attended a daytime protest outside the ICE facility earlier that day on July 4, after which they reported back to fellow defendants details regarding the facility's security prior to the nighttime action. Two defendants were neither in these planning chats nor attended the gear check meeting, but all defendants that attended the Protest carpooled in two vehicles, bringing a total of 11 firearms, body armor, ifax and all wore black block, which were all presented as government evidence exhibits. The government argued that the defendants were members of a quote unquote North Texas antifa cell. The indictment describes antifa as a, quote, militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups, primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities and the system of law, unquote. Prosecution argued that this cell was linked through a triple Venn diagram of the Socialist Rifle association, the John Brown Gun Club and the Emma Goldman Book Club, which is a local zine distro group that also put on community events. Prosecution said that this Venn diagram converged on, quote, unquote, direct militant action. The government called on David Kyle Sheeter as an expert witness to testify about antifa. Sheeter is a member of the center for Security Policy, an SPLC designated hate group. Defense tried to object to this witness's expertise, but the judge informed the defense that they missed the deadline for such objections, which would have been been in a pre trial motion. Much of this case was spent arguing over whether the defendants were, quote, unquote, antifa, what that even means, and if it's relevant to the charges. According to Prairieland Support Committee court notes, Judge Pittman asked the prosecution, quote, is it necessary to prove this stuff about antifa? The prosecution responded that antifa ideology, particularly Black Bloc, was how the group operated. The judge pressed whether it's antifa or the Methodist Women's Auxiliary. Why does it matter? The prosecution argued they took direct action against the ICE facility. The prosecution argued Black bloc and antifa ideology were central to how the alleged attack was carried out, unquote. The government described Black bloc for the purposes of this case as, quote, dark clothing with head and face coverings that concealed their identities, designed to hide each individual's identity, but also aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement, unquote. Now all of this raises the question whether this prosecution is against the defendant's political ideology or the specific criminal acts of throwing fireworks or shooting at a police officer rather than being convicted of being members of antifa, the terrorist group, something that still doesn't really have legal precedent. Prosecutors argued that the antifa ideology, like left wing anti authoritarianism, played a role in inspiring defendants formed the basis of political affinity that brought the collection of individuals together and relates to a collection of security practices, subcultural practices and associated tactics which were employed before, during and after the criminal acts related to the noise. Demo protest. There's been a lot of reporting on people being convicted for possessing zines. These Are short political pamphlets, usually with some kind of radical political ideology. There's a lot of anarchist zines out there. Now, zines did play a role in this trial. A two part rule. Prosecution argued that the presence of insurrectionary zines is indicative of an alignment with antifa, even if possession of these zines itself is not a crime. The other relevancy of zines to this case relates to the concealing documents charges against Daniel Ronaldo Sanchez Estrada and his wife Maricela Rueda, based on transporting a box of political zines from his wife's house to a friend's house in Denton, Texas. The government claimed that Raida called Sanchez Estrada from jail on July 6, instructing him to conceal evidence by telling her husband to tow her vehicle, which was at the action staging site. Quote, tow it. My phone is in the back. Do what you got to do. Just tow it, unquote. The defense claimed that she was worried about her car being repoed. Sanchez Estrada never got to the car or the phone. But Rueda also said, quote, move whatever you need to move in the house, unquote. Sanchez Estrada mentioned already being at the house and replied, we're good, quote unquote in reference to moving stuff from the house. Prosecution argued this meant moving evidence. Defense noted that Rada was talking about her pets at the time. According to support committee notes, Sanchez Estrada and his wife Rueda were found guilty of conspiracy to conceal documents and other objects that would implicate Rueda in the riot and shooting at the Prairieland facility. Now, nine of the counts, count one, two, four and five through 10, cited Pinkerton vs. United States, 1946. The judge explained to the jury that a defendant can be criminally liable for the offenses committed by another co conspirator if the offense was, quote, reasonably foreseeable and committed in furtherance of the conspiracy, unquote. From very early on in the trial, prosecution argued that Song firing on the officers was, quote, unquote, reasonably foreseeable. Based on the planning of the protest and previous statements made by Song. The jury found all defendants charged guilty of counts one, two, three and four. That's riot material support, terrorists and explosives charges, but did not find other defendants besides Song guilty of attempted murder or discharging a firearm using this Pinkerton co conspirator liability. Lastly, let's discuss two charges which now could carry worrying potential to be used against protesters in the future based on this case's precedent. First, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive and using and carrying an explosive during a riot. The only explosives used were fireworks. And even the judge confirmed in this case that it was established that the fireworks caused no damage to the ICE facility. Yet Stephen Brennaman, an ATS explosives special agent, testified that fireworks still meet the statutory definition of explosives under 18 USC section 844ij because they contain gunpowder as defined in the statute. Me and Robert have been to and reported on a fourth of July protest also in front of a government building back in 2020, where people launched a lot of fireworks up at that federal
- [36:57]
Robert Evans
courthouse, a lot of fireworks and other places.
- [37:02]
Garrison Davis
And this was a very similar event with the launching of fireworks at federal property, which now under this precedent, could be charged as a crime. Finally, let's talk about providing material support to terrorists. That's 18 USC 2339. This statute has two sections. One relates to material support provided to a designated foreign terrorist organization. This is not what the defendants were charged under. They're not saying that Antifa qualifies as one of these designated foreign terrorist organizations. That's. That's not what's being argued here. The defendants were charged under section A, alleging they provided and attempted to provide material support and resources, including property that can be money, services, training, communications, equipment, like walkie talkies, weapons, explosives, personnel, including themselves, and transportation, knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out an offense identified as a federal crime of terrorism or in carrying out the concealment of an escape from said offense. The statute lists at least 28 possible terrorism offenses. Relevant to this case are 3.18usc 8, 4 4f. That's maliciously attempting to damage government property by means of fire or an explosive fireworks count, 18 USC-161- willful depredation against any property of the United States exceeding $1,000. This is property damage by other means exceeding that $1,000 threshold and 18 USC 114, killing or attempting to kill any officer or employee of the United States. The government accused the defendants of providing material support to terrorists in these three different ways. But to convict, the jury only had to decide there was proof beyond reasonable doubt on one of these ways. They didn't need all three to quote the jury instructions. Quote. If a defendant's speech, expression, or associations were made with intent to knowingly provide material support or resources to be used to prepare for or carry out a violation of federal law or to carry out the concealment of an escape from such violation, then the First Amendment would not provide a defense to that conduct. Unquote. Benjamin Song now faces a minimum penalty of 20 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. Other defendants at Prairieland face sentences ranging from a minimum of 10 years to up to 60 years in federal prison. And the husband convicted of concealing documents faces up to 40 years in federal prison.
- [39:46]
Robert Evans
Yeah, this is a very bleak case and I don't really have much to add. It's very sad.
- [39:52]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [39:53]
Garrison Davis
No, and it's worth understanding the specific way they're using this material support statute. Yeah, just establishing someone is a member of quote unquote Antifa is not really what they're going after. But they're using Antifa as this way to link the defendants through this ideological unity to show that there's a conspiracy, some kind of like political conspiracy, that then could be tied to offenses that are terrorism, like damaging government property with the intent to influence or intimidate government policy. Right. That's the sort of framing that was used in the guilty pleas for some other former defendants of this case. And that's what the government's trying to argue here. We're gonna go on a break and return for one final segment touching on the economy and Iran.
- [40:47]
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- [43:44]
Mia Wong
Let's check in with the Strait of Hormuz, where things are going extremely poorly for the us, Israel and every country in the world that relies on oil and liquefied natural gas, as well as helium, fertilizer and a whole bunch of other exports. All attempts to actually open the Straits have failed. Now Iran has still been shipping a decent amount of oil out to some extent. They've been able to send their own tankers through, and the US and Israel have not attacked them thus far. Now there has been some developments in terms of attempts to open the Strait. Israel claimed they would help reopen the Strait. We also got a report in Reuters that Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan have agreed to help open the strait. This is a kind of weird group of countries. It is the G7, which is the group of seven, which is a very sort of influential group of American allies, but it's the G7 minus Canada with the Netherlands in its place, which is sort of odd. Now this is not going to do anything to actually open the Straits. There are two reasons for this. One is that none of these countries have actually committed to do anything other than to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait and start preparatory planning, which means absolutely nothing. And the second reason is that if all of these countries, you know, put every single naval asset at their disposal for some reason, put all of them in the Strait of Hormuz. It wouldn't do anything to actually open the strait. There's a good piece in Defector about this called Trump to World. Please help me unshoot my own leg off where the author Albert Berneko points out, and I think this is a very useful way of understanding the problem here, that these oil tankers are the size of skyscrapers. They're not, they're not getting oil takers to the street. As long as Iran wants to do this, I every week I say this and every week a bunch of people go, oh, they're gonna open the straight.
- [45:53]
Robert Evans
Ooh.
- [45:54]
Mia Wong
There's all these press cycles and like the stock market and oil prices go down and the stock market goes up and then everyone collectively realizes it's not true and then the herd animals go back to raising the stock prices. So this leaves us in the same situation we were before, except everything has gotten significantly worse because on Wednesday, Israel hit the largest natural gas field in the world when they attacked Iran's South Pars gas field. Now, as Politico points out, these are the fields that fueled Iran's domestic energy grid, which means any hit to them is extremely painful because it means that people lose like heat and power. Now, Trump did very quickly make an extremely funny post that is sadly too long to read here, begging Iran not to attack Qatar, saying the US didn't know anything about it and that Qatar didn't have anything to do with the strike. There's been a bunch of contradictory information. Netanyahu has claimed publicly now that the US didn't know anything about the strike and Israel did it unilaterally. There's also been reports that the US Knew it was going to happen. This whole the US didn't know anything about it. Please don't hit Qatar. Seems to be a kind of PR strategy on their part. It didn't work. Iran ignored it and retaliated on Thursday by hitting Qatar's massive liquid natural gas processing facility. This is one of the largest facilities in the world for liquid natural gas, of which Qatar is one of the world's largest suppliers. I think they're the second largest of liquid natural gas. I'm going to read this from Reuters because this is what the straight laced analysts are saying now. We are now well on the road to the doomsday gas crisis scenario, said Saul Kovonek, an energy analyst at MST Financial. Even once the war ends, the disruption to liquid natural gas supply could last for months or even years. Reuters got some statements from Carter State natural gas firm saying that they had lost 17% of their total export capacity and that that was destroyed for three to five years. That is catastrophic for significant parts of the economy worldwide. As we are going to talk about in a second, all of this is also happening in the context of Trump's threat to destroy Kharg island, which is where 90% of Iran's oil imports flow through, which would likewise be absolutely catastrophic for the Iranian economy because it would take a significant amount of time to repair. However, comma, these are all kind of empty threats. Well, when I say empty threats, I don't mean that the US Or Israel won't do it. I mean that it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem with any threat you can make against Iran is, like, you already killed the ayatollah, like, what. What else are you going to do? Right? You could completely destroy Iran's economic capacity for a significant period of time. But if you do that, then the Iranian government is still just going to not open the strait, right? The more you attack them, the more incentive they have to continue to retaliate. And that's what's going to happen if you continue this campaign, which it seems like the US And Israel are determined to do. There just holds all this talk about, like, we've entered a new phase of the war, and the war is going to now last, like several months longer. And again, the problem here is that the more that you attack critical infrastructure inside Iran, the more that the Iranian government gives less of a shit about, again, destroying significant portions of the world's natural gas supply or hitting more oil facilities or, you know, and this is the one that I really haven't seen any talk about, but is a thing that Iran could do if they decided that, you know, this is like the end for our people is starting to hit desalinization plants in places like the UAE and Qatar, which are, I mean, infrastructure that will make the countries uninhabitable. And right now, there haven't been any attacks on them because that's a really hideous thing to do. And it's also the sort of absolute last resort. But it's a thing that, like, you know, if you keep hitting them, they're going to keep hitting more and more targets that are going to significantly impact the lives of everyone in the region and around the world. Now, on the sort of economics end, we've been kind of in this little bouncing up and down stasis lock. A little bit of this has been broken because of, again, we're now seeing instead of just the already very, very bad damage, of nothing can get through the strait, we're now starting to see permanent damage to oil infrastructure. Right. And by the way, it's also worth noting, Reuters reports that the estimated damage I think both from revenue lost and from to actually repair the facility that Cotter State Run Gas Company is talking about, they're talking about $20 billion of damage. This has finally caused a sort of tank in the Asian markets, which are down like around 3% in a lot of places. We're seeing like somewhere between 2 to 3% for things like the decay in Japan, we're seeing like 1% down in Shanghai. And you know, this is because a lot of these countries, particularly in Asia, use a large quantity of not just oil, but also natural gas from the Gulf, which means that these are the countries that are on the front lines of this crisis. Now the Brent crude index, which is your sort of base mark for oil prices is over $100. Now it's staying over $100. Experts are saying it's only going to increase, which, yes, no shit, of course it's only going to increase. There's just going to be continued to be more attacks. I have seen some reporting saying that like, worst case scenario, we could see it at $200. $200 is like a nightmare, like the $9 gasoline. Unbelievable, hideous nightmare. I'm not going to weigh in on whether we're going to get to that point before Trump like bails out of this war. But it's going to continue to go up as both the actual global oil supply is reduced and also as the capacity for a rebound once if this war ends is decreased by the continued destruction of oil infrastructure. So all in all, things continue to be extremely bad. And the outlook for the global economy is very bad. The outlook for the people of Iran is very bad. The outlook for people across the world is not good.
- [51:58]
James Stout
Thank you, Mia. And for a final segment, I'm going to talk about the ongoing war against Iran, which I guess we're still deciding if it's a war or not. Earlier this week, Donald Trump denied the existence of uncrewed surface vessels, something Garrison and I talked about in a podcast that came out earlier this week. I'm just going to pay you the clip.
- [52:21]
Donald Trump (clip)
So they put out phony story. The kamikaze boats. The kamikaze boats don't exist. They're fake. And you can almost see that when you look at them. It looks to me, yeah, because if they did exist, we'd hit them just like we Hit other boats all over the place, but they don't exist. In fact, some of the people say, where are the boats? How come nobody's seen the boats? You know why? Because it's AI generated, it's fake. And I found. I didn't realize this before we started, but Iran is still known for a lot of fake news, and they deal with our fake news. And I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false.
- [53:08]
James Stout
Yeah. So uncrewed surface vessels are real?
- [53:11]
Robert Evans
Yes, they sure are. They've been used massively in Ukraine, among other places. Yeah.
- [53:17]
James Stout
In fact, Robert, would you like to hear about CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper talking about uncrewed surface vessels?
- [53:25]
Robert Evans
I will always listen to someone named Brad James. You know that about me.
- [53:28]
James Stout
Okay. Yep.
- [53:29]
Robert Evans
Here you see a photo from March
- [53:31]
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1 of a naval drone storage facility
- [53:33]
Mia Wong
located near the Strait of Hormuz.
- [53:35]
James Stout
So as you can see, naval drones, uncrewed surface vessels. This is going to be an issue in this conflict and many others going forward. People are going to deny any reality that they don't want to engage with by saying that it is AI.
- [53:52]
Robert Evans
Yep.
- [53:53]
James Stout
And that's deeply troubling. So let's talk about what has been happening since we last spoke. Khaag island and island in the Persian Gulf that is replete with oil infrastructure and storage facilities. It's the island through which a large amount of Iran's oil exports travel.
- [54:11]
Robert Evans
Yeah, there's a. Basically. So the most of the coast of Iran is too shallow for the huge vessels that are necessary to actually move crude oil. And Carg island is like a very rare deep water port, basically. So it's kind of the hub.
- [54:27]
James Stout
Yeah. It was struck by the United States last week in a raid. The claim that the raid only hit oil infrastructure on Car Island. It's very hard to get any independent information from Iran currently because of blackouts, because of the lack of connectivity and because of regime oppression. Right. So we. We just. It's quite possible that what the US Is saying is not true. It's also quite possible what the Iranian state is saying is not true. We can confirm that there were strikes there using all kinds of information. Right. Satellite imagery, open source flight tracking, et cetera, that like flight strikes definitely happened. Strikes this week by the IDF also killed Ali Larajani and Basij unit commander Hola Mirza Soleimani. Shortly after these claims first surfaced, a note was published in Laranjani's handwriting. But it is fairly certain now that he is dead. Larijani's assassination, I guess, or killing, whatever you want to call it, by the IDF is notable because he's one of the people who would have had the sway in the regime to negotiate with the United States. You could make a case that the IDF killing him is a way for a negotiated peace to be even harder.
- [55:45]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [55:45]
James Stout
For this conflict to continue even more. He is also a person who is responsible for massive crimes against the citizens of Iran.
- [55:53]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [55:53]
James Stout
Including the violent, murderous clampdown on protests that we saw in January of this year. The United States is also deploying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle east as part of an amphibious response group that includes the USS Tripoli. In fact, it's approximately 2,500 Marines who will be deployed. This is the closest we've seen to any official communication of United States boots on the ground in the region. There's a number of things that a Marine Expeditionary Unit could do. One of them is to do search and rescue or provide evacuations for people on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that are struck.
- [56:37]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [56:38]
James Stout
Another of them is to assault or take islands where Iran may have based its military infrastructure. So to do things that are either not possible or not easy with airstrikes. Another one is to add more air power that's closer to the region that the Tripoli can carry their F35 Lightning. So it could be that another one is for these 2,500 Marines to invade Iran. Right. And. And to begin a land war to attempt to. They could also be training Iranian opposition groups. Right. That. That's possible. It wouldn't. It's not like a core Marine Corps mission. That's a Special Forces mission. But there's a number of things they could be doing. There are also a number of more Marine Expeditionary Units and other Forces that could be moved to the region. It's interesting to see this just a few months after we saw that national security strategy, which focused heavily on the Western Hemisphere. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. The US Isn't going to involve itself in forever wars in the Middle east anymore.
- [57:43]
Garrison Davis
I can't believe it.
- [57:45]
James Stout
Yeah. Shocking.
- [57:46]
Garrison Davis
What's the status of these Marines right now?
- [57:48]
James Stout
I believe they are motoring to the region. Right. So the Tripoli. Tripoli is a big boat. It's called an amphibious assault boat. But, like, that makes it sound like it's like a Higgins boat.
- [57:58]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:59]
James Stout
Like, if this is not the boat that you see in the D Day movies. Okay. In fact, I don't think it can actually cat this particular One, if I understand correctly, doesn't carry those kinds of boats. Like. Like, it's not set up for doing, like, a beach landing or an amphibious assault. But these Marine Expeditionary Units are like the. Like the first response, I guess. Like, they. They. They have their own air power. They have helicopters.
- [58:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [58:23]
James Stout
Obviously they come on a boat, they can move. They have the Marines who are capable of doing infantry stuff. So, like, it makes sense that this would be what they would send. Talking of US forces in the region, a US KC135 aircraft crashed over Iraq last week. This is not a combat aircraft. Right. It's not a fighter bomber. But to my knowledge, the only way out of these planes is bailing, and all six crew members on board are confirmed to have died. The United States, CENTCOM says, has flown over 6,000 sorties since OEF began.
- [58:57]
Garrison Davis
OEF is Operation EPIC Fury.
- [59:00]
James Stout
Yeah, it's great because Operation Enduring Freedom had the same acronym, and I'm sure that's not a mistake. But, yeah, this is Operation Epic Fury. It's a very high tempo.
- [59:09]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [59:09]
James Stout
And it's a very crowded airspace.
- [59:11]
Garrison Davis
The 6000 sorties.
- [59:13]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [59:13]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. That's a lot.
- [59:14]
James Stout
Yeah. Accidents like this will happen. Right. Not everybody who dies in warfare dies in combat. And sadly, this means that another six people are coming home from Iraq in coffins, as they have been since before many of our listeners were born. And of course, a lot of people in Iraq who have no quarrel with anyone will also be innocent victims of this. I don't mean by any means to suggest it's only US Service people who are the victims here. I want to talk about the conflict between the United States and Hashd Al Shaabi. The US has carried out a series of airstrikes against PMF groups. So these are popular mobilization forces. Right. Shia groups in Iran fought the the Islamic State. A strike on a house in Baghdad killed the leader of Khatib Hezbollah in Iraq. The strike was confirmed on Sabrine News. Sabrine News is like their telegram outlet. It's like an aligned telegram news outlet for the group. Yeah, for the pmf.
- [60:15]
Garrison Davis
Okay.
- [60:15]
James Stout
And they made the statement, quote, we announced you the martyrdom of Hajj Abu Ali Al Askari. In the days since he's killing, we have seen many attacks on United States facilities in Iraq. The embassy's C Ram. C ram is counter rocket artillery and mortar. When you see videos of drones being shot down, you. When you see like, a. You hear like a. And then you see a burst of like, tracer fire and the drone explodes it's normally the C ram. So the embassy C ram against destroyed a drone. But other footage posted online shows an FPV drone that's a first person view drone. FPV drone. It looks like you're flying as opposed to like you're looking directly down, flying over the embassy compound for almost two minutes. I'm guessing it was a fiber optic controlled drone.
- [61:10]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [61:11]
James Stout
So there's no means of like jamming the signal. But this is still a monumental failure for security. Right. At the same time we saw two drones at least enter and explode in the Victory base, which is near Baghdad airport. The videos from those are bizarre. It seems like the drone gets into the base and then it's just like, whoa, what the hell? Like it didn't seem like they had a clear target. It kind of flies around and like seems so shocked that it was able to like penetrate this supposedly impenetrable area.
- [61:42]
Garrison Davis
How much of these security systems are designed to counter drones versus originally designed to counter older types of like aerial threats?
- [61:50]
James Stout
Yeah. Drones is a broad category. I guess. So you have like your Shahid drone, which kind of blurs the line between a drone and a missile. Right? It's like a missile that can take a more varied flight path.
- [62:02]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:03]
James Stout
It doesn't just go in the arc like ballistically in those cases. There are things that, there are things that you can do to shoot them down. Right. You can have your Patriot missiles, you can use your C ram, you can shoot them down with various weapon systems on an aircraft. But if we group FPV and like dropper drones as commercial off the shelf drones, this is the thing.
- [62:23]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [62:24]
James Stout
You know, the United States has been supporting Ukraine since 20. Well, since before 2022, but it's including since 2022 with the full scale invasion. It has not been supporting the revolution in Myanmar. But clearly they have not learned enough from those two conflicts.
- [62:42]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [62:42]
James Stout
In terms of the use of these small commercial off the shelf drones. And this is now showing up as a weakness in their, in their defense strategy. Like this is a serious thing for, for the US Government for someone to be.
- [62:58]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [62:58]
James Stout
And for them to just fly a recon drone over the embassy, like, you know, they obviously they now know where everything is.
- [63:04]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [63:05]
James Stout
And for them to publish that footage is like a public, somewhat like humiliation. Right. Of the sort of security infrastructure. So finally, I guess a couple more things. Iran is now militarizing the area of Kurdistan between the Iranian and Iraqi states. So that's the Iran Iraq border in Kurdistan. Right. It seems to have issued orders preventing people moving around the region as they habitually would. People move around because they've always moved around. People move around with their animals. Right. The Iranian government appears to have ordered its troops to shoot people who it perceives to be moving around without permission. People often gather near the border with Iraq to access cell signal and the government forces appear to have left their bases in the region in favor of occupying the mountains as well as local educational institutions and sports facilities. Right. So that means that people in towns are now at threat and hangar has some, some incidents where people have been shot by security forces in that region. Finally then, I want to talk about the resignation of the director of the National Counters Terrorism Center, Joe Kent. Kent resigned this week saying, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. It does seem that that is where a lot of people stopped reading anything Kent said. Yeah.
- [64:30]
Garrison Davis
Or people who did not know who Joe Kent is.
- [64:33]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [64:33]
James Stout
And don't have access to Google for reasons that I don't understand. Yeah, yeah. Some really incredibly shitty reporting on this. Kent went on in his note to, among other things, talk about the death of his wife, which is genuinely tragic. Kent has some disgusting views. Right. Like, but it does seem like the death of his wife was kind of a, I guess, a turning point. Is that fair to say, Gary? Like you've looked at Ken a lot, like in his politics, he talks about it a lot.
- [65:04]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah. It's very load bearing for him.
- [65:07]
James Stout
Yeah. So it's just if people aren't aware, his wife Shannon was a cryptologist and linguist attached to the ISA Intelligence Support Activity, sometimes called Task Force Orange. She was in Manbij in Syria when she was killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber. She was in the buffer zone that was like the buffer zone that Turkey had forced to exist. He calls that in his resignation statement, quote, a war manufactured by Israel. And he also seems to suggest that Trump was conned by Israel into starting the war with Iran. Far too much reporting has missed this context. So he's essentially using what, what on the face of it is an anti Semitic saying.
- [65:48]
Garrison Davis
I mean, yeah, he, he, he like, is, he is, he is like an anti Semitic fascist.
- [65:52]
James Stout
Yes. His reason for retiring is like explicitly anti Semitic.
- [65:57]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. This is the same justification that someone like Nick Fuentes uses to oppose the war in Iran. Not out of, you know, principled solidarity.
- [66:06]
James Stout
These people don't care about civilians dying in Iran.
- [66:09]
Garrison Davis
No. And it's not actually about any sort of like, notion of anti imperialism.
- [66:15]
James Stout
No. It's anti Semitism.
- [66:16]
Garrison Davis
They believe that this is a Zionist occupied government.
- [66:20]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [66:20]
Garrison Davis
In the ZOG meaning of the term, like there's like literally. Literally like a total Jewish control over all state operations, not linked to actual lobbying groups that lobby for Israel within the United States, but a conspiratorial framework invoking anti Semitic tropes and stereotypes. This is the sort of environment that Joe Kent comes out of. As we are recording this, Joe Kent has an interview dropping with Tucker Carlson.
- [66:48]
James Stout
Yes.
- [66:49]
Garrison Davis
Where he's going to expound on this. Oh. Carlson has similarly voiced these sorts of objections based on if any intelligent person, you know, reads into it, based on antisemitism, not actually based on, again, principled solidarity with oppressed peoples or anti imperialism.
- [67:10]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [67:11]
James Stout
And I think if you're reading news sources that are like, oh wow, Trump is beginning to lose people and they haven't mentioned any of this, really consider if you want to be reading those news sources, I'll just say that, I guess Caroline Levitt responded with a post on X saying quote, the Commander in chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat because he is the only one constitutionally empowered to do so and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments. That is a remarkable statement for those of us who lived through the whole Iraq has WMDs era.
- [67:43]
Garrison Davis
But the United States has long history of involvement in the Middle east and the extent to which we are partnering with Israel is often in support of our other objectives in the Middle east and our ability to use Israel as like a proxy state. That's why the United States government has such a large interest in Israel, because we have other. Other reasons for wanting to be active and control parts of the region or influence the region.
- [68:09]
James Stout
Yeah. Often the priorities of Israel, not always.
- [68:12]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [68:13]
James Stout
Like in the first time the United States invaded the Persian Gulf that often. And they are fighting alongside each other because they have similar interests, not because of any nefarious Jewish conspiracy. Yeah.
- [68:25]
Robert Evans
Yep.
- [68:26]
Garrison Davis
Which very frustrating that that continues to be something that needs to be reiterated.
- [68:30]
James Stout
Yeah. Even on the left. But it does.
- [68:32]
Robert Evans
And the first time I started seeing people who had previously been doing other campus shit start using the phrase zog, I was like, okay, we've come full circle. Everything's where it was always going to be. Beautiful.
- [68:46]
Garrison Davis
The normalization of ZOG and like goy across parts of the online left is
- [68:52]
Robert Evans
from Anna Kasparian of the New Turks, the Young Turks, whatever the fuck they
- [68:56]
Garrison Davis
tyt they call themselves, the Young Turks has fallen.
- [68:59]
James Stout
Yeah. Well, yeah. Let's be honest Choosing that name didn't predispose them to be anti genocide.
- [69:05]
Robert Evans
She has always been like, she's sucked for a while. But just seeing her use the word goy like that was like.
- [69:12]
IFLAG Flag Football Ad Host
Like, whoa.
- [69:12]
Robert Evans
Oh, wow.
- [69:13]
James Stout
Yeah, I haven't seen that.
- [69:14]
Robert Evans
Okay. I used to have to go to Telegram to see people posted like that.
- [69:18]
James Stout
Y. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's sort of. You would hear like ham radio. Like it's. It's like old school racism.
- [69:24]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, there. There is. There is this interesting emergence of like a red brown alliance specifically targeting like Israel or people's notions of Israel's global influence.
- [69:37]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah. Not great. Not great stuff at all.
- [69:40]
Robert Evans
Yeah. So we should just say, since this is gonna be one of the big news stories this week and coming into next week, the New York Times has published an article with very extensive sourcing, including from people very close to assessor Chavez, who reported that he sexually assaulted, raped, molested and abused a mix of girls and women, including a lot of girls. Preteen girls started grooming them as young as 8 or 9. In some cases, there's evidence of molestation of girls as young as like 12, 13. And then Dolores Huerta, who was his. Very famously one of his organizing partners for quite a long time, came out and said that he sexually assaulted her on at least raped her on at least two occasions, which led to pregnancies. So that is all coming out now and it's all pretty horrific. But yeah, I like. Like, there's not much more to say. You can read the article. Yeah. And should.
- [70:40]
James Stout
Yeah. We'll link to in the show notes. If you'd like to email us, you can send a message to coolzonetipson. Me.
- [70:49]
Garrison Davis
That's for tips. That's for news gathering. Tips.
- [70:53]
James Stout
Yes, it is for. It is not for you to pitch your boss to come on Robert's podcast. It is not for you to tell us about your. Your new book. It is not for you to share how much you enjoy a podcast. That's very sweet. If you want to send that kind of stuff, you can do it to Cool Zone Media, iheartmedia.com if you, as a public relations company, send a large number of emails to our tips list, I will block you.
- [71:24]
Robert Evans
I will find you.
- [71:26]
James Stout
Yeah, I'm. Believe me, buddy, we're gonna. If people keep trying this shit, we're gonna have a list and we're going to read it at the end of every. And I will give them your email address.
- [71:37]
Robert Evans
I will do anti advertising. I will accuse your boss that you want to go on my podcast of various crimes and thanks to my understanding of libel laws in the United States, I should be fine. Yeah. Or is that slander? I always forget.
- [71:52]
James Stout
Yeah. I don't know. We'll.
- [71:53]
Robert Evans
I'll do both. It'll be fine.
- [71:55]
James Stout
Yeah. We'll write it, we'll say it, we'll post it.
- [71:58]
Garrison Davis
We.
- [71:58]
Mia Wong
We.
- [71:59]
Garrison Davis
We reported the news.
- [72:02]
James Stout
We reported the news.
- [72:11]
Mia Wong
It could happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple 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.
- [72:35]
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