Executive Disorder: Minneapolis ICE Shooting, Maduro, Iran & Aleppo Update

Summary

It Could Happen Here – Executive Disorder: Minneapolis ICE Shooting, Maduro, Iran & Aleppo Update

Podcast: It Could Happen Here
Date: January 9, 2026
Hosts: Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, Sophie Lichterman
Episode Theme:
An urgent roundup of major recent events exemplifying collapse and authoritarian abuse, including a deadly ICE shooting in Minneapolis, the U.S. military kidnapping of Venezuela's President Maduro, volatile situations in Syria and Iran, and alarming developments in the U.S. immigration regime. The hosts offer analysis, field reports, and passionate critique of both government action and protest response.

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Table of Contents

• Episode Overview
• Minneapolis ICE Shooting
  • Event Summary
  • Analysis & Patterns
  • Community and Official Responses
  • Notable Quotes
• U.S. Raid/Kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro
  • Operation Details
  • Trump’s Oil Announcement
  • Protests and U.S. Antiwar Movement
  • Commentary on Precedent and Protest Efficiency
  • Notable Quotes
• Oil Blockade and Seizure of Tankers
  • Blockade Update
  • Tanker Evasion
  • Notable Quotes
• Syria – Fighting in Aleppo and Kurdish Enclave
  • Escalation in Sheikh Maqsood
  • Contextual Analysis
• Iran – Protests and Armed Resistance
• Gaza Aid Ban and U.S. Immigration Policy Briefs
• Notable Quotes & Moments
• Timestamps by Segment

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Episode Overview

The hosts provide a stark year-opening recap: “This might be the worst, just the worst first week of a year I can remember. And I remember 2020.” (E, 02:14) Across the episode, they connect American state violence, worsening authoritarianism at home and abroad, and the struggle to mount meaningful opposition.

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Minneapolis ICE Shooting [01:43 - 11:34]

Event Summary

• A woman was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis during a routine anti-ICE protest as federal raids surge in the city.
• Video shows ICE escalating rapidly: an agent shouts “get the fuck out,” then without verbal warning, shoots the driver as she tries to leave.
• A passenger in the car is filmed after, “sobbing and saying, ‘they killed my wife. I don’t know what to do.’” (E, 05:37)

Analysis & Patterns

• The hosts observe a pattern: “This is the third shooting like this… Every single time [DHS] accuse the driver of intentionally attempting to ram the agent. It has never been true.” (E, 06:36)
• Mainstream media simply reproduces these claims without context, despite video evidence refuting DHS narratives.
• They describe the event as “an ordinary ICE action. It looks like every other anti-ICE action I have ever seen… just a group of people on the street.” (E, 07:08)
• The shooting occurred “less than a mile away from where police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.” (E, 08:10) They note the “continuity of the violence of the American state.”

Community and Official Responses

• Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey at a press conference:

  “To ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. …Long term… residents… are being terrorized. And now somebody is dead. That’s on you. And it's also on you to leave.” (B, 09:30)

• Immediate protests broke out; within 30 minutes, crowds “got tear gassed.” (D, 10:57)
• Solidarity protests announced in Portland, Philadelphia, elsewhere.

Notable Quotes

• “I long for the halcyon days in which 2020 was the worst year…” (E, 02:24)
• “If you are trying to watch [the video], you are just going to see ICE murder a woman.” (E, 04:13)
• “There's no thinking. There's no thought. They just pull out the gun and shoot.” (E, 09:09)
• “It is as clear a demonstration of the continuity of the violence of the American state as can possibly be produced.” (E, 08:13)
• "Did not ease into the new year. ...This has not been a great start though." (A, 02:11; 02:30)

---

U.S. Raid/Kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro [13:19 - 29:47]

Operation Details

• U.S. special forces raided Caracas and kidnapped President Maduro and his wife. Over 50 casualties reported (including probable Cuban military advisors).
• No U.S. deaths; some American injuries and equipment losses.

Trump’s Oil Announcement

• On Truth Social:

  “Interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil to the United States... The money will be controlled by me as President... to ensure that it’s used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.” (A, 15:02)

• Host reaction: “No war for oil was a provocative political statement... now we’re just openly doing the thing we were doing before.” (E, 15:16)
• Trump threatens more military strikes if the new regime resists.

Protests and U.S. Antiwar Movement

Field Report from NYC Protest (F, 20:09 - 25:44)

• ~200-300 people in Times Square, mostly socialist/leftist groups (PSL, Refuse Fascism, CUNY Internationalists)
• Peaceful, no significant police scuffles; protest energy funneled by party tables, tract hand-outs.

Commentary on Precedent and Protest Efficiency

• The U.S. kidnapping a foreign head of state sets a dangerous precedent: “If they can just send dudes in helicopters to black bag people around the world… that is a very scary precedent.” (A, 28:51)
• The U.S. antiwar movement is mostly “communist organizations trying to grow their membership… not a representative sample of the people of New York.” (D, 25:44)
• The ritualized/professionalized protest format is described as sapping real energy and failing to pressure those in power.

Notable Quotes

• “All that has dropped. We do not give a single fuck anymore.” (D, 15:31)
• “This is a very serious thing... the United States have done something which is completely illegal... an act of war against a sovereign country.” (A, 28:25)

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Oil Blockade and Seizure of Tankers [29:56 - 34:19]

Blockade Update

• Despite the removal of Maduro, the U.S. oil blockade remains.
• U.S. seized two oil tankers (one Russian-flagged), accusing them of being “ghost ships” involved in sanction evasion.

Tanker Evasion

• The hosts jokingly describe a “boat chase with an oil tanker,” ridiculing government claims of “frantic efforts to avoid apprehension.” (E/A, 30:29-32:12)
• Chinese protests over seizures have, so far, been “diplomatic noise,” but could escalate.

Notable Quotes

• “If you’re getting evaded by an oil tanker, that is a skill issue.” (E, 32:11)

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Syria – Fighting in Aleppo and Kurdish Enclave [34:19 - 40:23]

Escalation in Sheikh Maqsood

• New fighting as the Turkish-backed Syrian Transitional Government (STG) shells the Sheikh Maqsood enclave in Aleppo, attempts incursions, and civilians flee.
• The enclave (Kurdish, Christian, Yazidi populations; demilitarized except for local security) comes under pressure as SDF drone actions spark further violence.
• The risk of ethnic cleansing is invoked, recalling “war crimes, not done anything to stop them doing it again.” (A, 36:54)
• Deadly patterns re-emerge—especially given the prior U.S. disengagement and weakening of Kurdish autonomy.

Contextual Analysis

• Host frustration at constant acronyms and factional complexity.
• “This is the most serious flare up we’ve seen in a long time.” (A, 37:24)
• A failed agreement to integrate SDF into STG prevents any security guarantee for women’s units (YPJ).

---

Iran – Protests and Armed Resistance [40:27 - 41:30]

• Mass protests driven by collapsing purchasing power; armed Kurdish elements now openly involved for the first time in years.
• Cross-group unity statements among Kurdish organizations.
• State responses include armed attacks on protesters and deadly repression (e.g., riot police storming hospitals).
• The economic situation and Western threats (Trump “as always” threatening intervention) play into regime claims of defending sovereignty against foreign imperialism.

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Gaza Aid Ban and U.S. Immigration Policy Briefs [41:30 - 44:40]

• Israel now banning MSF, Oxfam, and other aid groups from Gaza and the West Bank, in what hosts call “a cynical and calculated attempt to prevent organizations from providing services…a breach of… international humanitarian law.” (A, 41:39)
• The U.S. legal situation for refugees remains precarious: The administration delays in a key Alien Enemies Act case are likely aimed at getting Venezuela’s new regime to accept deportees.
• San Diego sues the federal government over property damage from border militarization, but hosts call out local hypocrisy: “Don’t for one second believe these people give a single shit about migrants. They don’t.” (A, 44:25)
• Upcoming Supreme Court decision on Trump’s tariffs teased for next episode.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On ICE shootings:
  “It is as clear a demonstration of the continuity of the violence of the American state as can possibly be produced.” (E, 08:13)
• On U.S. authoritarianism:
  “Trump is claiming that he personally is going to be controlling the money after it's sold at market price, a sentence that at any other time in American history would be the most dictatorial thing you've ever seen...” (E, 17:49)
• On protest futility:
  “The entire protest ecosystem... is fully captured by these sorts of organizations... makes it really hard to grow a genuine movement.” (D, 25:44)
• On official doublespeak:
  “When you can just say something that is blatantly false and force people to agree that it is true... that is the project of genocide.” (A, 41:39)
• On state violence continuity:
  “...less than a mile away from where police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.” (E, 08:10)
• Mordant summary of the year:
  “Did not ease into the new year.” (A, 02:11)

---

Timestamps by Segment

• Minneapolis ICE Shooting & Protest: 01:43 – 11:34
• Venezuela – Maduro Kidnapping/Oil Deal: 13:19 – 29:47
• U.S. Oil Blockade/Tanker Seizure: 29:56 – 34:19
• Syria – Kurdish Enclave/Aleppo Fighting: 34:19 – 40:23
• Iran – Protests & Kurdish Armed Groups: 40:27 – 41:30
• Gaza Aid Ban, Immigration Update, San Diego Lawsuit: 41:30 – 44:40

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For listeners, this episode combines on-the-ground accounts, historical context, and fierce critique of both American and global policy, painting a vivid picture of a world where extrajudicial violence and cynical power politics fuel collapse—and where protest, while vital, is struggling to find new forms that matter.

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[B]

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[D]

This is It Could Happen here. Executive Disorder, our usually weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stone, Doubt and Sophie Lichterman. This episode, we're covering the events from the end of December to the first week of January.

[E]

Yeah, and the events are not good.

[C]

Did not start off to a slow start whatsoever.

[A]

Did not ease into the new year.

[E]

Yeah, this might be the worst, just the worst first week of a year I can remember. And I remember 2020.

[A]

Worst year ever, potentially.

[E]

Mia I long for the halcyon days in which 2020 was the worst year we'd ever experienced.

[A]

I started 2020 cycling around Rwanda and I had a Great start to 2020. This has not been a great start though.

[E]

No. Yeah, let's talk about the event that happened several hours before we started recording this. We're recording this again on Wednesday, January 7th. So I don't think there's going to be any new information about this. But yeah, hours before we started recording, ICE shot and killed a woman in her car at a routine anti ice action in Minneapolis. From the videos, these protests are identical to thousands of other small scale Protests against ICE raids where pissed off locals blow whistles and scream at the ICE agents who carry off their friends and family in the dead of night. The video shows ICE agents approaching a stopped car. One agent tries to open the front car door screaming, get the fuck out. While another walks in front of the car as it backs up to pull away from the scene. As the vehicle pulls forward to drive away, the ICE agent pulls out his gun and shoots the driver. This is the agent's immediate response. There is no verbal warning. He simply pulls out the gun and shoots. There are videos out there you will see. I have seen three angles of it so far. The videos are graphic and gut wrenching as we'll get into in a second. So be warned, if you are trying to watch them, you are just going to see ICE murder a woman. The agent, I can fairly definitively say was in absolutely no danger. Again, he simply steps aside from the slow moving vehicle. He, he has enough time to take a shot and then step aside and take two more shots. The video is just heart wrenching. The closest angle we have, the woman recording the video is screaming no. As the agent pulls out his gun and shoots. There's another video that shows there was a passenger inside of the van and it just shows her sitting on the ground sobbing and saying, they killed my wife. I don't know what to do. It is one of the most heart wrenching things I have ever seen having watched the videos of both. It is eerily similar to ice's murder of Silvero Villegas Gonzalez in Chicago in September, who was also killed while attempting to drive away from ICE agents and who the DHS has likewise accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism by attempting to ram agents. It is clear from both videos that that is not what was going on. Both these people were simply trying to pull away from the ICE agents. The other shooting that this is very similar to that I think has been getting more press comparisons. Even though in terms of what actually happens in, in the video that we have, I think it's closer to the actual murder. But it is also very, very similar to an incident in Chicago last year where Border Patrol agents hunted and then shot Mary Martinez, who thankfully survived but was charged by the federal government for domestic terrorism. A case which thankfully completely collapsed after, among other things, the contents of a group chat were released in which Charles Exum, who's the agent who shot her, was bragging about shooting the woman in Chicago. So that's, I think, a valuable insight into the mindset of these people is that when One of these went to trial. We got a group chat where the agent who shot a different woman in a very similar situation was bragging about it. In the immediate wake of this Trump post on Truth Social that the driver in Minneapolis, quote, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self defense, end quote. And then he then links to a video which is a bad angle of the shooting that also does not show what he claims at all because he is simply from the video footage we have available. This is simply a lie.

[A]

Yeah. After the person was shot, their vehicle continued moving forward and struck a parked car. That is not unusual in the case when someone is shot driving a vehicle. Right. Like you slump forward. You slump forward onto the pedals.

[E]

Yeah. There's two things I want to emphasize here. One is that the DHS always releases statements. This is the third shooting like this that we've had since these massive immigration raids began. Every single time they release a statement where they accuse the driver of intentionally attempting to ram the agent, it has never been true. We have seen three attempts of this. We have seen the videos and three attempts of this. It has been false every single time. Major media outlets continue to just post the statements without any of the context that these people have been lying about this every single time. And the second thing that I want to emphasize about this is how normal of a protest this was. This is just a completely ordinary ICE action. It looks like every other anti ICE action I have ever seen. It wasn't a particularly large one. It was just a group of people who were on the street. In the video where the woman is sobbing about her wife, she says that they pulled up to film the ICE agents.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

Yeah. It's heart wrenching. There have been lots of protests. Greg Bevino, who's the influential Border Patrol officer we have told, talked about many times on the show, was at the scene. And it's also worth noting this comes within 24 hours of the White House announcing their giant operation in Minneapolis to deploy 2,000 federal agents.

[D]

This was specifically a new surge that started on Tuesday, January 6th. And literally less than 24 hours after the surge, ICE killed a woman.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

The thing I want to end on in the. Of the immediate analysis before we talk a bit about the protests that have been happening, is that absolutely hauntingly, today's murder took place less than a mile away from where police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd Jesus. Which is. Yeah. It is as clear a demonstration of the continuity of the violence of the American state as can possibly be produced. Yeah. And I think the other pattern that we've seen specifically in these protests is pulling weapons on people constantly, even more so than normal police would. And I remember a lot of people I've talked to in Chicago. One of the things that they said is that, yeah, they're eventually going to shoot someone, and they've now shot a third person in the course of these operations. And presumably, as long as they're allowed to continue, they will probably shoot more people. Because one of the things that's best apparent from this video is that this is the sort of muscle memory reaction that they have to being in front of a car that's moving towards them. There's no thinking. There's no thought. They just pull out the gun and shoot.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, he's shooting the same time. He's moving sideways out of the way of the car. He just as easily could have not fired and it would have had the same result. He just chose to fire.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

A little over an hour after the shooting, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis gave a press conference where he said this to ice.

[B]

There's little I can say again that'll make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE to ice. Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly, exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long term, Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized. And now somebody is dead. That's on you. And it's also on you to leave. It's on you to make sure that further damage, further loss of life and injury is not done. We're going to be working towards justice as quickly as we possibly can right now. And justice is what we've all got to get.

[E]

Fray, I think, is just. Is reflecting the sentiments of the city right now. There are immediate protests in. I mean, within minutes of the shooting, there were people showing up. Protests have been intensifying.

[D]

Crowds got tear gassed like 30 minutes after the shooting.

[E]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and Bovino is. There are pictures of him on scene while these protests are sort of ramping up. So we will see what happens in Minneapolis in the coming days.

[D]

Solidarity protests have already been announced in Portland and Philadelphia, and I'm sure more cities will follow in the coming hours.

[E]

Yeah, yeah. We'll give an update next week if more information becomes available. I think the events themselves are fairly clear, but we will see what the federal reaction to this is going to be and what the reaction on the ground is, and we will keep you updated.

[A]

Let's have some ads here and we'll be back to talk about Venezuela.

[B]

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[A]

We are back with the second wild story of this week, which is that the United States, specifically United States Special forces, raided Caracas last week and kidnapped President Maduro, who was the president of Venezuela and his wife. We covered the details of this in a whole episode, so I'm not going to go over them in great detail here. And that's already out. Trump Kidnaps Venezuelan President Maduro is the name of that episode, so you should be able to find it in the feed.

[D]

He danced too close to the sun.

[A]

I'm not so sure the dancing was the factor, but I will only update that to say a couple of things. First of all, we know that there were in excess of 50 Venezuelan casualties, right? Or I should say there were in excess of 50 casualties.

[D]

Some of those would probably be Cuban security forces.

[A]

Cuban nationals. Yeah, in a military advice kind of a prestige posting, but military advisor kind of role, and that there were injuries to U.S. troops we didn't hear about first. And some U.S. troops and. And U.S. helicopters did sustain some damage, but there were no, no people killed on the United States side. And Donald Trump has truthed that. I'm just going to read this one. I think, God, we can do our best to understand it. I am pleased to announce that interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil to the United States of America. This oil will be sold at its market price and that money will be controlled by me as President of the United States of America to ensure that it's used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States. I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan immediately. It will be taken by storage ships and bought directly to unloading docks in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America.

[E]

You know, I distinctly remember the days, the halcyon days when I was a child when saying no war for oil was a provocative political statement because the leaders of our country insisted the wars were not, in fact, for oil.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. All that has dropped. We do not give a single fuck anymore.

[E]

No. We're just openly doing the thing we were doing before.

[A]

Yeah. It is wild to think of the Bush era of a golden age of at least pretending. This is extraordinarily vague. Right. How much this oil, is it being turned over? What period of time is Venezuela expected to extract and refine the oil, then hand it over or. It's going to give us companies a right to do that.

[E]

They don't have much of the processing facilities. There's like one, I think, American processing facility that can process the kind of crude that comes out of Venezuela. But it's difficult. We talked about this more in the other episode, but it's. The Venezuelan oil sucks. It's difficult to refine.

[A]

No, it's high quality. What are you talking about? Right here in the Post, man. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking. It's right.

[D]

Hearing the truth.

[A]

Yeah. In the truth.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you, Garrison. That really does make it sound like I'm reading from the Bible at church or something, doesn't it? Oh, God. Also, the oil is not sanctioned. That's not how sanctions work. Sanction countries and people, not things. Yeah. Bizarre sentence structure is. Yeah, it's doing a lot for me. So, yeah, I talked about the Rodriguez option in our last show, and I guess this is kind of confirming a lot of what we had speculated about there.

[E]

That's assuming this happens. By the way, I will say that there was some dip in oil prices today over the expectation that this is real, but I don't know how well connected those people are, either, quite frankly, or how much of an understanding anyone has over whether this is going to happen or not. We don't know. He just says things, and sometimes they happen and sometimes they don't, and there's no actual way to tell which ones are going to come true and which ones are just him posting from Trump's.

[D]

Mouth to Rubio's ears.

[A]

Yeah, but then Rubio says something different in an interview, Trump says it again, and then. Yeah, here we go. Yeah. It does look like they are attempting to pursue the strategy which you spoke about, which is the only thing getting liberated in Venezuela is the oil. Right. They will allow the regime to continue. There will not be any attempt at regime change. They just want a puppet version of the old regime, which they can manipulate purely, apparently, for their own financial benefit with oil.

[E]

Yeah. It's also worth noting that Trump is claiming that he personally is going to be controlling the money after it's sold at market price, a sentence that at any other time in American history would be the most dictatorial thing you've ever seen, but pales in comparison to the fact that he is claiming to be running a country after a war that he unilaterally started without Congress.

[D]

So, I mean, is it even accurate to call it a war? It seems like it's like a single military action now. It's like an act of war, I guess. Right.

[E]

But if you combined the blockades, which are an act of war, and we'll get to blockades more in a second, and this, I think this is just a war.

[D]

Like, I mean, I went to the protest in New York the morning after the action, and, you know, a lot of. A lot of chants for about, you know, no war in Venezuela, you know, no more bombs in Venezuela. And, like, it looks like they're kind of done. They're kind of done with the bombs. They're kind of done with the war.

[E]

Well, here's the thing, though. So Trump has also said that if the current government of Venezuela refuses to comply, he will do more strikes worse.

[A]

Than he did to Maduro.

[E]

Yeah. And it's always kind of difficult to parse exactly what's going on there.

[A]

But, yeah, there's a potential for more US Action, definitely, because it seems like Right now they appear to have got roughly what they wanted. And then like there's also the potential for this to go any number of ways. Right. Like things could continue to deteriorate for the regime there. Like what does it mean for their ability? They have previously had the ability to use various kind of nefarious reflaggings of boats which MIA is going to talk about a second here to obtain some income. Right. Like if they're not even able to do that, it's get even worse. Right. And the economic situation in Venezuela could, could very easily get worse. I know everyone I've spoken to there is yeah out trying to stock up on, on non perishable food and they don't know what the future hold to them. Plus you now have as we saw earlier in this week, very trigger happy pro government militias would probably be the best way to describe it. Like in this case they were shooting at a drone up in the air. But there's very clearly still a lot of tension in the country.

[D]

So on Saturday morning after the military action Venezuela, I went to the protest in New York like I previously mentioned and I've put together this little audio report that I recorded at the protest that takes you through about like an hour's worth of protest activity and yeah, give it a, give it a listen.

[F]

It is Saturday, January 3rd, 2:54pm I am in Times Square with I would say 200 to 300 people protesting US action in Venezuela as well as Iran and the genocide in Palestine. Kind of a mix of causes, but mostly talking about Venezuela and the military extradition of President Maduro. The organizational structure at this protest seems to be mostly propped up by various communist organizations. There's Revolution Communist Party tabling, there's, there's the Bob Avakin Refuse Fascism organization with a lot of banners and signs. PSL has a bunch of banners and signs as well as the CUNY Internationalist student group which is tied to the New York City public University system. They have some homemade signs, the only signs actually drawn on paper probably this morning versus all of the PSL signs which appear pretty printed and pre prepared. A rotating selection of speakers have given speeches for the past hour and now at 3pm this relatively small crowd for a New York protest is leading a march south. No, I'm not alone. The march is taking up probably about one city block just outside of Times Square on 43rd and 8th turning onto 8th Avenue. Now after about 10 minutes of marching, NYPD bikes at the front of the march as well as on foot off officers on either Side of the crowd, not like a huge presence. I've maybe seen cumulatively 100 or so cops, which is actually just not that much for New York, especially based on how spread out they are. Like, it's maybe like two dozen cops on either side of the march just walking, walking on the sidewalk. And then maybe another. Another two to three dozen in the front and more in the back. So between 50 to 100 cops. A little over 15 minutes into the march, they've now moved up to 47th Street. At this point, there's been zero conflict with police. They've mostly facilitated the traffic around the march as people continue to chant and walk north.

[E]

You have got a daddy.

[F]

The crowd has been marching for over 35 minutes and now are arriving at what I assume is their destination, Columbus circle, up at 58th street and Broadway. No scuffles with the police. There was like two guys in mega hats kind of trying to antagonize the side of the crowd for the past 15 minutes. Nothing really happened. One random dude came out of a convenience store yelling maduro. Trying to agitate some people in the crowd. But everyone just moved on and now they are approaching Columbus Circle.

[E]

People in this country need to answer the people of the world, what are we gonna do? This is not a time for protest. As usual, there needs to be a fall of a regime. Not in Venezuela, but right here in the US Are the people in this country mobilizing nonprofit while it is still people to do so, to begin the fall of this fascist regime, to organize.

[F]

The decent people of this country. Police are now very lightly directing people into Columbus Circle, onto the plaza and off of the street. Some groups are packing up their protest signs and bags and starting to peel off.

[D]

So as expected, this protest was done by a coalition of anti imperialist, leftist, socialist, communist organizations. You have the Party for Socialism and Liberation, PSL and all of these other like communist groups who are all primarily either trying to grow their membership roster or sell their newspapers, sell their magazines. And this is what most of the protest actually is. They have tables set up while people are giving speeches. They have people walking around handing out pamphlets and flyers. And this protest was not very big, like I said it was. It was relatively small, maybe 200, 300 people. Because there's not a lot of public buy in for this sort of thing. Because at this point, if anyone's been around, they know based on the flyers that get posted what kind of protest this is going to be. This is going to be socialist communist organizations trying to grow their membership. It's not a representative sample of the people of New York. It is. It is people trying to sell magazines and newspapers and books. And the fact that the entire protest ecosystem for stuff like this is fully captured by these sorts of organizations makes it really hard to grow a genuine movement because people know that it's going to be walking for 30 minutes and then people are going to be shoving pamphlets in their, in their hand. And that's the extent to which you are protesting. It is that it's walking along a path led by the NYPD to Columbus Circle.

[A]

Yeah. I'm sure this happened in almost every city in the U.S. right. Like I saw a flyer for San Diego personally couldn't be asked to attend because as you say, like I knew what was going to happen. Like the person in a high vis and a clipboard was going to try and get my email address.

[E]

I will say that the thing that did hearten me a little bit was that there were a few protests. I mean, just out in the Chicago suburbs, which is not a place you normally have these that weren't by these groups that were just pretty spontaneous on the morning of the demonstration. But the sort of issue. Yeah. That you're referring to, Garrison, is that even these spontaneous protests, the energy just gets captured by the PSL and these organizations that fundamentally don't want to do anything other than grow their organization.

[A]

I was designing an org to co opt the anger that's happening right now and I wanted it to funnel the anger in a useless direction. People out on activism. I wouldn't change anything from the psl.

[E]

And I mean, and this is, this has been what the American anti war movement has looked like since the Iraq war demonstrations. Right. This was one of the battles that happened inside of the Iraq war protest. And it's one of the reasons why they didn't work.

[D]

And like this is a very serious thing. Like this is a very serious military action that should warrant massive public outcry. But protesting taps into a finite resource that people have. And when you have an inclination that the protests are going to go this way, people might not want to expend their personal resource because it is not seriously putting pressure on anyone making decisions in the government.

[A]

Yeah. This is a very serious thing that we shouldn't underplay for a second that like the United States have done something which is completely illegal. Right. Which is an act of war against a sovereign country. And me saying this doesn't mean I'm like a maduro stand. Anyone who's listened to any portion of my work will understand that. But it is incredibly serious that the US Is attempting to set this precedent that it can just black bag heads of state whether or not the US Considers them legitimate.

[D]

Right.

[A]

Their argument that Maduro is not legitimate. It doesn't matter. If they can just send dudes in helicopters to black and people around the world, then that is a very scary precedent.

[D]

All right, I am going to head out and return to the CES show floor. I will say for the. If you're, if you're doing a tariff talk segment, there has been discussion of tariffs at CES that I have not mentioned on the CES episodes so far. Two thumbs down. Two, two thumbs down on the tariffs from the Consumer Electronics Showcase. They're coming out with the bold stance that they don't like the tariffs.

[A]

Wow. I think Ivanka Trump was giving a keynote address at the last CES that I attended.

[E]

That rocks. Incredible. Incredible.

[A]

Related news, I've stopped attending ces.

[D]

Well, I have to keep attending now because the secretary to the US from Estonia was, was oogling me for 30 minutes yesterday. So I might be getting a new passport.

[E]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Good luck. The poop analyzing toilet for me, Garrison.

[D]

I will do so.

[E]

One of the questions that we had at the very beginning of this operation was what is going to happen to the US Oil blockade on Venezuela? And the answer is that it appears to still be, in effect, the evidence of which is the US Interdicting two oil tankers, one of which they've been chasing for about a month, a few weeks. Which is really funny if you know how large an oil tanker is that you've been in a boat chase with an oil tanker.

[A]

It's like, I guess it's just so big they can't make it stop.

[E]

Yeah, I guess so. Apparently the administration is claiming that the Coast Guard had attempted to board it and they refused to allow the Coast Guard to board. But the only thing I can think of is, you know those, those giant vehicles they use to, to move rockets around at JPL or like, like from jpl, like on the launch site where they have they, they can only move like five miles an hour and they're the size of a rocket because you have to have a standing rocket on it. That, that's what it's like chasing an empty oil tanker across the facility. It's also worth noting that one of the very weird parts of this is that I'm going to quote, quote from Reuters here, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the ship's crew had made quote, Frantic efforts to avoid apprehension, which, again, I cannot emphasize this enough. This is an oil tanker. Like, this is not a speedboat. This is like the largest. It's like one of. One of the largest and most unwieldy craft that humanity has ever produced in its entire history. Like, how are you getting frantically avoid the oil tanker?

[A]

Yeah. Is it zigzagging?

[D]

I don't know.

[E]

Oil taker, Evasive maneuvers.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

And this is. This is also from that raiders thing and quote, failed to obey Coast Guard orders and so faces criminal charges, which sucks. But also, I like, if you're getting evaded by an oil tanker, that is a skill issue. Like, you.

[A]

You could.

[E]

There are websites where you can track these things. They have transponders. Like, when this thing was captured, its transponder was on. So the skill issue, I. Good Lord. On a more serious note, this is. This is part of that initial oil blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil that began last year. The US government has been saying that this ship and the other ship that the other oil tanker that they've seized are basically ghost ships, which we talked about another episode. I don't know if you want to explain again what that is, James, but.

[A]

Yeah, they're often old ships that are either reflagged or the ships that have been retired and are returned, or the ships have been scrapped and someone has taken their name and is using it so that they appear like ships coming back from the dead. But often they will reflag or rename halfway through their trip. And it's a. A bunch of boat law stuff to avoid sanctions is what they tend to be.

[E]

Yeah. And so that's the US's justification for seizing two more oil tankers, which again, I also cannot emphasize enough that this also is an act of war.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, were they flagged as Venezuelan?

[E]

No, one of them was flagged as Russian. And I haven't seen anything about what the other ship was flagged as. China has protested the seizures of these boats, but there hasn't really been anything other than diplomatic noise so far from the Chinese government, who, if there was a government on the world stage, who was going to do a serious protest about this, I think it would have been either Russia or China. And we haven't really seen anything more significant than the diplomats being annoyed. So we will continue to see how this oil blockade plays out and the effects that it has on people in Venezuela. I wish I had a better ad pivot for this, but I don't. So here's ads.

[A]

Well, they're like oil tankers Mia. They just rumble along and you can't stop it. And then we've been unable to interdict them.

[E]

We are back from our. Our failed ad interdiction. Do you want to talk about Syria, James?

[A]

Oh, yeah, this is James. Oh, this is grim. The rest of the world segment. Because a lot of bad stuff is happening and some of it's not going to punch into, like, your mainstream US News media diet. So right now, pretty serious fighting has broken out in Aleppo, right. Syrian Transitional Government forces are shelling and attempting to enter the Kurdish enclave of Sheikh Maqsood. Sheikh Maqsood is like an area in where Kurdish and other people, there are Christian people, there are Yazidi people who live there. This enclave has remained. Right. Despite the regime taking over of the Syrian Transitional Government taking over the rest of Aleppo. Right. They didn't take over that area. And this area has remained under the control of the aanes, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, AKA Rojava, but they have demilitarized it. And what that means is that there are only internal security forces who are called Asaish in Kurdish in this region. It appears that what happened was that the SDF drone unit struck an STG vehicle with a drone. Stg, Syrian Transitional Government. Right. That's the Jelani Alshara government.

[E]

Of course, they have another acronym, just. Just the acronyms for over.

[A]

Yeah, Ben not gone. God. Yeah. There's always more. So they hit this stg, Vigl and Der Hafa, and then the STG seemed to respond by dropping grenades into Sheikh Maqsood from drones. And then the Asaish responded with drones and conflict began. Right. What's different from them? There has been conflict on and off in Sheikh Maqsood for a long time. But like in the last year, right, Since HTS moved from Aleppo to sees most of the country htshan a group that was formerly on the foreign terrorist organization that's the United States, but no longer is. What we have seen here is not only shelling of the Sheikh Maxu neighborhood and shelling in response or mortifying response for the SRAs don't have heavy weapons. That's not their role. The STG has also attempted to enter Shikmaksu to seize it. Right. This has obviously prompted thousands of people to flee because they're worried, very reasonably about groups that were previously known under the banner of the SNA or the Turkish FSA who have previously conducted ethnic cleansing of Kurdish people in areas that they have managed to take control of, who have murdered civilians, who have executed Women in Kurdish politics. There's every reason for these civilians to fear that happening again. Right. Because the Syrian Transitional Government has far too often just rebadged SNA units with a long and storied history of war crimes and not done anything to stop them doing it again. But also, some of these are not SNA units. Some of these are Syrian Transitional Government units from other parts of Syria. Nonetheless, this attempt, an incursion into the neighborhood is remarkable. It's different. As I write this, the SDG appear to be staging to enter the neighborhood. Again, very amusingly, they took a video showing this which also revealed the position of all their armor on Telegram.

[E]

Classic, classic Syrian civil war stuff. Everyone loves to be revealing their position on telegram.

[A]

So yeah, maybe, maybe when I, when I reopen telegram, those guys would have been wiped out by a bunch of drones. Who knows? But yeah, it continues to be a flashpoint and this is the most serious flare up we've seen in a long time. Right. There was supposed to be an agreement for the integration of the SDF into Syrian Transitional Government. Ministry of Defense that has failed. They haven't come to an agreement. Various sources are reporting various things about what they wanted, specifically what the SDF wanted for the ypj, who are the Women's Defense Forces. And there are. That is a definite red line for them. They won't disband that the women won't put down their guns. Right. And for very reasonable reasons.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

We don't know exactly if the Syrian Transitional Government refuse to accept them in any way. They have said they wouldn't do that. They have said they would accept them. But we don't really have like a very clear picture of the last round of negotiations. Talking of Kurdish armed groups. Let's go from Rojavat right across Kurdistan from west to east. Just looking at a little compass in my head. In Iran, protests have grown around the country. These protests began largely because of the decreased purchasing power of people's money there. Of course the protests have further reduce that and people are really feeling the economic bite. Right. This time what is different is that armed groups have come out in support. I saw le the name translates as People's Revolutionary Front had assassinated a car that took a drive by Pak. So Pak, one of the smaller Kurdish paramilitary groups. I made an episode, I think it was called what does bombing mean for freedom in Iran? Last year with Gordain and I will try and get back with Gordy soon to talk more about this. But if you're wondering who are all these groups? What Are all these acronyms? That's the episode you need to go to. So P A K Peshmoker have been killed. Right. Which is a significant change. There have been armed elements in these protests and there has been a unity statement both from the different Kurdish armed groups. I think it was P A K in Komala who made this statement. Right. And then also from coalition of Kurdish women's organizations. It's organizations from across that political spectrum, but in. In that part of the world coming together to denounce the actions of the regime, which include, for instance, in Elam province, riot police storming a hospital. I don't know people will have seen that video, but it was extremely disturbing.

[E]

Has there been any movement from the Belushi independence groups?

[A]

Yeah, sure there has. Yeah.

[E]

But I know. I'm pretty sure it was a Belushi group. I remember in the 2019 protest, the most militant it got was, I think a Belushi group, like, fired at RPG at a police checkpoint. But it never really sort of spread beyond that.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know. There are indifferent. Yeah, there are a number of, like, Belushi groups. I'm not aware of their involvement. There have definitely been, like, police repression there. Like there is everywhere else. Right? Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, I will try and probably cover this in a whole episode next week. I had a lot of time to repair on that with all the craziness. I did see that this morning. So we're on the 7th again. The Armed forces attack protesters in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, which, if you're not aware, has a tremendous significance right. From the 179 revolution there. And. And Trump has threatened to intervene, as he always does. Right.

[E]

Yeah, exactly. Perfectly what the regime wants, because it lets them portray themselves as defenders of Iranian sovereignty, et cetera, et cetera, against American imperialism.

[A]

Yeah, America. Great Satan. Moving on, let's talk about Israel. Israel has threatened to withhold. I believe it has now withheld registration to operate in Gaza from msf, Medicons, Frontier, Oxfam and a number of other aid organizations. Msf, I'm just going to quote from them, called it a cynical and calculated attempt to prevent organizations from providing services in Gaza and the west bank, which is a breach of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law. It's just then trying to further starve people to death. Right. There's no other reason, like, Israel has made the claim that these groups have been infiltrated by militants. That is a laughable conjecture. Like, it's a bad joke. Like, I've worked with msf and Oxfam all over the world. Right. There were a lot of criticisms of them I would make. One of them is not that they have been infiltrated by shocking Hamas. Like you're having a laugh. I want to do a whole episode on this. But like when O' Brien talks about two plus two equals five in 1984, this is where that gets us, right? When you can just say something that is blatantly false and force people to agree that it is true. That is the project of genocide because it first has to destroy the truth to justify what it is doing. And we are seeing that happening. And a very brief migration update. Finally, in the case before Judge Boasberg regarding the Alien Enemies act that we've reported about before, the Trump administration asked for a delay because of the changing situation events. Whaler. Right. I don't think they're asking for delays so they can be like, oh, it's not safe for people to go back. We better keep hold of them and treat them nicely. It is my suspicion any agreement they come to with the Rodriguez regime will include that it must accept people back. And as I said in the other episode, right, these people are going back to a country which is now deeply paranoid about American spies. And they have lived in America. This is not going to be good for them. And the city of San Diego has sued the Trump administration for damage to city property on Marin Valley Road or has filed a complaint today to do so. I'm glad they're doing it. It's also deeply hypocritical. Right. Mayor TODD Gloria was out there asking for more border security funding under Biden. They defunded the office in a city which would welcome refugees and migrants. Is it just a publicity thing? These people don't care. Right? When migrants were being held in the open air in San Diego county and San Diego City, these people weren't there. Yeah, I'm still glad it's happening. But don't for one second believe these people give a single shit about migrants. They don't. And don't for one second think that voting for them is voting to be kind to migrants, because it's not. Todd Gloria is is a liar. And just like everything else, he's using as an opportunity to promote himself. And he's a terrible person. But, yeah, in this case, they are suing for trespassing and the placing of razor wire on city property. It's city property. That's way outside of where you would think the city of San Diego is. It's just adjacent to OTO Mountain Wilderness, but I think they have it there for water rights reasons or something.

[E]

Brief Tariff Update, not Tariff News this week, however, comma the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the giant case over a wide swath of Trump's tariffs this Friday. So next week we will explain what happened there in the fallout. As you're listening to this episode, that decision might have already been released. Have fun and put a trans girl on your couch.

[A]

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[E]

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