3613 - The Anti-Zionist Israeli Left; ICE in Rural America w/ Iddo Elam, Emma Janssen

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3613 – The Anti-Zionist Israeli Left; ICE in Rural America
Air Date: April 1, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode of The Majority Report with Sam Seder tackles two major topics:

1. The experience and perspective of the anti-Zionist left within Israel amidst the current wars and recent legal changes.
2. Ongoing and underreported Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in rural Minnesota.

Sam is joined by Ido Alam, an Israeli refusenik and contributor to Local Call, and Emma Jansen, a writing fellow at The American Prospect.

---

1. The Anti-Zionist Israeli Left: Ido Alam Interview

The Current Political and Social Climate in Israel

• [24:50] Sam sets the scene: Israel occupies southern Lebanon, continues denying aid to Gaza, intensifies military involvement in the West Bank, attacks Iran, and passes a controversial new law instituting a two-tiered criminal justice system for Palestinians versus Israelis—including capital punishment by hanging.
• Sam asks: "As a refusenik, leftist, and anti-Zionist, where is the Israeli public? It feels...like their perspective has hardened rather than...expanded." (25:00)

Growing, but Isolated, Antiwar Sentiment

• [25:58] Ido Alam: While Jewish Israeli support for war was near-unanimous at the outset, recent weeks have seen an uptick in antiwar protests—now up to 1,500 people in Tel Aviv and satellite protests in 20 cities.
• "There is people that are tired of it. Many people are tired of this war because there is a cost. Just today...we woke up at 8am to three consecutive sirens...rocket sirens, rockets that actually fall because our Iron Dome is not what we are told it is." (26:20)

On Iron Dome & Civilian Fear

• [28:16] Censorship makes it hard to count precise rocket impacts. "Some of [the rockets] explode in the air and release small missiles. One of those small missiles missed my apartment by literal, like, a few degrees in the air."
• "When a shrapnel of a ballistic missile falls, it can destroy a whole building." --Ido (28:45)

How War Fatigue and Protest Are Evolving

• [32:39] There’s more media coverage of settler violence against Israelis and some increased coverage of violence against Palestinians as well.

New Law: Death Penalty by Hanging for 'Terrorists'

• [35:24] Sam raises the new Israeli law, de facto subjecting Palestinians to capital punishment by hanging, with a much lower threshold to be deemed a "terrorist."
• Ido: "They chose hanging because...the Israeli Physician board didn't agree to help them with lethal injections."
  The law is broadly condemned by liberals not for its racism but for procedural issues: "This is a bad law, but only because how it's written, not because they don't want to kill terrorists, just because it’s literally written in the most racist, abhorrent way..." (36:55)

Extraordinary Parliamentary Statements

• [38:13] Sam plays a clip from opposition MK Mickey Levy: "I gave the order to shoot at the head of a cuffed terrorist...unlike everyone sitting here...I gave an order to shoot a terrorist with hands cuffed behind his back in the head."
  • Sam: “It’s stunning, yeah.” (40:32)
  • Ido: “That's my liberals.” (40:26)

On Israeli Protest and Leftist Isolation

• [44:50] Ido describes the demoralization and material repression facing Israeli leftists and antiwar protestors:
  "Just demoralizing, just depressing, completely depressing...I try to find hope when we see the protests growing...but it's not enough...We have been protesting now for a month. We were in the streets in Tel Aviv when nobody wanted to join us, when police were beating us, arresting people..."
  • Protestors are attacked by police, water cannons; leftist political parties are absent.
  • "We are growing...maybe if after this Seder is completely destroyed by rocket sirens, more people will be against it...It's quite sad that we have to pay this price to be against this imperialist aggression in Iran." (47:10)

Ido's Message to the U.S.

• "...pressure your local representatives, even on the local committee level, all the way to your senators, your parliament members to stop supporting Netanyahu, to stop giving us guns, to stop giving us the green light, to do whatever we want in the Middle East...Let us have, as we say, peaceful and liberating Pesach." (48:30)

---

2. ICE in Rural Minnesota: Emma Jansen Interview

Continuing ICE Activity Amid Disappearing Cameras

• [51:22] Emma explains: As ICE publicly draws down troops in Minneapolis, local reports confirm their presence has simply shifted into rural Minnesota, where media coverage is scarce.

• “...People that I spoke to when I was in rural Minnesota, they kept telling me that no, [ICE] actually haven't left the state. They've just come into the outer parts of the state, away from the Twin Cities where there aren't cameras and where local news is...dying out. So it's just not known as much.” (52:48)

Context: Three Towns Studied

• Northfield (college town, more liberal), Wilmar & Albert Lee (more conservative, agricultural, and industrial)
• Each has distinct immigrant communities: Mexican American/Hispanic, Somali, and Karen (from Myanmar).

Local Industries as ICE Targets

• Wilmar: Jennie-O Turkey processing—home to large Somali community for religious reasons (no pork processing).
• Albert Lee/Austin: Hormel Foods (pork processing), primarily Karen and Hispanic immigrants.
• Northfield: Service industries, restaurant workers.
• Emma: “I heard stories primarily about people being targeted, either workers in the service industry, at restaurants...folks...on the outskirts of town where it’s lower income...” (57:14)

Targeting and Community Response

• [59:57] Notable Event: In Wilmar, ICE officers ate at a restaurant, then returned to arrest and deport the owner—an act with national reverberations.
• Community differences:
  • In Northfield, well-resourced college town, mutual aid provisions and existing resistance structures (food, rides, shelter) persisted.
  • In smaller towns with less infrastructure and more conservative leanings, it was harder to hide, harder to organize, and the risks higher for both immigrants and their allies.

Changing Tactics in the Face of Repression

• [64:53] At first, local activists confronted ICE directly (recording, protesting up close) but, without media around to document abuses, this only escalated the danger for targets and organizers.
  • "They did it more from the sidelines, both to protect themselves and also to protect the victims...the more that they, as ICE watchers, really got in the faces of the agents, it would...amp them up...that would then be transferred onto the person who was being arrested." (64:53)

Evolving Attitudes in Conservative Areas

• [69:25] Some conservative community members' attitudes shifted when ICE overreach affected someone they knew.
  • Story of Willie, a Mexican American restaurant owner and motorcycle club member in Wilmar, who was assaulted and detained by ICE agents despite being a U.S. citizen. Some of his conservative friends formed a perimeter around his restaurant to protect it from ICE staking it out.
  • "Some people do regret what they voted for...when something like this comes to their town and comes directly to their friend, they will…stand up in that way." (72:00)

Supporting Rural Mutual Aid

• Mutual aid is harder to coordinate in rural areas but remains crucial; Emma suggests supporting local food banks, churches, and Islamic societies.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ido Alam: “I don't want Palestinians to fear for their lives. By calling them a terrorist, they will be sent to die...Who is a terrorist anymore?” (41:28)
• Sam Seder: “It’s extraordinary...that this is the centrist making this argument.” (38:13)
• Emma Jansen: “You’re completely right when you say that it is much harder to hide in these small towns...much harder to hide. And then also just a pure numbers game, fewer people to...raise money to help someone make rent.” (64:53)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:12 – Sam’s introduction and news roundup
• 24:46 – Interview with Ido Alam begins
• 36:55 – Discussion on death penalty law for Palestinians
• 44:50 – The repression and morale of the Israeli left
• 51:17 – Interview with Emma Jansen begins
• 57:14 – Differences among Northfield, Wilmar, and Albert Lee
• 64:53 – Changing tactics for ICE resistance in rural areas
• 69:25 – Has political support for ICE shifted in small towns?
• 74:15 – Ways to support rural immigrant mutual aid

---

Overall Tone

The conversations are urgent, irreverent, and often bleak, but imbued with the resilient, sardonic spirit typical of the Majority Report. Both guests are deeply candid about the scale of repression and violence their communities face, but highlight growing resistance and the need for sustained, international solidarity.

---

Further Reading & Action

• Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple (on the history of the anti-Zionist Jewish Bund and socialist currents)
• Emma Jansen’s article, “When ICE Blows Through Rural America” (linked in the podcast description)

---

This episode is critical for understanding the entrenchment of right-wing policies in both Israel and rural America, evolving resistance tactics under heightened repression, and the vital need for broader awareness and support.

Transcript

[Emma Jansen]

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Seder]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday, April 1, 2026. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Ido Alam, Refusenik, contributor to local call Hebrew language news site out of Israel. Then Emma Jansen, writing fellow at the American Prospect where she reports on anti poverty policy, health and political power on ice. Continuing to ravage rural Minnesota. Meanwhile, Trump sits in, the first president ever to sit in on a Supreme Court oral argument on his attempt to end birthright citizenship. Tonight, Trump to address the nation about his US Illegal war in Iran as thousands more troops sail to the Middle east and the White House prepping America for more oil increases or I should say more oil price increases. Also yesterday, Trump signs a piece of paper calling for a federal voter list NFL to keep the Rooney rule essentially dei. Despite Florida's warning. Federal district judge orders the Trump regime to reinstate legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who use the customs Border Patrol. One app. US Counterterror officials plan an antifa summit and the build up to interfere with the 26 election. Federal Judge permanently blocks President Trump from unilaterally defunding PBS and npr. And that February San Francisco teacher strike a success. One month later, Pete Hegseth ends investigation into the pilots who did the Kid Rock and no Kings Flybys. And the DOJ drops 23,000 investigations into criminal wrongdoing to do immigration cases against moms and grandparents. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, it is Wednesday. Emma Vigeland out today, but nevertheless, we still say that it's hump day because we paid her licensing fee to use that term that she coined.

[Matt Leckie]

It's all about IP these days.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. You paid her.

[Guest or Producer]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

She coined the phrase. Did you not know that? No. Also just a reminder,

[Matt Leckie]

we will be

[Sam Seder]

sending out later this week, maybe over the weekend, maybe by Monday, a link for members if you want to let's the close off will be, I mean if you become a member by Friday, we will send a link to members with the opportunity for a free Molly Crabapple book about the Jewish wound. But I would encourage you if you can afford to, regardless of whether you're a member or not, pre order her book as a way to try and get that to the top of the or somewhere on the New York Times bestseller list. Very important book in terms of like intervening in this debate in this country as to whether being anti Zionist is anti Semitic. There is a long history that is concurrent with the idea of Zionism that is not just anti Zionist, but is decidedly anti Zionist but in believing that Jews can be Jews and their home is where they live. And so really important book and certainly worth a read. Gives you a lot of great history about both about the Bund and Zionism and in particular socialism, both in this country and in Eastern Europe. So pick that book up wherever your book sales are. You would pre order it and you know, I don't know when they ship it to you, but it comes out Monday. So the more preorders, the better it does. Donald Trump is addressing the country tonight at 9pm Eastern about ostensibly about Iran, but it could be about, I mean, that's what we understand. But last time he did this, I thought he was going to attack Iran. I can't remember what dribble he was talking about. It could be about birthright citizenship. There's a reason why sitting in in this court case and it's not because he's intricately interested in the nuances of the Fourteenth Amendment or the 1952 Aliens and nationality act or in that the Dred Scott ruling or the Wong Kim Ark ruling that edified the idea of natural born citizenship. It's because he wants to show his people that he hates immigrants and that he has a national unity purity project. Or he could announce tonight that we've won the Iran war and he's pulling all of these troops that are still headed towards the Middle East. We now have the 82nd Airborne seems to have arrived, all of those personnel, and now it sounds like there's another 6,000 naval personnel headed towards the Middle East. That doesn't sound like they're about to announce victory. He could announce we're going to take Carg island and then announce victory. Or he could pretend that somehow Iran represented an imminent threat towards us. It's hard to know, but they're sending out some like semi backbenchers to sort of like test out talking points. Here is Rich McCormick, Republican from Georgia, on the Todd Starnes Show. Real, real open mic for this star. What is he still is he right for the National Review? Or did he I can't remember. This is on Newsmax, but this is on Newsmax too. This is where you can get away with this. Rich McCormick has been reading some interesting history books

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah, I don't want to have boots on the ground, but also I want to have all options on the table. One of the things we've done poorly in the past is we do this thing called limited warfare. It's never worked for us. When we go to war college or we do command and staff college, we always learned that the worst kind of way to fight any war is to do it half ass. We were horrible in Afghanistan and Iraq until we did surge ops and then we won. We were horrible in Vietnam till we did Thunder 1 and Rolling Thunder 1 and 1, Thunder 2, and then we won. As soon as we go half measures, we lose, we lose. Popular sport. The faster we get this over, the better. If we seize Carg island, that is technically boots on the ground. It could be done almost flawlessly. We have enough firepower that would be very easy to defend. I know nobody wants to see it, but at the same time we can choke them off and this war and get back to business. Everybody's gas prices come back down and so they're not funding Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. The people will be happy. But the longer we Dr. Drag us on, the more frustrated the people would get and the less support we'll have.

[Sam Seder]

So for those of you at home who have been under the impression that we had a Vietnam syndrome in this country that right wingers would bemoan, which basically kept the United States from entering new wars. Ostensibly that was because we won so much that people were tired of winning the Afghanistan war. Remember, we fought the Afghanistan war to defeat the Taliban. Who's in charge now? That's a good question, Brian. It's actually the Taliban winning. We were in Iraq for 20 years. I guess Saddam Hussein is dead. And the biggest winner in Iraq, if it wasn't for isis, maybe would have been Iran. So it's interesting. What wars did we lose? What wars did. Is he talking about that we lost? That we only might be the only war he. It sounds to me if they're getting this specific about boots on the ground in Carg island, that's what the plan has been floating around is. Here's Donald Trump yesterday already prepping the idea of like, look, gases, prices go up, but then they go down. Here is, you know, it just gives you an insight into what, I don't know, little thinking is going on behind the scenes.

[Emma Jansen]

First one that affects Americans on gas prices. Today they had $4.

[Guest or Producer]

$4, yeah. And we have a country that's not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six Months.

[Emma Jansen]

But Americans are feeling the effects in

[Guest or Producer]

the interim, and they're also feeling a lot safer.

[Emma Jansen]

What is the plan to bring them back down?

[Guest or Producer]

All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon, and they'll become tumbling down. And stock prices were up today almost to a record, because they know two things. Number one, we have a safe country. We had to take a little detour because we had a madman named Khomeini who sadly is no longer with us.

[Sam Seder]

You know, Americans feeling a lot safer, I'm sure, because was it six months, or are we two weeks away? I can't remember which. When we were going to get bombed by Iran with a nuclear weapon, it was probably two weeks away from having it and then six months to detonating it. Although what could have happened in the interim is that someone could have teleported from Iran into a Waffle House with a nuclear vest. So we will find out tonight. Well, all I can promise you we're going to find out tonight is whatever he talks about, that's what we're going to find out. I don't think it's quite clear that we're going to have an answer as to what we're doing or. But I will say this. I think if he announces that, in fact, there are going to be, there's some type of military operation that is going to involve ground troops, buckle up, because this is going to be. We're going to be there for, I would guess, years to come. Once there is that level of commitment, the whole blob takes over. I mean, we're already starting to see it. We started to see it rather early. Mattis, a week or two ago was saying, we can't leave Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz because now they're going to charge tax on everybody. We started to see it. Colin Powell once said about Iraq, you break it, you own it. And, I mean, Trump is oblivious enough that he could pretend like we didn't break it and just walk away and just go, they're getting charged more for oil. It's okay. But it sounds like he's been convinced that taking Carg island would be easy and that it would choke off Iranian oil sales enough that they would immediately capitulate and agree to not use the Strait of Hormuz as a leverage point in ensuring no more future attacks on them. And then once we've got troops on the ground there and US Military personnel start to die, I mean, it's also quite possible they may end up sending paratroopers into various parts around the country. I mean, who knows? But I suspect that what we're going to see is going to happen over the next couple of days, although tonight would be a weird night for him to announce an invasion because you still have the stock market open tomorrow. When does it close for Easter? I'll check, but I assume Thursday. I'll check. All right. Well, we're going to take a break in a minute, and when we come back, we'll be talking to Ido Alam. He's a refusenik and a contributor Local call in Israel. Get a sense of what the activist, anti Zionist left in Israel is making of both Israel's incursion into Lebanon, this war with Iran, the ongoing killings in the west bank, the shutting down of aid to Gaza, and this new law passed by the Israeli Knesset to basically have a two tiered system of capital punishment, where de facto this is what the experts in Israel say the de facto implications of that law are that Palestinians are subject to hanging as opposed to Israelis, so much so that the Israeli politicians were going around wearing little noose lapel pins. And then we'll talk to Emma Jansen, writing fellow at the American Prospect, on a great piece she did looking into ICE's rampant involvement in rural Minnesota. We don't hear much about it because there's just no media there. She went in to write a piece about it for the Prospect. It's a really great piece. We'll talk to her about that. In the meantime, over the past year, I would say really almost timed exactly when Donald Trump won the presidency. So maybe it's been closer to a year and a half. My health habits went out the window hard. I didn't eat well. I didn't sleep much. The one thing I had going for me was the peace of mind knowing that I was taking a healthy daily multivitamin and hitting my key nutrient goals that way, including my vitamin D goals. I started taking ritual a couple years ago, and I've told the story many times, but perennially, when I go in for my annual checkup with my doctor, he would say, you've either got to get more sun or you're going to take vitamin D. And I knew I wasn't going to get more sun. So I would go and buy some vitamin D and I would take it for a month maybe, and then I would run out and then I would never take it again. So the two things about ritual that really first hooked me because I wasn't terribly conscious about what I was putting into my body anyways was that they'll mail it to you every month and so you never have to worry about it, about running out and that it's easy on your stomach so so you don't forget to take it. Because what happens with me in the morning I see my vitamins and if I knew it was going to upset my stomach I wouldn't take it and I'll take it later and I would never take it. But the upshot is is that Rituals Essential for Men is a great multivitamin with 10 key ingredient ingredients, I should say nutrients including omega 3 DHA, which my doctor ultimately told me to take because it's good for your brain health and your heart health. Vitamin D3 to support normal muscle and immune function. It is gentle on the stomach, it has a minty essence in every bottle so it's easy to take your multis every day and all their stuff is traceable so you know where it comes from. Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.com majority that's ritual.com majority for 25 off your first month. We'll put the code in the YouTube and podcast descriptions. Also, this episode of the Majority Report is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grains, the first baked from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, seasonal pastries and fresh pastas. Unlike store bought options, wild grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce in a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and richer in nutrients and antioxidants. There's no preservatives, no shortcuts, plus all items conveniently bake in 25 minutes or less with no thawing required. Wild grain boxes are fully customizable. They have a variety box, they have a gluten free box, they have a vegan box and now they have a new protein box. And I will tell you, with Passover coming up, I had no choice but I had to make all my wild grain stuff this weekend I served a bunch of it for the brunch I had after Saul's bar mitzvah. You know all the family that was in town leaving on Sunday and people show up and I've got fresh baked croissants, I've got fresh bake. What do you call those? Well, I had a pumpkin muffins but also biscuits. I had fresh baked biscuits and people shocked. People were like what the. I'm like it's Sals Bar mitzvah. I'm going full out, like, hey, and I saved some of the good stuff, like a couple of the cookies. And I have like, I didn't serve the ham and cheese things at the bar. Metzo, you can get that. A lot of conflicts, a lot of conflicts in that one. But I was able to finish off this weekend. I mean, all this stuff is so fantastic. The house smells great when you cook fresh bread and it's delicious. I mean, honestly, it's delicious having fresh bakery quality bread, pastries and pasta at home without having any trips to the store and without having the mess that's involved in actually like mixing all this stuff up. Imagine it now and don't take my word for it, they have over 40,000 five star reviews. They've been voted best food subscription box by USA Today three years in a row. For a limited time, Wild Grain is offering you $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life when you go to wildgrain.com majority to start your subscription today. That's $30 off your first box and free croissant for life when you visit wildgreen.com majority or you can use the promo code Majority at checkout. All that will be in the podcast and YouTube description. Quick break. When we come back, IDIO alumni, it's. Live. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Viglin is out today. Want to welcome back to the program. Ido Alam, refusenik, contributor to Local Call in in Israel. It's a Hebrew language news site. And Ida, welcome back to the program.

[Ido Alam]

Thank you for having me.

[Sam Seder]

A lot going on these days that we could start there are Israel is now essentially occupying southern Lebanon. There's still denial of aid in Gaza. The military seems to be more aggressive in helping settlers attack Palestinians in the west bank and of course the attack on Iran and this law that was passed yesterday. I guess from the perspective of, I'm curious from your perspective as a refusenik, as a leftist, as an anti Zionist, where is the Israeli public? It feels from, from our perspective like their perspective has hardened rather than like expanded in terms of like dissent.

[Ido Alam]

Yeah. So first of all, most of the Israeli public is in Passover Seder, but me and you are not. Anyway, happy Pesach.

[Sam Seder]

I'm going tonight. But you're ahead of us.

[Ido Alam]

Yes, I'm also later you see me in my festive clothes now. But anyways, yeah, I would say that in the first week of this war, I think it was literally like almost all in the polls of Jewish Israelis that supported the war. Now It's a bit less. More and more Israelis are waking up, not in the numbers that we want, but at least you can see in Tel Aviv and in other cities the protests growing from week to week. We've seen at the start of the war, we had the protest in Nabima Square. In Tel Aviv we were only 20 people. Then we were 75, then 200, then 500. And this past Saturday we were already 1500 people, something like that. With 20 other protests across the country specifically against the war. So there is people that are tired of it. Many people are tired of this war because there is a cost. Just today, for example, because it's Passover, we woke up at 8am to three consecutive sirens. Then during the day we had five more. Tonight we had three more. I really hope that we won't have one during this interview. But every day now we have rocket sirens, we have rockets that actually fall because our Iron Dome is not what we are told it is. So you do see some of the more liberal center left people that supported this war because obviously they have been indoctrinated into believing that Iran is the biggest threat. Now a bit, going back a bit, maybe thinking about it again.

[Sam Seder]

Well, we don't hear much by way of missiles that make it through the Iron Dome. I mean, do you have a sense of. How many have landed in Tel Aviv or in other major centers around the country?

[Ido Alam]

So yeah, I mean, media censorship here is quite difficult. Even we don't really know if a missile falls, for example, on an IDF base. I wouldn't know probably, unless it got leaked. Tel Aviv has been targeted quite heavily. I know of at least I think five rockets that fell around the Tel Aviv area. But that's not all because obviously these are huge ballistic missiles. Some of them explode in the air and release small missiles. We have seen a lot of that happening. One of those small missiles missed my apartment by literal like a few degrees in the air. And you have many shrapnel that falls all the time. And when a shrapnel of a ballistic missile falls, it can destroy a whole building, it can kill people. So you do see quite a bit of landing sites around the Tel Aviv area and in general in Israel, but obviously nothing compared to what's happening in Lebanon or in Iran. Here it's only the few that make it out, but the majority, they do get fired in the air by the Iron Dome. And even those that fall usually don't cause casualties because everybody has, almost everybody has bomb shelters. Many people actually don't. But Obviously those are the people in society that the government doesn't care about, like Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev or very low class people even in Tel Aviv. Many old buildings, for example, don't have bomb shelters.

[Sam Seder]

Lastly, and then we can move on from just the specific. But has there been any change in the rate in which these missiles make it through? Because some have suggested like there's increasingly that Iran has adjusted its strategy and that increasingly like the number of Patriot missiles, like that weaponry is starting to be rationed in some fashion.

[Ido Alam]

I don't really know if you know, you can see more rockets falling because we don't have enough counter missiles or Iran somehow figured a way to fire them. More precisely at the start of the war, you saw just on the first few days a few very bad rocket sites in Tel Aviv and the area. That was because there was a lot of sirens in the first few days of the war. Obviously in the weeks in between. Now and then there was a bit less fire by Iran, but Hezbollah joined on the north. So the north is basically all the time sirens. You do see a bit more in the past week, I think a bit more actually that make it through. But I can't really say if that's true or just a feeling. But today specifically you saw a giant amount of attacks. It's because obviously most people are on holiday, most people are going from one city to their parents or whatever. So you saw today a lot of rocket attacks and in the past few days, not very much. You had a few days that even didn't have one.

[Sam Seder]

And so what is your sense? I mean, there is a lot of censorship in the context of the Israeli press. How, what can you tell us about the incursion into Lebanon and then really the way that people are reacting. Are they reacting to war in general? Are they reacting differently between the conflict in Lebanon than in Iran? And are there, is there reporting about what's going on the West Bank? Because that seems to have ratcheted up over the past, I don't know, three, four, six months or so.

[Ido Alam]

So yeah, I mean with Iran we have been told and sold this lie that they are, you know, very nearing and always on our doorstep threat. Netanyahu has been a large proponent of that lie. But also like I said, I mean all parties in the Knesset, for example, even the Democrats who are the Labour Party with Yair Golan, support the war with Iran or at least supported it fully till now. And now some of the more leftist ones have started to backtrack it. But still support it. So Iran for most Israelis is a justified war. It's something that we had to do because both the media and the opposition tell us that with Lebanon, I mean, this is like the third time in the past two years that we ground invaded Lebanon. People are starting to get quite tired of the war in Lebanon. I think that many people remember the first and second Lebanon wars. Iov obviously don't, but they see that each time that we go into Lebanon, nothing happens. And the last time we went in and we really attacked in Lebanon, we killed many of the Hezbollah guys. But now once again we are told that we need to do it again. And so this cycle of war with no end is quite, it seems to many Israelis as something that is not real, we shouldn't do it again. But I would say that still a majority probably supports the ground invasion in Lebanon. Still a majority probably thinks that Hezbollah is a major threat to Israel. I'm not saying that, you know, we are obviously Israel. The Israeli government and Hezbollah are quite different in their ideology. But I don't think that us attacking them first is just really showing that they are a threat. In the West Bank. I would say that there is a lot more coverage now because the settlers have been relentless. Just a day before the war started, two Israeli activists were seriously injured in the west bank by settlers peace activists. One of them is still in the hospital till now. She is now obviously awake and good. But this kind of violence that is targeting Israelis and also sometimes soldiers by settlers gets a lot more coverage than the normal day to day violence perpetrated against Palestinians.

[Sam Seder]

And then briefly also, what has the response been to this law passed? That is as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be terribly controversial, at least coming out of, you know, the Israeli press that I've read English speaking press out of there, Aretz and others, that this is a law that if not explicitly de facto is geared towards Palestinians. The threshold to determine who is a terrorist has dropped dramatically. We have a similar dynamic in this country that the Trump regime is working on. But the specifics of who constitutes a terrorist and are eligible for the death penalty by hanging because I guess it was easier for them to go around with a noose lapel pin than lethal injection lapel pin. What has been the reaction from both your perspective in the sort of Israeli left, anti Zionist left and just sort of across the spectrum to the extent that there is in Israeli politics to this law.

[Ido Alam]

So first I would verify that they chose hanging because luckily at least this, the Israeli Physician board didn't agree to help them with lethal injections. They basically said, you won't get doctors for this. Anyways, though. Yeah, it passed, I think, two days ago during the night in the Knesset. The majority of reactions, both from Liberals, both from the media, is that this is a bad law, but only because how it's written, not because they don't want to kill terrorists, just because it's literally written in the most racist, abhorrent way that probably the judicial system will strike down very soon. But in general, both. You saw reactions, for example, from a member of Knesset, Mickey Levy. He's a member of the opposition of the Yeshatid Party. He's a part of the largest opposition party. And he on the Knesset said, I'm opposed to this law. Don't tell me how to kill terrorists. When I was a commander, I ordered somebody to shoot a terrorist that was bound and. And literally gagged.

[Sam Seder]

We have this. We have a clip of this. Let's play this clip. This was extraordinary. He is arguing, and I will read the translation if any of it's wrong. It doesn't sound like the way that you've characterized that this translation is wrong. I haven't seen anybody have any contention with it. He's arguing essentially that the problem with this law is that you're making a show out of killing these people, when what you really should do is do it quietly, like I did on the battlefield, summarily, without any, you know, trial or anything like that. And that that is extraordinary, that this is the centrist making this argument. We'll play this clip. I'm telling you, since I was a company commander and until I was a district commander, my legal advisor would always gasp when I would say in the briefing, Terrorists should not be neutralized. Terrorists should be eliminated. That's what I said, and I stand by my statement. The moment there is intention and a weapon, you kill to avoid being exposed to continued danger. You don't neutralize. You don't shoot at the legs. Unlike you, I was out in the field for many years dealing with terrorists. I chased terrorists in Judea and Samaria, and I gave the order to shoot at the head of a cuffed terrorist. Unlike everyone sitting here on the day of Vile terrorist, murderer, if it's all true, is sent to the gallows. A Jew on the other side will pay with his life. A Jew will be kidnapped and murdered in cold blood, and that's on you. I, unlike you, I was there in the field. I, unlike you, gave an order to shoot a terrorist with hands cuffed behind his back in the head. I mean. Yeah, that's interesting.

[Ido Alam]

I'm an Israeli. This is my liberals. Yeah, that's like, I.

[Sam Seder]

It's stunning. Yeah.

[Ido Alam]

He did clarify that the terrorist had an explosive belt, but it seems that he was already cuffed, so I don't see what was the threat. And also he said that he will be okay with killing all the terrorists, not only those with explosive vests.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, it's hard for him to go out there and say I. My credibility is such that I'm willing to kill a terrorist without trial, without anything other than. And with their hands behind their vest for him to come out later and say I killed them because it was a threat. I don't think so. Like, I mean, it doesn't make sense unless we take him for what his first words were. I mean, how do people react to this in Israel? I mean,

[Ido Alam]

we, like the leftists like me, are obviously against it. Yesterday we held a protest outside the Knesset. We built and brought a hanging noose and the fellow activist was arrested when trying to put it in the middle of the road. We were only about 100 people and we were beaten by police. We were shot at with water cannons. Point blankets length. They also injured many photojournalists because they don't care. Besides us, the majority of people truly don't have a problem with the law. They don't have a problem with killing terrorists. They have a problem with the way that it has been passed, maybe the way that is written, because technically, actually, we already have a death penalty in Israel. This law is basically meaningless, but it serves as another way to let the government basically decide who to kill, when to kill, and how many. And obviously that's abhorrent, that's horrible. And the fact that it has been passed together with Israel Beitenu, the Russian opposition party that voted for it, that's the part that we are truly against. I don't care if it's. We are already killing thousands of Palestinians. We're already killing Palestinians in prison too, by disease, by neglect, by torture. So this is only symbolic mostly. But I do care that this is a clear, abhorrent show of fascism. I don't want this kind of laws to be representative here. I don't want Palestinians to fear for their life. By calling them a terrorist, they will be sent to die. They are calling the opposition, the Arab opposition, terrorists. So who is a terrorist anymore?

[Sam Seder]

Lastly, and I know I want to let you get to Pesach dinner, but, like, what's happening with the protests, like, you know, I mean, as frustrating and demoralizing is what's happening in this country. One of the things, at least in this era, and I went through this during the Iraq war era, is at least that, like, there seems to be the majority of the country, to the extent that they care, are against our attack on Iran. And, you know, largely, like, there seems to be pushback, significant pushback. We had biggest protest, no Kings protests, ostensibly about the sort of the authoritarianism and the sort of fascist turn we had in Minneapolis, a huge pushback against what our fascist thugs were doing towards immigrants. What does it feel like to be fighting this battle in Israel? I mean, both in terms of like the material repression, but also just the looking around and the isolation there. You must be feeling at times with, with everybody seemingly to be on board with this stuff.

[Ido Alam]

Just demoralizing, just depressing, completely depressing. I mean, I try to find hope when, you know, we see the protests growing, when I see new faces, when I see a bit more pushback from the opposition sometimes, but it's not enough. It's not even close to being enough. I mean, we have been protesting now for a month. We were in the streets in Tel Aviv when nobody wanted to join us, when police were beating us, arresting people, when the people. When literally on Twitter, you saw everybody telling us it's against the guidelines. You shouldn't be protesting. You shouldn't be gathering about 50 people because the army said so. Even though we have been protesting above a literal bomb shelter, one of the biggest in Tel Aviv, there is no reason to attack our protests unless you have a problem with our message. Just this Saturday, for example, we were beaten completely. Many of my friends were attacked by police. I was dragged by four border police officers on the ground by my hands. I have purple markings still here and on the other arm to show for it. It's quite depressing. It's horrible. I still can't believe that what once was the Peace Party of Rabin, for example, the Labour Party, what remains of merits within that party, that those people cannot say, stop this war. They cannot bring themselves to say stop this war. In these protests, only the members of the Hadash Party, the Jewish Palestinian Socialist Party, are present. It's quite horrible. But, yeah, I mean, I do want to live on a bit of an optimistic point because we are growing. We saw from 20 people now to 1,500 in Tel Aviv and at least 1,000 more in 20 plus locations across the country. People are getting tired of this. You see that in the polls, you see that on the streets. Maybe if after this cedar is completely destroyed by rocket sirens, more people will be against it. It's quite sad that we have to pay this price to be against this imperialist aggression in Iran. But I really hope to see on this Saturday we're holding another protest, already thousands more in the streets because if we don't push back now, you will see Bibi and Trump try their best to take what's little left in Iran and finish the war quickly. And that would be horrible. Horrible for the region, horrible for us, horrible in Lebanon as well. You see Gaza level genocide, level destruction in Lebanon. That's absolutely horrible. And yeah, everybody kind of in the world also forgets about the Palestinians that are now facing death penalty, genocide, ethnic cleansing once again and have never stopped facing those things in the past years. So I really just hope to see this protest movement growing, see more people joining us. And obviously I invite people in the US to join us. We saw the 8 million people, as you claim in the no kings. But it shouldn't be only no kings. It should be directly on the Iran war. You should pressure your local representatives, even on the local committee level, all the way to your senators, your parliament members to stop supporting Netanyahu, to stop giving us guns, to stop giving us the green light, to do whatever we want in the Middle East. Because I'm saying this as an Israeli, from my perspective, I am tired of not sleeping for a month. I'm tired of being scared of rockets. I'm tired of my Jewish people committing genocide and committing imperialism all the time. Stop letting us do that. Let us live. Let us have, as we say, peaceful and liberating Pesach. So please just put your pressure on whoever you can.

[Sam Seder]

Folks will be working on that. Idio Alam really appreciate your time today. Chag zmeach. We will. We will catch up with you again soon. Just a reminder and you've just released some of your writing for a local call in English. We'll link to that. Really appreciate your time today and good luck and enjoy your Passover. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Emma Jansen, writing fellow at the American Prospect. She has written a piece about ice blowing through rural America, specifically spending some time in rural Minnesota. And we don't hear much about ice activity there, but it's happening. We'll be right back after this. Sam. Live. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Vigeland is out today, joining me now Emma Jansen, writing fellow at the American Prospect, reporting on anti poverty policy, health and political power. And you have a big piece in the American Prospect, when Ice Blows Through Rural America. It's a, it's a fascinating piece. We'll link to it. But here to tell us about ICE's activity in Minnesota as the cameras have basically gone away. Emma, welcome to the program.

[Emma Jansen]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited and grateful to be on.

[Sam Seder]

So you were up, you spent, you write about basically three towns in Minnesota? Well, I guess, yeah, three. Alberta, Lee, Northfield and Wilmar. And this is in the wake of everything that happened in Minneapolis. Of course, there was a lot of attention. Bovino is out. I think he's been like summarily fired all of his, he has no access to his social media anymore. Kristi Noemi, also out, probably wishes she had less access to her social media right at this very moment, although I have my doubts as to who leaked that information. But that's a different story. Tom Holman comes in a couple of months ago and says, isis, we're done here. We're going to leave with. They had about 4,000 troops, I don't know what else to call them in Minneapolis. And they were supposedly dwindling down to pre surge levels, which was 150 and unclear. Maybe you have insight as to whether how many are still in Minneapolis, but it's clear they just sort of went out into the rural areas. I don't know. I guess you can start with Northfield and then. And then go from there.

[Emma Jansen]

Yeah, definitely. First of all, I just want to say that's completely correct. As far as, you know, the anecdotes of people that I spoke to when I was in rural Minnesota, they kept telling me that no, they actually haven't left the state. They've just come into the outer parts of the state, away from the twin cities where there aren't cameras and where local news is in many cases kind of dying out these news deserts. So it's just not known as much. But there were ICE agents in those communities. And so like you said, Northfield was the first town that I visited and it's, of the three places that I spent time in, it's the least kind of rural. It's a really beautiful college town, home to St Olaf's College and Carleton. So they have a bit more of that kind of infrastructure of resistance already there because it's a fairly liberal community. It has all the resources of a college town. But the activists and faith leaders and just community members in general that I spoke to in Northfield really confirmed what you were saying just a minute ago, which is that you were hearing in the news around the time that I was there late February, that the drawdown had happened, that things were much less severe in Minnesota, but that wasn't matching up at all with what people on patrols out in Northfield actually saw. They were still seeing the same number of ICE agents, the same cars that they had been tracking in their community, and the effects were still very much lingering. For example, there's one small business in town that, when I was there, I drove in and I saw it was completely shut down. Darkened windows. There was, like, you know, like, brown almost newspaper paper covering the windows so people couldn't see in. And that was ongoing. Things had not snapped back to normal, even though there had been this kind of rumor about a drawdown.

[Sam Seder]

And we should say the population Northfield is about 20, some odd thousand, I imagine, maybe, you know, summer, it's a little bit less or more as a function of the colleges. And so what are the. Give us a sense of, like, what the immigration, immigrant populations are there and, like, why that might be a target. It's only about, what, like, 50 miles away from the Twin cities, is that right?

[Emma Jansen]

Yeah, close. It's quite close. It's less than an hour's drive away. So I think in Northfield, my sense of the kind of immigrant population and just the dynamics in that town is that the majority of immigrants would be Mexican American, Hispanic, Latino immigrants. In other parts of the state, you also have a big Somali population. Of course, that was talked about a lot. And you also have the Karen community, which is an ethnic group from Myanmar. So in the state as a whole, my understanding is that those are kind of three of the main groups that have been targeted by the ICE surge. And in Northfield, from what I heard and from the people I spoke to, some of the biggest groups that were actually feeling the impact there were Hispanic immigrants.

[Sam Seder]

And are there. Are there specific industries? I think it's in. Was it in. There's a processing plant in one of the towns that you went to. But what about in Northfield? Is there a specific industry? Like. Like. I'm curious, in terms of, like, enforcement actions, how does that change town to town or city to city based upon, like, the sort of almost like the density of immigrant workforce at different places?

[Emma Jansen]

Totally. That is something that I really heard a lot from people in these three different towns, which, as you kind of gestured to, they all have these different dynamics Based on what the immigrant populations there are, what kind of workforces are biggest in those towns. So in Northfield, my sense is that it's less industrial than the other two towns that I visited. So for example, Wilmer has a big Jennie O. Processing plant. So that's Turkey mainly, and that is up kind of in the north northwestern part of the state. And then the other town that I spent some time in was Albert Lee and then its neighboring town, Austin. And those two towns are really centered around Hormel Foods, which has a lot of pork processing. So there's actually an interesting dynamic there as well, which is that up in a town like Wilmer, which doesn't process pork, it processes Turkey, you have a much greater population of Somali workers because they don't work with pork because of their faith. So in Wilmer, a lot of people being targeted were Somali just because there are more Somali immigrants there. Whereas downstate in the south, in Austin and Albert Lee, there were more Hispanic immigrants and more Karen immigrants because those are the people who worked with pork. And then to back to Northfield, like I said, it's less industrial, less of that kind of meatpacking industrial landscape. I heard stories primarily about people being targeted, either workers in the service industry, at restaurants. That was a big one. Or folks who are just kind of living on the outskirts of town where it's lower income, more working class, people being targeted outside of medical centers, people being targeted at truck stops near the family dollar in some lower cost apartment complexes in Northfield.

[Sam Seder]

And you mentioned this in the piece, and I think it's Northfield. And I think people had heard this story nationally where like ICE agents had eaten at a restaurant and then came back like a couple hours later and arrested the owner and deported one. That's where that story came from, out of Northfield.

[Emma Jansen]

That was Wilmer, actually.

[Sam Seder]

Wilmer. Okay. And so characterize the three cities. Northfield, like you say, is a little bit more liberal leaning. It's closer to the Twin Cities. It's got a couple of colleges there. And so. But tell us about Albert Lee and Wilmer. I'm curious as to like, what the, what the political makeup was there and how it impacted people's like, you know, I imagine Northfield, I'm just. You don't say this explicitly in the piece, but I imagine Northfield the, the actions of the Trump administration more sort of like confirmed or edified their priors. Whereas maybe in Albert Lee and Wilmer people were like, I may have made a mistake here.

[Emma Jansen]

Yes, definitely. I think that's very true. In Northfield, like I said, there was sort of some pre existing infrastructure around mutual aid for anyone who was experiencing economic instability. And that was leveraged really powerfully in this moment specifically to help immigrants who were sheltering at home and folks who were resisting ice. But like you said in Wilmer, in Albert Lee, in Austin, these are places that from the anecdotes and also when you look at like election data that are more conservative, more likely to have voted for Trump and that also are experiencing a bit more kind of economic depression. That was something that I spoke with folks in both these areas about, particularly Albert Lee. They have really struggled Albert Lee and Austin to some extent, as there have been a number of plant closures of these meatpacking plants in recent years. And just, you know, it's kind of a story that we hear a lot about these Midwestern towns where the work dries up and it kind of foments a lot of, I don't know, conservative leanings and can sometimes really just spark this like racial hatred of the, you know, long term white residents of the town feeling as though they're being replaced by immigrant workers. I definitely got a sense in Albert Lee that there were some undercurrents of that in those towns. But at the same time, that's not to diminish. The people who were doing all the work resisting ICE in those areas, they, despite not having the pre existing groups and infrastructure and just lines of communication that a town like Northfield or Minneapolis and St. Paul had, they were able to put together these incredibly complex and just really enduring networks to get kids to school, bring people groceries, make sure that people could carpool to work safely. All those sorts of things that we heard were happening in places like Minneapolis and St. Paul were also happening in these smaller towns.

[Sam Seder]

And I imagine in the context of the smaller town, it's like, it's harder to do that. Like, you know, you can have people who are sheltering at home or hiding out in like a neighbor's, you know, house in a big city. It's easier to get lost on some level and not stand out. But it seems to me like much more obvious in a small town, you know, And I'm curious about two things. One is the tactics that you write about change there. Like at first that they were being more confrontational, but with the absence of like a media that could come and record what's going on between ice, you know, ice's brutality in the face of these protests ended up cutting against them, which is a civil disobedience tactic that we've seen, you know, for generations. But in the absence of any media that can tell this story, they chose to be less confrontational and really sort of more just tactical. Talk about that.

[Emma Jansen]

Totally. And just before I kind of get into the techniques that folks were using, you're completely right when you say that it is much harder to hide in these small towns where a lot of people know each other and there are only say, like two or three apartment complexes where lower income people work. Or, for example, in Albert Lee, there's one or two mobile home communities that everyone knows. These are places where a lot of immigrant workers live. So like you said, much harder to hide. And then also just a pure numbers game, fewer people to go deliver groceries or raise money to help someone make rent. Whereas in Minneapolis, I think there was in some places almost an overflowing and an outpouring of that kind of financial and just time support. But to directly answer your question, this was something that I first spoke to folks about in Northfield. Some people who are members of the kind of community patrol ICE Watch team there started out, like you said, being more confrontational, sort of of the style that we saw a lot of coming out of the Twin Cities where, you know, you go right up to an ICE agent and you film them right in their face and you make very clear that you don't like what they're doing. You're here to police them or not police them, but just like, watch them and make sure that they know that they're being watched. And after the killings of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy, a lot of groups in these smaller communities, I think this, I'm sure this was also happening in the Twin Cities, but at least in Northfield, Albert Lee and Wilmer, a lot of these people really got together and said, okay, you know, this could be a really serious risk to our safety and the safety of some of our younger or older volunteers who are out here every single day. So they really took a step back. They would still, of course, follow ICE agents, go to the scene and make clear that they were filming and watching what was happening. But they did it more from the sidelines, both to protect themselves and also to protect the victims of the ICE agents, because they could tell that the more that they, as ICE watchers, really kind of got in the faces of the. Of the agents, it would. The agents would escalate and it would kind of amp them up. And that, of course, would then be transferred onto the person who was being arrested or assaulted by the agents. So it was both to protect the volunteers, but also to protect the people who were being arrested. Just to kind of de escalate as much as humanly possible in that situation.

[Sam Seder]

And you don't have the same leverage of having 25 or 50 or 100 people around you that can intervene or report out on what's happening. I've walked, walking in New York City. The sense of if an ICE agent came and grabbed someone on the street, there'd be 200 people on the street in a number of minutes, as opposed to being out in a town with 15, 20,000 people. Somebody might not drive by for 20 minutes or something.

[Emma Jansen]

No, totally. Totally.

[Sam Seder]

What, what can be done, I'm curious, has, particularly in the Albert Lee and in Wilmar and Austin, where you might have had people who were more conservative, more likely to have voted for Trump, more prone to having some type of resentment towards immigrants. Has the attitudes of the people that you spoke to politically changed at all? Or is it basically just the rump of liberal oriented people or handling this stuff? And. And the other folks there are like, good, this is what I voted for.

[Emma Jansen]

I think it's unfortunately a bit of a mix. Also, I apologize if you can hear the wind. Chicago is like, you're in Chicago. Yeah, exactly. So I would say it's really a mix from what I heard. I did hear some stories of, let's see, I heard some stories in Wilmer that were really moving. So one of the people in Wilmer that I spoke to, his name is Willie, and he is a member of a law enforcement motorcycle club. So he hangs out with a ton of like, ex military, ex police, ex firefighter, ex paramedic guys. And you can kind of envision what that vibe is like. It's not necessarily the most, like, bleeding heart liberal group out there. And so Willie is Mexican American and he owns a restaurant in downtown Wilmer, which unfortunately, you'll read about this in the article, but he had to shut it down, at least temporarily, because no one was out on the streets, everyone was sheltering from ICE and just business costs were too high. But all that aside, when it was still open over the holidays, Willie was talking to some of the guys in his Viking group and was like, hey, I'm hosting this holiday fundraiser, but I'm really worried that this could be a target for ice. And these guys who are pretty conservative, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them are Trump voters, folks who may broadly kind of support the ideas of this immigration enforcement they set up in a radius around Willie's restaurant right in front of it, and then also like a two block radius away just to kind of be on alert and show that they were there in support. So you have stories like that that are, you know, stories of people who might not necessarily change who they vote for or even say that they kind of regret the policies that they voted for. But when something like this comes to their town and comes directly to their friend, they will kind of stand up in that way. On the flip side though, to take this same story in Wilmer, Willie was actually arrested and assaulted by ICE agents. And basically the story is he was racially profiled, he's a citizen, and there's no reason he was doing nothing. And he was arrested and assaulted and then released before. They didn't take him to be processed or anything. But this was clearly and very obviously a really traumatizing incident for him and I think a really radicalizing and politicizing moment in his life as well where he realized that he could be a target for ICE agents. And he was a target for ICE agents, despite being a very long time member of the community and being a business owner and being kind of like this noticeable figure in his town. And he really noticed that some of the people who he expected to kind of have his back, including like in the local police department, really didn't have his back. And he felt a sense of kind of deep abandonment and yeah, I think that kind of like politicizing moment for him. So that's one situation where it was like, yes, some people do regret what they voted for and did kind of get radicalized into helping immigrant neighbors or anyone else who's affected by ice. But at the same time, not everyone did. And for some people, they liked what they were seeing.

[Sam Seder]

I would encourage everybody to check out the piece, particularly if you're in a rural area. I mean, just from a. From just to get another set of tactics that you may not be aware of. I think this is very, very helpful. Where if people want to support, particularly in these smaller towns where there's less resources and the costs associated with people not being able to go to work, you have some people basically like, you know, reminiscent of hiding Anne Frank's family in their homes, supporting them. They've like, are there funds out there where people can donate any type of resources for this?

[Emma Jansen]

Yeah, there definitely are. In the case of a group in Northfield, I do have a link in the article to one of those funds. And then, and I think one of the issues with some of the smaller, more rural towns like I've kind of been harping on, there is less of a centralized like apparatus of resistance and mutual aid. But in those towns there are still in some cases like local food banks who are really involved in this work. There are some churches and mosques that I think would likely also be able to facilitate donations. It's just a little harder because it's not, like I said, it's not as centralized. But if you are hoping to support some of the folks in these more rural areas, honestly how I would start is look up Wilmer Food bank or even look up some of the folks that I wrote about in the articles. I spoke to a lot of pastors, I spoke to some leaders at the Wilmer Islamic Society and those people would be great resources as well. Unfortunately, it's just harder, like I said, because it's a little more scattered around these smaller areas.

[Sam Seder]

Emma Jansen the piece is When Ice Blows through Rural America in the American Prospect. We'll link to that at Majority FM and in the podcast in the YouTube description. Thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Great, great reporting. Great work.

[Emma Jansen]

Thank you so much for having me on.

[Sam Seder]

All right folks, going to take a quick break, head to the fun half of the program wherein we will have some fun. We will have, we will take some phone calls, we will take your IMs, etcetera, etc, etcetera. Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member @join the majorityreport.com jointhemajorityreport.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the fun half also again occur encouraging you to go buy Molly Crabapple's book. If you have any notion that you're going to do it, do it now because every pre sale gets recorded and is the way that they establish whether it hits some of the best selling lists and once it hits the best selling list then it becomes sort of most like a feedback loop. And getting this book out there and the idea of a counterbalance to Zionism within the Jewish community and that it pre exists Zionism or at least popped up in the exact same year is I think pretty important. When you've got folks like, I don't know, Jake Tapper, I mean really you could just sort of shake a stick and hit half a dozen people who do this on the regular. But equate anti Zionism with anti Semitism and having a competing ideology within Judaism immediately makes it impossible for these people to get away with conflating these two things. And were it not for history and really Zionists hiding this history, I think we'd be in a slightly different position right now. I don't know. Oh, say the name of the book. Yes, I will do that. It's Molly Crabapple. Here where we live is our country Country Here where we live is our country Here where we live is our country number 13 on the reg, Sam. I can dig it. Thanks. Appreciate that. Also, just coffee co op Fair trade coffee. Tea? No, just hot chocolate. Use the coupon code. Majority get 10% off when they. When they drop the tea. It destroyed me. And that was like six years ago. That was a load bearing.

[Matt Leckie]

That was a load bearing column in Sam's brain.

[Sam Seder]

Totally. The neurop pathways because they were a sponsor back in 2008 on break room Live. So this is just like. This is like my ability when I'm walking down the street and someone says hi. My capacity to come up with like a response to that is hindered by the fact that my. My first thing I want to say is go socks. And that's like. That's what it was for so many years. It's like, hey, go socks. Because everybody's got a hat on. I get that. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[Matt Leckie]

No idea what you guys are talking about.

[Sam Seder]

Left of the box says fans of the Majority Report might want to tune into this space on YouTube at 4pm for an homage to the April 1 shows. Yeah, we haven't done a April Fool's show. I don't know if we've. Maybe we did one since Michael has passed, but I'm not sure. Maybe we'll revive it. I don't know. Maybe in my retirement. That's what I'll do. I just spent six months preparing for April Fools.

[Matt Leckie]

Doing the.

[Sam Seder]

For Halloween.

[Guest Commentator]

That.

[Sam Seder]

That would be the Life. That would be the life. Two shows a year. Exactly. Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian Media universe?

[Matt Leckie]

Yeah, we had RM Brown on to talk about cpac, the Kid Rock helicopter flyover and some other stuff. The VOD is all messed up on YouTube. Sorry about the folks. I'm going to upload it again. I'm not sure why, but if you. If you need to watch it before re uploaded at 5 o', clock, you can check it out on Twitch. But yeah, check that out. Oh, and follow me on Instagram. Matlic.

[Sam Seder]

Someone wants to recommendation for an ethical place to purchase it. Powell's is a good place. Penguin Direct. Penguin Direct. If you go to Penguin Direct, I Mean, we'll follow the link. They'll give you, like, I think four or five, maybe even eight different places where you can buy it online. Powell's is where I buy a lot of the stuff. I think there's one or two others that are independent booksellers, so check that out. All right, folks, quick break. See you in the fun half three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. Unhappy Matt. Who? Fun hacker. What is up, everyone? Fun hack. No. Me.

[Emma Jansen]

Keen, you did it.

[Sam Seder]

Fun Hack.

[Emma Jansen]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Seder]

Let's go, Brandon. Fun hack. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[Emma Jansen]

Fundamentally false. No. I'm sorry.

[Sam Seder]

Women. Stop talking for a second.

[Emma Jansen]

Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude?

[Sam Seder]

But, dude, you to want to smoke this. 7A.

[Emma Jansen]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Guest or Producer]

Is this me?

[Emma Jansen]

Is it me?

[Sam Seder]

It is you. Is this me?

[Matt Leckie]

Hello?

[Sam Seder]

Is this me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single single freaking day. What's on your mind?

[Emma Jansen]

Sports.

[Ido Alam]

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[Sam Seder]

I'm gonna go skylight. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says. Of course.

[Emma Jansen]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Seder]

We nailed him.

[Emma Jansen]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Seder]

Challenge.

[Emma Jansen]

Man, I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Seder]

I believe 96. I want to say. Eight five, seven, two, one zero.

[Emma Jansen]

35.

[Sam Seder]

Five zero, one one. Half. Three eights.

[Guest or Producer]

Nine.

[Matt Leckie]

11.

[Emma Jansen]

Person. $3,400. $1,900.

[Sam Seder]

Five, four. $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.

[Emma Jansen]

Actually. You're making me think less.

[Sam Seder]

But let me say, this poop you call satire, Sam goes satire.

[Emma Jansen]

On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like, everything you do.

[Sam Seder]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you. All right, folks, folks, folks.

[Emma Jansen]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.

[Emma Jansen]

But you should know,

[Guest Commentator]

people just don't

[Sam Seder]

like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag. Outrageous. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye.

[Guest Commentator]

Love you.

[Sam Seder]

Bye. Bye.