Behind the Bastards - Cracktoberfest Part Three: The Iran-Contra Affair

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

In part three of Cracktoberfest, Prop leads the discussion with Robert about the the Iran Side of the Iran–Contra affair and how that somehow landed Jean from Wisconsin in the jungles of Nicaragua.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian-trained astronaut?

That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know, because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space. With no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world.

Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Bastards Pod. This is a weird voice to hear, right? You know what I'm saying? I gotta come up with some sort of, what do we, what do we, what do we, what do we, what do we, here he goes. You did a perfect me. I did a perfect you. What do we, what do we, what do you, hey, guns in Portland. I would do a prop intro, but nobody, nobody needs to hear me try to sing. This is a hood politics behind the Bastards crossover behind the hood politics. It's like, it's like, like when they do a Grey's Anatomy and Station 19 on, on TV, but better.

Yeah, they used to do this in the 90s, like sitcom eras all the time. They used to do the crossover episode. Yeah, that's how technically the X files and the wire are in the same universe. Yeah. Right there. Scully came through, Scully came through to get a, get a, get a nice little, nice little bump of crack, speaking of crack. Yeah, that is a good introduction and we'll get me off of talking about what a fun crossover older and McNulty would have been. Yes. Yeah, we are talking, we are getting behind the hood bastards because we're talking about the crack epidemic and the central intelligence agency.

It's like the perfect, it's also a perfect crossover that you wouldn't think you'd need. I mean, it is, I will say, I get a little frustrated as we'll be getting into in my episodes whenever people are like, the CIA brought crack to the inner city. Because guys, the NSC was a big part of it too. Very nice. You know, Olly North was not slacking on this. Let's not give the CIA all the credit. This is what you will learn. You know what I'm saying? You need to give people put some respect on their name. The NSC needs the respect and you won't hear the respect right now. That's branding right there.

Yes. Good little reverse. You ready for this reverse bastard? I am ready. Let's do it. Bro, okay. Sophie, how you feeling? I feel like I don't have a script, which means it's like a normal bastards episode because Robert doesn't send me the script when I ask him to send it to me either. That's true. That's right, Sophie. Listen, here's the thing. It's important. I don't know when this is coming out, but I think it's important to acknowledge that this is the day after Queen Elizabeth passed and probably doubling as one of the greatest days on Black Twitter ever.

Oh my God. Black Twitter and Irish Twitter were both just firing on all cylinders. It was just Voltron of melanated people, like people that seasonate food just all got together and had a barbecue and was roasting the hell. And it's almost like y'all asked for it because didn't nobody ask y'all to make her the symbolic figurehead of all that is the British Empire. Y'all made her that. Yeah, people are doing this whole thing where they're like, well, but she's not the one who did all of the colonialism. It's like, number one, she was 31 years old when her government put like a million Kenyan people in concentration camps during the Mao Mao uprising. Number one, let's talk about fucking Mao Mao. Some of that is on her watch. Some of that, in fact, did happen while she was in charge. And number two, it's funny because she is representative of a terrible government. And so let's laugh at it. And look, people are like, hey, your country doesn't have anywhere to talk. You guys made Donald Trump the president. Absolutely fine. Let's laugh when he dies too. It will be also funny when he dies.

And I'm like, yes, you're right. And I would hope that you would participate in the jokes. The point I'm trying to make is it was like, these were, I saw a tweet that said, we're mourning more than the death of a woman, but the death of a world. And I was like, from your mouth to God's ears. He was mourning that. And number one, we not. And that's our point. That's why we're cracking jokes. You made her the picture of 650 years of oppression. You did, not me. So if that's the case, then we got something to say. Yeah, I am fairly certain that Ruyard Kipling, the poet laureate of the British Empire, wrote a whole poem about how that world wasn't very good. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. A couple of them, actually. Anyway, anyway, it was one of the greatest days on Twitter. Now, let's get back to what we're going to talk about here. So I guess I'll try to get and try to start in your way. Hey, what do you know about?

What are your feelings on cocaine? You know, look, I think it's not my favorite drug. I think it's a general rule overrated, certainly more expensive than overpriced. Like if I'm going to do a stimulant, right? If I really need to like, like keep myself wired, I'm going to roll right on down to the old Walgreens. I'm going to get up, pick up some benzodrex inhalers, the ones that have benzodrine in them. I'm going to pop that little cotton thing outside of the center and I'm going to dunk it in a water bottle and I'm going to drink me some benzodrine. Some like classic 70s speed, you know, and then I'm going to drive for 37 and a half hours. But if I want to, you know, I've had some good times on cocaine. Don't get me wrong. And if you get the opportunity to snort a line of cocaine off of somebody's ass, you should take it. It's a worthwhile life experience. I mean, I feel like I feel like when you add all those additives, like this is my ass. I'm like, whoa, I mean, that's a different story.

That is a game by itself. I'd be like, I mean, I'm from Los Angeles. So it's like you walk into somebody's party and they're like, hey, how you doing? What's up, man? Welcome in. Make sure you take your shoes off, you know, because it's Hollywood party. And they're like, hey, coffee's over there. Bar's over there. Coke's over there will be cool. So it's like, it's so ubiquitous growing up in LA. And I've been able to be like, I'm cool on that room. You know what I'm saying? I don't need to go to the Coke room. But if you add that there's a booty to snort off it. Yeah, there's we're going to be snorted off of someone's share. That's an experience, right? Yeah, that's what I added a wrinkle. Yeah. There's a thing like clubs in Berlin and stuff. It's really fun to go to a club where you're going to be there for like 30 hours and like periodically take trips to the bathroom.

You threw your friends to do lines. But if I'm going to be doing lines in like the bathroom of a club in Berlin, I would prefer they be lines of ketamine than cocaine. That's where I stand on cocaine. You talk about drugs the way underground rappers talk about rap. Just like it's the most obscure shit like what the what way guitar nerds talk about like pedals and bands. The best place to snort drugs that I've ever snorted drugs is the Kit Kat Club in Berlin. It goes down like five stories. It doesn't close for three or four days at a time. Great place to do lines in a bathroom. Absolutely number one. Word.

Sound. That sounds like quite an experience. Yeah, my German listeners are nodding along and going, yes, absolutely. That's the part of German culture. Don't nobody tell you about why the nerds was goose stepping. You know what I'm saying? Y'all was downstairs running just hitting, getting bumps and rails. I actually think the club is made out of an old bomb shelter, but don't don't quote me on that. Don't quote you.

So yeah, cocaine, you know, mixed opinions. Good. Well, I'm glad you think that because we're going to talk about Iran Contra. Hell yeah. Yes, which ends with that's the hard part with sometimes with the bastards thing is like trying to figure out one who the bastard is and where to start the story. But we definitely know that this ends with the loss of Whitney Houston. This ends with the destruction of South Central and New York and the total flooding of our prisons. So we know that it ends there.

And it's kind of Iran. And I think this is probably how I'll wind up having the episodes released. Iran Contra is kind of the middle of the story, right? You have this period where the CIA is fucking around with some of the ideas that get turned into Iran Contra that, honestly, some of them start like 30, 40 years before this. We'll talk about for sure. But yeah, this is kind of this is the middle and it's it's the middle. So normally, I think like it was difficult when I was plotting out my episodes because it doesn't connect directly to the crack trade or it does. But but it it's hard to understand why it connects.

Yes, not trade. If you don't have the first and the end parts of it. But also Iran Contra is a fucking crazy story on its own and you have to tell it like that. So I think what we're doing is smart. People will get the full context. But yeah, let's let's dive in. I can't wait to talk about my boy, Ali North. Oh, man, we got.

We got some future bastard star. Yeah. So look. So yeah. So crack attack this this this story what eventually cocaine crack cocaine. Iran Contra all the stuff that you talk about Oliver North. It's almost like the at least for her politics or for any sort of still living black or brown person that didn't necessarily live through like Jim Crow era or civil rights movement. If you're somehow younger than that, this is sort of like this is the backdrop that we all kind of understand.

It basically laid the playground, the map for almost everything we talk about for a number of reasons. It's almost like it's almost like how like in Game of Thrones, you've just accepted that there are dragons in their world. Like, you know what I'm saying? Or you just or like like in Lord of the Rings, like Middle Earth is just a planet. And there are things that like, you know, the characters aren't necessarily pointing at going. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's such things as hobbits, you know what I'm saying? And and, you know, and orcs are because of Saruman and there was actually an ancient history.

Like this is just the map. So if for you to understand a lot of gang violence, Crips, Bloods, audit stuff in the inner city, like this is part of the map that's necessary. But what's so crazy about it is is how it's connected to geopolitics. But like like Robert's trying to lay out with y'all is where do you start this story? Do you start it with World War Two? Do you start it with the Monroe Doctrine? Do you start it with McCarthyism? You know what I'm saying? Because all of this stuff, the reason why Iran Contra had to happen is because of these other contexts, right?

So let's go ahead and dive in, you know? Yes. Yes. So, you know, you're coming out of World War Two, starting the Cold War. And this might be review for everybody, but you know, the Cold War was ultimately a war of ideas. Like whose idea gets to run the block, right? Right. Who's going to run the world, whether it's, you know, liberal democracies or communist socialist regimes?

Crips, Bloods, Vice Lords, Norteños, Sareños, it don't make no difference if you just live here. You know what I'm saying? Y'all are gangsters. It don't make no difference. Y'all just trying to run whatever turf you have. And at the end of the day, for us as like regular civilians, just like in the hood, it's like you really, you repping where your mama pay a rent. Like I didn't choose this neighborhood.

We just happen to live here. You know what I'm saying? And if that's the case, right? If you run in this block, the last thing you want is the enemy to be able to set up too close to home. Right? That's the last thing you want. So the way that like Cold War was, go ahead. Yeah.

You see, you see versions, by the way, of this logic and like why Russia did what they did in Ukraine, right? Exactly. It's this whole idea that you don't want the, yeah, you don't want the enemy setting up. Like, and it's fucked up what they're doing in Ukraine. And what we're about to talk about the US doing is pretty fucked up too. The same. It's that's the whole thing about like, we can't have y'all join NATO. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Because that's the enemy. Like y'all can't be clicked up with these people literally right next door. You can't have that. Which was ultimately what happened through the 60s, 70s and 80s in Central and South America. America was like, we can't be having no communists on our soil. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

That's too close to home. Now granted, and it's called crazy because if you, if you, if you, you know, knowing your stories, you know, in your Cold War history, if you talk to Korean War, you know, Vietnam War, we was cool with like compromise. We was cool with like going 50, 50 on places as long as it was over there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Right.

Because, you know, North Korea and South Korea, that was an agreement. We was like, okay, cool. Y'all can have North. We'll take South. You know what I mean? Y'all support them. We'll see who the profit is. We'll see how everything works out.

And then, but if fools start feeling froggy, you know what I'm saying? And then we're going to come rep our turf. Right. Yeah. Which is the proxy wars of that time. But at the end of the day, a lot of this situation stems from the idea of I just want to be the biggest dog on the block and I can't be letting nobody come into our turf. Right.

And these two operations, Iran and Contra, ultimately was actually a very brilliant hustle. But if you speak it in like criminal sense, it's pretty brilliant, but it should have landed Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior in jail. Oh yeah. A bunch of other people. It did. A lot of people that should have went to jail. Yes.

Yes. A lot of people should have went to jail. Yeah. So, so look, so let's start in this is the middle of the story. So let's start in the middle of the middle. Let's just get real weird here. Get all Tarantino on this mode. So I'm going to start at October 5th, 1986.

There's, so there's this cargo plane, a Soviet bought plane with Soviet made AK-47s and mad weapons flying over the jungles of Nicaragua. And the plane had no plans on landing. It was just going to drop its cargo and fly on off. And the guy that was flying it, we'll get to his name later because it's, it's the most just white bread American name ever, right? So he's flying over and he's about to drop these weapons over this, this jungle in Nicaragua. And there was a young man named Jose Alamon who sees him in the sky, reads the lick and

he like, you ain't supposed to be over here. Shoots the plane down just from the jungle. Probably shouldn't have done that. This might not have been well for anybody. Yes. Shoots the planes down. Now, the question is, who is Jose reppin? Jose's reppin to Sandinistas.

Now, the Sandinistas are a socialist party in Nicaragua who overthrew a dictatorship in 1979. Why this was such an issue was because this dictatorship was really cool with the U.S. Reagan and them like really clicked with them. It was, it was everything worked out. You did your part. I did mine. Everything was cool.

They were super supportive, like that dude. But then the Sandinistas came and overthrew this dude and Sandinistas crime as far as America's concern is they're socialist and that's too close. You too close. You too close to our hood. You can't be doing no socialist stuff over here. Right? So the Sandinistas were the ones that shot this fool down.

Right? So the fool gets shot down. Jose Alamon turns him into his big homies. The big homies, the Sandinistas put this fool on TV. Right? Oh boy. After he gets shot down. So they put this fool on TV in Nicaragua and they was like, all right.

Hey, yo. What's your name? Tell the folks your name. He was like Gene Hossenfoss. That's not a real name. That boy's name was Gene Hossenfoss. That's not a real name. That was his name, Robert.

No. They was like, don't edit. They was like, don't edit. Like where are you from? He was like Wisconsin. Like a mother fucker. Gene Hossenfoss from Wisconsin was flying. Get the fuck out of there.

You're not supposed to be in Nicaragua. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Gene Hossenfoss was flying a plane full of cargo or weapons over a jungle in Nicaragua. They was like, so why don't you tell the people why you're here? Gene Hossenfoss from Wisconsin goes, well, the CIA told me to come here and drop off these weapons for the Contras.

He just tells them exactly why here. Right? The question should be, who are the Contras? Now, if you are around my age, the first time you ever heard of the term Contras was a video game where you was going up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B-A-B-A select start. You remember this, Robert? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's how you get 30 men on the Contra game. Who knew that Contra was wartime propaganda? No, I have that tattooed in a part of my body I can't talk about on there. Let's go. For sure. It's a really important moment in history. It's like, you learn how to hack a game, like 30 men. Anyway, so the Contras were the group of people who were trying to overthrow the Sandinistas.

They were a pro-democracy, anti-socialist rebels, right? So, so this dude just- Well, they build themselves as pro-democracy. Let's say that. Yeah, yeah, that's the claim they're making. Yes. They just pointed a story. That's what they talk about.

Even though the Sandinistas have overthrown a dictatorship, and the government they put in place is going to have some problems too. Absolutely. But the fucking Contra is a big part of what they're doing is like, well, let's go back to the way things were when we had that dictator. No. It was one of those dictator where you've got elections, but they're not real. You all know the story.

Yeah, it's kind of like, okay, so you're having problems at school with some dudes, right? Yeah. And you go ask the last person you should go ask. Like, you know, your cousin Mark. You know what I'm saying? Your cousin Mark's like, oh, you need help? Well, we'll give you help. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? But it's like, is this help? Is this juice worth the squeeze? Right? Your cousin Mark is saying, hey, I'm just doing this because I'm your cousin, man. I love you. I said everything straight. No, cousin Mark is not necessarily the person you should be clicking with.

So anyway. Cousin Mark maybe expect, yeah. Cousin Mark may come back for a favor later. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. There's some phone calls you don't make because they're going to cost more than they're giving you, right? Yeah.

So anyway, so they put the boy on TV. He was like, yo, the CIA told me to drop this stuff off. Now, I don't know how familiar you are with civics laws or anything like that, but that's pretty illegal. You can't just be, you can't just be dropping off weapons in a country like that, right? So, so once the Sandinistas put this man on TV for everybody to see, they like, all right, America, you got something to say? Look, here go your boy, right?

So the U.S. Secretary of State, a man named George Saltz, who we will talk about a lot later. Oh boy. Yes, we will. There goes board member George Saltz. Don't you dare forget it. Yes. This man come to the podium and is like, I'm sorry for that man, but I don't know who he

is. He was like, first of all, if a government official, this is any government, comes up after something like this happens and says, we don't know who that, if they specifically go up to say, we don't know that man, that's their man. That's their boy. That's the way that all, we all know it, right? Yeah. Come on, man.

That's their guy. That's their boy. Yeah. He was like, look, that man ain't, you listen, did he have no military ID on him? Was he part of the CIA? That's a private citizen. Just a guy? That man decided on his own and he's a free will to have military grade weapons that he

could fly over a country on a plane. Who's among us hasn't been in that situation? Who's among us was not inspired, yes. Of course that's a lie, right? But the NSC, which we will again talk about later, had a code name called Project Democracy, which is what was actually happening at that moment. And the leader, and again, we mentioned before, future pod star Oliver North, knows that this is all cap and he's actually in charge with all of this.

And that is absolutely our guns. That's absolutely our money. And that's absolutely what's happening. We was giving weapons to the Contra. We gotta back up to figure out how we got there. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what?

They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you gotta grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns.

He's a shark. And not in the good and bad ass way, he's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI.

How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space.

And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world.

Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's introduce some players here. You know, Robert Bud McFarlane. You heard of this dude? Oh, yes. Yes. Robert Bud McFarlane.

He's the NSC chair. He's the NSC chair. Yeah. He used to work for Kissinger and Nixon and was, like, totally admired them. And he is a, when we talk about cold warriors, this man is a hard core cold warrior. Like whatever you have to do to stop the spread of communism is justified kind of guy. Not a dude does not give a shit about elections. You give it how you live.

We out here. Yeah. Yeah. And McFarlane is also one of the things that's interesting about him. He's the first guy to centralize U.S. intelligence like information through a computer system effectively. Like they have this system of terminals in the White House and I believe also in the Pentagon that basically all intelligence from every agency is getting routed through.

And he's the first guy who does that. And when he centralizes the flow of that information, he's also centralizing power for U.S. intelligence operations in the NSC in a way that it hadn't been for a while. And yeah. And it's partially because of this debacle. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Exactly.

The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, right? And they're not, by the way, because we're so used to these people lying all the time, when like guys like Schultz get up and say, well, I don't, we don't know that guy, they're not always lying. They're not always lying that they don't know that guy because that's the smart way to do it, right? If you're the CIA or whatever, you don't necessarily want the fucking sec death or the chief. The chief of staff or the NSC head to know what all your guys are doing.

It's better if they can honestly be like, yeah, I don't know. And you also, we'll talk about this more in my episodes. There's guys in the CIA who can honestly say, no, we're not doing this because from what they know, they don't know that that's going on because all of these people are lying to everyone, including each other. That's the way that the intelligence industry works. Exactly. Yeah.

And yeah, it's plausible deniability. Listen, how I survived living in the cities I've lived in was that was be like, don't tell me. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to know. Don't tell me. Like, I don't know how this fool got here.

I don't know how you paid for that. I don't know. Like, I don't know. You know what I'm saying? So when you ask, it's the honest truth. I don't know who that is. I never met that man. Yeah.

So who actually, another little tidbit about Bud McFarland actually took his own life later on. Good for him. I mean, I don't know how he was going to get out of this. Yeah. So critical support. Yeah. So, but let's back up even from this point.

So we got Robert McFarland or Bud McFarland, as he's called. And you got Ronald Reagan. You got Oliver North. You got George Bush Sr. But let's go back to October 23rd, 1983 in Beirut, okay? And on this day, there's this Marine barrack that's in the middle of Lebanon, right? In Beirut, that's just kind of posted up to air quotes, keep the peace during the Lebanese Civil War.

Yeah. And it does a great job of that. It does a great job. Keeps everything peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. Because Beirut's, you know, since we got there, never had any problems, you know, it was fine, right?

Doing great today. It's doing great. You know what? And as a side note with this story, I, man, I'm so off the rails, but I think this is what I love about this show. So speaking of how well they've done it, keeping peace in Beirut, I remember I was at this event up in the Colorado mountains, like this, like I was performing for these freakishly wealthy people.

It was a dope thing. It was like entrepreneurship for good. Like, so these people are not like annoying wealthy. They're just like wealthy, wealthy, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like kind of like the like, oh, you still work for money? Kind of wealthy? Like, yeah, that type of wealthy, right?

So we were talking about, I think this was like either right before the pandemic. So it was like early 2020. And we were talking about what was happening on the Syrian-Iraq border with the Kurds and you know, and just like some stuff was going on. It was like, dang, that's crazy. And then it was this one lady was like, wait, what are you talking about? And she was clearly Arab. She was like, what are you talking about?

And I was like, well, dang, like, you know, what's, what's happening in Syrian-Iran border? And she was like, I haven't heard of that. And I was like, in my head, I completely judged her. And I was like, see, you know what, wealth, when you just get rich, man, you just like, you just, you just don't never know what else is going on. And she was like, oh no, I don't think you understand. I'm from Beirut. She was like, there's always this.

We've, we've been in civil war my whole, it's always like this. So I thought this was something that just wasn't what it always was. And I definitely got corrected because I was like, man, I judged this lady. She done lived through some of the worst, the worst type of violence. It's another fucking fight on the block for her and like the names are different, but like it's another fight on the goddamn block, right? It's East LA shooting out, shooting out fireworks. It's like, that's just, I don't even notice anymore.

So, but during this time, one day early in the morning, truck comes barreling through their gates, boom, crashes into their barrack, 2,500 pounds of TNT, blows the whole shit up, leaves 244 people dead, right? People asymmetrical warfare, something that like America hadn't seen before at the time, right? And it was clearly obvious who did it. It was Hezbollah. Like the most, the worst kept secret in the world, Hezbollah, they hiding right there

in that valley, they the ones who did this, right? And asymmetrical warfare for everybody who doesn't understand, it's a very simple situation that like all of us in our lives have had to do this at some point where you have somebody that's just towering bigger than you, it's ridiculous to try to square up with them. Yeah, you're not going to, you're not, Hezbollah is not going to like take on a couple of hundred Marines fully suited up with air support. But if you ram a fucking bomb into the barracks, you can achieve the same end. Listen, it works pretty well for them.

It works pretty well. Listen, if you were to mouth off so bad, and it would never happen, but if you were to mouth off so bad to Sophie, and Sophie decided, okay, you know what, I'm going to have to fuck this dude up, right? Which would never happen. But Sophie, I would not tell, I would, my suggestion to you would be you need to bite, you need to kick, you need to grab bats. There is no such thing as playing fair.

He is twice show size. This is asymmetrical. You do what you got to do. You know what I'm saying? Again, this would never happen. This is why Sophie keeps that rider truck packed full of explosives outside of my house. Just in case. Just in case.

That's right. Yeah. So I also do have a lot of United States Marines quartered in my home, but that's a separate story. Right on the other side of that screen. Yeah. One of them just walked by. Y'all didn't see that?

Put a shirt on, bro. So yeah. So blew it up, did this. And like we said, Bud McFarlane, former Marine, super cold warrior is like, we can't let this shit ride. Well, and fucking Reagan. So Reagan has just come to office after pushing Carter out. And the thing he runs on is all of these guys got captured in Iran and Carter couldn't

get him out, right? And they had a failed rescue attempt. He's weak. He's made America weak on the national stage. And I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that Americans are protected overseas, right? This is a huge deal. And this is not the only thing that Reagan's dealing with. There's like an unprecedented surge in attacks on U.S. embassies when Reagan is in office.

I think more than under any other president, like it's going, like this is a real problem for him because he's, he's staring at reelection. And this is like fucking, it's not a 9-11 level thing, but for people of that area, it was like pretty close. This is like a huge fucking deal. This was absurd. Yeah. Like cause it was so, it was more like the disrespect.

Like this is the audacity dog. Like y'all don't, no one respects your gangster no more, right? So like you said, Buck McFarland, George Schultz, who we talked about before, they all agree they're like, man, we can't let this, we can't let this ride. But there was some dissenting voices, Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, right? He was like, listen, y'all got to chill. The most reasonable man in the administration. Yeah, the most reasonable.

He was like, listen, y'all got to chill. Do y'all remember Vietnam? Yeah. Like, do you, like, do you really think America is going to let us go fight somebody else's war again? Like, y'all don't remember how this shit went? What do you around? Vietnam, which has been over for like 10 years at this point.

Yeah. Right, not even. Yeah. Like it's very recent. Y'all remember these boys? They was like burning, they was burning a draft cards. Like it was a thing. Like honestly, it's about as far, it's about for them.

It's about the end of Vietnam is about as far as the end of like the U.S. occupation of Iraq on a big scale. Like 2013 or 2014. Yeah. Like it just happened. It's really, really recent for them. Yeah. So they're like, listen, Doug, like you can't just, we just can't do this without the public

support. Right? Yeah. So, oh, Ronnie is like, all right, I feel you, maybe we should just bounce then. But it's like, listen, if we bitch out, it's going to happen again. Right? Yeah. We cannot bitch out like this.

And so, but continues to stay in Reagan's ear and he's like, listen, I'm trying to tell you, we can't, we, we can't do this. But Ronnie's like, nah, they right. I'm up for reelection. Like you said, like, let's go ahead and fall back, right? So why they, so they fall back, right? But when America falls back, we don't really fall back. You know what I'm saying?

Right? So we may have removed the Marines, but the CIA state because remember, we still had hostages out there, right? We still had hostages in Iran and that were held by Hezbollah and Hezbollah, again, worst kept secret is totally supported by the Iranian government, Ayatollah Khomeini, right? Like it's just like, it's not a secret. It's an out in the open secret. Yeah.

Yeah. Like that's our point. This is armed to a significant extent and often functions as like an extension of the Iranian military. It's a whole, it's a whole thing, right? It's a whole thing. We all have our, we all gots our proxies. Yeah.

So yeah. Go ahead. Which doesn't mean that they're also like that there aren't conflicts between like Hezbollah and the Iranian government because like none of these are the fact that someone's a proxy doesn't mean that like they don't have their own shit that they're doing. Yeah, they're not a patsy. Like it's the world is the world and anyway, whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. They still got their own thing cracking, right? Yeah. It's all, it's worth note. One of the fun things, there's a really wonderful book called landslide by my probably favorite journalist who writes books, Jane Mayer, about the Reagan administration in this period. And one of the things she'll point out is that like, especially once you hit like 83, 84, 85, Reagan is starting to have the early effects of Alzheimer's.

And he's also just because of his, he's kind of his personality. He's kind of this like amiable like man and not a very intellectual guy. And so one of the things he's known for by the people that he brings into his White House is that like, the most important thing is to kind of be the last guy talking to him. Cause he'll often do. So there are conflicts between McFarland and Weinberger and Schultz where they're all like just like primarily the thing they're doing is like scheming to get the most time in their schedule, sitting and having like five minute meetings with Ronnie.

Cause the more of those you can pack in, the better you can do of like getting it's into his little brain, whatever it is you want him to do, like McFarland's calling him on the phone when he's not supposed to be calling him on the phone. It's very funny. Dude, it's so funny. I got some of those stories in my script here where just they're doing exactly that. Like you talked to Reagan. No, I'm about to talk to him right now.

No, no, no, no, I'm going to get, I'm going to get in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll send a note right now. Yeah. It's because you want to be the last dude to give him the idea. So yeah.

So they're like, yo, if we bitch up, you know what I'm saying? It's just like the shut the fuck up. You ain't going to do shit. Like if we don't do shit, they going to do it again, right? And five months later, they absolutely did it again. So in March of 84, there was a marine named William Casey and was it Casey? Yeah. No, William Buckley.

My fault. Oh, wait, sorry. Casey is the. Yeah. Casey's at home. He's the head of CIA. My bad. William Buckley.

So William Buckley. There's a lot of these fucking guys. Yeah. There's a lot of dudes. It's hard to keep them together. But yeah. They're the CIA agents that stayed back after a air quotes America left. And it was his job to work with the special, the, the, the, the special forces of Israel

to try to go get our hostages from Hezbollah out of Iran. Right. So that was his role. Right. And then one day, right? And it's the specifics of this is what makes it so beautiful. Everybody knows or everybody should know, like if you a spy, you probably shouldn't drive your own car to work.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You probably like, you know, spend a block a couple of times, like figure out other ways to go. You know what I'm saying? Take a bicycle. Take a bicycle. You know what people don't notice is a fucking bike.

Yes. Yes. You should know that the streets is watching. You should just know. Yeah. Right. Well, the streets was watching this fool trained, you know, everybody has off days, mess around and own his way to work the day that they was go, go run a sting operation to get they

folks out that day. He gets captured. Right. Hezbollah captures that fool that day, put the homie on camera, sends it now to William Casey, the head of CIA and he like, what now, homie? What y'all finna do? Right? You know what I'm saying?

Y'all need to, y'all need to go ahead on home, you know, and the CIA sees it, sends it to old Ronnie and Bud McFarland is like, I told Joe ass, this is what was going to happen. Right. We need to figure out what the fuck to do, you know, and they have this idea. Bud McFarland actually has the idea. Bud goes, okay, listen, there's no way in the world, everybody in Iran fucks with the Ayatollah and Hezbollah. There's no way they have to have enemies out there.

Right. Yeah. So if that's the case, what if we just tap in with those people, right? And while no one can agree on what to do a year past, six more people get kidnapped. Yeah. Right. So they're trying to figure out what the hell to do. Mad people are getting kidnapped.

Right. Yeah. No one can figure out what to do. So, so they're like, okay, well, we got it. We got to figure out something. Right. Maybe there's somebody out there, like they said, that doesn't really mess with them. Right.

So this fool, Bud in July 85 gets a call from one of his homies, one of his homies that, that is like tapped in in Israel, this guy named who is probably my favorite character in this story. Gabonafar. Right. Yeah, baby. Oh, this guy rules. Oh my God.

He's my favorite character out this month. He is such a beautiful con man and he takes the United. Yeah. I'm so excited for this. Yeah. So, so yeah. So Gabonafar to me is like, did you see that? Did y'all see that Denzel Washington movie where he was a pilot and he was always an

alcoholic and you had a drug connect to John Goodman? John Goodman. Oh, so good in that movie. Yes. The movie itself kind of mid, but John Goodman as a fucking drug dealer. Oh my gosh. Right. So, so take that image and, and compare it and connect it to the image of Adam Sandler

in that jeweler movie where you're just like, just jumpy and like, just like always got a hustle going. Kind of gross weirdo. Yeah. Yeah. But somehow obviously has been able to deliver, you know what I'm saying? By the skin of his teeth, again, that's a call you don't want to make unless you actually have to make it.

Right. Yeah. So it's like, yo, I heard about y'all situation. I got a connects from some people out there in Iran that don't really mess with Honanian them. So I kind of feel like there's a way we could get your hostages. I found them that said, yo, we mess with y'all. We're going to get your hostages, but we're going to need something in return.

Yeah. And Robert, why don't you go and tell them what they need in return? Well, you know, so there, Iran is fighting. There's this whole war with Iraq and it's not going great. No. It's not going. It's actually the most similar war to the Iran-Iraq war is probably what's going on in Ukraine right now.

Yes. And Iran, you know, they get invaded and they're on their back foot for a while, but they start pushing the Iraqis back with these human wave attacks. And so then there's this reverse in the war, but they can't really break all the way through the Iraqi lines because Iraq has pretty competent tank battalions. And so they need, what they're going to need is fucking anti-tank missiles. They're going to need these like new fucking badass anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, these things called Hawks that can knock Iraqi bombers out of the sky because Iraq is bombing

Tehran on a daily basis during this, right? Tehran getting an ass kicked right now. We need fucking, and when we talk about like missiles, that's the missiles they mean. It's the stuff that we're sending Ukraine right now, right? It's man portable, anti-armor and anti-aircraft missiles. We need haters. We need. Yes.

Because like we got our own situation here. We ain't no Boy Scouts fam. Yeah. And these are the heaters that like you only get from the United States or the Soviet Union directly. Yeah. Because they have their own versions of this stuff. Yeah.

Exactly. Y'all got the good shit. We need the good shit, right? So they're like, so they're like, look, they got them, but you got to sell them these weapons. And if you're paying attention, which I'm pretty sure you are, that kind of sound like we trade in weapons for hostages. It does sound a little bit like that. It kind of sound like that, right?

But the boy Gabonafar is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what y'all doing. Y'all not giving weapons, y'all not trading weapons for hostages fam. Listen, it'll work like this, we'll sell them the weapons and you just tighten us up on the back end. And not wrong with you selling us weapons. We are homies. Like everybody know we selling the ledger going to look the same, bro.

Listen, listen, it ain't going to be, it's no big deal. Go on, chill, everybody relax, relax, listen, sell, sell us the weapons and that's what the paper will say. And then we, listen, it runs our homies. We could do whatever we want with the weapons you sell them. The ledger going to look fine, bro. Don't even trip. Nobody on know everything cool.

Everybody cool. Everybody cool. Okay. Good. Right. So the idea is like it will work like this, Israel will get the weapons, get the missiles, get the hawk things, put the heaters in boxes, take that cargo plane to Lisbon, Portugal. Right.

Let, let it go to Portugal. It'll clear customs. Everything's good. Get stamps on it. Come out of Lisbon, fly into Tehran, where Gabonafar will be there and he'll slay the weapons to the Iranian, to the Iranian people. It'll look, it'll be super perfect. They gon' get their weapons.

They'll go in and they'll give you our hostages and send them hostages home. Which is, of course, in fact, trading arms for hostages. That's exactly what it is. This is us negotiating with terrorists. But again, Gabonafar is like, what do you mean? You're not negotiating with terrorists. We, that's what we do with these weapons is our business. And you know, again, if you say it like that and you got somebody as smooth as Gabonafar,

you could be like, you know what, you, anybody, you, you got a friend that could convince you of anything. Do you got one of them? Oh yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, that's, yeah, that's why I've done a lot of the cocaine. Yeah.

All the stuff you talking about, right? It's, it's the friend that'll convince you of anything. You know what I'm saying? So this is the friend that'll convince you of anything, but you should, you should know good and well after sitting in the amount of holding tanks you may have set, set in, that maybe I should stop listening to this group. You can't prove shit. Yeah.

Exactly. But you can't prove nothing. Like the paper, the paper looks fine. Right. So they run back. They tell Ron, they tell Ronnie, Ronnie Reagan, Ronnie, like, well, shit, I mean, run it, I guess. You know what I'm saying?

Like it seemed good to me. You know what I'm saying? Are we cool? Right. And he'd like, uh, okay. So covert observation. I don't sound like, at least paperwork is concerned. It don't sound like we done nothing wrong.

But for this to work, Ronnie has to do run this thing that's called a finding, right? Which is a document, a confidential document. It's a directive that says the president finds that this operation is in the best interest of national security. It's just a stupid piece of paper. You got to run it to Congress so that nobody is, is not in the know. Because the last thing the government like, especially elected officials, they never want to seem like they, they caught off guard that they don't know.

A lot of this, like the fact that they have to do all this in order to like legally do something like this is because of the shit the CIA got up to in the fifties and sixties and seventies that like we talk about in the CIA episodes, but all of that, those governments they overthrew the shit that goes on in Argentina and Guatemala, like that's results in a bunch of committees because people find out about it and they're like, are you guys just like destroying countries without asking anyone? Wait, we did what now? What?

You know. Oh man. How many dog just think about your parents open in a door? Which, and you and a cop are standing on your porch and they like, what did this little fool do? Get in the house. You understand? Yeah.

That's both why a lot of this starts with the NSC and not the CIA, you know, they're involved, but it's, it's McFarland who's driving a lot of what happens. And it's also why the, there's the guys in charge of the CIA, Bill Casey, his whole motivation, he was like a heart, he was like a fucking boots on the ground spook in World War two. Like doing some gnarly body shit. And his whole motivation in life is to get back to when the CIA gets to do that kind of stuff again. Yeah.

Right? So like, anyway, that's, I imagine that being much more fun when you just didn't have to like tell anybody what you was doing, you could just overthrow governments. And Bill, Bill Casey is reading about him as fun, but in like a Mike, like in an Elron Hubbard way. Totally. Like how did he get away with all of this? You did what now?

Yeah. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations and you know what, they were right. I'm Trevor Aaronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver at the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives

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The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI.

How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space.

And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world.

Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So Schultz and Weiberger are like, OK, this is a huge mistake. But you know, but got Ronnie's ear, I guess we doing this. Now, enter this man named Don Regan, who's the presidential chief of staff, right? But by the way, let's all deal with the elephant in the room. Ronald Reagan's chief of staff was Donald Regan. It's just OK, let's just we just sit with that for just a second.

Sit with it. All right. I can't make this shit up. Like this is like, yeah, it's we're in a simulation like that makes you feel like we're in a simulation. Yeah, you can't let that happen, Ronald. But of course, if you, of course, whatever, whatever, I mean, he's an absolute dickhole. Like we'll talk about him later, but he's such a dickhole, right?

All of these guys are terrible. Yes. Yes. There was even a moment where this fool like tries to get butt like like dragged in public where he tells the he tells the press that this fool was cheating on his wife. He just just messy, just making up shit. So anyway, while all this shit is going down, August 3rd, Ronnie tells his fool, OK, everybody on the ground.

OK, it's on. Let's do this thing. Right. Let's do the drill. Let's tap in with the Israelis. Let's get this thing cracking, right? So the font afar is like, all right, let's make it happen. Let's do what we got to do.

Let's make sure everything runs. So the thing starts running and run, the thing starts running. And then they put Oliver North is where he starts in place. So Oliver North is the guy that's like, all right, hey, can you oversee all this shit? Right. Now, everybody knows. Well, not everybody knows. That's the hard part.

Everybody knows, except for the CIA, that you can't trust Gabonafar. Matter of fact, this nigga blacklisted like he already, but Casey don't tell nobody. Yeah. While everyone else in the intelligence apparatus is like setting up a like pinning all of their hopes and dreams on this man, Casey's got like this list of times Gabonafar has fucked us over. And then he's just like not sharing. Why are you not telling nobody like the Reagan administration?

Yes. Is a hoot. If you could just like turn your soul off for a little while and not think about all the people who died. It's extremely funny. It's hilarious. Yes. Because I'm like, fam, you okay, you see an artist happening, you see an artist and

you know this full shading. You ain't saying nothing. Like you're not a friend. You're not a team player. Like how was you like, like, bro, speak up, right? So anyway, there's this motivation people have lately to talk about how like, well, you know, the government, when you get right down to it, politics, all these guys, it's the same as like what gangs do.

They're just wearing suits. They're just gang bangers in suits. But I might argue, if you're a gang banger, you have to be a lot smarter because these guys are sloppy. You would be in prison so fast if you were like, these guys are the messiest people. If this situation happened on the streets and you was part of the set and you knew this fool was shady, you would get, you would get what's called DP, which is discipline, you know what I'm saying, which means weafing a beat your ass, you know what I'm saying?

Because like you put us all in danger and you knew better. Like speak up. You know what I'm saying? Like you, like you, you won't get it. You won't get it bad. So, so it starts getting cracking, right? First shipment goes in, it's kind of weird, you know, like I said, it kind of worked, went off to Lisbon, you know, goes off to Lisbon, comes back down.

They get the thing that's supposed to be the plan was supposed to be once you get your first shipment, you need to send us William Buckley. Send our guy. Right? Yeah. And this is like gnarly for it because they've got pictures of Buckley, you know, they think he's being tortured. I think it turns out that he was just like got sick and was not treated properly.

So that's what they say. They was like, yeah, they was like, so once the thing works, it was like, okay, so we got this thing, here's the arms dealer, let's send it off and Iran was like, once they got the shipment Iran was like, ah, hey, he too sick to travel. We can't send him and you like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You got your weapons though. Like we paid for this.

Yeah, we just sent you a lot of weapons. We need our dude. And they like, Oh man, sorry, fam. Send the next one though. in the next order and we should be cool, right? Now, anybody's antennas should come up here, right? Obviously a scam, right? Obviously something ain't right.

You understand what I'm saying? But since these fools are bad at being gangsters, they send the next shipment. But the next shipment goes wrong, right? You were supposed to send 500 hawk missiles, right? They're supposed to send 500 hawk missiles. They only got a hundred, right? And they was like, I don't understand what's going on.

Did Israel, you know, change the price? Like something's not, like the ledgers aren't working. And remember, there's so many middlemen, it's hard to figure out what's going on. Then there's another shipment, right, in November. And when this shipment happens, it gets sent back, it goes, so when this one's happening, it's supposed to go to Lisbon.

Lisbon doesn't clear the customs, right? So the shit gets sent back. Oh, wait, wait, I'm skipping a part. I forgot, this actually parts even more crazy. When the second shipment comes to Iran, when it gets there, it's got Israeli tags on it. It's stamped with the star of David. Because remember how the lick was supposed to work.

The stuff was supposed to actually be American missiles. You're supposed to go into there and then we were pretending like we were selling Israeli missiles to them. But there are really American missiles because that's what Iran asked for. Iran asked for American missiles, but if they come in there and they got the star of David

on it, Iran like, are you fucking with us? I didn't ask for y'all's missiles. We asked for American missiles. This shit don't look right. You know what I'm saying? I don't understand what's going on, but we not giving y'all nobody till we figure this shit out, right?

And America's still like, oh my God, we're still, somebody's gotta find out what the fuck we're doing. We have to get this thing working, right? Yeah, now we've given them so many missiles. If we don't get anybody at all, it's worse than if we just give them more missiles until we get people.

Yes, exactly. So they end this like, you just still paying. This is like- Beautiful sunk costs fallacy. Yes, like fam, like any friend would tell you, my G, you getting extorted, you understand what I'm saying? You're getting fucked, man. You getting fucked out this mug by everybody.

You understand what I'm saying? Like if I was you, I wouldn't even try to figure out who's at fault. It's just, it's time to pull out fam, right? So the one shipment gets sent back to Israel, like it doesn't clear customs and remember, Israel ain't supposed to have these weapons. This weapons that are on this freight train

ain't supposed to exist. But now, Oliver North need help because we gotta get these weapons out of customs without nobody knowing, right? So who does he call? This fool calls the CIA. Yeah, there you go. I mean, like what am I supposed to do, right?

So Bill Casey, who running the CIA knew the whole time this deal was shady, right? Knew the whole time you were supposed to get clearance, right? Knew the whole time that none of this shit was supposed to happen. The CIA wasn't even supposed to be involved in none of this stuff because you ain't sending no papers in

but now I gotta come say he like, ah, why you bring, y'all messy, why you bring me into this, right? But he's gotta do it. So he's gotta pretend like Reagan signed something. Maybe, and then he goes to get, then he goes to Reagan and he tries to get a retroactive finding. So like on some post data checks type shit,

like just backdate this thing, right? Turn it in, but just backdate it so everything will be cool. He gets him to do it, right? But this whole time Iran got their antennas up, Iran like this shit, some y'all trying to play, we think Israel trying to play us, right?

Now, if you America and you dealing with people this volatile, you kind of want them to think that it's not you. You know what I'm saying? It works better in your favor for Iran to think Israel the shady ones. Yeah. You understand what I'm saying? Because if not, they gonna shoot up our people.

Well, and it looks better for everybody if it's going through the Israelis, right? It looks better for everybody. We could always blame them, everything's like. The Israelis want to be in this because they have a vested interest in Iran getting better weapons because while Iran and Israel like do all this very public fighting,

Israel actually over the years has kicked Iran a lot of weapons because Iran is also the ancestral enemy of Iraq and Iraq, they considered for a long time to be much more of a threat to Israel. So anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So true. So Iran thinks Israel's playing them for us is cool.

So you not mad at us, you mad at them. So the question is, do you kill the deal? Like you said, the sunken cost, you kill the deal or do you keep trying to get your people back? And at this point, it's Israel that look like they messed up, not us. However, it's probably this fool who we can't figure out this fool, Gabonafar, right?

Yeah. Who is so far, he just been in the wind. He been casting checks and been like, well, I don't know what to say. Like I've done what we need to do. So the American team, Oliver North and then run back, they tell Ronnie like, okay, look, here's the situation. What do you want to do? Ronnie being as smooth as he is.

Remember, he's not smart, he's smooth. Ronnie is like, okay, listen, I could probably explain away the legalities of us doing this. If we get caught, I could probably finesse this, right? But what I probably can't finesse is letting six or seven hostages die in the hands of Iran because I couldn't get them out. Yeah.

But he's like, okay, but you're right, dog. Like this, this shit ain't working. Let's go, go tell Gabonafar it's off, right? So Bud McFarland and Oliver North, they flooded the UK to meet with Gabonafar. And they like, look dog, this shit ain't working. I don't know what you doing. They not getting their weapons.

The numbers is getting messed up. Now Liz been asking questions like we're, we just need to end this shit, right? Gabonafar like, okay, listen, fam, I don't think you know who you dealing with. Like you can't just end the deal with these people. Yeah. Like this just, you didn't tangled with the wrong folk.

Yeah. And besides, we're good. I got this. Cause you gotta remember how Gabonafar run. He like, look man, listen, y'all just, just chill, man. Just chill. You acting all froggy, man. You acting all jumpy, man.

You act like you're like, act like you belong somewhere. We'll be all right, homie. You can't just back out with these people. They're killers. And I've been dealing with killers for a while. So we all right. So Oliver North is like, look man, he probably right. We did, there's no, I don't know what else we could do homie.

Like I don't know how we could do this. And if Reagan is still down, I think we should do this. But Reagan ain't, ain't reveal his cards yet, right? So there's, there's some other cards going on. And bud is like, look man, I can't, I can't work like this. I'm about to roll out. But, but Oliver North has an idea. You know, two purple, two purple heart Vietnam head ass

has an idea, right? But we'll get to that idea later. But now we're gonna have to start the other thread. But before we do that, let's do, what do you guys, what do you call these, plugables? That's what you call them? Yeah, yeah, plug some plugables. Oh gosh.

Well, let me tell you about where I can be plugged. I wrote a book called After the Revolution. You can find it on bookseller.org or whatever. You can find it on amazon.com. You can find it on the AK Press website by just Googling AK Press After the Revolution. Please buy it and read it. Many people have.

And they seem to enjoy it. That's it. That's the only thing I've ever done. That an award-winning pods. I've never, I have not won an award. No. Nobody's given me an award. Yeah, me neither.

We deserve an award. I'll give you an award. Yeah. I'll give you. I mean, I've won an award. Yes, you have, whatever. Sophie has won an award. Now, Prop and I, Prop, you and I are gonna have to do

some asymmetric warfare now. I know, right? Get that fucking trophy. You know what I'm saying? You and Loftus are running away with it, man. It's definitely changed us. We're definitely the worst people with this award. You and the Lofty one, you know what I'm saying?

I have, I'm gonna be honest with you, never been this angry. So high and above us. That's your new name now, Jamie Lofty. You and me, Prop, we gotta do some Bill Casey, some McFarlane, some fucking Ollie North shit. Yes, we do. We gotta roll on this.

Yes. Yeah. Get those goddamn trophies. Anyway. She, all right. All right. I don't know which theme music is rolling in right now, but that's dope.

The Batman, let's do the Batman theme music. Okay. Put politics back. Oh, okay. We're, all right. All right. We did it. That's part one.

Bye. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse.

And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure, he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story

about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.