Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 136

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

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for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. So, Free Free McCormick Court. Welcome to Can't Happen Here, a podcast that's occasionally hijacked by the Supreme Court because a bunch of unilaterally dipshits rule us all.

I'm your host, Mio Wong. With me is James. Hi, Mio. I'm excited to be hijacked. Is it like a pirate situation? Is like Samuel Alito, like with your one leg and a patch coming in to hijack the ship? They are not cool, to be fair. I made a mistake here because the Supreme Court justices are not cool to be fair I made a mistake here

because the Supreme Court justices are not cool enough to take up and open a piracy that that is that is a grand and noble tradition dating back millennia yeah we've been compulsory at what's it called civil asset forfeited by the Supreme yeah that's bad yeah so originally this is gonna be an episode about how messed up Clarence Thomas's and Samuel Alito's wives are because, oh my God, are they a bunch of right wing fanatics? We haven't really covered it on this show. But then this episode got hijacked by a bunch of other Supreme Court news.

So we're going to talk a bit about Samuel Alito's wife. We'll put off Clarence Thomas's QAnon wife for another day. But yeah, so this is going to be a sort of roundup episode of the 16 million pieces of Supreme Court. We're not even going to get to them all. There's Supreme Court news that like we can't even cover. There's too much of it. But yeah, let's start with the Mefa Pristone case. So, OK, I think people like we've talked about Mefepristone before on this show,

and there's been a widely sort of dreaded case. We're a group called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. I've been trying to see the FDA. Yeah. The amount of these fucking pretend medical organizations, I'm sorry, I'm derailing the episode, like the American College of Pediatrics is another one. A, wait till you find out who these people actually are, because it's amazing. And two,

I think you haven't seen any of these legal arguments, right? No, I'm hoping that we get to Bohemian Grove. That's the only thing I followed from the Supreme Court. Amazingly, Bohemian Grove did not make the cut, amazingly. Damn, okay. I'm ready for some high tier shit. I'm so excited. You are about to see some shit. You are about to see what I genuinely believe to be the worst legal arguments ever made

in a court of law. And like I say this having watched like probably four, listen to probably 40 hours of Alex Jones trial depositions from different trials And I genuinely believe these to be the worst legal arguments anyone has ever made so All right, I'm I'm gonna quote from an article in the nation here No, a lie. So this is this is about who the Alliance Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is a m a mismatch of anti-abortion doctors, nurses, and dentists, yes dentists, who, though none of them have ever prescribed the pill,

claim that they have been harbored by its existence. Their theories of standing range from comical to inept to offensive to contemptible. They include arguments such as, doctors who do not perform abortions are harmed when they have to work in the emergency room where alleged complications from the abortion pill arise. And by the way, we should mention this, by the way. So part of this whole thing is that there's been, the right has been trying to like make up this fake argument that this abortion that walk back. Master Pristone can be used for a number of things, but they've been trying to make up arguments that like there's like scary side effects with fake studies and like even the

right wing court was like, this is bullshit. So so again, they're saying that again, having a doctor who has to do work in a place where there's fake side effects that aren't happening. They're saying this is this is an injury. The second one Obstetricians who do not perform abortions are harmed because they feel complicit in the abortions that take place Even if they are not a part of the procedures Literally one of the justices was like what do you mean complicit? Are you handing him a bottle of water or something? I'm the water boy at the abortion clinic. That's what I do

I'm on the hydration team fucking plant heron Medical staff are hard by via complicity also. And four, and this is the best one. This one, I... Random people who do not perform abortions nonetheless suffer from quote unquote aesthetic injury of being deprived of seeing pregnant people jiggle around with sore backs. And this is also, this is a direct quote from the thing. I'm not making this theory up. This is what Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho wrote when upholding the ban on Mephapristone.

Okay, what the fuck? Like, this is like they're being deprived of... it's just like a kink thing? They can't see pregnant people? No, no, apparently the theory is that being able to see pregnant people is like good and healthy for you or something and if you don't do it There's there's another one. There's another one that that wasn't in this article, but that wasn't some other things is that I one of their other cases is that I doctors enjoy working with unborn patients and That this is this is an injury to them. Yeah, I think you may want to examine

your fucking social skills. A bunch of fucking dentists are being like, I can't work on the teeth of pregnant people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been deprived from doing fetus orthodontics and therefore I will take it to the Supreme Court. What a wild fucking case. What an incredible system that this made it to the Supreme Court. Okay, the absolute funniest part about this, like right wing dipshit lawyer

for the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is Josh Halley's wife? I think Josh Halley like, like popular front salute to the January 6th people. Yeah, that little. Yeah, I will not use an adjective that we cannot broadcast. Okay. And so sort of, I mean, not that surprised. So people who are following the trial, I think expected this. Well, they expected probably like a 72 or an 81, but this was a 90. No, that's clean sheet.

This is bullshit. Like, I think, I think, you know, so know, so there's been a lot of like good coverage about the sort of legal aspects here. And I guess we should be before we go further, we should mention. So what this ruling does, like effectively is that, OK, so there's not going to be a national ban on mephepristone. However, comma, the states that have outlawed mephepristone, it's that doesn't change

anything there. So there are still a lot of people who cannot access this drug, who cannot access their life-saving medical care, because they're ruled by a bunch of fucking right-wing bigots and Christian extremists, et cetera, et cetera. But this case has established something extremely important, which is that there is actually a legal limit to the amount of bullshit you can do, even if you are a right wing lawyer who like the court agrees with, like Josh Halley's wife used to be a clerk for for Justice John Roberts. So she was like she's like embedded embedded in this whole right wing ecosystem.

She's one of the big sort of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like grooming her for success. But these people finally, for like the first time ever, made made a set of legal arguments so bullshit, even the Supreme Court was like, what the fuck? And I think I think, OK, so this is this is this is where we're going into sort of Mia's kind of like bullshit theory here. But the reason this was thrown out was that, OK, so this is this is the part that is like obviously real.

So in American law. I mean, I think this is true of most legal systems. I don't know any that don't function like this, but in order. So in the US, it is very easy to sue someone. You can sue someone over $20. It's in the Constitution. It fucking rules. It's very funny. We are extremely litigious country.

But you need you need what you need something called standing to sue in order to do this. There's some kind of complicated parts of this that, you know, revolves around jurisdiction and what courts, blah, blah, blah. But the important thing is that someone has to have done an injury to you. And this, this is the part where this entire case fell apart, because they could not find a single person that had suffered an actual injury from methylprystalline. Yes, outstanding. Just incredible stuff.

Like, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's because they could sue on behalf of of unborn people. Mia, it didn't work. Well, I mean, to do for this, this one technically wasn't this. This one was on behalf of like, yeah, of the dentists and dentists and shit. But OK, I think I think there's been an important legal standing here because so, you know, we we have covered on this show the case 303 creative versus Alanis, which is the one where the Supreme Court ruled that it's legal to discriminate against queer people on religious grounds as long as your business is quote unquote creative and it's like a speech act.

That's the one where it's a cake one right? I know this is a wedding website one. It's a site. This is this is the more recent one that was like some woman was like, I was forced to make a wedding website for a gay person. Now, OK, so what we talked about in that case is that importantly. This never happened. This woman was never forced to make a website for a gay person, right? Like that, that never happened.

But, you know, the court still upheld that and like let them, you know, like, let them basically institute a bunch of like insane, you know, like potentially like states can institute a bunch of like insane laws now about this. But okay, so what we have in the wedding website case is you have a real person who a fake injury happened to. And that apparently is good enough for standing for the, for the, if you're a real person who a fake injury happened to. And that apparently is good enough for standing, for if you're a right-wing activist for the Supreme Court. You can have a real person that an injury did not happen to,

but they can imagine an injury that could have happened to them, and that's good enough. Now, there's an important legal precedent being set here, which is that, okay, again, nothing has to actually have happened to you. You can make up what happened to you, but you have to have a an actual person who would injury could have happened to and B you could have a fake injury, but if the injury was real, it would have to be a real injury.

Like you can, you can, you can march up the Supreme court with a person who said I was thrown into a volcano because of woke. And obviously they weren't thrown into a volcano, but you could have woke outlawed because they said they were thrown into a volcano because of woke. But what you can't do, apparently the actual line is you have no person, right? You are a group of people who are suing, who have said that because of woke someone somewhere, like hypothetically, it might become impossible to flap your wings and fly.

And that's apparently the line to the sarlacc pit because of woke. No, no, no, no. That's not true, though, because the sarlacc pit could conceivably you could build a sarlacc pit. Right. Okay. Yeah. Like if you're the fake injury you're imagining, if it were real, like would have to be a real injury.

What you can't do is have is not have a person and then also have the injury you're talking about not be a real injury, even, even, even if it did happen, which is what's happening in this case. So that's the line that has been drawn in the sand for conservatives is like you absolute clowns. Like we are going to let you break every single law. But the thing you're pretending happened, if it actually did happen, it has to has to be a real injury. So this is the light of the sand that's been drawn by huge win for democracy. Yeah. I mean, also, like, I mean, obviously, there's some sort of poison pill stuff in this that's kind of more legally complicated that we're not going to really get into. I mean, there's some stuff in here that because this is a Kavanaugh ruling, right?

So there's some stuff in here that like is basically Kavanaugh being like, OK, if you want to do this again, but like bring a real case, like here's how you might be able to do it. Yeah, well, he coaches him through. Yeah. I mean, it was like a little bit of that. And there's some stuff here basically trying to make it harder for civil rights groups to like do cases where like they have one of their people pose as a right. Someone trying to buy a house or whatever. So there's there's some stuff. This ruling is still fucking over some people's civil rights, like less

less you think this Supreme Court did something good. But we have to establish the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine standard of fake injury. Do you know what else do you know what else will give you fake injuries, but not real injuries? What can we say categorically that that's I mean, what if we get like black rifle coffee, right? That could do an injury to your gut.

I guess I guess we can't say that. We okay. Do you know what else we cannot make any promises about? Would that be the products and services to support this show? It is. And we are back. So speaking of products and services, there was also a very bad Supreme Court ruling in a case about the National Labor Relations Board and Starbucks. So I

don't know if we, I don't think we specifically covered this. We've covered a lot of cases on this show of people being fired and retaliation for star. We covered a different case of a worker being fired and retaliation for union organizing from Starbucks. Great stuff. Yeah, but so this specific case, the NLRB, National Labor Relations Board, if your opponent breaks labor law, or for example, firing someone in retaliation for union organizing is in fact a violation of labor law. If this happens, you can file something called an unfair labor practice. Eventually you go before the National

Labor Relations Board and they make a decision. But one of the things that the NLRB can do, because this process takes in an extremely large amount of time, and if this process goes into like the regular courts, it's going to take years and years and years, and during that time you're still going to be fired. So, you know, one of the things that the NLRB can do is issue an ask a judge to issue an injunction to force to like, basically, a judge can tell Starbucks, like, no, fuck you, you like until this court case is resolved, you have to rehire this person. And so basically what happened, Starbucks sued over this.

It got to the Supreme Court. And the question that basically came to like what standard of evidence does the NLRB have to have that this workers rights are being violated before they can issue an injunction. The Supreme Court said it has to be like a really high standard, which is bullshit. This was an eight one decision. Uh, it's not. That's the thing. So, okay.

This, this, this is important here. This is being reported as an eight one decision. It's actually not because Contesia Brown Jackson filed a concurring opinion with slightly like slightly better logic, but also still bad logic about this. So, in fact, effectively, this was a nine no agreement with Starbucks with like slightly differing like reasons for concurring. Right.

So yeah, and this is, you know, as I told James yesterday, this is in fact definitive proof that cop that workers are not cops and cops are not workers. Because if this if this were a decision about cops, it would be nine oh in the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. So this is very bad. It's already like almost impossibly difficult to get the National Labor Relations Board to intervene to like stop this shit from happening. It can happen. It's just a really, really long process and they almost never file any of these injections in the first place. I'm going to read a quote from the APA that I disagree with. The NLRB requested fewer than 20 injunctions last year, but they serve as a powerful deterrent

against firing workers trying to unionize, said Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former member of the NLRB. With a stricter standard in place to win the reinstatement of fired workers, more companies may feel empowered to crack down on unionization efforts, Ms. Block said. Now, all offense to Ms. Block, I think the fact that you were on the fucking NLRB and you weren't out there trying to fucking organize unions makes you in fact not a particularly good person to ask about how effective the NLRB's efforts have actually been here because I like the number of people I know personally,

unrelated to any of the work that I do who have been fired in retaliation for union organizing is extremely high. And yeah, like, obviously, this is going to make it, you know, this is going to make companies more like, like more willing to do it. But it's not like the completely half-assed efforts that the NLRB was making before. We're actually like really seriously deterring deterring companies from firing you, right? Like, we have other, it's not like there are not other tools at the disposal of organized labor to respond to retaliatory, something like this, right? Yeah. The best way to get your boss not retaliate against you is to be well organized enough

that if they fucking try this, you breathe, that you bring your shop to a stop. And I have seen that work, right? Like it is possible to get people reinstated. It's it's hard. But, you know, you probably have a better shot of like doing it by being well organized than you do with the fucking NLRB ever getting to your case. So, right. You know, I like and, you know, I don't want to be completely doom and gloom about this because it's like,

no, like you can still definitely organize unions, right? Like this hasn't made it impossible to like do any of this stuff. It's just that the legal apparatus is weighted towards the boss and the counteraction to legal apparatus being weighted towards the boss is you. And how well organized you are. So we're going to go from that to what this episode was originally supposed to be about, which is Supreme Court Wives. Yeah, and again, we were going to do more of this, but. We're making reality TV show about it instead. Yeah, it's it's nuts.

Okay, so the current big story basically is that Samuel Alito's wife can't stop flying deranged right wing flags. I do love a flag person. Samuel Alito's wife can't stop flying deranged right wing flags. I do love a flag person. Yeah. So OK, Samuel Alito like. OK, so the story that has been run within the media and again, it's not clear how true any of this is. Tell me, Alito, so we're going to talk about a bunch of deranged right wing flags have been flying outside the house of Alito property.

Samuel Alito claims that this is wife and he has nothing to do with it. Now, do we, the public, trust the word of a Supreme Court justice? And I think the answer we, I'm not going to give you the answer for you, but I'm going to lay that out in front of you. So, all right. So the first one of these was she flew an upside down US flag, which I had always remembered as being an anti-war thing. Yeah, I think the judge had tried to take it back. Yeah, very sad. Yeah, they're doing it because of course, Joe Biden is destroying the constitutional

republic and so they're signaling for help from other chuds. Yeah, originally it was a like January 6th US election has been stolen thing. Right, yeah. I saw someone flying the thin blue line flag upside down the other day. Unclear if. They had to fuck the police flag as well so like I guess once I saw that the situation was

clarified but I was like is this so like a cop in danger? Like what's happening? Yeah. So, and by the way, the other thing I want to point out about this is that there are like a bunch, there are a bunch of journalists who knew about this, like in 2021 and then just sat on it and didn't talk about it until like this year. Yeah, I did see this. What the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah.

And this is, this is, this is, this is why I refused. I like, I largely refused to call myself a journalist because these people are fucking hacks and frauds Who just sit on the stupid thing for their fucking book releases? Yeah, I mean those people ought not to be called journalists, right? It's pathetic like Your job as a journalist is to hold power to account and if you're not doing that because you want to sell more books or Yeah, start your grift university and again and fuck you this This would have been fucking useful to know in that actual, like in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, there was an actual sort of a desire to do something about it. And maybe if people had fucking known that the wife of a Supreme Court justice was fucking

flying this shitty ass flag, again, probably actually a Supreme Court justice, like was flying this shitty ass, the election was stolen flag. So that's part one of the flag news. Now apparently partially what's going on is she's been getting into a bunch of fights with her neighbors. You fucking hate her because she's an asshole. And she's-

I wonder why the neighbors hate her. Hopefully, look, if you live within eyesight of her house, I will ship you one Bigadeau crime flag they they apparently have been doing that shit and trolling Which is fucking heroes here, we're gonna get how to how mad this made her later But one of the other flags that she's been flying is a flag I had forgotten about which is the do you know the appeal to heaven flag? Oh yeah, no. Yes, unfortunately I do, Mir, because I drive around East County San Diego. Yeah.

Yeah, a little tree flag for those who are not familiar, a little pine tree on a white background. Yeah, so, okay, so this flag has been taken up by... So it's been spread around basically right. We move is kind of more generally now, but it was it was originally sort of reed. This is a revolutionary war flag that nobody has flown in like 200 years. But it's been taken back up by the New Apostolic Reformation, which is. Like many of these guys. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. OK. So they are like a deranged Christian nationalist like organization of churches

That is combined the most deranged principles of the most deranged Christian sex which is to say Pentecostalism charismatic Christianity and like a very specific kind of insane Dominionism and they have combined all of them together to form like the super ideology that's like right is the fucking like it's it's it's the it's the Dragon Ball Z fusion of like literally the worst parts of every insane right wing Christian ideology. And so they have come out with the belief that like they have been basically chosen by God to like seize control of the U.S.

and turn it into a theocracy. OK, they're like the power ranges of of Christian church. Yeah, Yeah, like it's like Marjorie Taylor Green's involved with them like Larry Leo is one of the big Federalist Society guys Like also was flying this flag and the Federalist Society has funneled a bunch of money To like a bunch of like right-wing legal cases and stuff. So this is this is very good So you used to see a lot in the Pacific Northwest among that kind of white separatist Christian. Yeah. Like they'd wear it on their plate carriers a lot and stuff.

That's kind of what I associate it with. Yeah. So this has been like last year this was flying over Samuel Alito's beach house. So great things happening here. Yeah. Fuck me. Yeah. So there's also a third piece of Mrs. Alito's say of flag news, which is that so she got Project Veritas

by a liberal documentary filmmaker. She like did a sting operation like when it like bought a ticket to one of her dinners and pretended to be a conservative and filmed her. And I'm going to read this quote from from Ruling Stowe that's about like what she said. You know what I want Miss Alito says? I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across a lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month. Referencing her husband Miss Alito said he's like oh please don't put up the flag. I said I won't do it because I'm deferring to you but when you are free of this nonsense I'm putting it up and I'm gonna send them a message every day

Maybe every week. I'll be changing the flags. There'll be all kinds. I made a flag in my head This is how I satisfy myself I made a flag is white and yellow and orange flames around it and in the middle is the word of begonia in Italian means shame Vergona V er gog na Italian means shame, vergonia, V-E-R-G-O-G-N-A, vergonia. Shame, shame, shame on you, she adds. So she's so mad about gay people that she's making up flags in her head. Yes. That she's going to fly to own them. Homophobic vexillology. That's a new level of fucking like having your brain broken by gay

people existing. It's a new level of fucking like having your brain broken by gay people existing. It's nuts. Mia, do you know what hangs over my head? Like a flag that says shame. Is it the Fragment Services that support this podcast? It's the obligation to pivot to adverts, yes. Okay, so there is one last part of this story that hasn't been getting any coverage at all that I'm very alarmed about because, and maybe this is a thing I should have led with. Okay, I'm going to read you this and I am going to ask you for a conceivable possible alternative explanation that is not Samuel Alito's wife is openly saying she is a Nazi.

Quote, when Windsor, Windsor is the name of the filmmaker who did the like sting, when Windsor tells Miss Alito she's being persecuted and depicted as a convenient stand-in for anybody who's religious, the Justice's wife gets quieter and her tone turns more serious. Look at me, look at me. I'm German. I'm from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I'm going to give it back to you. And there will be a way. It doesn't have to be now, but there will be a way they know. Don't worry about it. God, you read the Bible. Psalm 27 is my Psalm. Mine. Psalm 27. The Lord is by God and by rock. Of whom shall I be afraid? Nobody. Wow. Yeah. A lot of real emphasis on being German.

What possible? And Jenny Wiley, I defy anyone to come up with a possible explanation of what the sentence, look at me, look at me, I'm German, I'm from Germany, my heritage is German, you come after me, I'm going to give it back to you. What possible, she is just straight up saying, I am a German Nazi. And this is something that the entire fucking media has access to. And no one is leading with a story that says Samuel Lito's wife says that she's a Nazi. I'm going insane. I, fuck it.

We're, we're, we're, I've actually banged my microphone. We're fucking leading this episode with the title Samuel Lito's wife admit she's a Nazi and other Supreme Court news because fuck him. Someone's got to do this. This is insane. This is nuts. What the fuck? This is, this is a bizarre thing to say, like to someone.

She knew this person was a journalist. No, no, no, no. She thought that they were a conservative activist. So so what's happening here, I think, is like, OK, like basically, like kind of in private, like like in conservative circles, she's trying to say all the people that like, no, like I'm a fucking Nazi. Like I'm down with you. Fucking right. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of they're not saying the thing, but saying the thing.

Yeah. Like, like, it's like, it's not even dog-whissing, it's just very openly telling selectors to people like, hey, this is where I stand. So that is not good. And again, this guy is one of the one of the unelected people who can at any moment, moment strip any right from you for effectively any reason. So that's great. Yeah, great. Wonderful. I'm still mind boggled at this. Like, yeah, I mean, even if we're German,

what are you going to do? Like you have a two for two L rate in World War. Yeah, you're going to lose a third in World War. Get your ass handed to you again? Get divided and half of you given to Russia. Like, what are you going for? It is like we have not done much coverage of how insane Germany has gotten right now. But like there are like there are entire mobs of like people in dance clubs chanting Germany is for Germans like they like their Nazi party is like about to take control.

Disband a number of like police and special forces units. Oh, yeah. All Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not just they're all Nazis. Like you can be a Nazi in the German police force. They don't care that much. But it's because they were specific. They keep on specifically getting caught either with kill lists

to politicians or with a plan to overthrow the government. Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, so so we like this, this is this is my like Germany is the one country on earth that would be improved by an American occupation and then being split into like 35, like every single country in the world gets their one square mile of Germany to rule over. This would significantly improve Germany as a country. I love that. Yeah. Turn it turn it into a model you end.

Yeah. So from our plan to make Germany an international occupied territory at Epcot, Epcot to Germany. There we go. Yeah. All right. We need to talk about there's even more Justice Thomas bullshit. I thought there was only going to be one Justice Thomas story and then a second Justice Thomas story broke as I was writing the script. So OK, so the Senate Judiciary Committee finally sort of got off its ass and decided to look at Justice Thomas is like obvious bribe money from Harlan Crow and a bunch of other mega

donors and they found lo and behold, Thomas took three more undisclosed private jet flights. I think, though, again, these people are just like obviously taking bribe money. None of the Congress won't do anything. Dick Durbin will issue a strongly worded statement who's the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee will offer a strongly worded statement. Do nothing. So, yeah, if anything is going to be done to the Supreme Court, it's going to be done by you, not by the fucking Congress that you nominally elect because they just don't give a shit. We also learned. So do you remember? Were you on the Clarence Thomas episodes?

I know. I didn't think I was. Oh, no. Yeah. There might have been a me and Gare one. Yeah. So one of the things that we learned was that Harlan Crow had paid an unbelievable amount, like like hundreds of thousands of dollars to send Thomas's grandnephew, he was like, quote unquote, raising like a son, send him to like expensive private schools. So normal. Yeah. So we learned, we learned today or like, as like maybe two days ago, that Thomas, so, okay, so this kid that like he had like raised as a son, they just like completely, so this kid that he had raised as a son, they just completely...

So some media people caught up with his son, who's now in jail pending charges. Yeah, and he's not going to be fucking bailed out by Justice Thomas, who apparently lost interest in him when he reached high school and just shipped him off to a boarding school. And then while he was at boarding school, he got expelled for failing a drug test and they just like sent him back to his mom and cut him off and he's talked to him like once or twice in the last 14 years. So that's great. Real piece of shit.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. What having Clarence Thomas as a paternal figure in your life does to a motherfucker I can't imagine. Yeah, like I truly feel bad for this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck Clarence Thomas. Finally, to round out the Supreme court news, I literally, the more like the board, like in the morning, this, the script was like done. Right. And then I wake up and there's breaking news. Supreme court has struck down federal bureau of tobacco and firearms thing, banning bump stocks.

So I'm going to ask you to talk about bump stocks because I think I know what they are, but I'm not a gun person. So. Yeah. Happy to, uh, happy to be the token, cis white guy to talk about guns here. So the ATF under Donald Trump for a long time, the ATF explicitly said that bump stocks were not machine guns after the Las Vegas shooting in which one was used. Uh, the, the bump stock was then ruled as a Las Vegas shooting, in which one was used,

the bump stock was then ruled as a machine gun. They kind of pivoted, right? What a bump stock is, for those who are not familiar, is a device that kind of uses the recoil of the weapon to kind of re-fire. Basically, it allows you to fire much more quickly, right? But crucially, the trigger is going forward and back, unlike a machine gun where you hold the trigger

to the rear, right, and the gun continues to fire. It's sort of, you can look up, I think it's probably much easier if you can see it, but it's kind of a device that connects the stock and then the pistol grip of the weapon, and then it bounces back and forward, and in in doing so moves the finger back and forward. You can also bump fire a gun without one which is just I just don't want to describe how to do that but if you probably know already there are videos on YouTube like like it's not

a thing that's illegal I don't think but neither of these are particularly effective it's kind of a range toy thing. Like it's a way to quickly turn money into noise. I don't think that like, they were massive craze. Like a lot of these gun things, right? There are like five big accounts on YouTube, which set the whatever the craze. Like gun people are very much like preteens. You know when you're in school

and suddenly everyone's got a fucking yo-yo and if you don't have a yo-yo you're a complete dweeb and then fuck your yo-yo it's Pokemon cards? Yeah, that's a lot of the firearms industry. So like, these were a big craze and then they kind of weren't and specifically when the Donald Trump ATF banned them, right, a lot of people were like, oh you don't need them anyway, they're useless. They're useless. Like, they definitely allow you to fire fire quicker. And you can have the gun in your in your shoulder, which you can't do when you're regularly bump firing it. But they're not that it's not the same as a machine gun in terms of effectiveness, in my opinion. So yeah, now you can buy one

again if you really want one in certain states, I'm sure that there are state laws, I'm sure California still bans him. But, well, you can't have a pistol grip on your semi-automatic rifle in California unless it's mag locked. But yeah, I don't think it's a big deal. Like I'm looking right now and of course, like, you know, NBC and shit, it's like the end of the world is nigh, everyone now has a belt-fed machine gun. Not really. That's not kind of what they do. You can fire faster, but I don't think it's going to make a meaningful change in the lethality of firearms that civilians have access to. Some cop will use it as an excuse to be a fucking coward like they were a Duvalde, right?

But we can't control that. I think it does signal, like post-Bruin, right, which was a concealed carry decision, a willingness of the court to go after the ATF. They didn't, there's a thing called I think it's called a Chevron. It's not a Chevron rule. Is it a Chevron? Oh, it's Chevron doctrine. Yeah, where essentially they're telling lower courts not to challenge legislative opinions. The ATF is not itself a lawmaking body, but it can opine on what laws mean. But those can be challenged in courts. They didn't touch the Chevron doctrine with regards to the ATF here. But I think we will see other cases, 3D printed gun cases, for instance, go up to the Supreme Court and probably get

a favorable decision for gun rights. There's this Supreme Court, and the big ones, the ones that would make a meaningful difference, at least to people in restricted states, would be assault weapons bans that we have in California and magazine capacity bans like we have in California. So California, a lot of other states limit you to 10 rounds. California, you can't have a pistol grip on a semi-automatic rifle and some other features, unless the magazine's locked to the weapon and it requires disassembly to reload. So those would make a meaningful difference to gun rights for people in those states.

This, I think, is that big of a deal, personally. Like, look, fucking people are all over the place with fully automatic locks, because they bought a little 3D printed switch on like, either online or, like, apparently people are buying them on like, AliExpress. Which is fucking unwise, because it's coming into the country, and like, custom to go look at that. Yeah. I've seen that in court cases, but yeah, this is not that, you know, like, people are making auto seers for AR-15s or a court case is about that too.

I don't think this is that big of a deal, but it may be indicates that we will see other other changes in firearms legislation. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's our wrap up of the Supreme Court news. I don't know what's possible. Some other bullshit drops at the end of today, but Yeah, this is being recorded on Friday the whatever the 14th So if there's if the Supreme Court has done more bullshit, I'm sorry

We didn't get to it, but that that that's all we got for Supreme Court today Yeah, yeah, fly your flags friends. Yeah, fly fly funnier flags. or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this, OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land,

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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I am Sophie Lichterbren. I am the executive producer of all of Cool Zone Media, and I didn't have time to touch grass today. So this is the closest I'm going to get to that. And here with me leading the conversation will be James Stout. And also here is one of my favorite people on this entire planet, Molly Conger. James, take it away.

Thank you, Sophie. Magnificent intro. As Sophie said, we're here today to talk about grass. So not really grass, but just like plants in general. I wanted to do an episode on having a little garden because I think it is a thing that would make people happy. And also it's a way to have food for yourself. It's not free, but once the plants keep growing, you don't have to pay

any more for the food, so it's a nice thing to do. I enjoy to grow plants and I wanted to share that with you. Do you have little gardens, Molly and Sophie? Yes. Oh, so I moved to a new apartment last year and in sort of a rare and strange arrangement, my first floor apartment has like a little dirt patch. It's, I think it was originally supposed to be where the HVAC units are because it's like walled off by this sort

of tall wall. It is this 10 foot by 10 foot pit, but the HVAC units are not there. So that's where I grow my tomatoes. Yeah. My porch is currently a fruit garden. I have a bunch of things starting in pots. I've got a lemon tree. I've got a mandarin tree, which I'm really excited about. I have a bunch of things starting in pots. I've got a lemon tree. I've got a Mandarin tree, which I'm really excited about. I grew a Mandarin tree when I lived in California and then gifted it to my dad. And then he gifted it to a friend of his and it's still doing really well. So that's nice. I have a boysenberry plant. I have, what did I just buy?

I'm trying to think I just bought another fruit thing. Oh, it's like some citrus hybrid thing. So my porch is filled with fruit things that should live for a very long time. And then my friend Sarah is on a gardening kick. And so anything else, we grow in her yard and she's growing literally everything. That's good. Love to grow everything. Yeah. So if you want to grow everything, if you're listening and you're thinking, I would like to be like Sophia Molyneux and grow vegetables and trees.

Trees are hard, especially if you're a renter. Yeah, you have to start them in a pot and then depending on climate, I bring mine inside during the cool Earth times and I have them under a grow bulb. It's not a quick commitment. No, yeah, it is an undertaking. And yeah, if you want to let them grow big, then you might have to get giant parts or put them in the ground and then put them in the ground, which is hard when most people in this country can't afford to buy a home.

Yes, it is it sucks. And then you don't afford to buy a home. Yes, it is. It sucks. And then you don't want to be giving things to your landlord for free, because fuck him. Yeah. Well, let's talk about things that you can do in a smaller timeframe than trees. So I've just got a few bullet points here. We're going to go through them and you all can interrupt me with your experiences or questions, should you have any. If you're making a little garden for yourself, obviously you're going to have to start out with choosing a spot for your garden. And this depends, I think, on where you live.

So if you're like on the fifth floor and you don't have access to any like ground yard, garden soil, that could be your windowsill, right? It could be your balcony. If you have a balcony, all you really need is somewhere that has good access to sunlight, all the other stuff you can bring in yourself, right? You can bring the soil yourself, you can bring the water and all the nutrients that your plants need. But obviously,

I guess you could make the sunlight. In my kitchen, I have a little Aero garden, which has its own little UV light bulb. And you can use those to grow some stuff. Or people have maybe some other hydroponic gardening experience they have done. Elaborate setups for their tomatoes. Yeah. Do you remember that? I think it was like 2019 when everybody's relative gave them one of those like indoor

herb garden kits that don't work. Oh, the AeroGarden. Yeah. That's the AeroGarden. I have one of those. They work. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not the expensive AeroGarden one, but the knockoff ones.

The T-Move one. Yeah, yeah, the T-Move one. Everybody got one of those and then you saw them elsewhere. And that sort of commodification is so silly, right? Because to grow like a little pot of basil, you don't need stuff. You don't need to buy a thing. You need a window sill. I can't grow basil.

Really? We're not compatible. Interesting. I love basil. I use it constantly. I try to grow it. I kill it grow basil. Oh really? We're not compatible. Interesting. I love basil. I use it constantly. I try to grow it. I kill it every time. What way is it dying?

It just wilts. Basil doesn't like its feet in the water. It has to have quite dry soil. It wilts and then I'll try again and I'll ignore it. It wilts. I'll try it again and I'll give it a little bit of water. It wilts. I'll try it again. I'll give it a lot of water. It wilts. I try it again again and I'll give it a little bit of water. It wilts. I'll try it again.

I'll give it a lot of water. It wilts. I'll try it again and I guess that's how it ends. It wilts. I have an abundance of it because I'm constantly topping it because you want to top your basil all the time so that it branches instead of flowering. So when I top it, I'm like, why? I don't want to waste this.

I'll root these. And I have like, you know, 700 basils. Well, it's me. Maybe Molly could send one to Sophie and we could see. Yeah. You're welcome to some of my basil. Yeah, because pesto is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to anybody.

All you need is a little pine nut, pine tree, I guess, and some basil and a little sheep and you can make pecorino cheese. There you go. And then, yeah, and some anchovies, of course. You just need your own sheep. Yeah, everyone should have one, Molly. Oh, Anderson course. You just need your own sheep. Yeah, everyone should have one. Anderson would have the best time hurting one sheep.

The poor sheep will probably not. I pictured it, it's really funny. You can't just have one sheep, they need friends. Sheep are not a solitary animal. You'd have to get several. Well, Anderson will herd them all. Yeah, we'd love to see that. All right, so if you've selected your spot, right,

where you have access to sunlight, the next thing you need is a vessel. So during COVID, lots of people started gardens. Not that we are not also in COVID right now, right? But during the lockdown, 2020, when everyone was working from home for the first time, people started their little gardens. And I think lots of folks who didn't start back then or you moved

house since then, like people just built lots of planters, often in that area between the pavement and the road, which has a name that I've forgotten now. Oh, that's one of those things that has a different name in every region of the US and wherever you go, if you're calling it the wrong thing, people look at you like you're an alien. Yeah, I don't know what that's called in California. I think in New Jersey, they call it the Devil's Strip. For real? I'm pretty sure. We're going to call it the Devil's Strip in this podcast,

because that's a better name than I could have come up with. If you're gardening in the Devil's Strip, that sounds like a euphemism for growing weed. Like when people call it the devil's lettuce. Yeah. You're growing your devil's lettuce in the devil's strip. That's a good place to build a planter, right? Generally, like, you should be able to obtain lumber for that somewhere. Like, I don't think you should be paying for lumber in this day and age. And they're pretty easy to build, right?

If you are building a planter, some considerations, you probably shouldn't stain the inside of the lumber that you're using. There's stuff in there that you probably don't want. If you intend to eat the plants, I think it's a pretty bad idea, or to get lumber which is pre-treated, right? If you get something which is naturally resistant to rotting,

like a redwood or something like that, that's gonna last a bit longer, right? Yeah, I mean you should be able to find some kind of cedar or redwood around I agree with your assessment that you should not have to pay for that Yeah, although it's not something that if you have like a good local hardware store, it's not something that's super Expensive but price it before you buy it. That's what I'll say And it's certainly cheaper to just buy the wood than it is to buy like a pre-made wooden plant. Yeah. The markup on that is crazy.

Incredibly overpriced for something that you would find at a big box store. Yeah, and crap too. There was one in one place I lived that was like maybe a quarter of an inch thick and like it dovetailed together. But then like the dovetails kind of bulged out when they got too wet, and it was not a good fit. Don't buy one, build one. If you have decking screws in 2x4s, you can build your own planter a dozen degree, require a high level of carpentry knowledge. So then you're going to have to put some soil in your planter, right? You could grow plants in like lycra. Lycra was like the clay composite,

have you seen this? Like little balls, yeah. But I think- I have. Yeah, just to start off with, we'll start with soil because it's the easiest thing to access, I think. In lots of cities, you can get free compost if you go to the tip. I don't know if that's the case where you guys live, but here you can get free compost if you go to the tip. I'm unfamiliar with that, but now I'm like, wait, can we do that? Because we should. Have I been missing out on free dirt?

Because I've been paying for dirt. OK, yeah, this is a huge life hack. Do you have those green bins where you put compostable rubbish? Of course. Oh, no, we don't. Sophie lives in Portland. Yeah.

I'm like, I live in Portland, of course. Okay. So if you have that, I'm guessing your municipality is composting it, right? Which would mean that it has a large amount of compost, at least in San Diego. I would be blown away if San Diego was leading the way in giving residents anything other than more cops for their taxpayer dollars. We can get free, I have a pickup truck. I think I can get two

pickup trucks full of compost. You have to go and shovel it yourself right into your truck, and obviously you have to have some kind of vehicle to transport it, but it's a good way to get free soil, especially if you're like doing a project. Often if you're planting vegetables in your garden, right, the soil that you're planting them into might not be good quality topsoil, right, that topsoil might have been taken away when your building was constructed, or you might have all kinds of aggregate waste sort of mixed in there, right? Gravel and stuff like that. It might not be the best quality growing soil. So if you can, going and getting some of the free compost is the move.

What I like to do when I'm starting a little garden and I've got my soil, is to do a soil chemistry test. Have you guys done soil chemistry tests? I have. My style of gardening is more just kind of vibing it out. Okay, more of a vibe, vibe-based. Hey, Portland has free compost days. Hee hee hee hee.

I get information overload really fast. So when I first started my little garden, I thought, I'm going to do some Googling, I'm going to do some researching, I'm going to go to the agricultural extension website and learn about my local soil. And then once I have 70 tabs open and I'm trying to consume the information, I was like, you know what? Plants grow outside. They'll be fine. They'll be fine. It is true. There is a lot you can do and a lot that you don't have to do when it comes to growing plants.

My mother was a lecturer in agricultural quality, therefore I'm bound to get a little home test kit and tests. Do you know what the three essential nutrients are? Should we turn it into a quiz format for plants? Gosh, nitrogen. Yeah. A different element. That's correct.

pH. These are all things. These are all things. All I can think of is fat, protein, and carbohydrates. That's right. Salt, fat, acid, heat. If your plant isn't hitting its macros, it will not get swole. Exactly. That's one of the things about plants. I'm feeding my tomatoes creatine.

Is that right? Yeah, yep. That's why they're hench as fuck. Are we talking like magnesium? Close. Okay. That too is an element. I had nitrogen though.

That's right. Yeah, yeah. I had nitrogen. I had nitrogen. I had nitrogen. I had nitrogen. I had nitrogen. I had nitrogen. I had fuck. Are we talking like magnesium? Close. Okay.

That too is an element. I had nitrogen though, that's right. Yeah, Molly is, yeah, Molly got that one right. I was trying to do like a ratio but I couldn't work it out. Nitrogen phosphorus. Phosphorus, okay, I was like almost there. Yeah, you were very close with magnesium. Wait, are you growing a garden or blowing up a federal building, James?

Por que no los dos, Molly? I'm growing a garden for legal and truth-based reasons. I'm growing a garden. You want nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Those are your three essential nutrients. There are 15 other little micronutrients, I guess, that plants need. Vitamins. Yeah, the little, you know, omega-3s for their joints.

They need MP and K in different ratios depending on different plants, right? Molly and I are like, we're here to talk about plants. Why are we in chemistry class? What's happening? James, I buy a bag that says tomato food and there's a picture of a cartoon tomato on it. That's what I know. You're doing great. You can't go wrong with looking at the picture on the thing.

I use this technique for all kinds of things. It's why I don't buy Quaker Oats anymore. Very disturbing. So you're going to seek to have the soil chemistry that suits the plants that you want to grow, right? You can't really improve your soil unless you know where you're starting from. So you're going to look at the NPK and the pH, and then going from there, when you're buying commercial fertilizers, you can normally see the balance. You'll say on the bag or say on the website, right?

And you're trying to augment that soil to get the soil chemistry you want to grow the plants that you want to eat. Or maybe not eat, maybe just have. You can also add organic matter to your soil. If you're doing that, like you're just going to have to like test and test again kind of thing, because when your cow shits, you don't get get a bag which then gives you the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. That's why I buy the cow shit in a bag, James. Wow, that's a great business idea.

No, they sell it at Lowe's. They sell it at Lowe's, cow shit in a bag? Okay, maybe that is a wonderful time to take a break for advertisements. Hopefully one of the advertisers is shit in a bag. Shit in a bag. Longtime supporter of the show. Please enjoy the advertisers is shit in a bag. Shit in a bag. Longtime supporter of the show. Please enjoy this advert for shit in a bag. We are back.

We've returned from discussing things that we could pretend were shit in a bag, which we're not going to share with you. You'll have to guess. Okay, so I like to use chicken manure for mine, but you do have to rot it down, right? If you're putting manure on your soil, it'll burn it. If you just dump it straight on there, you can't just literally dump shit into your soil. This, hopefully, is not news to anyone.

Gotta age it like a fine wine. Yeah, exactly. It does improve with age. Bottle it up, cork it, and put a vintage on it, and then rotate it every few years so it doesn't get sediment at the bottom. You can get a composter, and you can go after making your own compost. It's a fun thing to do.

You get one of the barrel composters that you turn. I have one of those, yeah. Because my dirt patch is not really supposed to be a garden, I don't have a lot of room for a compost heap. Love a compost heap, better way to do it. But because I just have patio space, I might have one of those big plastic compost tumblers. And I love it. It works pretty good, pretty fast.

I was lucky enough last year, this was not intentional. I did not invite them, but I have Black Soldier flies in my compost. Do you know those little guys? They're like pretty long, shiny black flies, but their larvae are these like little grubs. And so I opened my compost, I was like, who the hell are all these grubs? But black soldier fly larvae just devour organic matter. And so they break down your compost really fast.

I love them so much that I just bought some. They came in the mail today. I got a box in the mail today that said like, caution live bugs. And I dumped those little babies in my tumbler. Nice, yeah. Hopefully they thrive there. Oh yeah, they love it in there. Yeah, we had some love.

I don't know what they were, but we had a compost heap that I moved a couple of years ago. When I moved it, the chickens had probably the best day of their lives, just chasing around. People farm Black Soldier fly as chicken feed, so that you can have this whole setup where you're growing them on purpose

and then they sort of fall down the tray and the chickens eat them. I don't have any chickens. Yet. I think my apartment neighbors would not like that. I know, fuck them Molly, they're gonna get chickens. They rage against the machine

as you install your chicken coop. I mean, the dogs would love it. Buck has met a chicken before, and in his mind, it is like the rawest chicken, right? Like this is the most tempting treat. Yeah, of the forbidden dog treat. The raw nugget. Yeah.

I don't know, chickens can be pretty mean. Hey, Reese Featherspoon is a national treasure. Yeah, Reese Featherspoon is. She's not a mean chicken. She was raised Feather Spoon is. She's not a mean chicken. She was just sitting on my lap earlier before we recorded. She's a friendly chicken. She does though, if there is blood on me, she will attack. Even me, her father and friend.

So if you don't have any manure, that's fine. You can make your own dirt at home. I recommend it. It's great. Yeah, you can. It's very fulfilling to take like waste and turn it into something useful. You can do it on a city scale like Portland does, or you can do it on a home scale, which is

fun. And it's always nice to, you know, reduce your amount of shit there, especially if they don't compost, like if you don't have a green bin. It's less shit going into landfill, isn't it? So that's always a good thing. So now you've, you've got your vessel and you've got your soil and you're going to have to decide about your plants, right? One great resource to consult is a USDA plant hardiness map. If you guys been browsing.

Know your zone, baby. You have to, or else you could just be committing plant massacre. I mean, there's a lot of debate right now in the, in the community about the rezoning, the rezoned the USDA plant hardiness map. Yeah, like my mom buys all of her bulbs from this bulb farm and they put out a notice saying like, we are not using the revised map. We're sticking with the original. We're not changing the catalog.

Being a trad, but for the USDA plant hardiness map. Return to tradition. Yeah. I'm a USDA plant hardiness believer and the climate is changing. So the shit that your grandparents grow might not work for you. If you have colder winters, especially right, the winter is getting colder where you are, that might be difficult for your plants. So consult that map.

The map isn't going to tell you what to grow so much as what can make it through your winters. And so it's a good place to start. You're also going to want to think about plants that can fit into your space. If you want to grow yourself a sequoia, that's cool. But if you're operating with a balcony, it's probably not going to be,

maybe you can make a bonsai sequoia, that was your thing. But you need a plant that will fit with your space. Definitely. If you want to grow plants that fit with your space, right? Definitely. If you want to grow plants that you want to eat, think about things that are high yielding, right? Perpetual spinach is a great one if you're like a first timer. Perpetual spinach you can cut and come again.

So you pick some and a bit more comes and a bit more comes. You don't have to like harvest it all at one time. Tomatoes are a classic, right? You can even grow them straight in one of those grow bags. You just cut a hole, put tomatoes in. If you've got enough depth, you can do root vegetables. So things like carrots, turnips, swedes. You can get, of course, potatoes are a classic.

You can make a potato tower if you wanted to. It's a great way to have lots of potatoes in a relatively small space. So choose something that will also grow depending on the amount of climate window you have, right? So if you have short summers and you have something that needs a lot of sunlight to grow, you want something that will grow and mature in the amount of time you have, right before the weather turns to shit again

and it's too cold for that plant. Or choose something that's suitable for the climate you have. Like I just harvested some winter giant spinach because I grew that over the winter. It's very hardy and doesn't need quite as much sunlight. That was very good. I'm about to start having my early girl tomatoes, which they arrive earlier than your conventional tomato. There's a tomato for everything, wherever you are, whatever you need. That's a tomato

for you. It's overwhelming. So like last year, like I said, I'm doing this five space, right? So I went to the garden store and I just picked out a couple of tomato plants that had names I thought were funny. I think that's a great strategy. Right. That's very valid. But this year I was a little more selective, right?

So cause I grew fewer tomatoes this year, cause I think last they were a little too close together, it was a little overwhelming, got a little busy in there. I want to do more cucumbers this year. So I only have five tomato plants. I have two different cherry tomatoes. I have a Cherokee purple. Oh gosh, who are the other guys? The other ones were just names I thought were interesting.

I did it again. But the great thing about tomatoes is on the little tag, it'll say how many days to maturity. So like, you don't have to guess, you don't have to do a lot of homework or research, it'll say right on the tag, like 85 days to harvest. Yeah, going to the garden center, they're going to sell stuff that's suitable for the climate you're living in, right? And then, yeah, you can see how long it will take to harvest. Ideally, you could space them out, right? So you don't just have a glut of tomatoes and then no tomatoes for the rest of your life or the rest of the year. Well, they'll keep producing,

especially if you get indeterminates. Yeah, they will keep producing. You can- They'll keep producing till the first frost. So we had cherry tomatoes through November last year. That's awesome. Wow, I thought you guys got cold. Yeah, we're 7B, but Charlottesville's kind of in a valley so it stays warmer a little longer. Nice.

Yeah, San Diego is of course, you can almost have this stuff year round. Eternal summer. Well, we have winters now. The last two winters have been very wet. Yeah, I had to have a bit of a learning curve coming from California to Oregon within the different climates and I have to say that with the things that I had in pots, bringing them inside with grow bulbs has been, or colder weather has been pretty successful for me

at keeping things alive. They're not as fruitful, obviously, but they do not die. Yeah, that's a win. If you're in Portland or somewhere further north and you know that your plant won't make it through the winter, that's the strategy, right? You can have a place set aside, you can bring it in, you can have a grow bulb. And honestly, a lot of lamps, they sell bulbs

that are grow bulbs that can go directly in the lamps you already have. So you don't need to buy anything fancy. The bulbs are pretty expensive and they're sold at most local hardware stores. So you're really spending like $5 on a bulb instead of spending, you know, $30 on some fancy contraption. Yeah. Yeah. My mom has a shop light, you know, this is like a metal lampshade clip.

It's just a cheap shop light that she clips onto a shelf to shine at her plants. Her version of... Oh yeah, that guy. Sophie's demonstrating one here for the audio listeners. Her empty nesting has involved a whole grow situation. Like there's no dining room at my parents' house anymore. There's nowhere for us to eat when we go home. The dining room is a greenhouse. I love that.

So she's got like tropical plants that have to live inside in the winter. She's got like a bougainvillea that's like 10 feet tall that comes in the house in the winter. Amazing. I just bought some bougainvillea that I have in a pot right now because I grew up with bougainvillea in California and I finally found a nursery that had it in Oregon and I was like, home. I always thought it was a potted plant until I saw it outside in a tropical environment.

It's not a potted plant. Oh no, it is not a potted plant. Not in San Diego. It is a plant that will take over your garden. Sorry, James, we've gone off the rails. Back to what you're saying. Okay, yeah. Returning to the rails.

I did want to plug native seed search. I love native seed search for finding different and exciting seeds and preserving indigenous people's horticultural traditions and like life ways. I have grown lots of seeds from native seed search with great success. And it's cool in a world of increasingly like monocultural agriculture to preserve something that is part of someone's culture. Zapatistas will also send you corn. I'm sure anyone on the left who's over 30 years old is very familiar

with Zapatista corn, I'm sure. But for the youth among us, you can order corn from Zapatistas. It actually comes from somebody in San Diego who will send you some of this sort of heritage variety corn and you're preserving this corn in a world where corn is increasingly like commercialized, right, things like Monsanto, are locked down on some of these corn varieties, they're like patented varieties. Even if you don't sow them, they're sort of invading the genome of these indigenous corn types. So keeping these varieties alive is a cool thing to do. I used to do this when I was 16. This is early activism me, was growing some Zapatista corn in my parents' greenhouse.

But that's a thing you can do if you want cool corn. This is like early activism me was like growing some zappities to corn in my parents greenhouse. But that's the thing you can do if you want cool corn. I think it's important to to look up what's native to your area, not just because it is, you know, the right thing to do, but it'll grow better where you live. The pollinators will be attracted to it where you live. I was just looking up like here in Virginia, the Department of Wildlife Resources will sell you native seeds for your area at a pretty good affordable price. So like look up what wants to live where you are growing it.

Yeah, totally. A lot of things like ornamental garden plants are highly invasive and destructive to your local habitat. So things that might look really nice in your yard are destructive to your environment. Yeah, that's a big thing. Well, it's probably a big thing everywhere, but like in California, we talk about like invasive mustard, right? When you see these big yellow hillsides in California, that's an invasive plant. Of course, as the climate changes,

what is indigenous to one area may no longer be suitable for growing there. And that's definitely happened with some plants. I get a lot of plants as well from desert survivors, which is a little nursery in Tucson, Arizona, where I like to go and buy desert plants because I do not like to have plants that are extremely thirsty for water. This is my transition to our watering segment. You only need to water your plants, right?

This is something that people probably know, but some tips for watering. You want to water your plants regularly and consistently. Plants can get stressed if you have a lot of water, then no water, then a lot of water again. If you're using a Vibespace watering strategy, you might be causing your plant excessive stress. So I like to water my plants morning or evening because in the heat of the day, you're going to lose more to evaporation. If you're really going for it, you can set up a drip feeder, which is a pretty cool system where there's lots of little lines and they just drip water onto your plants. Those are

a really great way to irrigate. You can also do what I often do, which is drink a lot and then use your plants as an excuse for doing that by taking the little glass bottles and making plant water out of them. So you fill them up and then basically shove them in the ground as long as you can get a good plug of soil in the end of the bottle. I misunderstood where you were going with that. I thought you were pissing on your vegetables. No. So I've heard of putting urine in your compost tumbler,

something about the urea and the nitrogen, but I don't think you're supposed to piss right on the tomatoes. No, not if I... I was trying to understand what Molly's the gig face was. I really... Yeah, I was... Molly's baffled by this bottle idea. I don't pee on my garden.

I mean, it's sort of street-facing. I think it would be sort of lewd and lascivious. For the record, Molly does not pee on her garden. I want everyone to know that Molly's not a garden peer. No, but watering is a big issue for me, right? Because it's not supposed to be a garden there, there's no hose. There's no water source. There's no external spigot for me to hook up a hose to.

So I have to use a two gallon watering can that I fill in my bathtub and then take out one at a time. And so, you're supposed to, like the equivalent of one inch of water per week is about average for a little vegetable garden, which is like 0.6 gallons per square foot. So for my 10 foot by 10 foot, I'm looking at 60 gallons a week.

So I've every other day fill up my watering can, 10 or 20 times. It's an endeavor. It's an endeavor. Yeah, a good workout. It's an endeavor. Yeah. It's a commitment to the plants. You could like do a hose and run it out your window from the tap. I looked into it.

And so for people who live in apartments and have a lot of houseplants, there's like an adapter you can get for your kitchen sink that you can screw a hose onto, but I do not have the right kind of faucet for that. Disappointing. I bet someone listening has a solution for Molly's plants. But first, it's time for advertisements. I hope it's an advertisement for pissing outside. That will be great.

But I would read the advert for pissing outside. I just feel like that's what we're missing. The world is your toilet. Surely like Jocko or someone has done a like pissing outside. Jordan Peterson, they've done sunning your balls. They must have done pissing outside. So if we ask the people that make the shiwi if they'll sponsor the show.

Sure. We are back and we're now gonna talk about annual versus perennial plants, a topic that I know many of you have been wondering about. Would one of you like to explain, I'm sure you're familiar with annuals and perennials, would one of you like to take on the task of explaining them to our listeners? Sophie? What?

Annuals just live for the one growing season, perennials will come back next year. Is the short of it? I definitely could have answered that. Well, you didn't, did you, Sophie? So your tomatoes are annuals. Allegedly, my jalapeno was supposed to be a perennial. She did not make it. RIP. We've had a couple of peppers over winter. I have a Thai bird chili that made it from a couple of winters now. It'll depend a little bit on where you are as well if they'll make it through

the winter. And I think I should have pruned it back earlier before the frost. I think they winter better if you prune them back. It was potted. I could have sunk the pot in the soil so the soil temperature would remain more constant, but I didn't do that. I bought a new one. I respect that. So some other things to consider, I'm going through things that you might need to add

as your garden grows, would be frames for plants that creep or plants that climb. Some tomatoes will need a frame. For Molly's cucumbers, you're going to need a frame. Oh, I got a little A frame for my Cukes this year. But I hate tomato cages. Those, I mean, you've seen them, they're round, little at the bottom, and then they get bigger. These horrible round wire cages. They're ugly, they're hard to store. I live in an apartment. What am I going to do with that the other eight months out of the year? So what I did last year is a technique called Florida weave, where you use posts and twine and you sort of, so you have the posts along the row and then you between the posts, you weave the twine on either side of the plants. And it worked really

well until my tomatoes became 10 feet tall because I bought five foot posts. But it was good in theory. Yeah, that's how commercial tomatoes are grown. It was much more affordable than buying like something large because I just went to tractor supply and bought... Actually, the stakes I bought are for putting up electric fences. So they have clips every few inches along the post. Oh, that's so convenient.

To clip the wire into. So I used that to hold onto the twine. And they were like a buck fifty a piece. So it was much more affordable and more storage-friendly. So, Florida Weave-Em. Great idea. Love that. Yeah, love that. Someone gave me a load of bamboo,

and I just made frames out of that, and just, it's fun to do a little A-frame hitch and make a little frame, and then you can just collapse it, right? Because little A-frame hitch and make a little frame and then you can just collapse it, right, because the A-frame hitch relies on the spreading of the bottom to give it tension. So you just you bring them together again and you can store it over the winter. Yeah, so there are a lot of solutions out there that don't involve buying a $50 contraption

at Lowe's, you know, like don't feel like you have to invest a lot of money in like objects and gadgets and things. Yeah, I think generally actually there's a lot of money in, like, objects and gadgets and things. Yeah, I think generally, actually, there's a lot of shit that's marketed at trying to get your plants to grow. And, like, the chances are, if your plants are having not as much success as you would hope, they're not getting enough light, they're not getting enough water, or they're not getting enough nutrients, or it's too cold or too hot for them. You don't need a big gadget.

Yeah, you don't need to buy a thing. And it is one of those areas where you can find very useful information on the internet. So if you're struggling with a certain plant, there is almost certainly someone who's already had that struggle and you can find their solutions. There are some pretty good websites for searching up that stuff. The last thing I wanted to cover was pruning and weeding and pest management, which can be a bit of a mission.

Right now I'm fighting a uphill struggle against some gophers. They have targeted me. You have to shoot them. This is the problem. I live in a relatively built up area. I am a person who grew up in agriculture. I know how to manage pests, but unfortunately all the things that I would have done are felony crimes. Big government is interfering with your urban farm.

Yeah, once again, the boot of the man is on my neck. I'm at war with the squirrels here. That's weird. They didn't mess with me last year, I guess, because we had just moved in and they saw the dogs and they were concerned about the dogs. But this year, they're feeling. And they are digging holes. Every day they're digging holes. They are burying peanuts in my garden and I keep pulling peanuts out of the garden.

I have a fucking peanut problem too. I'm not Jimmy Carter. I'm not farming peanuts. They're not afraid of Bucconotto. I guess because last year they didn't get got. So this year they're feeling like- Anderson keeps the squirrels at bay. They know their place and that it is her yard. Bucconotto on patrol though, are they able to access the pit? No, the pit is like not accessible to dog,

but like sometimes they're out on the patio barking, but the solution that I have found, because apparently I'm not allowed to shoot them, is cayenne pepper. Yes, cayenne pepper is a great solution. I bought several pounds of cayenne pepper in bulk and I just sprinkle it on all of the surfaces, like on the surface of the soil, along the wall around the pit, because they don't want to walk in it and smell it.

So it keeps them off the wall so they don't end up down in the pit to dig. I do the same. You get some of that some that some chili oil a little bit of water you put a spray bottle and you just Keeps a lot of bugs away as well. Yeah mace your plants. Yeah, unfortunately I Don't sprinkle into the wind I've done the same thing Molly I've maced myself trying to do that. As my strawberries start to ripen, I'm thinking like maybe I should stop macing the strawberries. No, just grow maced strawberries. Then you'll be immune. If you ate enough of them, you

could become like the Hulk, you know, they spray you and you just get stronger. Yeah, I'm doing Mithriditism with police brutality. Yeah, I love that for you. Like the guy who lets his snakes bite him a little bit all the time. And yeah, but for cops, I love that. There are lots of solutions for this which don't evolve like spraying your plants with a butt ton of Roundup or Roundup will probably kill them. But other pesticides, right, like don't spray your plants with Roundup might kill you as well.

But yeah, you have to first ascertain what pest you're dealing with, right? So for the gophers, one of the things you can do is construction netting. It's like chicken wire, but thinner. Yeah, you can put that because the roots of the plant can still get through that. So you put that at the bottom of your planter, right, where it sits on the soil. The roots of the plant can still get through, but Mr. gopher cannot. Mrs. gopher or non-binary gopher can't get through their netting. It's just like a physical block.

I've heard people say that cat litter is something you can sprinkle and they think a cat's around. You can also just make a little house for a cat that doesn't have one so that it comes and lives near your plants. We had that for a while. A little neighborhood cat came and stayed and it kept the rat problem to a minimum. You can use things like, have you seen the ultrasound

gopher preventers? Yeah, I can't use one of those because I think it would bother the dogs, right? Like it would bother other small mammals. I have ones that I got on Jeffrey Bezos' website that are not in fact ultrasound. They're very much just regular sound. I think I was miss-sold those. So they're worth trying. They're all sort of non-lethal methods as well. You can get a plastic owl. Yes, you can.

If you've got a bird problem, you can also get bird netting if they're eating your berries, and I would suggest that. You can get a variety of plastic animals, actually. My mom has a koi pond, and so she got a plastic heron to scare away the real heron that eats the fish. And my dad misunderstood the purpose of the heron, right? It was a functional plastic bird. It was to scare away the real bird that eats the fish.

And so he thought like, oh, like we like fake birds now. And so he very lovingly bought her a bunch of like different fake plastic birds for the yard. Oh, that's so endearing. Yeah, it's adorable. But it does not keep the heron away. Yeah. He's eating the fish.

That's a bummer. Maybe you need a more intimidating plastic heron to keep buying until you find the one, you know? Like a really buff one. Yeah, a buff one that's giving the middle finger. Cause birds do that. Mm-hmm, hench herons do that, and they're buff like that. What other pest management things do we recommend?

Oh, I love neem oil for thrips and aphids. Neem oil rules. I don't put any poison on my plants because I'm against it. But I have a spray bottle that I put a little bit of neem oil and a little bit of Dawn dish soap in and then mostly just hot water after that and shake that bad boy up and spray them down. Ladybirds are a great one. Ladybugs for the Americans in the audience. The only thing I use like is, is like, it's not really a poison, it's a bacteria,

I don't know, debatable, by these bacillus torringiensis. I use that to keep the caterpillars away. There's also like a lot of different plants you can plant with your crops to help keep pests at bay, you know, thinking like, you know, a lot of herbs, which you would want to grow anyways, like mint and rosemary and lavender and catnip and then also marigolds, always good. Lemongrass, titronella grass. I co-plant marigolds and basil with my tomatoes.

Yeah. But it looks nice. Also, I and basil with my tomatoes. Yeah. It looks nice. Also, I wanted to mention pruning. Yes. You do want to be pruning your plants. With tomatoes, you want to pull off the suckers, right? If you imagine your tomato is like a V and then a third sprout is coming up from the middle of the V. You guys should see what James is doing with his hands right now. Yeah, for the several thousand people who are not in the room, I'm making a V with my

hand and then an extra finger in the middle of the V. I can't do this without making myself laugh now, Molly. But yeah, pull off the suckers. You're generally going to want to prune your plants, right? This will encourage them to fruit instead of just growing. Yes. Especially with your herbs, you want to top your herbs because once they go to seed, they stop growing.

Yeah. Oh, they taste like ass. Cut your rosemary often. Give it a trim. People get really scared about pruning or pollarding. If you've got a tree, you pollard it, but it's really not that scary. Again, like depending on your plant, you'll find some good videos on YouTube. Yeah. And the last thing I wanted to talk about is rotating your crops. Oh yeah. Did you learn about this in school like we did, or is this just a British?

They teach you guys about crop rotation? Yeah. That was not in any of my classes. Really? You didn't have the three field system? No, I learned that from like some nice YouTuber. Okay, well there's a niche for you there if you're a British person. Teach American people shit they should have learned in school on YouTube.

It's going to take a long time. That's a long program. Yeah, you're overestimating our education system. So you can rotate your crops. So if you're growing the same thing in the same soil every year, it's going to pull the same stuff out every year, right? So unless you're replenishing your soil, which you want to do, you've got your crops. So if you're growing the same thing in the same soil every year, it's going to pull the same stuff out every year, right? So unless you're replenishing your soil, which you want to do, you've got your annual plants, right?

You do want to aerate your soil, turn it over, you can get a soil aerator. That's controversial. You don't believe in soil aeration? It's controversial. My belief is you should augment and aerate your soil. Or you can rotate your crops, right? Which what you're doing there is not growing the

same thing every year. Crucially, what you want to include in a crop rotation is a nitrogen fixing plant, which is to say a leguminous plant. So the squirrels are actually trying to help me by planting those peanuts. Yes, I guess peanuts are a legume. I'd never thought of that from a country where peanuts wouldn't grow. I guess I should apologize to the squirrels. Yep, little farming squirrels. I like to do peas, they're a legume.

A lentil. Everyone loves a lentil. It's kind of fun to grow a little lentil bush. I hate a lentil. Do you? Yes, I remember you said this on Twitter. This is incredible to me. It's because biting into a lentil,

the way that surface tension breaks when you bite it, to me is exactly how I imagine it would feel to bite into an engorged tick. I was just reading about someone who bit a tick. I just decided I am anti-lentil just based on that. I'm so sorry. No, we can't allow Marnie to ruin lentils. Lentils are your friend.

I know they're great. There are great sources of non-meat protein, but I can't do it. Apparently, I no longer can do it either. Cook them enough and there's not the surface tension. Or get split ones, you know, the red lentils that are split and then you have the tension problem. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We've agreed on, I'm like 50% lentil by mass. If I didn't have lentils, I don't know if I would make it. I make a big thing of lentils every single Sunday, and then I eat them most of the week. It never even occurred to me.

Like, what does a lentil plant look like? Which part of the plant is the lentil? It's the seed, I think. Or it's the legume. It's the... Yeah, that sounds labor-intensive to harvest. It's not too bad. It's kind of fun because lentils play such an important role in my life.

I like to grow them. It's fixing of fun because lentils play such an important role in my life. I like to grow them. It's fixing nitrogen back. We could put any leguminous plant, right, would fix the nitrogen back in your soil. And if you rotate those through and even leave your soil fallow for a while, so they don't grow anything, right. If you have the space to do that rotating your crops around, right. So you have like a fallow and then something else and then a legume and then you just rotate them around every year. I just have the pit. You could segment off the pit, you could do pit quarters and you could rotate them around.

You could have lentils, you could have tomatoes, basil and then a little fallow patch for the dogs to run around in. I've just let you say tomatoes and basil this entire time. Yeah, I'm so glad. Thank you. Thank you for not making me feel bad. I was thinking it. I want you to know.

But I kept, I held it in like a winter until the very end. Until, yeah, the very end. My grandmother says tomato. Yeah, good. Yeah, good for her. Some Americans do, yeah. Really? The ones that I've met, I feel like they're either doing it, sometimes people will meet

me and then start talking like me. Incredible. It's not at all. It's really weird when you notice someone changing their vowels. Yeah, it's very weird. I don't know if this happens to everyone, or if it's just a thing that happens to British people. So yeah, that's my message for you all.

Grow plants. Do not start speaking like me or anyone. Don't parrot people's actions. Just talk the way you talk. It's fine. But just like, don't overthink it. Just put some plants in the dirt. Try it out. The worst that can happen is it doesn't work.

It's okay. Yeah, they're not very expensive. Get seeds, grow them up from the seeds. And never buy cut basil from the grocery store. You know, you spend $6 for that little plastic blister pack of leaves. Don't do it. It's cheaper to buy the whole plant,

and then you have unlimited basil. Unless you're me, who can't grow basil. Unless you're Sophie. Yeah, yeah. If you're Sophie, please go ahead and buy cut basil. No, I'll just steal some from my friends who know how to grow. Yeah.

That's another thing you can do. Steal. Oh, yeah. That's the other thing. Steal plants from your friends. Bring your friends cuttings. Share your plants with friends. I don't consider it stealing to snap off little cuttings or seed heads.

No, I don't either. My fanny pack is full of mysterious seed heads that I popped off of plants, and so I put some in the dirt because I couldn't remember what they were. That's also a really fun game. Yeah. Think these are cosmos? We'll find out. Get some seeds and trade them with your friends. And everyone gets a mystery plant.

It's a fun thing to do. And don't forget to grow a flower too. Yeah, grow a nice flower. Attract some bees. Grow some pollinators. This is a weird little anecdote to end on. So Beyond, who are the company who make the protective combat uniform for the US military, they also make some really nice clothing that I buy for work stuff.

Sometimes I get afraid of being on fire, so I like to buy fire retardant stuff. And they send a little tag with all of their clothing. So you're buying your, like, fire retardant base layer to wear under your plate carrier when you're working. And it comes with a little tag that has plant seeds in it. And if you plant the tag, flowers will grow. That's beautiful. It's wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, it's very nice.

And for that reason, they're my favorite purveyor of fireproof uniforms. Oh, and get a sun hat. If you're outside gardening, get a big floppy sun hat. It really helps you get in the zone and it also protects you from the sun. That's a great tip. I think we should end with that. Buy a sun hat. Buy a sun hat, wear sunscreen,

and listen to 16th Minute of Fame, our newest Cool Zone Media podcast hosted by Jamie Loftus. Wow, so true. So true. Wow, yeah. Listen to it while gardening, wearing a sun hat and sunscreen.

I did that this morning. That's what I was doing this morning, Sophie. How did you know? Oh, Molly, such a legend. I was propagating my basil tops and my little sun hat listening to Jamie's show. Adorable. All right, the podcast has ended. Very well. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From the writer of Amazon Prime's Red, White, and Royal Blue comes a hilarious and demented new audio mystery, Does This Murder Make Me Look Gay? Master Vandy is dead! Then it's probable that whoever killed Vandy is in this very room. Lock her up. Lock her up. You killed your daddy. You don't get anything fizzy. 911, what's your emergency?

I'm in the Monroe estate and I just caught a murderer. Yes, I'll hold. Featuring the star-studded talents of Michael Urie, Jonathan Freeman, Douglas Sills, Cheyenne Jackson, Robyn Day Jesus, Frankie Grande, Sean Patrick Doyle, Brad Oscar,

Nathan Lee Graham, Seth Rudetsky, Leah Delaria, Lea Salonga, and Kate McKinnon as Angela Lansferri. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr, rrrr I am once again, your occasional host, Molly Conger, joined today by your friend and mine, Robert Evans. Hi. I'm, yeah, friends of all people.

How are you doing, Molly? Really starting things off, I hurt my feelings. Yeah, well, you know, you and I have been buddies for a while. We're a special kind of friend that can only exist in the era of Signal Loops, uh, because we met in 2020 and then since then the bulk of our socializing has been one or the other of us being like, so this fucked up thing happened to me

on the internet and then, and yeah, that's friends at the end of the world. That's friends at the end of the world. Yeah. Watching, watching the long slow slide together. Well, today I've got sort of an update on the ongoing cases against the Nazis who invaded my local college campus seven years ago. I say sort of because it's a messy story and the end result is nothing.

So we finally got a case to trial and nothing changed. So for listeners who aren't keeping tabs on my local county courts effort to apply an old anti-Clan law to a Nazi rally that happened a lifetime ago, just a quick reminder. Yeah, long time ago. This is about the August 11th, 2017 Torch March held at the University of Virginia on the eve of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. I've done a couple. This is not the rally, this is not the preside, like the rally where there was the James Alex Fields

did his vehicle based terrorist attack. This was the thing that happened before that. This was the appetizer, right? This was the night before they all got together and held their torches. So I've done a couple episodes about these cases and I've been writing about them in my newsletter, The Devil's Advocate.

So if you want a deeper dive into the cases more generally, that is available elsewhere. So in the year and change since these cases started getting filed, we've seen 11 guys charged under this sort of obscure Virginia law that makes it a felony to burn an object with the intent to intimidate. It's based on an old anti-Clan law criminalizing cross-burning. But back in 1998, a couple of Klansmen got into some trouble for burning some crosses. I'm trying to break myself of the habit of getting really deep into these sort of tangential pieces of history that underlie a story because it turns out that's my special interest and not actually great podcasting. But the long and the short of it is, Virginia's cross-burning

statute had to be amended. The original law banned it outright with this sort of built-in assumption that like, obviously if you're burning a cross, you're trying to communicate a certain kind of threat. But the law didn't actually say that. It just made it illegal to do it. And so the act itself of burning the cross under the old law was prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate. And the courts ultimately found that that's unconstitutional. So in 2002, the General Assembly amended the law and they just added in some specific language that you have to be doing it with a specific intent, right? You have to be doing this to intimidate someone.

Again, that's kind of implied, but the implication was not sufficient. So they changed it. I know that sounds like some really like C-span level, like boring shit, like legislative history is not why you're here, but I promise that's going to pay off, right? So the law doesn't specify what you're burning. It's not just crosses. It's any burning object, but it does say you have to be doing it with a particular intent. And in a way- Could you theoretically smoke a cigarette in an aggressive manner and violate this law? The Nazi's lawyers keep asking that and I don't know the, I feel like the answer is-

I'm glad to see great minds think alike. I feel like every one of these guys' lawyers has been like, what if I flicked a cigarette at you? And it's like, I mean- Well, flicking is, I would say that that's clearly assault because you can actually hurt someone with it, but like just smoking it, right? Like with that technically-

Right, like if I'm smoking a cigarette while harassing you, I, you know. Yeah, yeah. Be like, you're gonna go up like this cigarette, bro. And then I light the cigarette. Like is that, have I violated it? I mean, I guess maybe, but it's all sort of contextual,

right? So the language of the law is what it is. You could try to bring that case. I'm not sure that it would work. But anyway, so you bring an object specifically in a way that would make somebody feel like you're going to hurt them, right? So placing someone in fear of injury or death. But since that change was made in 2002, nobody's ever actually been charged with it.

So like many laws, like Virginia's prohibition on trying to incite a race war, that is apparently a class four felony. Yeah. Thomas Jefferson might've had a hand in that law. That's scant. Actually it's from 1950. And I'm really, I'm really interested in the legislative history. I'm going to ask a law librarian, but again, I'm lost again.

I'm lost again. So this has just been sitting on the books for 20 years, waiting for somebody to try it. And so last year, somebody tried it. Last year, somebody finally put the law to the test and started charging the guys who participated in that torch march. And what better application of this law, right? I can't think of a clearer example. The torches, they're on fire, they're chanting blood and soil, they're throwing Hitler salutes, they're

attacking people. And of the 11 men charged so far, five have already pled guilty. Four of those have already been sentenced, all receiving active sentences of a year or less. And they've actually already completed those sentences. Only half of those guys actually went home from here though, and another little aside. Tyler Dykes served a few months here and then he got picked up by the U.S. Marshals on federal charges for the insurrection. William Fears served a year and he actually just got picked up the other day by a county in Pennsylvania. It's an old bench warrant. He's been in jail so many times in so many states for the last 20 years that they've

actually been having trouble getting a hold of him for violating his probation 15 years ago. They let him off on probation for lying on a firearm application in 2005, but then he kidnapped a college freshman and stabbed her in the face, which I think was a probation violation. And by the time they got around to bringing him in, he was already back in prison for strangling a different woman. But again, another digression, sorry. So even though we've had five guilty pleas, we still hadn't actually seen this case taken

to trial. So we know five defendants looked at the evidence and thought, oh yeah, well, that's a video of me committing that crime. We still didn't know what a jury would make of it. And this month, Jacob Dix took his case to trial, and we still don't actually know what a jury would make of it, because it ended in mistrial. After 12 hours of deliberation over the course of two days, which was significantly longer than they actually spent hearing the evidence, the jury was deadlocked. They had eight not guilty votes, three guilty, and

one person who didn't have an opinion either way. A source tells me the jurors all agreed not to make any public statements or to discuss what happened in the deliberation room. So we don't know for sure what the debate was like in there. But I sat through the trial and honestly, I know what kind of case I would have put on, right? So obviously, I believe a guilty verdict is achievable in this case. But given what I saw, I'm surprised even a single juror voted guilty.

There just, there was nothing there. But before I tell you about the three days I wasted sitting on a wooden bench in a courtroom they used to use for Klan meetings, let's hear from some advertisers. Ah, speaking of the... Nope. Nope.

Here's ads. Ah, we're back. What a time to be alive. We are alive. We are alive. The trial started on June 4th and it did not go well. I've written about this at greater length in my newsletter if you want some background on why the case ended up with a special prosecutor.

But basically the judge fell for a Nazi conspiracy theory and that's where we ended up. So the case goes to trial. Oh good. You know, I have a problem with the system in Virginia of these substitute judges. So we had to bring in a substitute judge and it's just retired guys. So they take cases if they feel like it. They, there's, I don't know. Yeah, so they're just ad, yeah, like just, just ad hoc judging. Sure, that seems good. Right, there's a retirement age for a reason. Like, I don't know that you're keeping up with the case law.

Anyway, we had a substitute judge and a special prosecutor. So the case goes to trial with an out of town prosecutor. And because of how late in the game this motion was granted, and there's the speedy trial clock, they had a pretty limited amount of time to get up to speed after being assigned the case to prepare for trial. So they didn't know the case,

they don't know the local cops, they don't know the witnesses, they're not familiar with the clerk of court here, just the basic procedural stuff, this is not their home turf. They don't really have any investment in this case, this isn't something that they chose to charge, it's just assigned to them.

And again, this is the first time this law has ever been put in front of a jury, so there's no playbook here, right? They can't sort of look to how this usually goes and just do that. The real problem though is something that's not unique at all. A prosecutor is desperate for a good victim. They want something that is clean and uncomplicated. They want to be able to show the jury a little morality play with good guys and bad guys and no messy stuff.

They don't want the story to have any elements that could snag on a juror's ideas about the world. So instead of telling a story about anti-fascists being attacked by fascists, which is what happened, they shaped their case around testimony from a bystander. Oh good, the most reliable kind of testimony, yeah. Now remember, I promised that boring stuff about the statutory requirement of intent would pay off, right, well, I'm not sure the prosecutor understood that well.

And if I were to tell you that something was making me feel intimidated, generally sort of colloquially speaking, I'm saying I'm afraid, I'm being made to feel timid is the root of the word, right? I am uncomfortable. I am afraid. But it means something really specific here. It doesn't just mean being afraid.

In conjunction with that language about placing someone in reasonable fear of bodily injury or death, we're not talking about feeling afraid. We're talking about the legal idea of a true threat. So a true threat is something that is not free speech. It is conduct and expression that is no longer protected by the first amendment. And I'm not, I'm not going to go to bat here for the first amendment. I'm not going to defend this sort of like libertarian idea that actually it's good and healthy for a society that people can march around playing junior stormtrooper.

But you know, technically they can, right? Love it or hate it. That's not what we're talking about. It's the difference between saying, I think the government should round up and kill this group of people, which is absolutely protected speech, and saying, I am going to murder you tonight in your home at this address, which you theoretically can get in trouble for. Although a lot of times people don't. You know, in my experience, people who see that to me don't get in trouble, but I'm not sure that's a legal thing. It's mainly they get in trouble when they do that to FBI agents as that one

Trump fan did after Hunter Biden's conviction. Or there's been a rash lately of people getting picked up after they leave a voicemail at a congressional office. Don't leave a threat in a voicemail, okay? Don't, don't, yeah, what are you doing? How do you think this is gonna work out? People are cooked. So a lot of people are learning lately

what a true threat is, right? So, you know, up until that point, there's a lot of shit you could do that sucks. You can march around and be a little Nazi with your pals, but what you cannot do is engage in conduct that constitutes a true threat. And I think drawing that line in a really clear way for the jury was what this case should have been about. I think they needed to hold the jury's hand through that and say, the defense is making this a free speech case. And if it had stopped here, if it had stopped at this point, you know, show them where it stopped, where it changed.

But they didn't do that. And they left that line really blurry. Because the problem is the point at which that line was crossed was when that march encircled the small group of counter protesters, right? So they spent half an hour marching and then they got to where they were going. And that's when it crossed the line. You know, they lit their torches, they marched, they chanted, it was obviously intended to evoke Nazi Germany.

You know, they're saying blood and soil, Jews will not replace us. It's a real Hitler vibe. And a lot of people who are on the fence about those prosecutions are looking at that and saying, well, yeah, like that's disgusting, but isn't that free speech? And it is most of that was, right? So most of that conduct was not against the law. You know, if you saw that, you might feel afraid. People did. And that makes sense. It was very alarming to see. It might make

you feel unsafe. And it could, and definitely did eventually, evolve into a situation where people are unsafe. But seeing them pass by doesn't actually put you in a position where you might die. I mean, not right at the moment anyway, right? You know, the law doesn't really extend to the idea that this is part of a larger societal shift that ends violently. You know, this existential threat of the rise of fascism doesn't constitute a true threat in the immediate sense under the law, right? Yeah, a guy, a dude in a similar situation in DC in 2020

stabbed a person and got off because it was very clear that he, like when you are surrounded, That's true threat, right? You are you are in imminent danger, right? And it wasn't just a person. That was Jeremy. I know. Yeah. That was that was that was Jeremy Bertino. One of my favorite stabbings.

Yeah, just a weird turn of events for Jeremy, because the month before he got stabbed. It was oh, gosh, it was one of the other Proud Boy rallies in DC. I was surrounded by a group of Proud Boys that he was commanding, right? And so I was in that, the same position and I was getting a little nervous cause they were starting to, you know, get in my face and touch me and try and move me around, Jeremy actually made them stop. You know, you don't-

Oh, chivalry. You don't gotta hand it to Jeremy, but I think he knew it would have been bad for them if they stabbed me. Little did he know. Yeah. He would be the one who's- Yeah, whereas the guy who stabbed him

was in block and such, yeah. Just a strange, strange twist of history for Jeremy. Now he's state's witness. Anyway, where were we? We could cut some of that. I'm out of it today. We're both in a bad way right now. Yeah. I think everyone's always in a bad way these days. It's worth acknowledging. I can't sleep anymore. You're frazzled. Like welcome to 2024. It's fine. I'm losing my mind.

We're doing as well as either presidential candidate. I had to wait until the recess and the city council meeting yesterday to go outside and check on the drive-by on my block. Like things are going good. Yeah, things are solid. Yeah. Should I just take that whole paragraph from the top?

Sure, yeah, start it. Because I don't even know where to restart. Okay. It wasn't until the march encountered the counter protesters that there was truly intentional intimidation that placed them in fear of injury or death. The people who were trapped, and I mean that literally, all avenues of escape were close to them.

The march formed a circle around them that was 10 men deep. Those were the victims of this crime. They were beaten and punched and kicked and pepper sprayed. They were shoved and hit with lit torches. They thought they would die. But those people are complicated, aren't they? Those people were Antifa. They were activists. They were believers in Black Lives Matter. They were communists, the anarchists, right? Queer people, trans people, people of color, people who attend protests and have attended more since. There were people who hated Nazis.

There were people with skin in the game. People whose existence is inherently politicized and thus attempts to destroy them can't just be seen as a human being being assaulted. They have to be seen as like, well, is the thing that they believe and my opinions on it as a judge a mitigating factor? Right, it's messy. It shouldn't be, but it is, right?

These were people who believe that we have a duty to each other to stand in the way of the march of fascism. And that night, that's literally what they did. And that's murky for a prosecutor. What if the jury doesn't like that? What if maybe just a little bit they deserved it, right? Does the law really still protect you if you make a choice a jury doesn't understand?

And so the prosecutor chose to rest this case on the shoulders of a young woman whose front door the march passed that night on its way to the scene of the crime. As a young Jewish woman alone in her room that night, she was terrified to hear the approaching Nazi march. She took off a necklace and a ring bearing symbols of her faith and hid them before she fled her home in fear. She was absolutely a victim of white supremacist terror, but I do not think she was a victim under the language of this statute. And I want to be so clear about that, right? I'm not saying what happened to her was okay or that it's her fault that the case was

presented this way. She was subpoenaed. She gave the testimony she was required by the law to give and she gave it well. And she's obviously deeply traumatized by this. And so when I say she's not a victim of the crime, when I say that, you know, the fear that she felt does not meet this legal standard, I don't mean anything other than that. There are far more ways to harm a person and a community than have been contemplated by our part-time General Assembly. But under this statute, being frightened, however reasonable that is, however serious that she felt that fear, is not the same as being placed in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury. I think her testimony could have been really valuable as a supplement

to this overall presentation because she was very emotional. I think it testimony could have been really valuable as a supplement to this overall presentation because she was very emotional. I think it was very moving for the jury, but it didn't move the needle legally. And I think it was a really perilous foundation on which to try to construct a case. But you know, it would not be a perilous course of action for you to take Robert. Jesus Christ. Oh, it would be perilous if I didn't get this ad break in because Sophie has a taser now.

So let's just move right along. Does it ever stop feeling dirty to do that? No, no, I mean, you know, what doesn't feel dirty these days, Molly? What feels clean? Probably buying some of these services. I pay so much in taxes and that always feels dirty. Like I know where they're going.

I see the celebrities signing the bombs they help pay. I don't feel good about anything. We're back and you know, here's a free ad Molly. I found out where I can buy the really good mace. I learned about this mace, the right way to learn about mace, which is I had it used on me and was like, wow, that mace was much more debilitating than normal mace. You got a free sample.

Yeah, I got a free sample from two different federal agencies. And it knocked me out of commission for about a half hour each time, which is pretty good for mace It's called silver bullet and it's a like a 10% OC 2% CS I may be mixing those up mix but you're not supposed to be able to buy it if you're not law enforcement But it's not illegal. So I finally just found a website that doesn't doesn't check and now I've got the good mace I don't really know what to do with it. Now does it actually have silver in it? Will it also kill germs? No, no, no.

I have to use my antimicrobial silver wound dressings for that, but I do have some of those. Jesus Christ. Always useful to have, Molly, important stuff. Well, I'm glad you got yourself a little treat. I think that's important these days. A little treat, yeah. It's sort of one of my guiding principles

in this increasingly awful world is, if you can get a little treat, you should get a little treat. Yeah, one of my guiding principles is like, whenever I decide I'm depressed and I'm going to like do retail therapy, just pick up a new kind of weapon, a kind of weapon I don't have already.

I got a Rungu the other day, which is a kind of stick that you beat people with. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm making sure that I'm like diversified my portfolio. How is thinking more like sometimes at Kroger, they have a new flavor of chips, but your thing's cool too. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

Chips can be a weapon anyway,, let's move back to the subject. Back to the courthouse, right? The defense in this case was right about one thing. I mean, they didn't say very much. They didn't actually put on a case. They put on no evidence and no witnesses, but he spoke a few times, right? The attorney, he spoke a few times and in his closing, um, defense attorney, Peter Frazier said he didn't have to put on a case because the prosecutor made his case for him.

The counter protesters could not be intimidated. That's what he said, right? The counter protesters in this case, they couldn't be intimidated because they opted into this. The protesters brought this on themselves. Their mere presence in this public space expressing their right to protest was a waiver of their right to safety. And they consented to whatever happened after that. And they couldn't be victims of anything. Right? They wanted this. They chose to be

there. They knew the Nazis were coming. And the prosecutor's failure to rebut this, to actively push back against the idea that entering this space was some sort of agreement to mutual combat, right? That the failure to push back on that at all can only be seen as an agreement. They allowed the court and the defense and the judge himself said, well, no one was hurt and they failed to call witnesses who were hurt because people were hurt. Yeah. and they failed to call witnesses who were hurt because people were hurt.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, that seems like a massive, like disqualifying oversight. They, you know, they could have called witnesses. I know sometimes especially with anarchist defendants, it can be hard to get people who are willing to testify, but I imagine you can find some people in this case. Right, so the thing is,

I acknowledge that there are many of the victims and many of the witnesses who have chosen not to participate in this process, right? First of all, I'm not saying it would be good if this happened, but technically you can subpoena them anyway, right? There are people in this case who would have cooperated had they been called. People like Alan Groves, who in 2017 was a dean at UVA who was burned by the flames or UVA librarian Tyler McGill who suffered a catastrophic Stroke after being struck in the neck by a torch free advice there folks free advice there prosecutors They subpoenaed but did not call my own friend Goad one of the counter protesters there that night whose testimony about being pepper-sprayed

Put Christopher Cantwell in jail. They did not call Devin Willis or Natalie Romero, who were plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit, and have already proven their ability to testify with incredible courage and clarity about being kicked and punched as they were trapped by the wall of flames. In the civil trial, Devin recalled the moment he realized he had been doused in lighter fluid. He thought that they were going to burn him alive. He was 19 years old and he testified that all he could think about was that he had so much to live for and he had to find a way out. And Natalie, she testified about being trapped, about how small she felt at the center of the screaming mob and that she thought she would be burned to death

as she covered her face and her head from the rain of fists. And she described that she didn't really understand the effects of pepper spray. She was a college student. She'd never been pepper sprayed before. When she got home that night, she sat down in her shower to cry just trying to process the experience of, you know, nearly being killed by a crowd of Nazis and the hot steam reactivated the chemical irritants, burning her eyes and skin all over again. They didn't call the people who were hurt

and they let the jury think that there were none. And the only actual witness to, no, you go ahead. That's just, I just, it's such a dereliction of duty. Like it's such a frustrating, like it's not hard. Like this is not secret information that you're privy to because of your deep Antifa connections. You can just like Google this. This is like 30 minutes of reading

to have a couple of those names at least. The federal court transcripts of this testimony exist. They're free. I already paid for them. You know, and at one point when the judge said, I mean, this was outside the presence of the jury when the judge said it, but the judge said, well, you know, well, no one was hurt. And I'm sitting in the courtroom next to someone who was hurt.

Right. And I'm just like, I embarrassed to be in this room with these people who are behaving this way. You know, the only actual witness to and victim of this crime that they put on the stand at all was Emily Groszenski. And this was not her first time on the witness stand in that courtroom. She also testified against Christopher Cantwell for pepper spraying her that night. And she handled it well. Right. She's testified before, she's good at it, she's unshakable. But a witness can only answer the questions they're asked. A witness can't put on their own evidence, a witness can't tell you a story, a witness can't

do anything other than give short answers to questions, right? So even the best witness is only as good as the questions they're asked. And they failed to elicit from her the most important part of the story. What actually happened at the statue? So a lot of the evidence they put on with her on this, because you, I don't wanna get too long order

about this, right? But you can't just put on evidence, right? You have to have a witness on the stand to testify to it. You can't just show stuff. It's not a conversation. Like somebody can't just like raise their hand in the middle of this and be like, well, I got actually, I actually did get hurt at that thing.

Like that's not the way court cases work. And so they used much of Emily's time on the stand to show two videos. One was a video she shot. So it makes sense to have her testify to this video that she recorded, right? So she was live streaming from the very beginning, right? Down where they were preparing and lighting the torches, and then she was following them along on the march, just sort of documenting what was occurring. And that's what she thought

she was there to do, right? She's just documenting that this march is taking place. She's thinking, oh, they're going to give some speeches. I'll record the speeches so people can sort of see what this event was about. She did not go there intending to become trapped and assaulted, right? So much of her time on the stand was sort of answering questions about this video as it played. But they also had her answer questions about a video that was recorded from inside the march. And I'm not, that was recorded from inside the march. And I'm not sure how effective it was to just show 30 minutes of video of guys walking. And the defense leaned really heavily into the idea that, well, obviously she wasn't scared. Look at her, right? So she's clearly not intimidated. She's really close to this march recording it. And without a concrete theory of the case that establishes that, well, no, this isn't where the crime is happening, right? These guys walking isn't the crime.

She's not intimidated yet. That's not happening right now. So without that sort of concrete explanation for the jury that the crime occurs at the end, they might take away from that that, well, oh, yeah, she doesn't really seem scared here, right? This whole part where she's walking and narrating, she doesn't really seem scared here, right? That this whole part where she's walking and narrating, she doesn't really seem scared. And you know, and leaving aside the finer philosophical point that you can be brave even if you're scared. Her testimony was really clear here. She wasn't afraid for her life. Then she testified that she arrived

at the plaza where the statue stands before the marchers did, right? So they are marching through UVA grounds and it ends in this sort of plaza out in front of the rotunda where a statue is. And she got there before the march did. And she saw that the group of counter protesters was very small. And she knew what was coming, right? She watched these guys get ready. She watched them put on their helmets and their weighted gloves and their brass knuckles and lighting their torches You know guys are wrapping their hands like they're getting ready for an MMA fight so she knows what's coming and they don't and

So she looks at this small group of young people and she's afraid for them. She's afraid for their safety she feels a duty to these people they're mostly college students and Because you can be brave even if you are scared, she stayed with them. And once they were surrounded by this increasingly violent mob, once she was live streaming her own assault, of course she was in fear of bodily harm. She was being harmed, right? There's not a debate about whether someone might be in fear of bodily harm. You're watching them get harmed.

debate about whether someone might be in fear of bodily harm, you're watching them get harmed. Yeah, but if you aren't scared of that, then it doesn't like that. That's, I guess, kind of the problem. It should be like, would an average like a normal person consider this to be an objectively threatening situation and. That is the standard. Yeah. This is not a crime that actually requires a complaining victim to say, I did feel this way. It's a re it's what's called a reasonable person standard, right? So what a reasonable person in this situation feel this way.

The answer is yes. Okay. Right. A reasonable person would be afraid, afraid of getting hit in the face. Yes, I would say so. And there was a lot of argument pre-trial in this case and some of the others that like, well, you know, what does that even mean? What does it mean for a reasonable person to be afraid?

And it's like, I mean, that is a valid philosophical conversation, but it is not a valid rebuttal to the idea of this charge because that is the standard for many of the statutes in our code, right? But like, it's the legal standard for assault. Right. But again, much of the time she's on the stand, they're just showing 30 minutes of people walking. And there was so little time spent showing

what happened when they got there. They could have shown the jury the moment of the video where at the top of the steps to the rotunda, right? So they're at the top of these stairs, looking down at that plaza below, and these counter protesters are just coming into view for the first time for the marchers. And Daniel Borden looks down and sees them and yells,

you're outnumbered, Antifa. Watch out, leftist scum. And now it matters that that's Daniel Borden because Daniel Borden was with Jacob Dix. They came together. They're friends from back home in Ohio. Daniel Borden is a name you might remember because the following day he nearly beat a young black man to death.

So, you know, he's looking down into the plaza and seeing these people and stating the intent, right? He's saying like, you know, he's looking down into the plaza and seeing these people and stating the intent, right? He's saying like, you know, watch out, like I see you. There's more of us than there are of you. You better watch out. That is intimidation, right? Yeah, it seems like it seems that if I'm the judge, the case has been made. But they did not. I'm not though. They didn't highlight this portion of the video. They just, this long uninterrupted presentation of video evidence without any sort of discussion of what any of these moments meant. Because moments after that, after Daniel Borden yells, you're outnumbered Antifa.

You shoulder to shoulder with Dix. A few seconds later, they're walking clockwise around the statue. They're starting to form that circle, that ring that would trap the counter protesters in. Borden looks at Dix again and says, why can't we confront them? And then they continue to walk side by side, taking their place in that ring of men, closing off any path to safety. And you can see in photos that Jacob Dix is face to face with some of the counter protesters. He's not just in this sort of mob of people in this sort of nebulous zone. He's in the inner ring of people who are choosing to physically trap

the counter protesters. That is the intent that they needed to show the jury. And they didn't rebut the conjecture that he was only here because he loves Confederate statues, right? He has Confederate heritage. He cares about the monuments. Yeah. This is like prosecuting a drunk driver and having having a breathalyzer test and just

not introducing it into evidence being like, nah, it's going to be like, you know, vibes wise, it seems like he was probably drinking. Yeah, that's what it was. It's so irresponsible. The vibes were bad and they were, the vibes were bad, but that's not the legal standard. The vibes are terrible, but that's really not what you should be.

You have a much better case to make based on the evidence easily available to you. If there was, if none of this evidence existed, if this was all they had, maybe don't take it to trial. But this evidence was right there for them. This, the moment, the moment where they're looking down the steps, that's in the video they played. I feel like there were at least six different people

the prosecutor could have just like emailed and they would have basically put together the whole case for this person. It's just so available, right? You know, so the defense says, well, you know, he has Confederate heritage, he's here because of the statues. They could have rebutted that by showing the jury his discord posts, where he was helping organize housing for at least 80 other Unite the Right attendees

at a group of Airbnb's, which he called the Eagles nest and from which he was helping organize rides to the rally in what they were calling Nazi Uber. That's not about your Confederate heritage is it? The Eagle's Nest was like Hitler's vacation house for people who aren't up on their Hitler lore. Yeah, their Hitler lore if you will. Hitler, yeah. Yeah. I'm not proud of it, but that happened. That took me out for a second. And they didn't show him attending the Nazi rally in Pikeville in April of that same year.

There's a photograph of him standing shoulder to shoulder with members of the traditionalist worker party. Right arm extended, a 45 degree angle, palm down. I think that says something about why he was there, right? And they didn't show his Discord post about how he was getting really hyped about the rally writing, nothing can replace the feeling you get at a white nationalist rally. I don't know. The evidence exists, right? And once you get to the base of the statue, that intimidation element required for the

charge is clear. We know people were in reasonable fear of bodily harm because their bodies were harmed. The evidence of intent is not hard to find. The marchers saw the small group of counter-protesters as they descended those stairs. They saw them from above and they chose to proceed and surround them, knowing they vastly outnumbered them. They hooted and cheered, screaming, we're coming for you, as they encircled the statue. There were assigned marshals for the march directing people in a clockwise fashion around the statue to form the circle.

This was not an organic event. And as the ring closed, Richard Spencer's bodyguard, a now former Woburn, Massachusetts police officer, John Donnelly, can be heard in one video saying that we need to fill in over here to block these guys off. This was an intentional act. The defendant himself is visible in these videos as he moves down the steps across the plaza and winds his way around the statue. And as the fighting breaks out, he holds his position in the inner ring of torchbearers who have these people trapped, unable to escape the violence. It doesn't

matter that he did not commit these acts of violence. He was holding the line that trapped people inside of it. And his intent in that moment is inescapable. But the jury doesn't know that. It's just an incredible failure, honestly. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad the case got thrown out. Is it possible that the next person to be prosecutor in this will have an IQ

that rises above room temperature? So I asked several lawyers about some of the finer points of what happens with a mistrial and I got different answers from all of them because this is sort of like everything in this case is just a little bit fucked up, right? We have a substitute judge, we have a special prosecutor, we have a mistrial, we've just like so many things that kind of mess it up a little bit. In the event of a mistrial, the prosecutor has the option to try the case again, right? That's always the case.

There's a mistrial. The prosecutor can say, eh, I'm going to let it go. I'm just going to let it go. Or they can say, no, we're going to bring it again. We're going to bring it again. And they don't have to bring it the same way. They can bring in different evidence, different witnesses. It's sort of a mulligan for everybody, right? What's not 100% clear is whether the same special prosecutor tries it again or if it sort of goes

back to roulette. Several lawyers agreed that it would be the same prosecutor. I believe her office is under that impression. So right after the mistrial was declared, Shannon Taylor, the special prosecutor, said she does plan to try it again. That could just be bravado, it's unclear. There's a hearing date set for August for there's still some pending motions in the case. And so the funniest part is, is that there's still a pending motion

to dismiss from the defense. So technically, even if the prosecutor says, yes, I'm bringing this case again, I'm doing it, the judge can be like, actually, I'm dismissing it. So it could go a lot of ways right now. But at this point, I'm not super hung up on the particularities of this defendant, right? I think this mistrial teaches us something

sort of more generally about these cases and the other torch cases specifically, obviously. But I think more generally, what does it look like for criminal charges to be a roadblock in the path of people involved in white supremacist organizing? You know, at the end of the day, whether or not some guy from Ohio serves four months

of a six month sentence on a class six felony, it doesn't really matter, right? Like this isn't an important guy. It's whether or not anyone is actually scared off from organizing. Right, like not to use the language of the prosecutor, the master's house, the master's tools, this, that and the other, but part of-

I don't cut into that logic to be honest. I mean, he used those tools for a reason, right? But- Yeah, I mean, he used those tools for a reason. Like if you couldn't bring down the master's house with the master's tools, then what were all of those formerly czarist troops doing, overthrowing the government with rifles the czar gave them? You know?

But part of what prosecutors talk about when they talk about charging, maybe not these cases in particular, but just generally speaking is that bringing cases is intended as a form of deterrence for everybody, right? That what happens to this guy is not the most important, but maybe some other guys see this and think, maybe that's not a good idea. And so I think in some of these cases, though, you can see, you know, maybe that this charge is interrupting a more significant pattern of behavior, right? So

nailing Thomas Rousseau on a felony would obviously change the trajectory for Patriot Front. I don't know if that would, I don't know what that looks like at the end, but it certainly changes the trajectory. So Thomas Rousseau is set for trial in the fall. So he has been charged. And I think that will be an interesting case to follow

because he has the same lawyer. And you know, if they end up charging Jason Kessler, that would just be really funny. There's a lot of possible outcomes here. If they'd arrested these guys in real time, that night, maybe the rally the next day would be different. If the cases had been brought six years ago, maybe certain arcs of history would have bent differently.

It would have broken some momentum or discouraged some movement activity or broken bonds between people who met there. Some of the guys who were there and could have been charged in real time went on to do some real damage in their personal lives and their communities. But I'm not sure that's a basket I want to put my eggs into. If a court case takes a fascist out of the game, great. That's some kind of harm reduction, but it's not something you can count on. And honestly, it doesn't consistently reduce harm in the long run. You just can't get lost in

the sort of what ifs of, you know, what if the system worked better to actually help us because it doesn't. That was never on the table. It's not like I'm saying, you know, well, we needed a conviction in this case because the courts are the ones who are going to protect us by putting this man in jail briefly, right? That's not the case. I think the lessons are immediately instructive to the prosecutor who tries the next one, obviously, watching the game tapes play better next time.

If they're gonna put these cases on, they need to do it properly. I would rather see this not happen at all than watch it get fumbled like this because that's just a victory for them. Right, right. Yeah. And it's a sharp reminder that the courts are not equipped to interrupt fascism or rein in white supremacy. That is not what they were built for. That is not what this tool

does. You are trying to screw it in with a hammer. Because faced with a really clear opportunity to do that, the prosecutor shied away from them. The state is not the secret weapon that is going to stop fascism for us or protect us from the fascists who want to stop us from stopping them. At best, it is a banana peel on their Mario Kart track. It is interesting to watch this play out, but I don't think it is some, I don't think this will bring any sort of repair. Yeah.

But it might ruin some guy's day and I'll be there when it happens. I, you know, I don't think it's worthless, obviously. I think in fact, one of the things I will point out since this is kind of on ending on a doomer and I think the legal onslaught that was launched by the survivors, shall we say, at Charlottesville I think the legal onslaught that was launched by the survivors, shall we say, at Charlottesville

against organizers and whatnot is a big part of why a lot of that, most of that crew stopped being relevant. Like it did in fact damage them. Now, did it disrupt and stop fascism nation? Why, of course not. That was never in the cards, right? Like you're talking about trends and forces that are too big for a handful of very dedicated leftists

to stop by suing some asshole. But like, you know, one thing people get wrong a lot is saying like, oh, you know, when a fucking, what's his name got punched, that really knocked him out of public life. And it's like, no, Charlottesville came after that fucker got punched. Like it was the series of court cases

that ruined his life really to an extent. And I think there's an important conversation to be had about what it means to win, right? Because if you're a lawyer, if you're a prosecutor, winning is really black and white. You, you know, win a judgment, you win a conviction. But that's not how I view the courts as a tool in this process, right?

That like winning a conviction or actually getting paid out that judgment, that's not the victory we're looking for, right? That this is a tool for sort of chiseling away and no single step gets you there. So I wouldn't say that these cases are not useful or they're not interesting. And that's why this isn't a huge disappointment, right? That like what happens to any of these individual people isn't the point. This is just part of a process.

Yeah. So, I don't know, keep that in mind as you look at this stuff, because it's very easy to look at one case and just be like, oh, it's doomed. There's no point in trying any of this. It's like, no, the actual, the lawfare that people

have launched in response to Charlottesville has been a successful action. Like if you want to look at it kind of in military terms, it has been an offensive that has broadly achieved a number of its goals. The Sines v. Kessler lawsuit against the Unite the Right organizers, it sort of established this playbook

that's now being used by others. There are similar, similarly structured lawsuits now being filed against other white supremacist groups, against White Lives Matter Ohio, against Patriot Front, and it is effective. Again, not in the sense that the lawsuits will extract money judgments. It's effective. Everyone's going to go to fucking prison, but it makes their lives miserable. Yeah. I just don't want people to walk away being like,

well, there's no point in fighting this way because there actually is. It works very well. It's just not a silver bullet. It's not a sports game. It's ugly and messy and hard. And I will end at least by saying, I know we have a lot of anti-electoralist type people here,

the one place you absolutely should vote, if that is a thing where you live is elections for local judges, because that is a great way to at least reduce the odds that your friends go to prison. I know people, I have people I love who are not in prison because the judge they happened to draw wasn't a piece of shit.

And you're really just hurting yourself if you have the option to pick a judge who sucks less and you don't try to, that's where I land on that shit. There's a lot that we can do and none of it's gonna do it all, but in the meantime, I will continue spending whole days on that horrible wooden bench

and I'll let you know how it goes. Yep. Thank you, Molly, for continuing to engage with a system that is not very fun to engage with, but necessary to. Well, everybody, that's the episode. Go to hell. We love you. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

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a podcast about things falling apart. And you know, what all the kids these days are talking about is war crimes. That was me being kind of blithe, but they actually are. Because you know, what's continuing to happen to Gaza, more people than probably that I can recall in recent memory are talking about like war crimes, what it means to commit war crimes, violations of international law, which is good because that's an important thing to be talking about. The downside of it is, as is often the case when people talk

about things on the internet, a lot of people are talking about war crimes and don't actually know what that means. So I figured let's talk about like what war crimes is be do. And I I'm going to bring on James Stout fellow war crimes watcher to talk with me about what war crimes be James what's your favorite war crime my favorite that's a difficult one isn't it because I've yeah it's like asking the best season of Doctor Who you know it is yeah what I like to do with reference to war crimes is I wake up right and I sort of you know you're just waking up you get your phone off the charger there, and then you look and there's a message on telegram,

but that's how I consume war crimes. Just a random- If it's on telegram, there's a 40% chance it's a violation of the 1864 Geneva Convention or the subsequent Geneva Conventions, yes. So I wanted to do this because I do think that one of the things that is unfortunate kind of about the colloquial way in which like the positive side of the way social media has impacted the coverage of conflicts is that

We are now seeing like for the first time. This is not the first time Israel has killed a shitload of Palestinians this is the first time that like a really substantial majority of the American populace has Been like and that's bad. Yeah. And that owes a lot to the way in which information is spread on social media. One of the downsides of that is because this is happening in kind of a colloquial diction, people are not always super accurate. In a term like war crimes in particular often gets used to mean like anything I don't

like that happens in a war. And there are a lot of things that happen like war is bad. And everything that happens in war, nearly everything is really bad. But most of the things that happen in war are not war crimes. And believe me, I'm not setting this up to say that like, Israel is not committing war crimes in Gaza, they are, I actually have a lot of issues with other kinds of conflicts and things that happen in conflicts that get discussed as if they were war crimes that I think muddies the issue. We're gonna be trying to make it clear

like what international law actually covers and what kind of that coverage means and all that stuff. So that hopefully, you know, people can have a little bit more information going forward when they try to talk about like, is this something that's just bad that happens in war versus is this a war crime? Because that actually matters when it comes to, you know, the theoretical idea of a rules based international order and prosecuting this stuff. So the first thing we have to get into is the idea that like, war crimes

are a pretty recent conception, the idea that like war crimes are a pretty recent conception. The idea that like there would be a thing that you could do as a country that the international community would come in and have beef with does not go back very far. Right. Yeah. We are talking the 18th century. So really the last 200 years has been when, when this really all started to get codified. We start with the Geneva Convention in 1864. There are several Geneva Conventions in 1949.

There's, there's a, I think two more in 1977. You also have the Hague Conventions in 1899 and 1907. And these are all, so part of what that should suggest is that like, even within kind of the realm of codified war crimes law, it's kind of been a slap dash, catch as catch can affair. Right? Like people have come together and made rules that were largely based on the shit

that either had just happened or that they thought was about to happen. And one of the consequences of this is that the actual legislation about like what is and isn't illegal to do in war is really uneven. A great example of this would be the idea of dumb, dumb bullets. This is the thing that you get around the turn of the century, which is... Most bullets that are used in war are what are called full metal jacket.

That just means that there's a copper generally jacket around the lead bullet. And there's not like a hole in the middle or whatever. Like a modern, if you go up to a police officer and take his gun, which is very easy and safe to do. Legally, that was a joke. You will notice that all of the bullets in that gun have like a little divot in the middle of them, right?

And the purpose of this divot is so that when the bullet hits a person, it transfers more of its force into the meat of that person's body. This is the same with any bullet that like someone carries for self-defense generally. And this is actually a safety device in a way because bullets like this do not penetrate as much and you don't want bullets that you're using

in like an urban area for self-defense to penetrate as much because that increases the risk that if you miss or if you hit that person, that it goes through them and hits something else, right? But there was an understanding around the turn of the century that these bullets, which initially were not manufactured, soldiers would literally like cut like crosses

in the tops of their bullets. I used to do this when I was a child. I would spend a lot of time shooting rabbits. It was kind of my thing that I did when I was a kid and we used to dumb dumb that her rifle pellets. Yeah. Yeah. And there's this, there was this understanding that developed that this should be illegal

because it's a, it causes additional harm. Now the specific, I think this is like line 20 or something from the Geneva Convention, but it's employing weapons, projectiles, and material and methods of warfare, which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict.

Provided such weapons, projectiles, and material and the methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this statute by an amendment in accordance with the relevant—anyway. So, you're not supposed to employ bullets which, quote, flatten or expand easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover its core or is pierced with incisions. You're not supposed to employ asphyxiating poisonous or other gases and all analogous liquids materials or devices. That one obviously came about as a result of the horror in World War I, right?

People start using a lot of these poison gas weapons and it's decided by the international community that that absolutely should not be allowed to be done. You're not allowed to employ poison or poisoned weapons. Now most people can see, look at that and be like, well, yeah, I mean, hollow points sound extra mean poison sounds, extra mean gas sounds extra mean. You shouldn't be able to use those extra mean weapons in war, but, and I, I don't have a problem with trying to limit horrifying weapons, but we still allow, for example, artillery shells that are meant to create huge amounts of shrapnel that are their whole

purpose is to cause grievous wounds to a large number of people in a large area. And from where I'm standing, I don't think that like, that's less horrible than a hollow point. Like, I actually think that's probably a lot worse than a hollow point. Yes. Yeah. So one of the first things that you get when you look at what are war crimes is they're not actually all like things that you morally should have an issue with.

Like really, if you are looking at all of the weapons employed in war today, there's no reason a hollow point should frighten you, right? There's so many worse weapons, right? Now on the other hand of that, poison gas is much worse than the vast majority of weapons that are used in war today. And I think it's good that that's a crime. Yeah.

But doesn't stop people using it. Doesn't stop people like Bashar al-Assad, right? Friend of the show, Bashar al-Assad. I was just thinking about barrel bombs. I don't know if barrel bombs are specifically prohibited. I don't think they are not. There would be a way to do that really. That just a barrel stuff with explosives.

Cause I mean, they were invented by Israel actually. I think 47 is the first use. It might've been like, yeah, but I believe it was 47. It was the first recorded use of, because if you have planes and you have reliable access to planes, but you can't reliably manufacture advanced rockets and shit to shoot from them,

a barrel bomb's very easy to make. You're basically just taking a 50 gallon drum and filling it with gunpowder and shrapnel, right? Like, I mean, it's a little more complicated than that, but yeah. Yeah, the Hunter in Myanmar has started using them as their access to Russian munitions dries up. Yeah.

And there's, you know, again, that's one of those things where it's like, that's not technically a war crime. Other than that, if you, it can be if you're like using it indiscriminately in a civilian, like against civilians, but like also they basically no one ever gets prosecuted for doing that. So, yeah, yeah, right.

This is the case with many of these things. And again, like barrel bombs can be legal hollow points, can't that doesn't really make sense. It's also like I will say, I've witnessed at least one war crime in person that I really didn't feel like was a war crime, which when I was embedded with the Iraqi army, they tear gassed an ISIS sniper to get him out of his position so they could kill him. And that's definitely illegal.

And also of all of the things I saw done in that war, like the fact that somebody threw a tear gas grenade did not upset me over much, right? Like the fact that I was watching apartment buildings get blown up by Apache helicopters really upset me a lot more than the little bit of tear gas. Yeah, it's one of these like very sort of like, yeah, if you want to take the strictly legalistic definition versus- And it was a war crime.

Yep, the only war crime that was committed that day maybe. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I want to get into some of this in a little bit more of an organized fashion, but first let's have a little bit of an ad break. Ah, so we're back and we're talking about war crimes. So I want to just kind of go through and with some commentary straight up read a large chunk of the Rome Statute

of the International Criminal Court, Article 8, which largely defines war crimes as that term has a meaning in a legal sense. And it defines war crimes as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12th August, 1949, namely any of the following acts against persons or property committed against the provisions of the relevant Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely any of the following acts against persons or property committed against the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention. These include willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment including biological experiments,

willfully causing great suffering, serious injury to body or health, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement, and taking of hostages." Right? And you'll notice, among other things, a lot of that is stuff that you can find Israeli soldiers doing on TikTok, right? And you'll notice, among other things, a lot of that is stuff that

you can find Israeli soldiers doing on TikTok, right? Yeah, streaming themselves doing. Yeah. I mean, particularly the clear, not maybe not the clearest, but one that comes up to me just because of some stuff I've seen of like soldiers posing with like stolen canes from Gazans who presumably were disabled and no longer have their canes for whatever terrible reason, like these kind of big joking photos, that's a destruction and appropriation of property, right? You get a lot of videos of soldiers

like going through people's property, taking stuff, destroying stuff, like those are war crimes. You are not as a soldier. Obviously property will get destroyed in gunfights. It can get just like, so there's part of why it's kind of hard to, this stuff is not prosecuted as much as it ought to be. But you are not supposed to just fuck with people's shit as a soldier. That is legal, you know?

Is it one of the war crimes that is probably least prosecuted and most common? Absolutely. I think that that is very fair to say. Yeah, look, Boris Johnson stole stuff from Saddam Hussein's palace in Iraq. You know, like he's yet to be called to the Hague. And that would be one of those, I don't know, I don't like Boris Johnson, but also I don't have a problem with anyone stealing from Saddam Hussein. I have no beef.

Of all the bullshit he's done. But this is, I mean, that's one of those, because I would say a lot of soldiers I know who have been, and maybe didn't even realize themselves that what they were doing was committing a war crime, but just like you're in somebody's house, they are gone. They ran and like you wind up fucking with shit. Like it happens. I think what we're seeing, I think willfully is kind of an important term here. Right.

And I think that's really what we've seen very clearly in a lot of these IDF, tick tocks, right. Is people taking glee and the destruction of property? And I think that's very easy to prove is a war crime. I think anyone can make a moral distinction, right? Between like, I was recently in Rojava and I was talking to some friends and they were talking about how they, a lot of people died in IED blasts

because they were going into buildings to try and get food or tea or sugar. Yeah. There's a distinction between going into the kitchen of an abandoned building and taking some sugar or whatever rice, you know, then yeah, these guys going through women's underwear drawers and taking pictures with their underwear. Yeah, yeah. I know some some US Marines who like happened upon a cigarette factory during the invasion. Yes.

Like the uncut cigarettes that are like five feet long and they just started like smoking up on him. I guess that's destruction of property. Probably not gonna be my priority as the ICC, but it also doesn't seem like the clearer stuff is their priority. So I don't know. Free my man with the five foot cigarette.

He did that. Yeah. Yeah. So other war crimes include intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such, or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities. There's a video going around right now, man in his fifties in Gaza who was working a market stall and was shot by an Israeli drone, just executed. There's no way to describe that other than intentionally directing an attack against

a civilian not taking direct part in hostilities. That is a war crime. That's one example of, I mean, that's just the clearest video that I saw recently, right? Yeah, I heard from people who listen, I think, I think this was in the episode, when we talked to our friends at PK Guard, they were talking about one of the members of their group was recovering bodies from a bombed building and was shot by a quadcopter like not like a drone like 10,000 feet in the air dropping a missile like a drone yeah like in the air firing a drone like you could buy at a fucking best buy that's been modified yeah yeah that shoots like it shoots

a rifle like just just like a soldier would shoot a rifle. The operator is looking and seeing that person and pressing a button to fire a bullet. It's not collateral damage. It's deliberate targeting civilians. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. To continue from that list of war crimes, intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is objects which are not military objectives. A great example of this that's been happening in Gaza

in particular is destruction of mosques, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, very clear. Very clear civilian objects. Now there are exceptions, for example, one thing that does sometimes happen, I don't think it happened, it's certainly I've not seen evidence of it happening often

in most of the places where there are attacks on mosques, but like periodically, like if somebody, if a fighter or a military unit sets up inside a mosque, or a church or whatever, which happened in World War II a lot, right? You would have like churches used as strong points because they're well-made buildings. You can attack that, right?

Like it's not like magical, right? Like you can't suddenly not attack soldiers who are shooting at you from a church, but you are not supposed to intentionally direct attacks against civilian objects that are not military objectives. Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, materiel, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under international law of armed conflict. Best example of this from Gaza recently would be those world kitchen employees and their bodyguards

who were essentially murdered by the Israelis. Very clear internationally recognized humanitarian assistance, very clear war crime. If you can prove it was intentional, I'm sure that's a court case, intentional. I'm sure there's, you know, that's a court case, right? Um, but, but I think pretty clear. And then there is intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incident, a lot of loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread long-term and severe damage to the natural environment, which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated. This is one of the top things that is a war crime that never gets punished because it is so hard because it seemed like most I would say most of what I have seen planes do in

war seems like it falls under this where it's like, wow, that's a lot of environmental damage, a lot of incidental loss of life and injury, but is it excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage? Well, the people ordering those airstrikes would say no, right? And like, yeah, and that is one of those things where it's like, well, I know what looks like crime to me, you know? Yeah. But can I, could I win an ICC case about that? I don't know. Now I want to actually move over to talk about Ukraine here. Um, cause I think that that number one doesn't happen enough on the left.

And I think there's some really good clear examples of Russian war crimes here, because one thing that you're not allowed to do is quote, attacking or bombarding by whatever means towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings, which are undefended and which are not military objectives. And both of those last two points make it very clear that the Russian military committed war crimes

against Ukraine from March 4th to March 31st, 2022, when they occupied the town of Bukha, which was about, is about 30 kilometers north of Kiev. This is one of the best, probably the best documented Russian war crime in Ukraine at the moment. And I'm not saying that this is the only, it's not nearly the only, it's just like a particularly well documented example. As of this point, you know, we're almost two years past when Bukha got liberated, the bodies of more than a thousand civilians have been discovered in the Bukha region. At least about 650 people are known to have been executed by the Russian army. And these are pretty hideous mass executions. A lot of people were held for a week

or two prior to being executed. There's significant evidence of torture, of beatings of civilians before their summary execution. And yeah, it's a very clear example of a war crime. I don't know how else to say it. I will read a quote from this Human Rights Watch article that interviewed some funeral home workers in Bukha. Another funeral home worker, Sergei Mekhiuk, who helped collect bodies, said that he personally collected about 200 bodies from the streets since the Russian invasion began on February 24th. Most of the victims were men, he said, but some were women and children.

Almost all of them had bullet wounds, he said, including around 50 whose hands were tied and whose bodies had signs of torture. Bodies with hands tied strongly suggest that the victims had been detained and summarily executed." And that's a, I mean, a thousand, it's a hideous war crime, right? Like that's a mass killing of civilians in a crucially, there's no argument. And one way in which civilians always die are killed in war. And it's not usually a war crime because it generally happens while there's gunfights going on while you're carrying and you can claim like well look. You know you can't stop bullets from going through buildings you can't stop people from getting hit by shrapnel you're fighting in a city civilians are gonna die this is a very clear case of this town was occupied. There was not resistance ongoing in it and they were mass executing civilians.

That's illegal. You're not allowed to do that theoretically if international law means anything. Now, I do wanna get to another case of a war crime that or a thing that people call a war crime that isn't a war crime. And this we're actually gonna go back to the Iraq, the first Iraq war, Desert Storm.

Before we go to Desert Storm, let's go to these ads. ["Destroyer's Theme"] All right, we're back. James, what do you know about the Highway of Death? Oh, I know a little bit about the Highway of Death. Yeah. That's a throwback, isn't it? It's a throwback.

I hear it described by particularly leftists on the internet a lot as a US war crime. Yeah. And as a spoiler, it's not. It's ugly. It's really hideous. It's like a horrifying thing, but it's just war, right? Yeah. And it was combatants fighting combatants. Yeah, it was combatants killing retreating combatants, which

people think sometimes shouldn't be allowed. But it doesn't really make sense for that to not be allowed if you just like know what war is. And I'm going to talk about why here. And like, I'm not trying to justify this because nothing in war make it like you don't justify it just is a thing that happens, right? Like, it's all hideous. If you've been through it, you see in humanity every second. But one of the things that you learn if you study war on an academic level is that a massive

part of it is retreating, like all the time, all throughout history, armies retreat, regroup, and then carry out additional offensives, right? That is war in a nutshell, right? And so when armies are retreating, you're allowed to keep killing them. And in fact, that's the norm. And most soldiers up until the modern era,

the vast majority of combat deaths were during retreats, right? This is the primary way in which soldiers are killed is when they're retreating. And so what actually happened is in August, so obviously August of 1990, the US leads a coalition against the Iraqi army who have invaded and occupied Kuwait illegally.

One of my stances on this is that Iraq very clearly violated international law and they shouldn't have been allowed to occupy Kuwait. Now there's a lot of things about like US involvement in Iraq prior to this that are, you could say, extenuating, including the fact that like we had kind of pushed them to invade Iran and then played both sides of that conflict. And that was part of what Saddam was pissed about, but that doesn't justify the Kuwait being occupied, right?

You can't just get mad and invade somewhere unless you're America. Unless you're America, which we're going to do to Iraq not much longer after this. But in this case, you know, we're more or less on the better side of things, right? And we basically immediately throw the Iraqi army into a full fledged retreat.

This culminates in late February, 1991, with a huge number of Iraqi soldiers and military vehicles jammed up on a convoy on Highway 80, which is the highway that connects Iraq to Kuwait. And what we do is we use our planes to blow up vehicles on both ends of this convoy of like 3000 vehicles, which then traps thousands and thousands of soldiers inside these walls of fire so we can spend 10 hours bombing them.

And this is fucking hideous. The event is memorialized and this is part of why people think of it as a war crime by a, in a picture by a photo journalist of the corpse of an Iraqi soldier, hideously burned, frozen in time as he tried to flee his flaming tank. And that picture, you can find it, it's, I mean, it's horrible. It's a great example of why war is bad and we should do less of it.

And it is, you know, it's one of those things, a lot of US soldiers who participate in this feel uncomfortable with it, feel like they are unnecessarily killing a large number of people, and you can make that case. You can make a case, and I'll listen to it, feel like they are unnecessarily killing a large number of people and you can make that case. You can make a case and I'll listen to it, that this was hideously evil, but it's not a war crime, right?

Now Saddam's going to make that claim, arguing that his soldiers are trying to peacefully withdraw, but there's like a definition of that and what the Iraqis were doing didn't meet it. What actually happened is that the Iraqi army made contact with the US army and then they went into a retreat. They were attempting to leave the area after losing a fight and they had not formally surrendered. And there's nothing in international law that makes it illegal to kill soldiers who happened to be withdrawing. Right? Great example of this would be 1944 during the Battle of Normandy, there are reports of retreating German soldiers

shot by US soldiers. And there was debate at the time as like, well, is this a violation of the Geneva Conventions, right? And the conclusion that was generally reached then is that you shouldn't kill an enemy who is number one, not in combat, and number two, surrendering. And there is kind of a blurry line between that and retreat.

But again, the vast majority of soldiers killed in war are killed running away, right? Like that's just kinda, I mean, that's changed a bit in the modern era, but like this is, I think more falls under one of those things where everyone sees this as a nightmare, cause it is a nightmare. Those random Iraqi conscripts did not deserve

to burn to death in this charnel house we created on Highway 80. And also like, well, that's just what war is, man. You think we didn't do that to the Nazis? You think the Nazis didn't do that to the fucking Russians? You think that hasn't happened every war? Like that's just what war is, man. That's why we shouldn't do it.

It's really bad. Yeah, it's fucked. The things you're allowed to do are fucked. So the things you're not allowed to do. We did do some things in the, specifically in that incident, which are now, I don't think they're war crimes, but like they use cluster bombs on the highway of death.

Yes, yes. It's a separate agreement. It's not part of the Geneva Convention, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that's a separate agreement. And like, obviously things have, we like at our doctrine and kind of Internet like has changed as a result of that in part because like a lot of American soldiers were like I really didn't feel good about this

Like it doesn't seem like this was necessary at all Yeah, and I I don't think it was necessary right like I don't think it was needed to do this to beat I think the Iraqi army was already beaten. But the question isn't, wasn't necessary. The question is, was this not something that is generally acceptable in war? And it is because war, like again, blowing, like making exploding pieces, like giant boxes filled with shards of metal in order to wound

hundreds of people at a time is acceptable in war, right? Like it's bad. Yeah, bad things happen. We should avoid it if we can. Yeah. So let's continue our list of things that be war crimes. One of them is making improper use of a flag of truce. So you're not allowed to like pretend to surrender or pretend to try to negotiate and then start shooting. That's a war crime. Actually, you're not allowed to transfer parts of the or pretend to try to negotiate and then start shooting. That's a war crime, actually. You're not allowed to transfer parts of the population

of like the civilian population of a territory you occupy to other parts of your territory, which the Russians have done in Ukraine. They have been taking particularly Ukrainian children and moving them to elsewhere in Russia, adopting them out to families. That is a war crime. Turkey's done it in Afrin.

Turkey does a hell of a lot of this, right? They've done a lot of that in Afrin. Yes, as you said. And obviously, the Israeli, well, I mean, the Israeli military, we're actually going to talk about their abduction and imprisonment of Palestinians. Because that also violates, that arguably violates this,

but there's a separate segment of the Rome statues that violates. And then intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science, or charitable purposes. I'm thinking about historical monuments, hospitals, very easy to find examples of that in Gaza, right? Again, the little bit of wiggle room here is like,

if they're being occupied as like an enemy HQ, which is basically what everyone claims when they bomb hospitals, right? The US has done this a lot too. Like we have, especially in Afghanistan, we hit a number of hospitals and it was always like, well, we thought there were some guys there. We weren't trying to, right?

And Russia and Israel both have extensive histories doing this during the Syrian civil war, Russian planes backing the Assad regime, regularly targeted medical facilities in Aleppo, at least 27 times from fall of 2015 to the winter of 2016. More recently, Russia has targeted hospitals and Kerson per this Guardian article, quote, since December, 2022, the Russian army has been bombarding Kerson from dug in positions on the nearby left Eastern flank of the Nipro river.

It has attacked civilian infrastructure, including schools, private residential houses, hospitals, and the railway station. And yeah, it's pretty hideous. These are systematic attacks. The Center for Interinformation Resilience has documented 14 separate attacks over six months between December of 2022 and May of 2023, striking hospital facilities several times with the apparent purpose of degrading their capacity to continue to serve the civilian population.

The targeting of hospitals has also been utterly endemic to Israeli activities in Gaza. In November of 2013, they killed at least 12 people in attacks on the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahya, Gaza. And basically every medical facility in Gaza has been targeted and more than 20 of the 35 hospitals in Gaza have at this point been taken out of service due to damage. The most famous of these

was the Al-Shifa hospital, which held dozens of premature babies, 31 of whom had to be evacuated after weeks of losing power to their incubators and being fed formula mixed with poisoned water. Eight infants died at least I'm sure that number is higher before evacuation. This is obvious war crime, right? Yeah, a friend, Tarik Lubani, who I've interviewed for the show before was in the, was working with the premature babies at that time. You can find interviews with him.

It's just, it's like, I would not recommend reading it unless you want to traumatize yourself. It's honestly one of the most horrible things I've ever had to read about. Yeah. I, it's, it's nightmarish stuff. And I mean, a lot of these are right. Uh, the Rome statues continues with committing outrages upon personal dignity and particular humiliating and degrading treatment. And my God, there's a lot of examples of that from Gaza committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy as defined in article seven, paragraph two, and forced sterilization or any other form of sexual violence

also constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations. So using civilians as shields, right? If you're hiding military forces among a civilian populace, that is also a war crime. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units, that is also a war crime. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings,

material, medical units, that's supposed to be illegal. Starvation, forced starvation of civilians is supposed to be illegal. And conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years old into the national forces, which I've noticed, when I would report on the YPG, some of the people that I reported on were like 17, and people were like, you're using child soldiers,

you can enlist in the British army at 16. That's not illegal. Yeah. You 17 year olds have always been allowed to do war. Yeah. I think they don't deploy them, right? Do they not deploy you? Certainly not 16 year olds, right?

Yeah, but then the epigay, and it's often women actually, it's often the YPJ, right? Cause they've come from abusive homes and they also make an effort not to deploy them from my understanding. Yes, yes. But you are theoretically, you're allowed to deploy 16 year olds, right?

Yeah. So at least as regards to international law. So, and then of course we get to kind of some of the, some of our final war crimes, which, you know, I haven't gone over a comprehensive list, but this gives you a good list of the things covered, you know, between the various different statutes and international agreements. Violation to life in person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment

and torture, committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating or degrading treatment, which is maybe the most common by numbers thing that I see happening in Gaza, right? Certainly not like, the killing is much more offensive, but like there's so many examples of like outrages upon personal dignity, you know, the taking of hostages, the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced

by a regularly constituted court. And then you get to paragraph two, there's a note like after this, all of this stuff that like you're not supposed to do, violence to life in person, committing outrages upon personal dignity, taking hostages, doing summary executions. And then there's a note that like,

this does not apply, this applies only to armed conflicts and not situations of internal disturbances and tensions such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature, which is fun to me, because it's like the international agreements like, well, I mean, countries can do this to their own people

if they want, right? Like that's not a problem, you know? Yeah, go ahead. Which I guess is probably, we're in a gray area with some of what Israel does to Palestinians here, because like one of the things that has been happening for a long time has continued to happen is there are presently 9,500 at least Palestinians from the occupied West Bank in captivity. Prior to October 7th, that was just 5,200 people, so this escalated significantly after

that. Most of these were people who had been arrested before for stuff literally like waving a flag or like posting on social media in sympathy with Gaza. 15 of these people have died since October 7th. A number of them have been tortured and beaten. This is the kind of thing that could be a war crime except for, again, you have that little note that like this doesn't apply to internal disturbances

and the West Bank, you can say that that's an internal disturbance, right? Which is, you know. Bullshit. Yeah, yeah. I don't love that that's the way that that works. And yeah, it know, yeah, yeah. I don't love that. That's the way that that works. And yeah, it's a, it's one of those things.

And another thing, you know, to be fair here, one thing I should note, because we're about to talk about the actual ICC investigation that's going on, the taking of hostages is a war crime. So it's, there's been a lot of, a lot of talk about, because there's been disinformation about how many civilians did Hamas kill, right? Like how many, we had that bleak period of we were arguing, looking at dead babies and arguing with those babies beheaded

or their heads just come off because they burnt. Like Hamas definitely committed war crimes. And we know that because they admitted to them because Hamas does not deny that they took hostages. That's a war crime, right? Again, should you be as offended by the taking of hostages as the killing of 35,000 people from the sky? Well, no, but I would also say that the taking of hostages is not like tear gassing a sniper. I think

that that's bad. You shouldn't take civilian hostages. That makes sense as a war crime to me. Now, this kind of leads us to the crux of our discussion, which is like, should you actually care about what a war crime is and isn't, right? And I'm gonna argue yes, even though as we've made the case here, it's not a perfect thing. This is not a perfect, whether or not something is a war crime

does not make it a perfect measure of morality. I don't think a soldier tossing a tear gas grenade at a sniper, because they don want to get shot by a sniper is like a thing that is horrifying to me. And I do think that, for example, the use of shrapnel shells is horrifying to me. Having seen what happens to people when they get gutted by shrapnel,

I don't think those are good. And I know what I think is a worse thing to do, but even with that taken into account, I think that a lot of this does matter and that it is good that the ICC has recently announced a set of warrants, both against Benjamin Netanyahu and against three Hamas leaders, right?

And I saw some people saying when this got announced that there were like these warrants against these Hamas leaders alongside Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yov Galant, that like, oh, they're both sides in it. No, Hamas took hostages. If the ICC is going after Israel for its clear and obvious war crimes, we know that Hamas took hostages.

It's not wrong that the ICC would issue a warrant there. That's their job, right? And I think that that actually, it's kind of important to do that because if you don't, the Israelis are going to be like, well, they took hostages, that's definitely a war crime, the ICC is invalid because they're not prosecuting this. Now, the reality is that not only has Israel is now Israel kind of gearing up to go to war with the International Criminal Court, but they have been doing that

for years prior to the 7th, right? And in fact, a couple of years ago, I think in 2021, the ICC launched an investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza, right? This started when the former prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Binsouda, made the call to like, yeah, start a formal investigation. And that culminated a couple of weeks ago in the ICC issuing an arrest

warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. And when that process started, there is evidence that the former head of the Massad, the guy who was running the Massad at the time, Yossi Cohen made contact with an ICC prosecutor and basically threatened him. And I'm actually, I'm going to read a quote from a Guardian article here. Cohen's personal involvement in the operation against the ICC took place when he was the director of the Mossad. His activities were authorized at a high level and justified on the basis the court posed

a threat of prosecutions against military personnel in court, according to a senior Israeli official. Another Israeli source briefed on the operation against Binsudah said that the Mossad's objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who could cooperate with Israel's demands. A third source familiar with the operation said Cohen was acting as Netanyahu's unofficial messenger. Cohen, who was one of Netanyahu's closest allies at the time and is emerging as a political

force in his own right in Israel, personally led the Mossad's involvement in an almost decade-long campaign by the country to undermine the court. According to accounts shared with ICC officials, he's alleged to have told her, you should help us and let us take care of you. You don't want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family, which is very much mob shit, right? Like it couldn't be more mob shit. And it's like, I don't actually think that is a war crime.

I don't even know. Cause I guess they didn't even think anyone would do that right like that you would just like hey You know we could break your fucking legs You know Miss prosecutor lady like we the massage I don't even know that that is at least from my reading over of the Rome statutes. That's not listed Maybe they should add that one in there, But yeah, this has been a brief overview of what be a war crime. I hope you find this helpful in your discussions of what be a war crime.

But I do kind of want to end on the note again, does any of this matter? What's gonna, well, no. Do I think that like Benjamin Netanyahu is going to actually be taken to Den Haag and fucking chains? I mean, maybe someday actually. I don't think that that's impossible.

I don't think we should give up hope for that. And this is a necessary precursor to that. And I think it's good. I think the evidence that this is valuable. If you actually, if you want my best case for why this matters, Israel spent 10 years previous to the announcement of this warrant, running, devoting Mossad resources to an underground

campaign to sabotage and threaten the ICC. That means they see this as a threat. They consider prosecutions like this to be dangerous to them. And that means you should at least passively support what the ICC is doing here. Netanyahu's regime considers this a threat to their operations, to what they're doing in Gaza, and I think that's enough of a reason to think that it's good. Yeah, yeah, if they think it's going to stop them murdering civilians, then yeah, it's good that we don't need to be around the bush too much. Like anyway, yeah, yeah, it'd be nice to see someone

who wasn't from Africa prosecuted at the Hague. They got those Serbians, right? They got a couple of Serbs. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, let's throw an Israeli or two in there. And yeah, some of those Hamas guys, I'm fine. Like look, something, let's try to do something. Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe let's make a statement that it's bad to murder and kidnap civilians. It's bad to, yeah, I don't know. We're very critical of the idea that there ever was a rules-based international order,

but I think we should try that sometime. It'd be nice to have some rules. Yeah. Anyway, James, anything else to add before we cut out here? Don't engage in war crimes. Don't commit a war crime. Yeah. Don't commit a war crime.

Avoid that if you can. Yeah. Don't engage in war crimes. Don't commit a war crime. Yeah, don't commit a war crime. Avoid that if you can. Don't engage in war if you don't have to. It's not really- Really try to avoid war because one of the things come at reading through this, I just, I think about all the things I've seen that I'm like, well, I could argue that that was a war crime, you know? Yeah.

They happen a lot, it turns out. Or at least edge cases are most of the things you see in war. Yes. Anyway, we're done. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here as a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the

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