Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 201

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists

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Starting point is 00:01:28 Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Jemma Spag, host of the Psychology of Your 20s. This September at the Psychology of Your 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real life physical pain.

Starting point is 00:01:57 Learn more about the psychology of everyday life and, of course, your 20s this September. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package 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 going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. It's me, James, today, and I'm very fortunate to be joined by Francis, whose husband Amos is facing a date in immigration court this week. We wanted to bring you a first-time perspective of what it's like going through immigration court right now. So, Francis, thank you for joining us.

Starting point is 00:02:55 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course. We're very glad you're here. So to start with, like, would you like to explain your families? I know this is a lengthy topic, your family's immigration story? Yes. I met my husband Amos in Hollywood. We were both living in Hollywood, and we dated a couple years there and then ended up moving to his home country of Tunisia because he had a big family there and I don't have much family. here and we wanted to have children. It's much better cost of living there. And at the time, the government there was doing pretty well. There had been an Arab Spring, which my husband was very much involved with over here in the States, like helping with that. And so he's an

Starting point is 00:03:41 activist. And at the time, the government there was pretty good. So we lived there for eight years, had our children there. And a new presidency came in while we were living there. The current President Caius Saeed, and things started to change. So my husband was doing a lot of organizing grassroots movement through local farmers unions and monitoring elections and doing pro-democracy activities for anti-corruption, and he's really an activist for free speech and things like that. So he started getting harassed. He was arrested. He was beaten up by the police and things like that. So it started getting very uncomfortable also. I was getting harassed. I would get pulled over a lot by the police. They would impound our car. They would take

Starting point is 00:04:35 us out. Yeah, the police there carry big guns, you know, as in most Arab countries. And so it was very frightening for me. Yeah. They carry big guns. They're either on their backs or even in their hands. And they would have me and the kids get out of the car. And it was very frightening. So the children and I, well, we were all planning on coming back to the States. I hadn't been home in a while. And so the children and I went ahead and came, assuming that my husband would be able to get at least a visa to, you know, see us. And while once we were here, he was not able to get a visa. He tried and tried and tried. And I was begging the embassy to allow him to see us here and they just would not. So we were separated for nine months. So him being away from our

Starting point is 00:05:27 children, they were about four and six at the time, or maybe five and seven. It was devastating for all of us. So he ended up taking a very treacherous journey across South America and made his way through many countries and presented himself for asylum at the border because, again, we did not feel safe living in Tunisia anymore. So he presented himself for asylum at the border. And And they allowed him into this country with a court date. And at the time, Biden was president, so things are, you know, have changed a lot since then. Yeah. You know, the immigration system is broken.

Starting point is 00:06:04 Everybody knows that. It takes years and years and years and tons and tons of money for an immigrant to, you know, go through the process. You know, people who say, oh, just do it the right way. It's not that simple. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time, and it's very complicated. and when you're fleeing a country or a situation where you're in danger, there is no other option. You know, there's nowhere to go back. Right. So that's what we're kind of facing now. So he had a court date. We've had five master hearings, and we've gone through a few different

Starting point is 00:06:42 lawyers because we have found, for one thing, it's extremely difficult to find a lawyer these days because they're very overbooked. Most of them are not taking new cases. People tell us, oh, just get a pro bono lawyer. It is almost impossible to get a pro bono lawyer anymore. And, you know, who has thousands and thousands of extra dollars to pay for legal help with the situation? We do have a lawyer now, thanks to some fundraising that we've done. So since he's been here, we've had to check in at the ICE office.

Starting point is 00:07:14 Like it was on sort of a basis of after you have a court hearing the next day or within a couple days, you must go checking at ICE. And it's been very fine. Like there's a very nice officer there who knows us and tries to help answer our questions. So it was pretty calm when Biden was president. And then now that Trump's administration has taken over, we knew that there would be a lot of changes and we were very frightened. Yeah. So we went for a hearing earlier this year, you know, we're just a lot more nervous. And the hearing went fine, just kind of as normal. We went to the ice check-in. I think our guard was kind of down because we thought, since the hearing went fine, this will go fine. And the nice officer told us, you know, well, this is going to sound a little scary, but we need you to go check in at a different place this time. And so they sent us to a company called ISAP. They own, I think, my detention centers. So we went to this place and he was there the whole day. They were interviewing him. They put an app in his phone so that now he has to do these weekly check-ins where his phone makes this loud alarm sound. He must stop everything and take a picture of himself. There's a monthly home visit where they come to our house and take his picture and ask him questions. We have to go check in at their office. And also he does virtual check-ins. So it's just a lot.

Starting point is 00:08:41 more. And everything was kind of going as planned. Our last hearing in July, that was really stressful because we didn't have a lawyer leading up to it. And at the last second, we were able to get a lawyer. And the reason it's so important to have a lawyer is because if you don't, you must appear in person. And that's very stressful and frightening. Again, we have small children. We don't even do babysitters. Like, we're always just together. We're a very tight family unit. And So we go to these things together and we really wanted this last one in July to be virtual because if it's virtual, you know, it just feels a lot safer. We're in the comfort of our own home and we've been hearing in the news, you know, how they're picking up people outside of their court hearings. So we got the attorney. We got a virtual hearing. It was a very short hearing. It was great because she just gave us the next hearing date was September of 2028. And the judge said, okay. See you in 2028. And we breathed a sigh of relief, crossed our fingers, did our necessary check-ins.

Starting point is 00:09:48 And we were just, you know, hoping that everything would be fine. Yeah. Well, just here at the end of August, beginning of September, we get out of the blue a new notice. It was very interesting, too, because this ISAP company calls us and says, good news, we're going to lessen the amount of check-ins you have to do. It's going to be a lot less now. So, you know, it was interesting because she was like, this is great news for you. It's like once a month.

Starting point is 00:10:13 You'll still do the weekly ones and then it's just going to be once a month. Okay. But then she says, and then we'll see you after your hearing in September, meaning this September. And we thought it was a mistake because we knew we had one in 2028. Yeah. Like, no, no, you got a new hearing notice. So that's how we found out. They didn't send it to us.

Starting point is 00:10:33 Even our lawyer didn't know. So we find out that we have a new hearing out of the blue. there was a mix-up about the dates, but anyway, it was September 11th or 15th, and then our attorney asked for an extension, and the most they could give us was nine days. So now our hearing is this coming Wednesday, September 24th. And this has never happened before, but again, when you have an attorney, you can appear virtually. And on this hearing notice, it said that the attorney can appear virtually, but the respondent must appear in person. And that is highly unusual. It's in bold at the top. So our attorney agrees with us that it's pretty clear. The plan is what they've been doing now is when you go to court, they drop your case. So now it's dismissed. And therefore, you are just here without due process. Now you don't have a right to due process. It's done. So you're just here illegally. And then they are sometimes waiting for you in the hallway or outside the building to take you to ICE detention.

Starting point is 00:11:36 So obviously since we found this out, I mean, we've just been sleepless nights, full panic mode of figuring out what to do. And then our attorney doesn't even have answers for us. She does not know what to do. She says this is all new to her. It's new to all the lawyers. She doesn't even know what to do or who to ask. And that's frightening because that's why we have an attorney. We're hoping for some support or someone who's knowledgeable. about the law and what are our options and it feels like we don't have any. We feel extremely helpless and I've never thought I would see this in my country, my quote unquote free country that I have lived in most of my life and grew up in. Also, about two weeks ago, they changed the law where now we are not entitled to a bond hearing. So if he is taken into detention, we can't even get him out because that was the first thing we thought was, well, let's just try to get some money together and we'll bail him out. Yeah. That's not even an option anymore. So again, more fear. So we're dealing with all of this and wondering what to do as far as, you know, again, we have small children.

Starting point is 00:12:52 They're now seven and nine years old. We're extremely happy where we're living. We live in a small community that does lean on the conservative side. So we do feel a little uncomfortable with some of our neighbors and their flags and everything. They're very bold. Yeah. So, you know, and you can't hide being brown. So it's, it's awkward. And then our children, because of the way that we left before, when we left Tunisia, it was pretty sudden. We kind of took them out of school and just came to America and left their dad behind. So they've been in therapy ever since. They each have a weekly therapist just to help with if they're, you know, if they're going to have any symptoms of trauma coming up for them. And, and they're doing

Starting point is 00:13:35 great, actually. They're thriving here. They are so happy. They're in the best school. I actually work at their school. And my husband volunteers at the school. And he's been their soccer coach for both of their teams, which is a lot to take on. He also volunteers in our community at a ranch, um, helping with horses and at a, uh, facility for senior citizens. And, um, he does have a work permit. They granted him a work permit, which took a long time to get. That's good, because that can take a long time. It took a long time over a year, but he does have it now. So we got excited because he only got the work permit a couple months ago, so we're very excited. You know, he can work. And now it's just out of the blue. Our world is turned upside down where there's a strong potential that he will be

Starting point is 00:14:26 taken into ICE custody. And listen, I understand if that's how they want to do things now, but if it was like a safer situation where maybe they just, I don't know, it's just there's so many unknowns about where are they taking him. Our lawyer does not think we will be informed about where they take him. That's one thing, which means we probably won't be able to communicate with him. We don't know how long he'll be there. They could keep him there the entire three years until 2028. They might just want to keep him in detention and wait for his next year. It doesn't make any sense to me because that costs money and he's a taxpayer. Wouldn't it pay more if he's home working? By the way, yes, he has no criminal record whatsoever. He has not broken any immigration laws,

Starting point is 00:15:22 at least when he came over the border, it was legal to present yourself for asylum when you are coming from a country like he was where he was, you know, being harassed, detained. Right. And his entire family, like we were being threatened and feeling very unsafe there. So. Yeah, it's a textbook asylum place, right? Yeah, we have a valid asylum claim. We've submitted hundreds of documents of evidence to the court. You know, the judge actually complimented us on how well we did because at the

Starting point is 00:15:52 At the time, we didn't have an attorney. We were just trying to do it on our own because we couldn't afford an attorney. We were both college graduates, so we put together a really organized, you know, case. And so I have filed to sponsor him as well, you know, as my husband. Yeah. We've been together 12 years, married 10, two kids, and they don't care about that. It does not matter if he has an American family. It does not matter.

Starting point is 00:16:18 They are taking anybody. Yeah. And that also is very, very frustrating. And that's the reason that we should have due process. They should be looking at every single case individually and have a judge make a decision. That's the whole point of it. Obviously, if we had hindsight,

Starting point is 00:16:46 if we had known that this, you know, could have happened, we had no idea that this could have. could have happened in our country. We would have started this sponsorship process a long time ago. The reason we didn't is because he was married before, and he went through this process with USCIS to try to get sponsorship with his first wife. And it was extremely complicated and frustrating and cost a lot of money. And he went through a bunch of lawyers. And he was so traumatized by the experience that literally we had big legal files in our house that I had to hide because he couldn't even see them or he would get triggered. So he didn't want to. to put me through that. And we were living in Tunisia anyway. And so we just figured we were just kind of kicking the can down the road thinking, oh, we'll deal with it at some point. Unfortunately, we waited way too long and, you know, didn't start dealing with it until he got here. And so USCIS, which is where we, you know, file for this sponsorship. Yeah. U.S. Customs Immigration Service, people are not familiar. Yes. Thank you. After we filed that they gave us a time period on when we would

Starting point is 00:17:50 get the decision, it was 15 months that we would have to wait. And we've been checking the site, checking the site, checking the site, has been counting down, counting down. And about a month ago, we were down to a week. Oh, well, okay. That we would be getting a decision. And after the week passed, it changed. The message on the app now, or the website now says indefinitely, you'll have to wait indefinitely for this decision. So we've been trying to ask our lawyer, please push for this. Because if that gets, you know, an answer, that would be great. But the answer could be no on that as well. They could just say, no, come on in and they can take them straight from there as well. So the whole thing is so incredibly stressful and frightening the

Starting point is 00:18:35 fact that my government, I'm in America, I'm an American citizen with two American kids, and my government is threatening to tear our family apart and take my husband away, the father of my children, and traumatize my children. again, to have their dad not with us and Lord knows where they're going to send him, it is absolutely infuriating and it feels like agony too because like every day I wake up and I'm counting down the days to this hearing and we have no idea what's going to happen. It feels very, very threatening to our safety and our livelihood and that it's coming from our government does not make me feel like this is a great country to live in and I do

Starting point is 00:19:20 feel safe living here. Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. That's a lot to have to put out there. So thank you for sharing it. I guess we should just explain for people, like, there's a lot of stuff that maybe people who haven't been through the system might not grasp within that, right? So what the government has, if I just break down, like the dismissal of cases, as I understand it, what the government has been doing has been dismissing people's asylum case, right, which they got under Title 8 when they entered under the Biden administration and then placing them in expedited removal proceedings, which is a mandatory detention, as you said, right? It's not a bailout situation. And then, as you say, forcing them to fight from detention, right, which in this case

Starting point is 00:20:05 would obviously stop your husband from working, stop your husband from paying taxes and instead make him a burden on the American taxpayer while he's detained in conditions which can often be very poor. In that situation, your only sort of claim is a credible fear of torture, right, which is something that in your case it sounds like would be very real. But nonetheless, that is a very high bar. And we've seen the United States do all kinds of things to get around that. And we report on that all the time. So I can understand that fear and where it comes from, I think people will be shocked, but they perhaps shouldn't be to hear that, like, yes, you can be a US citizen married to an un-U.S. And this can still happen to you.

Starting point is 00:20:46 it can happen to anyone who is not a citizen in this country right now. I wonder, like, it must have been pretty heartbreaking to see the election, to see the rhetoric. Like, how does that line up with your lives in your community? Because I see this often, even from really conservative people, right? Like, I know people who voted for Trump, who have also shown up to, like, cook for asylum seekers in the desert. or to help refugees living in our community. Like, it's a very strange thing.

Starting point is 00:21:23 Have you felt alienated from your community since the beginning of this year? Like, I'm interested in, like, how your lives have changed because of that change in rhetoric. Yes. Like I said, we have neighbors on our street, so there was a block party for 4th of July, which I didn't even feel like celebrating. But we had just moved into this house, so we felt, you know, like we should. go at least meet the neighbors. And there's a lot of Trump flags on our street. And it was very awkward. But my husband is very charming and charismatic and outgoing. And he just goes right up and

Starting point is 00:21:57 introduces himself. And there was one gentleman wearing a t-shirt that said, they hate us because they ain't us. And it's got a big old, you know, Trump face on it. And it was just so, so awkward. So yeah, we feel uncomfortable. Also, like I said, it leans conservative in this community. And our school, even, like, as we're doing this fundraiser, we were very careful not to share it with anyone that we live near just in case, you know, because we have been hearing reports of people like neighbors calling ICE on their neighbors to, you know, report them and, you know, go pick up this person, you know, he looks brown or I don't know what they're doing or their logic. But, you know, yeah, it feels very threatening. And even, oh, my daughter even said, Can't data just cover up his skin? You know, like she was just thinking, like, yeah, was he going to wear her cup? Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, you can't really hide who you are.

Starting point is 00:22:55 No. And you shouldn't have to. Right. And it's very hard for the kids to be saying that, yeah, that dad should be hiding who he is. Yeah. And they've asked me, how can we make Trump just forget about data, you know? And I said, well, he doesn't really know, they don't, you know, he doesn't know exactly your dad. They're doing this to a lot of people, you know? Right.

Starting point is 00:23:16 We just happen to be in that group. But I will say we have some close friends that we really adore, and they are Trumpers. You know, we see it on their Facebook page, but then when we're in their presence, they don't bring it up. And it's just kind of an elephant in the room. And honestly, as our current data is getting closer, we plan on having them over to talk about it because it feels very awkward. And I just think they're just the kindest people. They're extremely religious, which we are not. We're more on the spiritual side.

Starting point is 00:23:47 But, you know, I think they're just on a team. They've chosen a team. And I don't think they're necessarily paying a lot of attention to what's actually happening to people. So we're hoping that just a conversation will just let them know. We want to be honest with the people that are close to us and that mean a lot to us, you know, because we don't know what's about to happen. And even there's members of my family that I feel very awkward talking to as well,

Starting point is 00:24:13 where I've kind of distanced myself because people who are still supporting this regime at this point, to me, are too far gone to even kind of get them to come around. I guess. I mean, I just don't understand. I can't understand support of Trump from the first place. So, again, if people are still on that boat,

Starting point is 00:24:37 I really don't relate to them. And it's very awkward, especially, yeah, people in my family who supposedly love me and my children, you know, are still supporting that regime. And despite seeing all the things, maybe they don't see it. I mean, I know they, if they are exclusively watching Fox News, then they are only receiving that information, which is not telling the whole story. Right. And it's definitely completely skewed to make them look like the good guys. And anyone on, that's liberal, is a bad guy. And they're very much targeting, you know, Democrats now as the enemy, the enemy of the state, they have even

Starting point is 00:25:19 said. So it's, I mean, it's, so now I'm starting to feel even unsafe for myself, because I'm, I'm not super active on, on Facebook, but I, I am outspoken because I can't resist. I mean, I, it's, there is freedom of speech in this country, or at least there was, and there should be. And it's hard to be quiet at this time. And I, we would be a lot more outspoken if we would, we weren't feeling unsafe. Yeah, but you have that fear. Yes, yes. Especially my husband, because he's always been an activist and a, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:52 fighter for free speech and equal rights. And so it's, that's one of the things that's really crushing him and his soul and his spirit through all this is that he cannot even speak out. Yeah. So, you know, for people like him, it's not even for himself, but just for people like him, I know he wants to help, you know. and it's really challenging. I know.

Starting point is 00:26:15 It's so sad to see the whole point of the asylum system and like at least the sort of stated purpose of American foreign policy. It's sort of spread democracy throughout the world and allowed people who have stood up for democracy and been persecuted to come here and be safe. Evidently, the United States doesn't even believe it's saying that anymore in so much as it said it,

Starting point is 00:26:36 didn't always do it in the past. Yeah, it is really sad to think that like even that it's gone. Yeah. For so many people, I think the idea of migrants is like an abstract one, right? For your Fox News viewer, migrants are just like an abstract, brown-skinned, bad person. And I often think that if those people had known migrants in their community, they would either not vote that way or they would at least not like that policy. Even if there were other things they liked about Trump, which that's not something I can find much understanding of.

Starting point is 00:27:07 And those people do exist, but it's just so sad to see like people. turned against anyone who wasn't born in this country. Yeah. And simply because they were not because of any, any other character trait they have. Particularly the brown skin, though, because you have to admit the Canadians, I mean, even though there's been a little tension with the Canadians at first in this regime, you know, they're pretty much under the radar and anyone from Europe or anyone, he's even said, like, send the Nordic people, that's fine.

Starting point is 00:27:36 You know, I mean, he's very clear. Right. Yeah, the South Africans refugees are welcome. Come on. Yeah, right. It's just so blatant, you know. And I remember when I was growing up, my mom in particular would complain when we started to have to press one for English. I remember my mom complaining about that or thinking, you know, if you're here, you should learn the language.

Starting point is 00:28:01 Well, I got to say, I lived in Tunisia for eight years and I did not learn the language. I tried to teach myself. It's a dialect that, you know, at the time, they didn't have lessons that you could get on on you. or Duolingo or anything, you know, if I learned French and Arabic, maybe I could piece something together. But I, you know, it's not as easy as people say. And yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's not. And then, just to speak of my mother, I guess I will say, she prides herself on making friends with people at the grocery store who are of another ethnicity or like really, you know, getting to know a doctor or she has a housekeeper who's been working for her for like 30 years.

Starting point is 00:28:44 And so I know she doesn't think of that person as being someone that shouldn't be here. Right. So I think even if you do know a family or two who's an immigrant, you might think, oh, well, not them. I don't mean them. I mean all the other ones. I mean all the bad guys. Yeah, the bad ones. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:03 And if Trump was serious about getting the bad ones, go to the gang. neighborhoods. We do know where the dangerous gang neighborhoods are, but they're not sending the tanks there. They're sending them to MacArthur Park, you know? Home Depot. It's like, if you want to get the gangs, get the gangs. But I think they're too scared of that because these are really just regular people that they're hiring to do this work for them, to pick up people. And that's why they're hiding their faces, because they are regular people who would like to probably have a normal life outside of this new job that they've been so well paid for. Right. Yeah. And certainly they're recruiting a lot more people to do that right now, which is

Starting point is 00:29:46 can I only see a step up in enforcement? Yeah. I wonder like in so much anything has helped because people will want to help, right? Like I think will listen, they will understand your situation, they will see the possibility of your family being torn apart and want to help. But it's hard to help right now, unless you're an immigration lawyer and every pro bono immigration lawyer I know is mental health damaging levels of overworked and stressed and traumatized. I think so. What can people do either for you or in their communities to like show up for people who are in your situation? I would say donate, you could donate to the ACLU donate to individual families like ours. I'm sure I think there's a lot of GoFundMe's out there

Starting point is 00:30:40 that people are trying to raise money for. That's the way, you know, everything is kind of done these days when people are desperate and speak out. And I think the most important thing is have conversations and get to know people. And even like I sometimes I see, you know, a Hispanic person in a grocery store, I just want to tell them, thank you for being here. I'm glad you're here because I think they must be feeling so scared. right now and so unwanted and so unappreciated when they're doing some of the hardest jobs that nobody else wants to do for very little money. Yeah, these are essential workers. They should be paid the most. Everything is backwards. The people who are doing the hardest, you know,

Starting point is 00:31:23 cleaning the toilets and picking the fields, they should be paid the most. It doesn't make any sense regardless of where they're from. They're willing to do the work. And Lord knows their background of where they came from and how what the struggles that they've been through to leave their home country. Nobody wants to leave their home country. You do that because it's so bad that you must, you know, especially if you have children, you're trying to make a better life for yourself. And we've been sold on this American dream prospect, you know, that we've heard our whole lives and the whole world has heard about. Yeah. So they come and now we're just punishing them brutally. It's not even like, oh, no, sorry, we're full. You know, we're going to have to send you

Starting point is 00:32:05 back, it's like, no, we're going to punish you. We're going to treat you like dogs, call you animals and vermin and call you horrible things, send you to places where you're unsafe and untaken care of. And maybe if you're lucky, you'll get sent back to your home country. Or you'll get sent to a random country or even a prison, like a horrible prison in another country where who knows what's good. It's just, this is what frightens me. Yeah. You know, again, if he was sent to somewhere to a place where I could, you know, we could have visits or calls or, you know, and he waits it out. I guess that would be more tolerable than the unknown of his safety. He's not going to be well taken care of. That's a fact. They don't care about these people.

Starting point is 00:32:50 And my husband, unfortunately, he's always been extremely strong, extremely brave, a fighter. And I feel like his fight is gone. He's physically and mentally at the end of his rope. And I'm extremely frightened. I mean, he just feels like he's tired of fighting. He's just exhausted from this, you know, again, he, I mean, we've been together 12 years. And again, he was going through this process with his first wife, who he was with for eight years. And he never got an answer. He was never denied, but he just never got an answer.

Starting point is 00:33:22 And that was enough for them for our case just to, you know, it's going to be really, really difficult to get a yes for a green card. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it still happens. I've heard of it happening even in the last few months, but it is increasingly harder and less common. And that is brutal. Yeah. Like it's horrible. And the way, of course, as you're saying, the system is designed to make you feel hopeless and just to, as they call it, self-deport. Yes. And even our lawyer doesn't know what to do. And I feel the judge seems like a nice person. And I would imagine it must be, very frustrating too to be a judge at this time, where they have to be the ones that are just kind of their hands are tied. They will lose their job if they don't do what the regime wants them to do. So, you know, this is what happens in third world countries. This is why America has been great because we weren't like this before with us, you know, cutting out free speech and things like that. It's changing rapidly. And if people don't stand up, more, and I'm sorry, but it's going to have to take more than these peaceful protests,

Starting point is 00:34:36 unfortunately, because they're not doing anything. We are being laughed at by the MAGA Republicans. They do not care about our peaceful protests. They're just like, okay, there's a protest on this day. Next day, they're just going to keep doing it harder, you know? Sure, yeah. It's not changing anything. So something has to change. I'm hoping more celebrities come out and start speaking up. I think that would help because people tend to back the celebrities that they love, and I'm kind of alarmed that more people, like, especially the most powerful celebrities, like Oprah, for example, why aren't they out there every day? Yeah. You know, saying, this is what I support and this is what I don't support. I think they're

Starting point is 00:35:16 scared, I'm assuming. It would imagine so, yeah, like, that's quite a sad thought. I do think that the mega-Republicans are outnumbered, and I think that they're continuously going to be outnumbered as things get more and more, you know, shocking as we're seeing our freedoms being stripped, the constitutional freedoms that we've always known being stripped. I think it's going to get worse, and I don't know how bad it has to get before change happens. Yeah, I don't think any of us do. I do think you're right, the more and more people are not happy with how this is happening, but there's, there doesn't even seem to be a well among Democrats to oppose this in a meaningful way. Yeah. She's very sad and like... Yeah, even the Democrats in power don't know what to do.

Starting point is 00:36:01 I mean... Yeah, and they seem to think that it's electoral suicide to just to be basically decent and say we need to be decent people and kind to people who come here asking us to help them. And there seems to be something that is just inadmissible in electoral politics, which is really sad right now. Yeah. So you guys have your court date. We will obviously continue covering this. Thank you so much. Yeah, we're going to continue updating people. We will continue talking about this and uncovering this. And yeah, we'll try and get an update out.

Starting point is 00:36:33 This is coming out. You'll be hearing this on Monday. We will try and get an update out within a week or so just to let everyone know how things have gone and what they can do to help. Is there anything else you'd like to say to people before we go? Yeah. So as we found out, you know, that there's a good possibility that he will be taken into iced attention on Wednesday. We ask our lawyer, okay, so what are the next steps if that happens? What, you know, he has a constitutional right to due process of law habeas corpus.

Starting point is 00:37:03 And she doesn't know what to do. She's never done it before. So, therefore, we need to find a different lawyer that can help us with that. It's not in immigration court. It's federal court. So we have inquiries. We actually have a consult today with someone who maybe help us with that. We sent emails out last night, kind of telling our story to another lawyer,

Starting point is 00:37:23 hoping that we can get some support. And on that front, because basically that's your next step. Once you're in detention, you raise your constitutional rights of due process of law. But then, again, it's another fight. And again, it could be from detention, which is, yeah, more money. I'm going to be at that point a single mother, you know, trying to support bills here in California, which is already, you know, difficult. And, on my own and also paying lawyers and trying to fight to either find my husband or get him out of there. You know, we don't want to leave the country if we don't have to. We love it here. I don't know where else to go. We can't go to Tunisia. I'm American. Where are we supposed to go? Yeah. And that's

Starting point is 00:38:15 what people don't understand too with immigrants. You know, if they can't return to their home country because of safety reasons, which is most of the cases, that's why we have asylum cases, then what are they supposed to do? You know? Yeah, and I don't think a lot of people seem to care, right? They think people, they just want people to go away somewhere. Yeah, go figure it out. Yeah, it's not our problem.

Starting point is 00:38:37 Yeah. Which, like, in this case, it very much is, and in every case. And, like, it is our problem that, like, we should take responsibility for all another's well-being, right? Yes, as human. We should care about each other. Yes, to have empathy, at least. It's the least we could do.

Starting point is 00:38:54 Yeah, I know. A society that says it's not my problem, it's not one that any of us should want to live in. Yeah, yeah. And in our case, my husband's particularly worried because if he does get sent back to Tunisia, most definitely he would be in jail there as well, which is also not a pleasant experience. Yeah, to put it mildly. And it would be, yeah, where they torture people in jail. So, yeah, again, we don't really know what to do or where to go,

Starting point is 00:39:19 but these are the thoughts that we're having. Yeah, they're not unreasonable. Yeah, if we do self-deport, when do we, like we're trying to push it as long as we can, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay. You know, and then when do we let them know, okay, okay, I guess we'll self-deport. Like, at the last second before they take them into detention, like, you know, I don't know the safe way to do that. Right.

Starting point is 00:39:43 And then if we do, can they give us time to get our affairs in order? Like, leaving the country is no small task, and we need. They don't even have money to do that. So, you know, these are our options. These are literally our options. And again, small children, second grade, fourth grade, you know, and they're thriving here. Like, they don't deserve this. And my husband even said, you know, he said this the other day, like, our children don't deserve this.

Starting point is 00:40:08 And I said, no children deserve the horrors of this planet, you know, that, I mean, we're actually a lot luckier than a lot of other children. So, but at the same time, there are children and this is a problem that we're dealing with. And unfortunately, they have to deal with it too. You know, that's just what a family is. Yeah. Our goal is to stay together no matter what. We want to keep my husband safe and we want to keep us together. That's our number one goal.

Starting point is 00:40:38 So unfortunately, that may mean that we need to leave. And I will be very, very sad if that's the case because I have always loved this country. it's always stood for greatness and ironically the group that thinks they're going to make America great again is failing miserably yeah yeah yeah it's incredibly sad and like you say you've already upped and left your children once yes to come to a safe place to be safe and then to have to do it again from that safe place I'm sure we'll be on the older they get more than they realize what's happening yeah it's only two years later you know the poor kids yeah exactly well I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Starting point is 00:41:17 Yeah, thank you. This sucks. We'll all be thanking of you. Thank you very much. And, yeah, if you're listening, I will try and keep you updated over the next few weeks. Thank you so much, James. All right. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:41:30 Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians.

Starting point is 00:42:00 I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel demoralized? I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith, but there's an institution. that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I believe in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other, sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country.

Starting point is 00:42:30 This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast. If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then have we got good news for you. Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.

Starting point is 00:43:02 There's a shootout in broad daylight. People using axes in really terrible ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards. So check out the Stuff You Should Know True Crime playlist. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged.

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Starting point is 00:43:55 From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your The devil walks in Aberstown. Do you want to hear the secrets of serial killers, psychopaths, pedophiles, robbers? They are sitting there waiting for the vulnerable thing. They're waiting for the unprotected. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. I advocate for safety and awareness of predators while wearing pink. When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze.

Starting point is 00:44:39 We ended up talking for hours and I was like, this girl is my best friend. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with sarcasm, satire, and hard truths. I'm not going to fake it and force it for me. But would you force an orgasm? Because that's like a different layer. The car accident you didn't want to see but couldn't turn away from. In this episode, I discussed personal safety and self-defense tools, instincts and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in everyday life and high-risk situations.

Starting point is 00:45:11 Listen to intentionally disturbing. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, welcome back to It Could Happen here, a podcast where I just got vaccinated. And boy, howdy, the shit this year hits like a fucking train. Yeah, it does. I got vaccinated. It's a rough one this year. Oh, man. Yeah. Fucking RFK Jr. was right. Broadcasting through the vaccine injury today. that's right. I've received my vaccine injury. I'm complaining to the board. Oh, man, I'm going to nap

Starting point is 00:45:50 after this. But first, how about we talk about fucking Trin de Aragoa, the fucking narco criminal group that President Trump is currently justifying blowing up boats in the middle of international waters as a result of. Yeah, it's great. It's a good thing that we are now killing civilians in countries where we're not at war with. It's great. Yeah. This has been something Stephen Miller had been talking about since the first Trump administration, you know, and had talked with, like, back when the military was willing to push back against Trump more, people would be like, what the fuck are you talking about? We can't launch strikes at just like random boats. Yeah. And Stephen Miller would be like, why not? And now they're doing it.

Starting point is 00:46:31 Yeah. And this group, this criminal cartel out of Venezuela, has been the current justification, as we'll talk about most of what is said about this trend de Aragua by the administration about, you know, their role in smuggling drugs in the United States is either just completely invented or massively exaggerated. Yeah. It is a really interesting group. They have a fascinating, like, history. The literal meaning is train of Aragua.

Starting point is 00:46:58 Yeah, Aragua. Aragua, sorry. And it started out with like labor unions that were working on a railway project. Yeah. It was going to be connecting Central and Western Venezuela together. And as has happened in history, what started as like labor union organizing wound up kind of morphing into direct criminal activity. Yeah. The guy who's generally credited as the founder, although that's kind of flattening things a little bit, is Hector Guerrero Flores, known as Niño Guerrero.

Starting point is 00:47:26 And he got put in for 17 years for murder and drug trafficking at this prison called Tokaron. Am I saying that right, James? How do we say? Yeah, Tokoron. Is there an accent? Yeah, there's a little accent over the second, oh. Is it go up or down? Up.

Starting point is 00:47:42 Tocoron. Tokaron. Thank you, James. Yeah, and so this, one of the things that's fun about this is that this prison where they start loading these guys up become so heavily organized. And it eventually turns from being like a prison in the traditional sense to more being like a tiny independent city that the gang is based out of and acted as their fortress. They established like nightclubs in it and, you know, luxury facilities. and like leaders of the gang more or less came and went as they pleased, went back to their families. And it was not really what you'd think of as a prison in the traditional sense for a

Starting point is 00:48:18 lot of these guys for a while. A payment system was created in order to like basically you would inmates would pay for protection or for access to the nicer aspects of the prison called the cause. And if you didn't pay, you know, they had various ways of physically abusing you. There's a good article in Small Wars Journal that talks about the origins and the impact of this group and it quotes someone from inside the person is saying the first time you don't pay, they shoot your wrist the second time

Starting point is 00:48:45 your ankle the third time and you face the death penalty. Jesus. So like you're talking like pretty traditional criminal gang stuff, right? Yeah. So the journey of this group from gang that's major in Venezuela to gang that's kind of operating in larger and larger

Starting point is 00:49:01 chunks of South America followed a pretty natural path where they got involved in more kinds of smuggling and more kinds of trafficking over the years, started setting up operations in other parts of South America. But one of the things that the gang has sort of done is you've got this kind of process by which they have these local affiliates who are not directly associated with the gang in like the strict hierarchical sense in that it's not literally the gang sending an official into another state.

Starting point is 00:49:33 It's more like franchising is kind of the way thing. work. And you have different local groups, some of whom are not even connected in any way to the original organization claiming a line of dissent in order to basically draft off of that clout, you know? Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of what you've seen increasingly. And this has led to a situation where there's enough claims of trend being involved in the United States and other countries that it looks a lot like a larger and more centralized criminal organization than it actually is in reality. Yeah, I think the state understands these things like mini-states, right?

Starting point is 00:50:10 Like with a leader and a distinct authority structure and like a direct command chain, that is not how my understanding is that they operate, right? Because they are not mini-states. They are a different entity to that. Yeah, and what is your, because you've actually spent time reporting in Venezuela. When did you first become aware of Trent? I mean, I became aware of like the fact that they, There were armed gangs and criminal.

Starting point is 00:50:36 I mean, I was robbed at gunpoint when I was in Venezuela, right? So that made me aware that there were people who did crime with weapons. But I wasn't aware really of Trenderawa until, like, maybe the 2020. I mean, I don't report on organized crime, nor do I particularly follow it, right? But I take an interest in Venezuelan affairs and as much as I've spent time there and I have an affinity with the people and I understand that things are going from bad to worse for them into their government. So I took an interest. I guess it was like, are you familiar with a narco-sobrino's affair? No. Okay, narco-sobrinos is like narco-n nephews. I think they're

Starting point is 00:51:14 actually step-nephews of Maduro, if I recall correctly. It doesn't hugely matter. They're like part of his family. And I believe they lived in his compound. And they used, like, I don't want to make statements that are incorrect. I believe they used a presidential hangar or runway to fly a plane to Haiti, which the USDA alleges, and it is most likely true, that that that plane was stuffed full of cocaine. Sure. Many such cases. Yeah, many such cases.

Starting point is 00:51:43 They believe they have diplomatic immunity, which they did not, which I believe came as a surprise to them at the moment of their detention. And so at that point, I was like, shit, we can get onto this, how the Trump administration has, like, basically alleged to Venezuela as a narco-dictatorship. Certainly, there is overlap between organized crime and the state, right? It's because the state is so poor and so corrupt that inevitably you will see, like, overlap between organized crime and the state. So I guess, right, whenever the knock of Sobrino's affair was, I thought, was like, okay, I need to sort of be aware of this. And of course, in my, like, coverage of immigration, you hear of people, mostly their talk is just not that their life has been made hard by organized crime, if I'm honest, so much as their life has been made hard by the government completely.

Starting point is 00:52:32 failing to provide services and the complete collapse of the Venezuelan economy. I'm not going to ask about it explicitly, but if someone mentions it, I sort of take note of it as one of the reasons why people are leaving. Would you bring up as a really good point, which is that 2014 is kind of when the most recent Venezuelan economic crisis really kicked off. And 2014 to 2018 was a major period of growth for trend. And then 2018 to 2022 is when they really started pushing up into and involving themselves increasingly in Colombia and the United States as a result of like the increased flow of Venezuelans out of Venezuela and into other countries and eventually up to the U.S. to some extent. And it's been since 2022 that the gang has really been pruned back, you know, both as a result of the Venezuelan government taking control of the prison again and like basically invading it with the military in order to deny them access to what had been like their prime. centralized hub of control, and also due to the fact that, like, after expansion into

Starting point is 00:53:36 Colombia and Chile, both criminal organizations and the governments of those countries increasingly pushed back against the organization, right? Yeah. One of the reasons why they're being targeted, but also one of the things that's, like, fundamentally bullshit about the administration's description of what's happening is that we're very much talking about a cartel that's on its back feet and been on its back feet for the last several years as the result of significant reversals in their business and in their political situation. Yeah, I mean, Colombia, right, has been, you know, the Colombian Civil War is one of the

Starting point is 00:54:05 longest running conflicts in the world, but things have changed there substantially, right? In the last five or seven years, you know, you have people from the FARC disarming, you have the fracture of what was previously their territory and some of who were previously their militants into other groups, right? And so that has allowed the state there to continue its conflict against what remains of that and also to clamp down on other groups, right? And evidently, like, the flow of drugs to the United States relies on the complicity or inability to stop it of many states. And yeah, we've seen, like, a concerted effort. And also, like, the, the attempts of the United States to stop smuggling, right? So I guess if people aren't familiar, we should just

Starting point is 00:54:53 explain the U.S. DHS of which the United States Coast Guard is part. I think a lot of people unaware that Coast Guard is part of DHS claims a universal jurisdiction or jurisdiction, at least in areas where drugs are being smuggled to the United States, right? So the U.S. Coast Guard had a role to play in this in the, I guess, interdiction is the word they would use of drugs coming to the United States. I probably haven't got data on this in the last year or so, but it certainly was the case that most drugs entering the US entered through ports of entry, as opposed to like between ports of entry, right? Like through the desert, through the mountains.

Starting point is 00:55:30 And so like these boats, I guess, are not just to be clear. They're not necessarily going to the United States. In most cases, they're not going to United States. In most cases, they're going to Mexico and then moving to the United States through other methods. But like, as the governments, both south of the United States and in the United States who adapted, it's become harder and harder for those people, right? And so it's become harder and harder for these criminal organizations to make money of these drugs.

Starting point is 00:55:55 And that's led to, I mean, a situation that one of the things that they've been accused of being by the Trump administration and internationally is essentially an agent of the Medeuro regime, right? And this is something that certainly the Venezuelan government denies, this is not a thing where I can, you know, entirely give you, this is exactly what's happening. But it seems accurate to say that as an organization, as their actual like control and power have. been eroded. They have been utilized increasingly as a way to, for example, deal with like dissidents who are hostile to the Maduro regime, right, as a, as a deniable asset. In particular, there's been cases that are reasonably well documented of dissidents against the Venezuelan regime in Chile and Trin de Aragua being used as like assassins to take out dissidents in foreign countries in a deniable manner, right? Yeah. And I mean, it looks to me like this has kind of

Starting point is 00:56:46 increased as their actual ability to directly control things and directly contest the regime as a power center has been eroded? Yeah. It's kind of a classic, like, I wouldn't say they're like ideologically aligned, right? But sometimes their interests align. Yeah. To be clear, like, Trendaaragua are one of the sort of armed organized crime institutions in Venezuela, but by far the only one, right?

Starting point is 00:57:13 You have, yeah. Trendeliano, for example, you have these other groups who have also been active in anti-government protests, especially since the, I'm going to use that quote-unquote election here in July of last year, right, where electoral fraud is widely alleged. And I documented that in my daddy and series if people want to listen to that. But it's not like these two are a lot in lockstep. But yeah, we can understand that sometimes that their interests might align in those areas it may be beneficial for the regime to, like you say, to use them as a deniable asset.

Starting point is 00:57:47 Right. Which does not, like, one of the things that's kind of most frustrating is hearing them described as central to the smuggling of fentanyl into the United States, which, like, even in kind of the most elaborate version of this group being utilized by the Venezuelan government is fanciful, right? Yeah. Like, because Venezuela just doesn't have that much to do with the smuggling a fentanyl into the United States.

Starting point is 00:58:12 Yeah. Like Venezuela and Venezuelan criminal organizations just aren't that involved in that process. That's not where it's coming from, right? Yeah. And we'll talk some more about fentanyl. But first, you know what's kind of like fentanyl? Advertising. We're back and we're talking about fentanyl.

Starting point is 00:58:42 Well, we're talking about, like, these claims, because that's the justification for why we need to airstrike these boats, the most recent of which we know was boarded by another government and had drugs on boarded removed before it was struck. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we simply have no idea, no way to verify. I have no way to verify what the administration is claiming about these boats. We're just seeing boats get blown up. Yeah, and everybody who was on that boat is now dead. So there's not many, many people to contradict that story.

Starting point is 00:59:10 Should we explain, like, the usual Coast Guard process for interdiction? Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea. So generally, right, what the U.S. Coast Guard is going to do is they will have these large vessels from which they will launch smaller vessels and helicopters to intercept craft, right? Like, the most kind of, I guess, like, famous, charismatic, whatever, other than, like, Colombian, like, they call them narco subs. There's their semi-submarines, actually, that they're not, like, fully submerged,

Starting point is 00:59:36 but they, uh, but much of the vessel is submerged. Okay. What the Coast Guard would normally do, to my understanding, is to send a vessel to intercept them, be it a helicopter or a boat, or probably both in most cases, I would imagine. Tell them to stop, right? If they don't stop, the Coast Guard will have, like, a sniper who will shoot out the engine of the craft. Yeah. They will then board.

Starting point is 01:00:00 They will then detain the people. They will obviously confiscate any drugs that they find. And then they will take those people back to their vessel where they're detained and and they'll be tried in the U.S., right? And then they would normally, they can't kind of scoop up all these ships that they've intercepted or semi-subs or whatever, so they will normally destroy those and scuttle them, so they sink to the bottom of the ocean. I don't know how many cases they've done this in, but that would be the normal procedure for Coast Guard, I guess, pre-2020-5. It's got to be fun being a fish near one of those vessels.

Starting point is 01:00:33 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just fish are getting lit. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what they do with all the cocaine And sometimes they bring all the cocaine back for a photo op You see that sometimes Yeah, yeah, yeah, if it looks good Yeah, yeah, if it's nicely packaged

Starting point is 01:00:46 It says cocaine or fentanyl on the side or whatever That is my understanding of what was done previously The strikes in the last month have been extremely different, right? Yeah, and we're looking at, I think, 14 people killed so far that we've had confirmed, although those numbers are certainly higher than when you're hearing them, right? Because we've just had another strike in the last day or so

Starting point is 01:01:10 that I don't think we have exact numbers on how many people were involved. Yeah, they used, from what I understand, drones from Special Operations Command to do these strikes, right? Which in itself is quite unusual. And then the strikes themselves consisted of, did they say what,

Starting point is 01:01:27 I guess it looks like a hellfire missile, but I don't know if they've said that. It looked like hellfires to me on the videos I've seen. Yeah. It's not exactly like high-deaf videos. but you see them striking like it looks kind of like a like a it's a speedboat right like it's a surface vessel it's not a not a semi-sub or a submarine it's unclear like what has happened before at least I haven't seen any reporting on what happened before like whether

Starting point is 01:01:51 they got an order to stop I think in one case they had turned around right having noticed the drone and begun returning towards the coast towards Venezuela I guess and they were still struck and it appears it in at least one case The drone struck him again, like it hit them once and then returned for a second run to hit, I guess, the survivors. Yeah. And, you know, there's a couple of facts that go alongside what we actually know and versus what the administration's claiming. Yeah. About 80% of people involved in the smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States are U.S. citizens.

Starting point is 01:02:30 And then of the remaining 20-ish percent, a chunk of those are resident legal aliens. aliens and a chunk are a mix of undocumented people, non-citizens, or people whose status is unknown or extradited aliens, right? Like, this is based on the United States Sentencing Commission's data from 2024, and about 85% of drugs that are brought into the United States are smuggled in it ports of entry. And this makes complete sense if you think about it, in part because it's pretty easy to track when you've just got like a boat trying to smuggle stuff into the country. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:02 illicitly and the people who are on that boat if they aren't citizens have no right to enter the country inherently as opposed to citizens who do have a right to enter and ports of entry where there's a shitload of you want to hide in plain sight with this stuff right like it it just makes sense like would you rather if you're smuggling a huge amount of illegal shit would you rather be on your own with a van or a vehicle full of very illegal drugs or would you rather be, like, hiding amongst the billions of tons of shit that gets taken to this country every single year, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:36 Which is why just the reality of the data is so completely different than the administration makes it out to be. And obviously, foreign criminal organizations are heavily involved in the smuggling of illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl in the United States. But we're talking primarily about, like, the Sina Loa cartel and then different criminal organizations involved in the smuggling of fentanyl out of China, right? Which is where a lot of fentanyl comes from, as opposed to, again, Venezuela. The government here is going for low-hanging fruit,

Starting point is 01:04:02 I think is the conclusion I'm dripping to just every time I read about this, is that like there doesn't seem to be a better reason for focusing on this organization, which really is just not that involved in crime in the United States, nearly to the extent that groups like the Sinaloa cartel are. Yeah, I mean, it offers a chance

Starting point is 01:04:19 to demonize Venezuelan people, right? And a Venezuelan people made up a large number of the people who came to the United States to seek asylum under Biden, because, like, if we do believe that these, like, the word in Spanish would be like a megabandas, like megagangs are a serious threat to the well-being of people in the United States, imagine how much more of a threat they are to the well-being of people in Venezuela, right? Right.

Starting point is 01:04:43 And that combined with a government, which objectively sucks, and which also uses extrajudicial violence, right, including in its battle against these gangs, leads people to want to leave. And when they come here, the United States, especially the Trump regime, has been engaged in this demonization of migrants, right? This offers a very convenient narrative for that to say that these people are bringing crime here. The vast majority of them are doing the exact opposite. They are coming here because the state in Venezuela has extorted them and slash or non-state actors in Venezuela have extorted them. the vast bulk of the complaints I hear from from migrants from Venezuela about the state.

Starting point is 01:05:29 They have no interest other than working hard and receiving like a decent living wage for that. Yeah. Every Venezuelan person I spoke to, almost by non, when I ask what their American dream is, tell you that their American dream is to have a job that pays them enough to feed their family. Right. Like we have next to no evidence of organized crime coming into the United States through the asylumist. And there are, sure, there will be, like, I would imagine a fraction of a single percent of cases. Sure.

Starting point is 01:06:00 In which that is the case. But it's being used against all these Venezuelan people, right? As we've seen, and I guess I should just clarify that, like, one thing about these megabandas, they're not like Maras, right? So, like MS-13 being a Mara, right? Like a gang in which members are identified by certain tattoos. Oh, my God. Yes, this is tattoos and emojis. Yes.

Starting point is 01:06:26 Yeah. Yeah. Again, like, like, I understand that that is a thing that happens in some cases, but that is not a thing that is common to these gangs. No, it's certainly not common to Trondy Aragoa, right? It's like the use of tattoos. There's not even widespread agreement among experts as to whether or not there's any sort of centralized U.S.-based hierarchy for the group, right? Right. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:06:49 Yeah. The tattooing is just as it is in the United States and lots of. other places around the world, a very common practice in Venezuela that people do for as many reasons as there are people, right, to include because they love their mom, because they love their kids, because they're like a football team, because they are religious, etc., etc. That is why people get tattoos. It is not to indicate membership in any organization. No, and this is something that's verified again. Like one of the beating experts on trend is Rana Risquez, who wrote a book, the trend de Aragua, the gang that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America.

Starting point is 01:07:25 She specifically told Noticius Telemundo during an interview, Venezuelan gangs are not identified by tattoos to be a member of one of these Venezuelan organizations. You don't need a tattoo. You can have no tattoos and still be part of it. You can also have a tattoo that matches other members of the organization. So, like, again, there's groups and different sort of, because this is a very bottom-up sort of organization, which is often the case with criminal groups where, like, they will, you know,

Starting point is 01:07:50 there will be money being passed in one direction or another, but there's not tight control being exercised in a top-down manner. You can find groups that have tattoos in common, but it's not a centralized thing that the organization does. Yeah, and like the Venezuelan state, to be clear, is extremely violent. They have like a special armed police, which deals with gangs and organized crime that kills hundreds of people. It would be unwise to be going about in the streets with a like,

Starting point is 01:08:15 I am a member of a certain gang tattoo, right? And so unless you plan to live, in some area where you feel completely safe from the state, that would be a very unwise thing to do. Yeah. And we'll talk some more about things that are unwise. But first, it would be wise for you to buy these products. We're back. And I want to quote from a recent piece in The Guardian on the U.S. law enforcement claiming that emojis signal membership in this. organization. This is by Sam Levin and Man v. Singh from September a couple of days ago.

Starting point is 01:08:55 Yeah. The first reference to emojis in the records comes from a July 2024 situational awareness alert from the NYPD, which was distributed to law enforcement across the country and warned of Trend de Aragoff threats in New York City. NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau has observed members of TDA and New York City using social media messaging platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to depict allegiance to the gang, the alert said. TDA members often utilize emojis such as trains, ninjas, slot machines, double swords, shields, ogre, facemask, and crowns. Members also use South American slang and Arabic language terms to mask their identities on social media. They've cited the NYPD tattoos featuring Michael Jordan.

Starting point is 01:09:32 Fucking ninja emojis? You're telling me that that's a TDA symbol. That's not just something people use. Yeah, man, this is, like, obviously there is a large Arab or population of Arab descent in Venezuela. That's where these slangs come from. Like, people use emojis, particularly in in this context, because their education has not been the best, right? Like the access to literacy is less than it would be in other contexts. So, like, sometimes they use emojis. Sometimes they just use them because it's funny. But, like, the notion of like, and yeah, people will use slang.

Starting point is 01:10:03 People will spell shit the way they say it. Sometimes when I'm talking to Venezuelan people, you know, if I'm talking to a source and they, sometimes I have to read it aloud to help me understand what they're saying. Yes, that is very common to people in Venezuela. there's nothing to do with being a member of a gang whatsoever. Yeah, and, I mean, there's a lot of that in terms of, like, the fact that the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan are popular among immigrants, right?

Starting point is 01:10:32 Like, that that's particularly Venezuelan immigrants. And a lot of it comes from, like, well, a lot of Venezuelan immigrants tend to like these things in media, tend to like these musicians and get tattoos that reference these things in popular culture or these things, you know, that different Venezuelan artists have put out. And that's, I mean, it's certainly not a sign that like, oh, these things signal membership in this criminal organization and more, they're just targeting Venezuelans

Starting point is 01:10:58 and these things are more common among Venezuelans, but certainly not exclusive to that group. When you're saying that like a Michael Jordan shirt or tattoo is a symbol of membership in a criminal organization, well, I guess like a third of my high school were criminals. I mean, they were, but not in this way. Yeah, like, these are very common. Like the Jordan logo, I don't know what it's called, the jumping Jordan logo, not a big sportswear fan myself. But, like, yeah, it's very common. It's because people buy fake designer apparel all the time.

Starting point is 01:11:29 Like, you will also see people, tons of people with Louis Vuitton items. They're not real. It does not indicate membership in any gang. It's just kind of an aspirational thing that you can buy almost anywhere in Venezuela because no one's going down there to enforce copyright laws. like it's not a it doesn't indicate any affiliation sometimes it indicates like a an interest with the United States

Starting point is 01:11:52 right like like that these are where these things come from and this is a place where these people would like to go I also saw a guy across Darien Glapp in Nike Alpha flies like the the super fast marathon running shoes with a giant carbon plated spring like this is not like indication of anything other than that like

Starting point is 01:12:10 this person thought those were cool and they purchased them yeah Are you familiar with this Cartel de Los Soles thing? No. Okay, so like the Cartel de los Soles, the cartel of the Sun, of the Suns, I guess. It's another organization which the US is alleging that Maduro is like head of, right? That like it's a vertically organized organization and that like Maduro is literally the chief of it. And I guess I just want to say, like, the same shit applies, right?

Starting point is 01:12:45 There are gangs all over Caracas as well, his names. We haven't mentioned. Yeah. What you've got here is state failure, right? Like, in Venezuela, the state has failed to provide people with services, and it does not always enjoy a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. You also have massive corruption. So it is absolutely the case that people smuggling drugs through Venezuela will be able to buy off certain officials, right?

Starting point is 01:13:11 particularly like military commanders and people who have control over transit and border areas. It doesn't imply like a vertical structure per se. To be clear, like I don't think Maduro should be in charge of Venezuela. I think the Maduro regime is bad for Venezuela and bad for the world. But like it's very oversimplified to see it like straight up as like a narco regime, right? Like there is more to it than that. This is the country that sits on masses of oil. This is a country that has been incredible.

Starting point is 01:13:41 corrupt from an incredibly long time now and you're always going to see these organizations creeping into the government right when the government can't even pay its own people or guarantee them a decent and dignified quality of life like that doesn't mean that it is okay to just kill so like first and foremost I would imagine that if we go with the government story, that the boats that they struck were carrying drugs, right? It is unlikely that the people who were carrying those drugs were anything other than poor, desperate young men who wanted a chance at a better life and or were intimidated into doing this, right? And maybe some of them chose to do this because they thought this was the way they could get money and progress in a place

Starting point is 01:14:30 that doesn't offer them many opportunities. These are not the people who are in any way like making the calls, making the decisions, right? And so, killing them isn't going to do very much because there is a massive supply of poor desperate young men in Venezuela and it's not going to change anything to kill 14 15 of them other than it will obviously it's a tragedy for those families right those people who lose their children or whatever yeah and so like until we solve the situation that life is untenable for people in Venezuela yes there will be crying there and yes people from there will want to come to the United States. Both of those things make sense. That does not mean that people coming to

Starting point is 01:15:14 the United States are coming to the United States to do bad things. The vast majority of them are coming to the United States to escape bad things. We've had so much discourse about Venezuelan people and crime. Even in the, you know, this has begun, I think in Chicago in the Biden administration, I have not seen journalists of whatever political stripe talk to Venezuelan people about this, right? Like, with very few exceptions, it's very easy to find Venezuelan people, especially, you know, if you work at the border and you do border reporting, but even still, you know, lots of these Venezuelan people went to Denver. Some of them went to Chicago. Some of them went to the springs in Colorado. Many of them went to Texas. They went to

Starting point is 01:15:57 all kinds of places when they came to the United States, right? If you speak Spanish, it's not hard to find these people and ask them, what's it like in Venezuela? Why did you come here? And then perhaps you can, you know, establish a picture of, yeah, it's pretty shit, right? People work hard every day and don't make enough to feed their family. If their kid is sick, if their elderly parents can't work and need support, it's really hard to do that. That is why they want to come to the U.S. That is why often young men want to come to the U.S., right? Because the world as it is gives them the highest level of economic opportunity.

Starting point is 01:16:32 And so the family will send them to the U.S. such that they can own an enough money and they hope one day to bring their families here. Sometimes you also see people bringing their very young children because they realize there's no future for their children in Venezuela so they make the choice to try and come to somewhere which once promised a future for hardworking people and doesn't really anymore. But like it just, it pains me so much to see this discussion of Venezuela without Venezuelan people, most of whom I found to be wonderful. Like, I spent a good amount of time in Venezuela and even longer with Venezuelan people and I have a great affection for them. Like, they've been nothing but kind to me even now, like a year after I was in the Darien Gap, I get texts all the time from Venezuelan people.

Starting point is 01:17:20 The majority of them not asking for help, just asking how I am, asking, do I know what happened to the Bolivian girl? Do I know what happened to Zimbabwean women? like genuinely concerned even amidst like a really shit situation for them concerned for the well-being of other people and I just wish instead of talking about yeah there are hundreds

Starting point is 01:17:41 maybe thousands of Venezuelan people who are involved in moving drugs to United States we could talk about the millions of people who just want to work hard and have a decent life and who are being denied a chance due to that home and are now being denied a chance to do that here as well

Starting point is 01:17:56 yeah well I think that's about it for our episode today. Until next time, folks, I don't know. Best of luck out there. Yeah. Together we're launching The moment. A new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one.

Starting point is 01:18:32 We sit down with politicians. I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel demoralized? I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith, but there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I believe in. To bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective.

Starting point is 01:18:57 There's not a single day that Paola. and I don't call or text each other, sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast. If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then have we got good news for you.

Starting point is 01:19:31 Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time. There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards. So check out the Stuff You Should Know True Crime playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

Starting point is 01:20:03 The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream? A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back everyone! He's going to next! And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him.

Starting point is 01:20:23 Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jules State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Abistown. Do you want to hear the secrets of serial killers, psychopaths, pedophiles, robbers? They are sitting there waiting for. the vulnerable thing, they're waiting for the unprotected.

Starting point is 01:21:02 I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. I advocate for safety and awareness of predators while wearing pink. When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours and I was like, this girl is my best friend. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with sarcasm, satire, and hard truths. I'm not going to fake it and force it for me. But would you force an orgasm? Because that's like a different layer.

Starting point is 01:21:27 the car accident you didn't want to see but couldn't turn away from in this episode i discussed personal safety and self-defense tools instincts and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in everyday life and high-risk situations listen to intentionally disturbing on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts welcome to it could happen here a podcast where your host wakes up every morning and rolls a D6 to determine whether the government wants to exterminate her for being trans, autistic, or Chinese this week. I am your host, Mia Wong. We have rolled the dice. This week is Autism Week, and by Autism Week, I mean anti-autism week.

Starting point is 01:22:13 The Trump administration, or specifically RFK Jr., promised at the beginning, it was like April, roughly, that they were going to find the cause of autism by the end of the summer, and they are claiming that the cause of autism. is taking Tylenol when you're pregnant. And that's not true. And to talk about how unbelievably vile and unhinged this is, is Crystal, who's a unionized abortion care worker, who is also Closillo and Blue Sky, a friend of the show, done many things. Welcome to the show.

Starting point is 01:22:50 Yeah, thank you so much, Mia. It's always so wonderful to come and talk about horrifying things with you and be filled with existential dread together. it's so good and by good I mean the worst thing I've ever seen I'm like this is such a great time to be a trans non-binary abortion care worker I just love I love like being hated in so many different ways you just like a rich tapestry of hatred towards you it's really great so good

Starting point is 01:23:16 so okay that's actually kind of where I want to start about this is that most of the media coverage of this has been purely focusing on the Tylenol causing autism, or specifically that it's causing autism. And I want to point out because most of the news articles that cover this simply do not mention this, they are also claiming that taking Tylenol, if you're pregnant, causes ADHD, a thing which you think would be noteworthy to point out, but has just not. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:23:43 I don't know. I don't know why people aren't reading the transcripts. I don't know why, but they're not. Yeah, I actually hadn't seen that part. Like, I was literally just reading and observing like this, the pregnancy and what that means for, you know, pregnant people. And I, like, didn't see any of the ADHD stuff. So that was new when you brought that up to me.

Starting point is 01:24:02 Yeah, it's just not being reported on. It's really baffling. So I want to, before we sort of really get into the wait, hold on, why the fuck are they doing this? What is happening here? Because, and as Griswold is going to say, actually, Tylenol is safe for people who are pregnant. It's fine. But I want to go over a bit of, like, what's actually in this? because it's a really, really weird.

Starting point is 01:24:27 We're going to be getting more into the sort of, like, into the autism angle in another episode next week. But I want to talk a little bit about just, like, the actual stuff that was in this announcement, where Trump is saying that, A, you shouldn't give time on all the pregnant people, and also is saying, like, you shouldn't give it to, like, young children. And is, like, you know, it's, like, ranting about, like, mercury and aluminum in vaccines, which, like, this shit isn't real, like,

Starting point is 01:24:52 there hasn't even been anything, like, even remotely related to, mercury vaccines for ages. It also never did anything. But this is all weird Angie Wakefield special shit. He also has this thing where he's talking about, like how you should separate the MMR vaccines, which is a thing that if you have seen the H-bomber guy video, you will know the reason that that was an anti-vax talking point was because Wakefield was selling separate vaccines. And so he was trying to convince parents that having all three of the vaccines at once would give their kids autism, but if you did it separately, it wouldn't. through scientific things that don't make any sense

Starting point is 01:25:23 even according to his own incredibly made up bullshit. Wakefield, by the way, is the guy who sort of kicked off the modern anti-vaccine movements by abusing a bunch of children and publishing an incredibly fake study and then getting it retracted

Starting point is 01:25:39 and then getting his medical license retracted because it was incredibly fake and abused children. So Trump is sort of just repeating the stuff that he's like vaguely remembers There's a whole bunch of this sort of, like, stuff he vaguely remembers. Like, he goes on a random rant about, like, how Cuba doesn't have Tylenol, so they don't have autism and that Amish people, and this is the one that it goes around a lot, like, oh, those people don't have autism because they don't take drugs. And it's like, oh, my God.

Starting point is 01:26:06 I also just, I want to read a quote from RFK Jr. about this, which, again, and I want to point this out, the actual point of this thing is announcing that the FDA is not going to, recommend that you take acetamatephine or Tylenol if you're pregnant. I'm just going to read this and I'm going to ask if you can figure out what the link between this and Tylenol is. This is from RFK Jr. Quote, President Trump believes that we should be listening to these mothers instead of gaslighting and marginalizing them, marginalizing them like prior administrations. Some of our friends like to say we should believe all women. Some of these same people have been silencing and demonizing these mothers for three decades because research on the potential link between autism and vaccines has been suppressed in the past. So is this basically talking about kind of like the celebrity anti-vax people

Starting point is 01:26:57 and like the grifters? Yeah. Yeah. It's like I can't believe that, well, I mean, I can believe, but like A, the fact that RFK Jr. noted repeatedly accused of sexual assault and whose response when asked to about it was, quote, I have a lot of skeletons in my closet is doing believe all women but about vaccines causing autism? Yeah, I mean, it's only just like a talking point that they can use in their favor. It's not really about, you know. I hate it. I hate it. Yeah. Oh, God. And like, this is just like the average thing in this speech that isn't barely even getting news coverage. I mean, there's also what Trump said as well, which. Oh, yeah. Because I've seen a lot of that too. And it's like between what Trump said and what RFK Jr. said, it's like,

Starting point is 01:27:46 Like, where do you even, like, where does the media focus? Like, how do you explain this to the American audience? Yeah, it's ridiculous. And then they also brought in Marty McAray, who's the commissioner of the FDA, who has a giant rant about how, like, I learned in medical school just treat fevers, low-grade fevers with acetamin. Why? What are we doing? A study out of Hopkins actually showed treating a fever can prolong the duration of illness in a young child. Maybe that's because fever is a body's natural way of ridding an infection. Yeah, well, that's absolutely not true. I mean, there's like, we know that, like, fevers are dangerous for young children and pregnant people. It's, yeah, I don't, I don't know. It's just, it's just total made-up bullshit. Like, it's just eugenics, right? Like, they're like, oh, no, you shouldn't actually do anything to treat the illnesses because if the child is strong, then, like, they'll go through it naturally and they'll become stronger. And it's like, no, that's eugenics. Yeah. This goes for the pregnancy of it all, too, because it's about being able to suffer and enduring. And it's the same case, the same kind of like puritanical survival of the fittest eugenics shit, whether you're talking about pregnancy or you're talking about like literally young children who have fevers. Same, same like approach.

Starting point is 01:29:06 Yeah. This also links directly back to what they're trying to do here, right? Because the thing that they're trying to do is get. get rid of autistic people. Yeah. Like, they don't want there to be children born with autism. Yeah. And in order to do this, they are willing to not take vaccines. They are willing to, well, I mean, I guess, I guess I should say the not letting pregnant people take Tylenol is really, truly the most, some of you must die.

Starting point is 01:29:38 But that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make thing that I've ever seen. but it's, you know, it's absolutely hideous. There's like, yeah, these people, they don't want autistic kids to be born, you know, and that's also just straight up part of the eugenics thing, like the project that they're doing, right? There's on the one hand the sort of pure survival of the fittest, fuck them kids, let them just die of fevers. And then on the other hand, there's the just active like,

Starting point is 01:30:05 oh, we're just going to do all this stuff that we think will just make a there not be autistic kids. Yeah, and they definitely care more about there being less autistic children than there are about actually, like, you know, addressing infant mortality. Yeah. And it's definitely, it's treating autism as in something that can be prevented by the choice of the parents as opposed to it just being something that some people are born that way. Also, you know, same with being queer and trans and all these things. It's this idea that you can like choose it, that you can, like, if the parents are strong enough and they can endure enough pain and they can suffer enough. they, you know, make the right choices, then they can avoid having a child with autism.

Starting point is 01:30:48 And it's not really that dissimilar than, like, oh, what to do if you, like, have a queer child, a trans child. It's this idea that, like, that is something that can be controlled and eliminated, which is eugenics, which is, you know, as you've been saying, so, definitely. Do you know what isn't eugenics? The products and services? I would really hope so. I fucking hope.

Starting point is 01:31:08 I really hope. I don't know. I can't. I don't know what these ads are going to be. If they are eugenics, let us know at I Write Okay on Twitter in Blue Sky. Actually, I don't know if you still on Twitter. I have no idea. I've been on there in ages. Woo, these ads. the don't use Tylenol of it all. Can you talk a bit about just like the importance of Tylenol and pain management for pregnant people? Yeah. And I bet like there's definitely probably people out there who are like, why Tylenol? Why did they choose this? Like where did this come from? Is it because Trump can't say a sentiment of Benifin? You know, a lot of people have been, you know, speculating. And first off, I do want to say that autism predates Tylenol. Like, oh. Like, Tylenol like came to be in like the 1950s. And

Starting point is 01:32:10 I know, autism existed before that and has probably already always been around to some degree, which we don't know. I don't know. It's a very complex and we're still, you know, there's been so much stigma around it for so long that it's difficult to talk about. But Tylenol is basically one of the only pain medications that pregnant people can take. And that's why it's Tylenol. I think that that is the way of looking at this where it's like, why did they single out this medication? And it's because it's the only pain medication that a pregnant person can take. Because Because as we know, there's other pain medications like the nseds, like ibuprofen and naproxin, and then, of course, there's opioids, which is obviously not good during pregnancy. They'll, of course, talk to your doctor, because I'm not a doctor, and you should always get this from doctors, talk to your OBGYN. But Ns are typically not recommended in the last three months of pregnancy because they can cause issues with amniotic fluid and babies' kidneys and things like that. So it is typically recommended that you avoid ibuprofen and other than.

Starting point is 01:33:10 things like that, and you take Tylenol to reduce fevers, to reduce pain. Obviously, there is a lot to be sick with when you're pregnant. There's a lot of sources of the pain. You know, fever and headaches are definitely something that pregnant people experience. But pretty much like, because it is the only pain medication that pregnant people can take, then it's really easy to be like, oh, well, what are they taking? This is what they're taking. And then you can go from there. And, This is very much coming from, it feels so weird saying this, coming from like a biblical sense of like Eve, Eat the Apple, Eve is the original sinner, I think, I don't know, like, you know, Eve did the bad thing. So Eve needs to suffer during pregnancy. All women

Starting point is 01:33:59 need to suffer during pregnancy. That's a very much like a very biblical take on this. And I think that is kind of why Tylenol, because it's what pregnant people are taking to reduce pain and to address fevers. Yeah, and I want to read a quote from the commissioner of the FDA that he gave while he was speaking about this where he says, quote, when my wife was pregnant and delivered our son a few months ago, they pushed her to take acetametaphine for a low-grade fever. She said no, and then they looked at me and I said absolutely no. I'm also here to announce good news. Today, the FDA is filing a federal registered notice to change the label on an exciting treatment called prescription lecoverin so it can be available to children with autism so you can see like

Starting point is 01:34:44 how casually he's doing just doing this like no no no no yeah like i'm really proud of my wife for saying no to taking Tylenol for a fever and like they also look at this and it's like the like oh they pushed her to take a seed of metaphene for a low grade fever it's like that's an extremely normal thing for a doctor to say to you, like, take Tylenol for your fever is like the least, like, medically invasive thing a doctor can possibly recommend. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, it's really basic medicine. And also, like, there's like, there's ways to profit off of this, too, because if you can't take any pain medication when you're pregnant, but you can take, I think they were recommending something like, I don't even know, it was like something

Starting point is 01:35:29 folic acid thingy. They were recommending that you take something. You take something. which obviously now can be like profit off of and sold. This is a very capitalist, very grifter approach to medicine and health care. Because obviously always talk to your doctor and your OBGYN about taking any medication when you're pregnant. Like talk to your doctor. They're going to be the best source of information. So the folic acid thing is a lecovrine, which is a medicine for anemia and counteracting the effects of chemotherapy meds? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:01 I wouldn't. And there's specifically like, oh, this will stop your children from having autism. Okay. No, it won't. No. No. No. I mean, like, there are respected organizations speaking up right now, kind of like about like the facts, about the studies, about what's real.

Starting point is 01:36:20 So there's like physicians for reproductive health are, you know, saying like there's decades of study of studies of Tylenol being safe to take during pregnancy. There's ACOG, which is a big professional membership organization. of like tens of thousands of OBGYNs saying like, hey, Tylenol is safe during pregnancy. So there's been decades of studies on Tylenol use and pregnancy. Some of the studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that says how safe it is. So like it is, it is, it is safe. It is absolutely 100% safe to take to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.

Starting point is 01:36:58 So like, you know, in terms of like who can you look to like definitely look to the OBGYN. right now and what they're saying and the physicians and these respected organizations because they're going to tell you the truth. But the problem is that this information is not reaching the public. Yeah. And instead, yeah, they're just getting the president of the United States and all of these just weird conspiracy people that they've installed as the people running the U.S. medical establishment being like, oh, no, actually, this is really bad for you for reasons. Yeah, it's all very vague. It's not really backed by like, decades of medical research. And, like, also, too, there's so many people who have not taken

Starting point is 01:37:38 any medication during pregnancy, and they still have children who are autistic. Yeah, it's just, like, it's just absolutely ridiculous. And, like, any way you look at the numbers, like, in terms of, you know, if you look at, like, the increasing race of Tylenol usage by pregnant people versus, like, autistic kids, it's not, like, the timely usage goes up way higher. And then the autistic numbers don't change that much relative to it. It's just like, it's all just the nonsense. Well, so there's the eugenics of it all. And there's also the aspect that we've been dealing with with the rampant abortion bans and the criminalization of pregnancy that we've been seeing, honestly, over the decades. It's about controlling bodies. And like, this is

Starting point is 01:38:24 also with trans health care too. Like, it's about, it's about eugenics, about kind of this necropolitics of choosing who lives and dies and being able to choose everything about a person's body, even how they're gestated, you know, like, oh, the parents shouldn't take this and they shouldn't do this. And then it opens up when it comes to control and surveillance and criminalization of a pregnant person, that can go in so many different directions because, you know, they're telling you not to take Tylenol. If they just randomly chose Tylenol, they can randomly choose anything. They could talk about epidurals because there is like this idea that you should suffer and that you shouldn't treat the fever and that you should experience pain during pregnancy, just like that one quote that you shared about his wife. So they're going to like start targeting other things.

Starting point is 01:39:11 And also there's already so much criticism and control and judgment and stigma over things like if you're working while you're pregnant, if you're drinking coffee while you're pregnant, if you're eating certain things, there's already so much like police. policing over pregnant bodies without even touching on abortion. But like they're also trying to control how you even dispose of pregnancies, like if you're looking at the states that are requiring you to call the police if you have a miscarriage. So it's like they want to control how you miscarry, how you have an abortion. Worth noting too, because this is absolutely connected to abortion and abortion pills. If the government is coming out and saying that Tylenol is, causes autism and it's not safe to take while you're pregnant or to use a treat fever in young children, then they can also say things like the abortion pill is not safe

Starting point is 01:40:02 because they've been trying to get the FDA to take away the approval of Mithopristone saying that it's dangerous. And, you know, if they're going to say that Tylenol is dangerous and causes autism, then it's like it's going to be so easy for them to say that the abortion pill is deadly as well. And they've already been doing this with vaccines in terms of like it, like they've been restricting access to vaccines to people without preexisting conditions, which admittedly is a lot of people. The list of preexisting conditions is really long and you should just try to get them anyways. But like, yeah, like this isn't a hypothetical. They are already doing this with vaccines, a thing that we do all need in order to not get horribly sick and die from

Starting point is 01:40:41 plagues, a thing which there are many of right now. Yeah. And I think that this definitely goes to show how topics like abortion and early pregnancy loss and miscarriage and abortions later in pregnancy. Like the way they've been talking about this has spread to all aspects of pregnancy and it's spreading to other areas too. Like so when we haven't addressed the bans and the stigma and the criminalization, it's, it's been spreading. It's spread to vaccines. It's spreading to trans health care. It's just, it's just, I feel like I've been watching this black hole just grow and grow and grow over the years and just take away our access to these, to these really basic medical things. And yeah, like I just see like we let it happen with abortion. And then now all of a sudden now we can't take Tylenol during

Starting point is 01:41:31 pregnancy because it causes autism. Yep. There's so much to say about the eugenics and autism aspect of this. So much to say. More than like we can say right now. Don't worry. There will be another episode of this show about that with some doctors next week probably. Just like focusing right now on like pregnancy and in policing pregnant bodies and and Tylenol and pain management and what's real. The fact that Tylenol is safe to take while pregnant and doesn't cause autism. It's really dwelling on that. But like there is a lot to say. There's a lot to say about the implications of this. where, like, where this came from in our society and where it's going. And it's all really horrifying. Yeah. It's, it's exceptionally bleak. But I do think, and this is, I think, a theme we're going to be returning to a lot in the coming days and weeks. But like, the only silver lining for this is that this shit is not popular. It's just not. People hate it. People hate the

Starting point is 01:42:47 administration. They have been hating the administration. Every day it goes by. They hate it more. you know, and this is part of the control strategy, right, part of the reason why they're making these incredibly draconian moves into, like, authoritarian moves into the domestic sphere is because it's a way of suppressing dissents. And they have to do that. They have to suppress dissents and they have to take things from us. And they have to continue to try to just beat everyone into submission because they can't do it through actual persuasion. What they have is the violence of the state. And they're going to try to keep doing that. but the violence of the state only functions insofar as people allow it to function

Starting point is 01:43:24 you know and this is always been sort of the secret of the United States which is that like a bunch of the things that they're doing or they're attacked as it's crackdowns that they're attempting to do are effectively unenforceable because people simply refuse to cooperate with them and you know this is a field well I mean I don't know until they just straight up ban Tylenol this is a thing where I guess we're mostly just trying to spread information But, like, the things that they do can be opposed, and when people oppose them on mass, they lose. And I don't know. I want to give people a little tiny bit of hope.

Starting point is 01:44:00 You want to be positive? Yeah. Yeah. So the deterioration of public health in the United States is absolutely state violence. Yeah. Focusing on Tylenol and stigmatizing autism and people with autism is, like, distracting from so many things that are actual public health emergencies. So when they're talking about pregnancy, they're talking about Tylenol and autism, there are so much more severe things going on in the United States right now

Starting point is 01:44:29 when it comes to both the health of pregnant people and infants. So there's the black maternal mortality crisis, which is so severe in so many states that is just constantly, like abortion bans have made that even worse. There's terrible infant mortality rates rising in states. So for example, Mississippi declared infant deaths an emergency because they halted that CDC information data collection program. So Mississippi declared a public health emergency from rising infant mortality. And there's also, I mean, I believe that the abortion bans are a medical crisis as well. And there's also huge OBGYN deserts in this country. Like we're seeing like the loss of OBGYN health providers where people can't access.

Starting point is 01:45:18 a OBGYN for for miles and miles and miles. And there's just entirely a lack of providers. These are all very, very serious public health emergencies. And yet they're talking about autism. Yeah. And also, as not just as they're talking about is they're making all of these crises worse. Like specifically the OPGYN crisis. It's like, yeah, I don't know. They've been kicking a bunch of people off of their access to, of their access to government insurance. And like, what is that to? Oh, wait, hold on. It just absolutely. annihilates the income and revenue base of a bunch of hospitals that already weren't making much money in rural areas. And so more of them closed because they lose their revenue sources. And suddenly all of these crises just continue to get worse. Yeah. So we have like this stigmatization of autism, parents of autistic children, trans people, trans children. When like they're focusing on this and they're vilifying and dogpiling and stigmatizing and all of these things. These groups, while there is this snowballing of crises, the damage already, just from Roe v. Wade being

Starting point is 01:46:26 overturned in 2022, like, it's been three years. And there's just been this, like, cascading, just ever-increasing public health disasters from it. And yet we're stigmatizing vulnerable people. Yeah, in the ways that we've been talking about, right? Their ideology is about inflicting suffering on vulnerable people because they think that it's good and that's a thing that's you know I mean just obviously incompatible with public health as as a concept which is you know part of why they're sort of dismantling it part of it is that these people are all like selling their own weird anti-vaccine grift stuff that they've been selling for years and years and years and years and all of this has just sort of come together into just this sort of abyss where

Starting point is 01:47:17 everything that was the public health infrastructure in this country, which was insufficient to begin with, has just been disappearing more and more into. Yeah, the erosion of our public health, you know, this isn't like new, this decades of, you know, this coming into being where we are right now.

Starting point is 01:47:35 But it's been really horrible to watch as a health care worker, as somebody who cares about just like everyone being able to get like evidence-based care, have access to medical providers and then also the ability to do whatever kind of health care they need

Starting point is 01:47:52 to be able to do on their own as well to just have this solid medical information and then also there's the public education of it all too because already there's this attack on public education which autistic children need a lot of support in order to thrive and schools are you know they could be equipped to do that where I've seen wonderful programs

Starting point is 01:48:13 and wonderful education services They really set people up for success. And this goes for like everyone, obviously. Like any child is going to benefit from this. But it just, it makes everything so much worse. Like parents and families and just autistic people just don't get enough support, period. Just like trans people as well. And then we're all just being thrown under the bus for the capitalist class and the elites.

Starting point is 01:48:38 So they can continue to like, you know, hide their pedophilia rings. and like the whole just the fact that they're all like what you said earlier about RFK yeah these are all a bunch of child molesters telling us that we're not strong or brave enough to endure pain that we can easily treat with the medical technology that we have and I feel like I normally I feel like I used to not talk talk like this I used to not be like child molesters in the government like I kind of feel like but I'm like this is literally where we are right now somehow. So here I am, like, you know, talking about Tylenol being safe for pregnant people, Tylenol not causing autism, and then talking about the fact that our government is run

Starting point is 01:49:23 run by a bunch of pedophiles. Not quite where I expected to be. If you had talked to me like eight years ago, maybe. It's really something. It's, it's really wild to be talking about this right now. And like, we knew this was coming too. Like I, I, there's been months of whispers where it's like, oh yeah, they're going to say Tylenol causes autism. So, like, this, I knew this was coming somehow. I don't even know how. It's just, I feel like it's all very transparent and like there's leaks and there's whatever. But I, like, I knew this was coming for months. And yet here we are. Here we are. Yeah. And I don't know. I think that's as good of a place to end unless you have anything else you want to make sure you get in. I just want to say again that it's safe to take Tylenol during pregnancy and it doesn't cause autism. Yeah, absolutely. And tell everyone you know that.

Starting point is 01:50:12 share good resources like ACOG, ACOG, Physicians for Reproductive Health, PRH, I believe is their initials acronym. We will put links to stuff in the description of this. Yeah. And also ask your doctor about medication that you should take, whether you're pregnant or not. You know, it's cool to ask your doctor stuff. Like, just ask them questions. Yeah, yeah. That is what they are there for. I'm Jorge Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians.

Starting point is 01:51:09 I would be the first immigrant mayor in generation. but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel demoralized? I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith, but there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I've believed in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other,

Starting point is 01:51:37 sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the My Cultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast. If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then if we got good news for you, Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time. There's a shootout in broad daylight. People using axes in really terrible ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards.

Starting point is 01:52:20 So check out the Stuff You Should Know True Crime playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth. and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream?

Starting point is 01:52:46 A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone! He's going to next! And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him. Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning. from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from aaron mankey this is havoctown a new fiction podcast sets in the bridgewater audio universe starring jule state and ray wise listen to havoc town on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

Starting point is 01:53:22 the devil walks in ablestown do you want to hear the secrets of serial killers psychopaths pedophiles robbers They are sitting there waiting for the vulnerable thing. They're waiting for the unprotected. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. I advocate for safety and awareness of predators while wearing pink. When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours and I was like, this girl is my best friend. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with sarcasm, satire, and hard truths.

Starting point is 01:53:58 I'm not going to fake it and force it for me. Would you force an orgasm? Because that's like a different layer. the car accident you didn't want to see but couldn't turn away from in this episode i discussed personal safety and self-defense tools instincts and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in everyday life and high-risk situations listen to intentionally disturbing on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Good day, goody, and welcome to Ikrappin here.

Starting point is 01:54:33 I'm Andrew Siege, Andrewsum, on YouTube, and I'm here with... James, Stout, for those of you wondering what my last name is. Hello, hello. And for those who couldn't tell by my accent, or maybe don't recognize it, I'm from Trinand Tobago, born and beast. And you may or may not have seen Trinard's name being called up in J.D. Vans and Marco Rubio's mouths date. particularly with the moves

Starting point is 01:54:59 that the U.S. has been making in the Caribbean Sea as of late. So to provide a little context on the inciting incident of this episode, the current Prime Minister of Toronto, Tobago, Kamala Pesar, possessor, expressed very passionate support for the U.S.'s recent move

Starting point is 01:55:18 on an alleged Venezuela-based drug vessel. I say alleged because no proof has been provided that it was a drug vessel. or anything of that nature, that the United States struck. The Prime Minister said, and I quote, that she has no sympathy for traffickers, and that the US should pill them all violently. Jesus Christ.

Starting point is 01:55:42 For those, I mean, most people will not know much about Trinadian politics. I don't expect them to, our current Prime Minister, she won this year, actually, and she kind of carried on that trend of incumbents losing their elections, that took place, you know, post-COVID lockdown 2020 era. Yeah. So the previous prime minister was prime minister, Dr. Keith Rowley,

Starting point is 01:56:06 he was prime minister for like 10 years. He became prime minister after she lost her last stint as prime minister, because she's kind of a mess in a couple different ways. I mean, both parties are pretty corrupt, but they're corrupt and incompetent in some very critical ways. Yeah. Corrupt and racist and a couple of other issues. That trend continues.

Starting point is 01:56:26 continues with her new candidacy, you know, she is not only feeling the country in some crucial ways, you know, she canceled our independency celebrations. She fired like thousands of workers from a local agency that's responsible for landscaping around the country, basically, you know, cutting grass and clearing drains, that sort of thing, fired like thousands of them, right? So now the entire country's overgrown and all those people have like, Like right before their children have to go to school, you know, they had no income to support them. So there's like a lot of cruelty, a lot of corruption, a lot of incompetence. And in this particular case, diplomatic carelessness, recklessness, because she goes and she says this, despite the fact that not only did the US violate a law, international law, but also we are small.

Starting point is 01:57:22 You may not be able to see trend out on a lot of maps because we are small. You know, we may be one of the more populated Caribbean countries, but we are still small. Venezuela is our closest neighbor, and she has been exceedingly irresponsible in the ways that she's approached Venezuela, because in the previous administration actually had an agreement with Venezuela regarding the extraction of their fossil fuels in the waters that are between Trindade and Venezuela. we had to get permission from the United States to get into that agreement with Venezuela because Venezuela is currently under sanction and for the longest time Trinidad has had to walk

Starting point is 01:58:05 this sort of tightrope of playing nice with both the US and Venezuela. She's basically come in guns blazing to make statements that appear to be openly aggressive towards Venezuela, towards Venezuelan sovereignty and so on. Now, her reasoning is that Trinidad has been ravaged by a lot of violence and addiction that has been caused by these drug cartels coming from South America, including Venezuela. This is a very real issue, the illegal gun and drug and human trafficking that takes place between South America and Trindat. We are trans-shipment point for that sort of activity, and that kind of thing brings violence.

Starting point is 01:58:47 The issue is that while she may be able to say things like, may God be. bless and protect the members of the U.S. military. The U.S. and the U.S. military are in part responsible for the violence that is ravaged Latin America, but is also not even particularly interested, regardless of what their words may say. They're not particularly interested in dealing with the drug issue. At the end of the day, it really comes down to regime change and a desire to control Venezuela's resources.

Starting point is 01:59:17 But let me take it back for a moment and provide a, uh, longer history of what's going on, right? The United States became independent in 1776. You know, Trinidad became a colony of the UK in 1797. Not long after that, because prior to being under the UK, Trinidad was under the Spanish. And while being under the Spanish was settled by French settlers. So it was like Spanish laws, French settlers,

Starting point is 01:59:46 and then later on, UK governance. And so the war of 1812, which is, you know, the war took place between the U.S. and the U.K., led to some African-Americans siding with the U.K. in exchange for emancipation. And in exchange for their services in that war, that group of people, which became known as the Americans, were resettled in South Trinidad. And I'm actually descendant from some of them, allegedly. So there is this history of exchange. taken place between U.S. and Trinidad. You know, during World War II, America had military bases established in Trinidad. We had Waller Field, which was commissioned in 1941, and the Chagramas Naval Base,

Starting point is 02:00:34 which was fully operational in 1943, and that provided strategic naval and air facilities in the Caribbean. Thanks to the destroyers for bases agreement with the British, the British got destroyers and the US got bases in the British. colonies. Now, thankfully, the base was scaled back and eventually decommissioned and returned to Trinantibago's control by 1963, but that took a lot of protest and marching to accomplish. It was a whole thing of trying to get Yankee out of Trinidad. Yankee did provide some benefits to Trinidad in terms of establishing infrastructure for highways and that sort of thing, but there was also

Starting point is 02:01:18 a not so positive social impact of the American presence. You know, one Calypsonian, known as Timothy Sparro, sang in a song called Gene and Diner that basically the American presence funded a lot of households due to prostitution. Oh, wow. And the song was basically about how Gene and Dinah had to go and find other work now that the Americans were leaving. So after the failure of the West Indies Federation and the independence of countries like Jamaica and Trinand Tobago from the UK, the location of the former military base, Chagramus, also ended up becoming the temporary location of the capital of the short-lived West Indies Federation.

Starting point is 02:02:05 After the West Indies Federation broke apart, Chagramus became the place where the Treaty of Chagramas was signed between, being the newly independent countries of Trantabagos and Jamaica and so forth, which established Caracom, the Caribbean community and common market in 1973. Caracom will come up later. Caracom is kind of like if the EU was like entirely toothless and didn't really do much of anything. It's like a nice idea of trying to get a bit of regional collaboration and inspiration and trade and movement, but it's still more expensive to go between islands and it is to go from an island to the US, so Caracom hasn't exactly succeeded in facilitating island

Starting point is 02:02:54 movement thus far. But Caracom will come up later on, right? Strandabego We became a republic in 1976 and we were under the prime ministership of Dr. Eric Williams from 1962 to 1981. Now, Dr. Eric Williams was our first prime minister.

Starting point is 02:03:24 And so he's respected in that regard. He also wrote, capitalism and slavery, which was a really impactful piece of literature on the, you know, role of capitalism in the abolition of slavery, or rather the economic motivations for the abolition of slavery, as opposed to the claimed moral virtue of the British Empire in abolishing slavery when it did. Right. Right. So he did some good academic work and, you know, he was instrumental in the establishment of Trinand Tobago was an independent country, but he also suppressed the black power movement that took place of,

Starting point is 02:03:57 little while after we became independent because of his failures, he also banned the Trinidadian-born American immigrant commentary, otherwise known as Stokely Carmichael, which is like a world-renowned socialist and pan-Afghanist. Yeah. Right? So through the 70s, we had an oil boom and we became really, really industrialized. We had another boom in 2000s. And unlike other Caribbean countries, we didn't have to be dependent on tourism. And so we ended up going in a different developmental direction. The thing about the oil booms is that really had more to do with certain happenings in the Middle East than really anything that we did, you know, the oil boom just kind of fell on our laps in that way. Right.

Starting point is 02:04:38 1983, there was an invasion of Grenada by the United States after Maurice Bishop's coup and the organization of Eastern Caribbean states, Dominica, Barbados, and Jamaica called for the U.S. to come and assist in dealing with this Marxist-Lennist, getting power in. Grenada, while Toronto, the UK and Canada, criticized the invasion. It was a violation of international law, according to the UN General Assembly, but as usual, the law doesn't really apply to the U.S., so nothing really came out of that. Otherwise, the relation between the U.S. and Toronto, Tobago, has been, you know, we have a lot of trade, you know, we have a large diaspora in the U.S., there's a lot of travel between the countries,

Starting point is 02:05:25 most of our tourism comes from the U.S. We have a lot of American-based oil and gas companies established in Trinidad, and our whole consumerist culture is basically a copy in many ways of what the U.S. does. When they sneeze, we catch a cold as the same goes. Yeah. I know I'm established in a lot of context, but it's to give an idea of how we are where we are right now, right? So next door to Trinidad, we have Venezuela, and we really had this sort of diplomatic relationship going on with Maduro and the USA at the same time under the former Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, who was of the same party as our first Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams, right? With the issues taking place in Venezuela right now, there's been a large influx of migrants from Venezuela living in Trinand, Tobago right now. Well, mainly Trindat.

Starting point is 02:06:25 Yeah. Right. I have a lot of Venezuelans now live in in Trindat. Some of them legally, some of them illegally. Prior to that recent wave, and by recent, I'm talking like 2016, 2017, prior to that wave, we had Venezuelans in Trinidad and we had Trinidadians in Venezuela because, you know, we're neighbors. Right.

Starting point is 02:06:43 It's close. You know, so you had Trinadians involved in the mining sector in Venezuela. You had Venezuelans involved in the cocoa plantations in Trinidad. So we've always been a very mixed up. group right right and this idea of strict border control between the countries is a very recent politically motivated situation now with everything going on in latin america thanks to the u.s intervention and the u.s is constantly failing war on drugs we have a lot of violence passing between our our territories you know guns drugs human trafficking as i mentioned yeah and then

Starting point is 02:07:24 Venezuela now is, I mean, their hands are not clean. I'm not saying any country's hands are cleaning this. I'm not trying to paint a good guy, a bad guy, dichotomy. Yeah. You know, Venezuela is still holding strong to this claim that they have from since before their independence

Starting point is 02:07:39 that, like, more than half of Guyana actually belongs to them. Guyana, by the way, is an English-speaking Caribbean culture country border in Venezuela, Suriname and Brazil.

Starting point is 02:07:56 So Guyana recently explored and discovered a bunch of offshore reserves, which, you know, they're really excited to capitalize upon and, you know, they have a lot of deals and agreements taking place where that is concerned. All of a sudden Venezuela is like, you know, that piece of land that we've long been saying is ours. Yeah, that really is ours. And they started, you know, they're putting out maps claiming that most of Guyana is actually Venezuela and all these different things. So it's a very threatening situation

Starting point is 02:08:28 because Venezuela is a military power in its own right. Yeah. Right. Guyana, Trindad, we don't have much military prowess. So in a sense, I understand why both Trindan and Guyana

Starting point is 02:08:39 are cozy and up with the U.S. right now. But at the same time, this recent administration's cozy and up has not been the most tactful, you know, because we do have a diplomatic approach. that has worked well for us for a very long time. Now, the argument could be made that maybe that diplomatic response,

Starting point is 02:09:00 a diplomatic balance cannot be maintained forever. Our, you know, neutrality cannot persist as things are heating up in the region. But we had an opportunity to respond carefully, to respond in a measured fashion to the U.S.'s recent move with bombing the alleged drug vote, and we did not do that. Yeah, that's a pretty squandered chance. To just, like, say, you know, we should respect international law here.

Starting point is 02:09:31 And, you know, like, the easiest thing to say would be, like, there's a set of procedures for doing this. We could follow them. Yeah. It's not hard to say that. That deal we had with Venezuela, that was a deal that we were able to negotiate under Biden. That was a deal that when Trump came into power, he just took back. He was like, nah, you can't do that anymore.

Starting point is 02:09:51 So with Trump going in this, either you're with us or against us kind of direction, that calls for extra, you know, care. And, you know, you're kind of dealing with a bomb that you're trying to work around, right? Yeah. But in the same year that Trump got elected, Kamala Posada, possessor, our current prime minister, got elected. You know, she's known for being reckless. She's known for being a bit of a drunkard.

Starting point is 02:10:18 she's passionately pro-Trump she was a COVID conspiracist in the vein of one of her famous quotes is sunlight will kill COVID she's passionately pro-US passionately anti-Maduro passionately racist and very much anti-caracom okay right now there's a bit of a history there because Trinad and Guyana are two Caribbean countries with very large East India populations, as in Indians from India. Yeah. When the West Indies Federation was getting at start, both Guyana and Trundad's Indian populations had the concern that, considering the rest of the Caribbean, as black majority, that they would not be adequately represented in a West Indies Federation. And so that sort of opposition to that level of regional unity seems to have persisted within some circles of an East Indian or Indo-Cribian politics.

Starting point is 02:11:21 Okay, interesting. Not all, right, but some seem to have an opposition to too much Caracom involvement because they feel that their voices are we drowned out by black people. And, I mean, there's a lot of anti-blackness in that community, but that is not the subject of this particular episode. So that sort of opposition to the West Indies Federation seems to have carried over into opposition towards Caracom. And when there was a low turnout among P&M supporters,

Starting point is 02:11:51 which is the party of Dr. Rowley and Dr. Williams, as well as some third party momentum taking place, Kamla ended up coming into power, right? And when she came into power, she's making these moves, making these statements, and disregarding Caracom and disregarding Caracom's opinion, disregarding Caracom involvement in Trinland, moves and decisions.

Starting point is 02:12:15 As a small country, Caracom is supposed to be our way of beefing up our voice on the international stage, and she's basically saying, bun that, you know, we will do our own thing.

Starting point is 02:12:29 Right? Yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention another thing about Kamala, just for a bit of context. Cambridge Analytica came into Trundad and basically ran an experiment using our elections.

Starting point is 02:12:44 to test out some new strategies they ended up taken into the U.S., right? They practiced their electoral manipulation in Trinidad, which is how Kamala won in the first time she was elected back in 2010, 2015. It was through collaboration with Cambridge Analytica. So again, yet another connection between the U.S. and Trinidad for better and for ways. Yeah. So what's happening now is that, you know, on the 2nd of September, the U.S. bombed a pirogue and claimed to kill 11 people and claimed that there was a drug boat, despite the fact that they haven't provided any proof that the footage was extremely grainy. And even if they did have proof that it was a drug boat, summary execution on the high seas is not exactly in line with international law.

Starting point is 02:13:44 Right. Right. If these are, quote, unquote, violent drug traffickers who are killing people and doing all these ridiculous things, you're supposed to bring them in, you're supposed to interrogate them. You're supposed to go through a certain procedure, right? Yeah. All the smoke and mirrors about drugs and fighting drugs and all these different things. It really is that smoke and mirrors, because if it was about that, they would be trying to get information to target the heart of the operation. What the U.S. is doing right now is flexing. Right. Yeah. It's flexing their muscles in the region to show what it is willing to do. It's trying to poke and prod Venezuela to respond in kind so that it has the excuse it needs or a further excuse to intervene.

Starting point is 02:14:31 There was another strike, another boat bombing on the 15th of September. And there was another strike on the 19th of September against another boat. and it's a very, very worrying place to be and time to be alive. Right. I would say. You know, we have Guyana as a player. You know, they're still working with U.S. oil companies. They collaborate with U.S.

Starting point is 02:14:57 They have this territorial anxiety with regards to Venezuela. And they are part of Caracom. Guyana is part of Caracom trying to, you know, work it out through that channel and through other channels. Venezuela, in response to Kamala's energy, has basically put out steep ones talking about, hey, this Kamala lady kind of crazy, you'll show about that, because if any U.S. missile comes out to Trindad, we are responding to Trinidad. Right, and Trinidad is, like, not the same as the U.S., right? Like, that it's not like a mutually assured destruction.

Starting point is 02:15:31 Exactly. So she is, you know, speaking very recklessly. And in the meantime, the Venezuela's saying response, you know, know, if any sort of U.S. incursion is launched out of Trinidad, which she invited, by the way, she said, hey, the U.S. could base whatever they want, and here, if they want, we are standing ready, we, right? I don't know where she got this we from. But she's saying, oh, yeah, they could come and they could, you know, launch stuff from here. And Venezuela's like, you all are talking kind of crazy right now. You should care about your citizens because we know your citizens don't like what

Starting point is 02:16:07 you're doing. So why are you doing this kind of thing? And it's bigger than just Venezuela, the US and Trindade, because Venezuela is also aligned with Russia, right? It's, I believe, Russia's only ally in the Western Hemisphere. Yeah. Right. And while the drug issue and the crime issue is a significant concern, most of the drugs are coming from Colombia in the first place, which the US is not currently targeting. Right. And at the end of the day, as I mentioned earlier, it seems to be coming down to regime change and resources and the control of Venezuela's resources. You know, we are now in a situation where our fishermen are having to stay home out of fear. Oh, geez.

Starting point is 02:16:51 That their fishing boats could be struck out of the water. Yeah, yeah. You know, we are in a situation where Kamala's fan base is just as Trumpian and cultish as the marker base, seemingly, seems to be perfectly fine with what's going on. Although, in some ways, I think that that might even be astroturfed or inflated artificially because there was recently an expose that determined a lot of the pro-UNC, which is Kamler's party, the pro-UNC, pro-Kamler buzz that occurs on social media, it's bot-driven. Like, you go onto these profiles and they're bots, just, you know, fake names, fake profile pictures, AI posts. Oh, geez, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 02:17:37 just entirely fabricated. This is also at a time when the US is building a massive embassy in our country, when Camas seemingly opening the floodgates to military collaboration with the US, where we are dealing with our own economic woes and crime rules and so on. And, you know, we also have the largest Chinese embassy in the region. We have a lot of collab with China. We recently made moves to recognize Palestine with a Palestinian. with a Palestinian diplomat

Starting point is 02:18:08 now reside in the country. It feels like we are putting ourselves in a very risky position and whether or not we could have done more or less to get out of this position, considering the US has its backyard policy with regard to the rest of the Americas, with regard to the fact that Trump has

Starting point is 02:18:32 created this Department of War, that the US seems to be flailing around as a dying empire does the fact that the Caribbean has been called out so frequently with violence in an effort to manufacture consent for what seems to be coming next

Starting point is 02:18:47 with the fact that there was a failed intervention to overthrow Maduro in the past known as Operation Gideon right back in 2020 all this has me a bit stressed I mean there was a particularly insane attempts to overthrow Maduro in 2020

Starting point is 02:19:03 right the silver core thing. Yeah, yeah. They had this American security firm and some Venezuelan dissidents just they tried to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and basically as soon as they landed, they got arrested.

Starting point is 02:19:19 Yeah, yeah. I think some of them got detained by Venezuelan fishermen who realized they only had BB guns. It sucks at like having spent time in Venezuela and with Venezuelan people a lot, you know, for years now, it's Venezuelan people who are going to pay the price for all of this, right? Like, it's not, and potentially people in Trinidad and Tobago as well.

Starting point is 02:19:43 Like, they very clearly do not want Maduro to be running their country, right? Like, we saw that in the election, and we saw that in the protest after election. They have every reason to want to leave their country and go somewhere safe, but that's not possible for many of them. Yeah. I mean, like I said, there's a lot of Venezuelans in Trinidad right now. Yeah. So any moves to advance with making, they're obviously going to make with

Starting point is 02:20:08 consideration to the fact they have their own people in Trinidad as well. Yeah, exactly. And like they're being demonized, even though they've done everything they can to separate themselves from Maduro. And like, they are being. Yeah, there's unfortunately a lot of xenophobia in Trinidad. Yeah, it's really sad. Like, and we see it here too, right?

Starting point is 02:20:26 This allegation that they're all gang members, which is like, if we think that gang violence is bad in Venezuela and in parts of Venezuela, it's, bad, then surely it would make sense to people who don't want any part in that might leave and go somewhere else. Yeah. And rather than supporting them, we're just killing, like, the lowest tier people, right? Like, even if we entertain the idea that the boat could have been carrying drugs, and we put aside the fact that that hasn't been proven, or the boats, plural, the people

Starting point is 02:20:57 driving the boats and other people are, like, making the calls here. But yeah, they're the people being killed. Exactly. Exactly. It's the same principle with all these these drug busts and gang bus to take place in Trinidad. You know, they go and they're rolling and they arrest these small fries, but the big boss is calling the shots unharmed. Yeah. You know, the multinational criminal empires that are moving the people, moving the drugs, moving the guns in the region, they're untouched. Yeah. And even the Maduro's two nephews, like they were released after they were detained for trying to run drugs via Haiti, right? Like you say, the people making the real decisions are largely insulated from all this. It's working people in Venezuela who, like, they don't have other opportunities, right? Like, I have heard the most disheartening stories, especially from Venezuelan fishermen, right? Like, their economy is so bad that... they are not able to put fuel in their boats. It wouldn't be economical to put fuel in their fishing boats. Even if they caught a full load of fish,

Starting point is 02:22:09 they wouldn't be able. No one has any money to buy the fish at a high price. So they can't pay for the fuel. And this is a country which sits on a massive oil reserve. Yeah. But yet people can't afford to put fuel in their fishing boats. Like, you know, these people are victims of a system that has left them with very few opportunities and the way we're responding is by killing them.

Starting point is 02:22:30 and by destabilizing a whole part of the world that no one asked for this there, you know, apart from apparently your prime minister. Yeah. So, I mean, this was a very rambly episode, more rambly than my usual. But I just wanted to get the word out on what's going on in my corner of the globe to let the Americans in the audience know to, you know, please do what you can to stand to speak out against this American intervention. to educate yourself and what's going on

Starting point is 02:23:03 for the trainees who may be in the audience you know, probably hunker down and have a crisis bag or emergency bag set up if worse comes to worse

Starting point is 02:23:14 and everyone else really just get the knowledge and do what you can in your area to disrupt this machine. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:23:23 That's it for me. All powers, all the people. Peace. I'm Jorge Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians. I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. artists and activists. I mean, do you ever feel demoralized?

Starting point is 02:24:04 I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith. But there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I believe in. To bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 02:24:41 Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast. If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then if we got good news for you, Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time. There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible, ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards. So check out the stuff you should know true crime playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 02:25:13 There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream. A familiar place can look completely alien. Get back, everyone's your necks!

Starting point is 02:25:35 And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him. Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe. starring Jewel State and Ray Wise.

Starting point is 02:26:01 Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Devil Walks in Abistown. Do you want to hear the secrets of serial killers, psychopaths, pedophiles, robbers? They are sitting there waiting for the vulnerable thing. They're waiting for the unprotected. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. I advocate for safety and awareness of predators, while wearing pink.

Starting point is 02:26:29 When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours, and I was like, this girl is my best friend. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with sarcasm, satire, and hard truths. I'm not going to fake it and force it for me. But would you force an orgasm?

Starting point is 02:26:45 Because that's like a different layer. The car accident you didn't want to see but couldn't turn away from. In this episode, I discussed personal safety and self-defense, tools, instincts, and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in everyday life and high-risk situations. Listen to intentionally disturbing on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, what it means for you.

Starting point is 02:27:23 I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. This week, we're covering the week of September 18 to September 24. Luckily, I think that remarkable has happened. So it's a bit a short one. Another famously slow news week in the United States of America. And abroad. Only the most stable out of all democratic countries.

Starting point is 02:27:45 Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, of the democracies, we're easily the most democratic. Mm-hmm. Shining city on a hill. On a hill. That's right. That's right.

Starting point is 02:27:56 Elevated. Yeah. So let's talk about this guy who opened fire at an ice detention facility to start off with then. Sure, that's the big news story today, is that there's been a shooting at an ice facility in Dallas. This is not the first shooting at a North Texas ice facility this year. Two detainees were killed and one injured last I saw. They were in an ice van, it looks like, and the shooter killed themselves pretty quickly, it seems like. Like fired a few rounds and then killed themselves.

Starting point is 02:28:25 Yeah. Cash Patel, who's the director of the FBI, shared pretty quickly after shooting on X.com, the everything website. A photo of a stripper clip of what looks a lot like 8mm Mouser ammunition. One round had the word anti-ice written on it in blue pen in block capital letters. Yeah. Lazy? We can agree on that. Like, especially compared to etching them onto a bullet. This has been, I think, immediately adopted by God. I mean, it seems like I haven't done a deep survey, but most of the liberals and leftists that I follow on both Twitter and blue sky

Starting point is 02:29:08 and on just looking at friends on Facebook have pretty immediately gone after this as a false flag or something. Liberals and leftists are casting doubt on the authenticity of this. I'm seeing both people be like, well, the shooter must have. been a right winger who lazily put anti-ice on the bullet or this is some sort of federal conspiracy, but a lot of conspiracism here. We simply don't know very much about the shooting at this point. It's unclear who the shooter was aiming for if they were just aiming at ice property. Right.

Starting point is 02:29:40 Like unknowingly shooting like migrant detainees inside. Did they think whoever was in that van was a cop? Yeah. Yeah. Most of this lines up with the person being the sort of person. who ends up being a high-profile shooter, right? Like, they're not so much an ideologically motivated person as someone who, like you say,

Starting point is 02:30:01 pretty low effort wrote anti-ice on their bullets at the last minute, or not on the bullet, but on the casing that holds the fucking powder that the bullet goes in. Like, I understand how that works. And this just fits, and this is something I try to talk about pretty regularly. Shootings in the United States

Starting point is 02:30:19 are heavily driven by memetic, spread, right? This has been happening since Columbine. There have been more than 100 copycat shootings of Columbine, and you do have shooters who are, let's say, original, right, like the Christchurch shooter, where they have new ideas for things to do in mass shootings. And then in the wake of those, because whenever someone does something really new, it gets a lot of attention, right? Like, if there's a mass shooting that, like, gets a lot more media coverage than other ones, there will be people who copy it and who copy specific aspects of that shooting. And what I'm seeing with this guy that kind of just fits into that pattern is you had a really

Starting point is 02:30:59 high profile, North Texas shooting at a nice facility, then you had a really high profile shooting where somebody with a hunting rifle shot at targets from the top of a roof, right? And I'm seeing both of those things in this shooting. And I guess it's just like, yeah, that kind of scans to me, you know? Yeah. I guess another thing that has been fueling this. where it's the guy used a Mouser rifle, different type of Mouser rifle to the last one. It looks to me like a car 98.

Starting point is 02:31:29 Yeah, the previous one was a very old Mouser that had been rebarreled the 30 out six, which is a very common American round. This one looks to have been an original car 98K that was still an 8mm Mouser, which was the gun, the Nazi. That was the standard battle rifle of the Vermacht during World War II. Yeah. It's not weird. He would have access to that.

Starting point is 02:31:48 He probably didn't have to buy it or pass it back. check to get it looking at Garrison found his mother's Facebook they'll talk some more about that but one of the things that was on there is her talking about how she recently had to clean out like a barn and a farm that her grandfather and dad had owned and get rid of a lot of their stuff it kind of makes sense to me one of them very likely was a veteran could have brought back a car 98k as hundreds of thousands of GIs did yeah from the war and it would have just gotten passed down under the family right not weird yeah no way at all they're like you say there are probably hundreds of thousands of these in the United States.

Starting point is 02:32:22 It was very common. And again, that's more or less probably what happened with the Charlie Kirk shooter, why they had a Mouser, right? Because it was their grandpa's rifle, probably had it re-barreled or whatever, you know? Yeah, not uncommon at all for someone in, especially somewhere like Texas, where, you know, those rifles, even if you didn't bring it back from World War I, like, could have been obtained by private party transfer any time in the last 75 years. So he'd been placed on probation for in 20.

Starting point is 02:32:50 2016 marijuana offence, for which he pled guilty and received deferred adjudication. I guess in Texas, it's considered dealing marijuana, but it just seems to be that he was in possession of an amount greater than a quarter ounce, but less than five pounds. Maybe I'm not that familiar with Texas law in that regard, but that is a thing that we found out about him. I'll just add that, like, I don't know if that affects his ability to obtain a new firearm by doing a 44-73. It's unclear, but it wouldn't have mattered in Texas

Starting point is 02:33:24 because, again, you can just meet a guy in a parking lot and buy a gun. Exactly. Yeah, it's not relevant. As I did when I lived in Texas, almost every month. Would be great to have Texas. Yeah. So, yeah, it's easy to get a gun in Texas.

Starting point is 02:33:40 How did he get the gun? He could have gotten it by accident. He could have traded groceries for it. Like, we just don't know, but there's no barriers to him. I'm owning this. Yeah. We still don't know very much about this guy outside of his, like, public arrest record. I have, like, a LinkedIn that hasn't been updated in a few years.

Starting point is 02:33:59 Yeah. He voted in the 2020 Democratic primary. We know that from Texas voting records. His mom's Facebook has a few political sentiments, but not expressed very commonly. She's posted a few times about Greg Abbott's pro-gun stances. Yeah. She was definitely, like, anti-N-R-A, anti-Aabit. anti-NRA, upset about Abbott and Senator Corrin and Cruz not taking action for gun control.

Starting point is 02:34:27 Damn, yeah. This isn't the sort of gun that would ever be impacted by proposed gun control legislation, right? Like, this is kind of central to the gun that people generally feel is reasonable to people to own. Yes, assuming that it was something that he inherited from a grandfather or a great-grandfather, even like gun control bills that are looking at stopping face-to-face sales wouldn't stop this because the dims always tend to include an exception for like, yeah, inheriting your dad's hunting rifle or something like that, right? Right, yeah.

Starting point is 02:35:00 On an old Google Plus profile that's cashed, deep dive. His profile picture is like a Soviet communist character. But again, that is no indication of a recent political alignment. We still don't have a detailed look at this guy's politics. but people have been quick to call this a false flag when I think this appears more like in the manifestation of this reality brainrottedness that we've talked about vis-a-vis the years of lead paint

Starting point is 02:35:31 like brain rot inspires like ill thought or illogical actions that maybe appear akin to a half-baked false flag but this is like just a result of this weaponized on reality fiction inspires reality and then reality is seen through the lens of fiction So people project onto the state This like 1950s CIA Staging World Events thing Like everything's become so like Eddington pilled

Starting point is 02:35:56 Yeah I remember there was a really big example of this Someone I forget exactly what it was Like someone like graffited Like Chuck Schumer's garage Or something And everyone that I knew was convinced it was a false flag Like it was all over Twitter

Starting point is 02:36:12 It was all over blues sky Everyone thought it was a false flag And it's just like All of that has just accelerated alongside this process that Garrison you're describing where you have the unreality tunnel

Starting point is 02:36:23 of all this is a false flag then you have the other unreality tunnels that are generating these people and they're just sort of like flowing parallel to each other mashing into each other yeah

Starting point is 02:36:30 no like people are so quick just to point the black's rule image to discount every single thing that might confuse you at first glance like if you cannot understand that someone who is suicidal would do a crazy thing like this inspired by recent events

Starting point is 02:36:46 and scribble something onto a bullet trying to shoot at ice equipment or ice agents, ice property inadvertently killing actual ice detainees. If you have no way to understand that as a premise and the only way that you can see something like this happening is like a beat cop walking up to the crime scene realizing he has to alter it to fit an agenda.

Starting point is 02:37:08 Like that is a way more disjointed and like broken reality to like force yourself to believe than just take the facts as they come and evaluate them. slowly without jumping to a very quick assumption that satisfies your, like, emotional reaction to a tragic event like this where multiple people have died. With Trump in power again, I think it's entirely possible that oppositional political violence will take a form that resembles, quote-unquote, left-wing attacks increasingly

Starting point is 02:37:37 through the next few years. It's not 2018 anymore. Calling this guy a leftist right now doesn't make any sense. We don't have a clear look at his politics, or if he really even had serious politics. But there are a lot of, like, seemingly normal people who are depressed, and demoralized, and are angry, and might not write a stupid Twitter-brained manifesto and scribbling anti-ice gets a point across, whether that's sincere or some kind of ironic shitpost. If anti-ice sounds weird in comparison to fuck ice or abolish ice,

Starting point is 02:38:13 Again, not everyone is part of, like, the leftist Twitter-brained terminology circle. It seems like he wasn't really thinking things through intently anyway, as is common with these, like, quick copycat style attacks. And attacks like this are also sometimes just partially driven by suicide, wanting to, like, do something as a part of the suicidal act. And, like, who knows what this shooter was aiming for or what they thought they were aiming for? We do not have enough information yet. And it's worth noting NBC has interviewed his brother.

Starting point is 02:38:50 It kind of sounds like from the text of the NBC article, like they broke the news to him, which is... Oof, that's fucked up. Not great. Yeah. But he said the last time he'd seen his brother was two weeks ago, he was not particularly political. He had never mentioned anything about ICE. As far as his brother knew, he had no hatred or particular feelings about ICE either way. He was registered as political independent.

Starting point is 02:39:12 His brother said that his parents had a rifle and that he knew that his brother knew how to shoot it, but that he didn't think he knew how to make a shot like that. I don't think he knew anything about the quality of shot, and it doesn't sound like he did anything but shoot into a van and then kill himself. So he was recently unemployed and was looking to move to his parents' land in Oklahoma, but he was raised in Allen. The whole unemployed didn't sound like he felt like he had a lot of maybe opportunity going forward. his life was not going great. Like, I don't know. Like, I, I'm not having trouble seeing this all add up. No, I mean, the people who do some crazy shit like this often have a suicidal impulse running through an action like this.

Starting point is 02:39:56 And sometimes it manifests through something akin to like, you know, this is like a bad term, but like suicide by a cop, right? And like similar to what Robert said about like memetic and like coffee cat shootings, you can see some of what's on display here in the lineage of Luigi. Mangione, allegedly, writing denied and depose on bullets, then the Charlie Kirk shooting with stuff written on bullets. But this is something that's now like in our zeitgeist it doesn't require you to be like an online communist to do something like this, nor is it relegated to a cop trying to manufacture a fake narrative to cover up a murder of immigrants

Starting point is 02:40:31 to frame it in this left-wing violence spike that the right is currently really running with. Yeah. look folks if you are convinced that this is a conspiracy i really doubt much that we say is going to convince you otherwise yeah it's it's kind of a i don't want to go on too bleak of a rant here but like i almost feel like there's not really a point in trying to stand up for basic reality anymore because number one people are increasingly going to dig into the reality tunnel that's most comforting to them and that's going to be the one where like they don't have to deal with

Starting point is 02:41:07 the complexities of the world that like some people who on paper have espoused beliefs that are similar to you will also do fucked up shit right like that that's just America that's living in a country with 400 million guns that's living in a country where mass shootings go viral and where people act based off the virality of shootings that they watch or see or hear about yeah and honestly like there's a part of me that feels like caring about the reality of the situation is almost a vanity project that like it doesn't win you anything it doesn't get you anywhere it doesn't it doesn't help you make the world better maybe just embracing a fall like the right has gotten very far and embracing completely fraudulent realities so why do I even care

Starting point is 02:41:52 I mean this is something I've talked about with like the flattening of tactics with the right adopting state sponsored cancel culture and the left getting more conspiratorial in in like replies to tweets and blue sky posts talking about how you know the bullet markings have to be be a false flag. I'm seeing people share memes, like Pepe like Sciop memes, but like leftists and like like like liberals sharing these memes that

Starting point is 02:42:16 you used to just see under like unhinged right wing accounts to talk about how big world events are all staged or the feds are faking everything. And it's it's just this complete like swap more accurately a flattening of tactics. And yeah, like it it sucks to be

Starting point is 02:42:32 in a position where I'm trying to be like slow and methodical and how I evaluate things. and not just jump to posting funny reaction images about how everything is a sciop and how everything is a false flag. Elameo, obvious sciop, work done. Because that seems so much more emotionally compelling. And instead, I'm just tired.

Starting point is 02:42:51 Yeah, just tired all the time. Anyway, go on and believe whatever you want. Let's continue the episode. All right. Let's talk about Antifa when we come back. It comes from our mind control partners. Speaking of False Flags, Antifa. Antifa, I hardly...

Starting point is 02:43:20 No, that doesn't... Garrison, just continue. I don't have anything to say about that. All right. Listen, folks, we're going to be doing what James is going to be doing with our collective lawyer, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, an episode on what this actually means

Starting point is 02:43:36 legally, and we will be doing that with a lawyer who is competent to speak on that more than we are. Yeah. I guess kind of what we want to do briefly in this episode is try and pull people back from a ledge if you're feeling like you're on one right now, because it's bad. The current situation is bad. The administration is absolutely going after people on the left. They absolutely will be increasingly applying terrorism enhancements to charges for anything that can be deemed as politically motivated by the left. But this declaration, as people pointed out, it's not like a thing, the president declaring something, a domestic terrorist group? Like, it's not, like, none of this is anything that, like, has a legal force behind it, which doesn't mean,

Starting point is 02:44:15 again, that they're not going to continue to go after people. But this is stuff that started under the Biden administration, applying RICO charges and whatnot. This is stuff that goes back to the 90s. Right, right. To the fucking, yeah, the green scare. Yeah, with environmental organizations. There is no real domestic terrorism designation. That's why they're trying to go after like funders and trying to find ties to like international groups to have that terrorism like label make more legal sense. But Trump did actually sign an executive order to quote unquote designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Quote, all relevant executive departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable authorities to

Starting point is 02:44:53 investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations, especially those involving terrorist actions conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa, or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, provided material support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations. Unquote. I mean, like anything in the United States, if you're going to be prosecuted for a federal crime, the U.S. attorney has to bring a case against you, and there has to be a crime that you have committed. Right. Yeah. The executive branch does not make law. But they're sure trying.

Starting point is 02:45:34 The legislative branch makes law. They tried a lot last time as well. They did. I do want to remind everyone that right now we still have courts. And as we're seeing in Los Angeles and in other places, grand juries are not returning indictments when the AUSA brings a shoddy case or tries to prosecute someone for something that isn't a crime. That right now is the case.

Starting point is 02:45:58 I'm not saying it will be forever. I'm saying that that's where we're at. And we can take a step back from the ledge if we know that. I hope for people who are understandably very afraid. Yes. And I'm not saying don't be afraid because these are scary times. I'm just saying like, don't assume that there's no point to fighting back or there's no way to do so that you'll just like wind up in a fucking camp because people are going to court right now and winning. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:46:28 And those court cases have not been invalid. validated by the administration. They're not just taking people into custody anyway. Like, people have repeatedly gotten off for charges of assaulting ICE officers because they were bullshit charges, right? Yeah. So that's all I'm trying to say right now. Yeah, you know, in terms of what these people are actually worried about, I think if you read the executive order, you can see what they're scared of, right? You know, to do the mildly cringe and or, quote, authority is brittle, oppression is the mask of fear. You, J.D. Pritzker. God

Starting point is 02:47:04 The caught of the plane stole is stealing my shit You and Prickster Holding Hands meme Yeah Apparently he's a big Star Wars guy But if you if you look at like what's actually in there right Like okay I mean some of it's like obviously 2020 stop But then they're talking about like violent assaults on immigration and customs enforcement

Starting point is 02:47:23 And other law enforcement officials in routine doxing and other threats against public figures and activists Like they are very worried about the fact that everywhere ice appears, a whole bunch of people, most of who are just like random people in sweatpants. I have seen so many pictures from every single city that there's like large-scale ice deployments are. There's just like people in sweatpants who just like walk out of their houses and start taking pictures of ice agents. They are very much concerned about this, right? This is why they're trying to do this crackdown because the resistance to this stuff is actually working well enough. You know, it's not not that they like haven't

Starting point is 02:47:58 been able to do ice raids, but it has degraded their capacity to do it significantly. And that's why they're rolling this shit out so that they can, you know, as an attempt to intimidate people and as attempt to, like, get people to stop doing the stuff that they've been doing, which has been, like, effective enough to really shift the way ice has been forced to do these things. And, yeah. Yeah, like, if you go back to the, like, one of the first incidents of people that are posing an ice raid, it was in South Park in San Diego, right? these people are not like organized members of Antifa like Southbuck is a pretty boozy place there's like a vegan small plates restaurant

Starting point is 02:48:38 and cocktail place there are people who are pissed that their neighbors are getting abducted yeah 100% they're just people who were there and were like no fuck you this seems wrong yeah yeah and again like we talked about this last week like this is happening in Wheaton

Starting point is 02:48:51 like people in evangelical college towns are seeing are seeing ice trucks roll up and like just walking over to them and yelling at them and filming them and that sometimes is enough to make them just run away and that's what this is

Starting point is 02:49:07 they're terrified of the fact that they live in an entire country of people who don't like that you're dragging their neighbors away at gunpoint and that's a sign to do more and not you know sort of give into fear every time there's some executive order

Starting point is 02:49:22 bullshit that happens yep talking about things where the regime has not been its success as it wanted to, right? Let's talk about the case for the Guatemalan children. We spoke about this on ED, I think last week, potentially the week before, right? These were the kids who were grabbed from their beds over Labor Day weekend. And in that time, Judge Sparkle, Suknanan, issued an emergency

Starting point is 02:49:46 protective order, but we've now seen a class action which would bring a more permanent protective order for these children. Judge Timothy Kelly, I'm going to quote him here. He was talking about the government's case and he said it had, quote, crumbled like a house of cards. This is in part because a whistleblower's account contradicted the government's claim. And this claim was made by acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Angie Salazar. Salazar said under oath that the children have been screened to ensure they would not be subject to abuse on neglect. The whistleblowers claimed that at least 30 of these children had been deemed ineligible for return because they have indicators of being victimized by child abusers before.

Starting point is 02:50:30 So returning them would obviously return them to that situation of abuse or potentially do so, right? The whistleblowers further stated that this was in an ORR database, Office of Refugee Resettlement Database, and such that the acting director would have access to that information, right? The print of a lot of other evidence to Judge Kelly, who granted protection to the children in the case, and to quote, all unaccompanied Guatemalan children who have received neither a final removal order nor permission from the Attorney General to voluntarily depart the United States. So if you remember the government had previously said that they were resettling these children and that the DHS had nothing to do with it, that it was an Office of Refugee Resettlement Operation

Starting point is 02:51:12 and that their families wanted them home, and the families didn't want them home, right? They dropped that claim later. So this is a win, right? They couldn't take these little children away in the night. and spirit them off to somewhere where they would be in danger. Let's move on to executive order number two for this week's episode. This is one that you probably heard less about than the Antifa one. But this is the quote unquote gold card executive order.

Starting point is 02:51:39 Oh, God. Yeah. So the gold card. Trump has been truiting about this, right? He truceed about it in June. Also in June, Howard Lutnik announced that there were already 70,000 people waiting for these gold cards. Applications could be made at

Starting point is 02:51:55 Trumpcard.gov. Great. And that the original stated price was $5 million, the executive order signed this week slashed the cost to just $1 million U.S. dollars.

Starting point is 02:52:07 One million? One million American dollars. And as our currency continues to crush it, that will only get more affordable for folks elsewhere in the world. So that's great. It's good.

Starting point is 02:52:18 This is Trump's promised plan to sell permanent residency, right? When he first announced this, we kind of wondered, how's he going to do this statutorily, right? How is he going to do it legally? Well, it turns out his plan is to consider the donation as evidence that the person is, quote,

Starting point is 02:52:36 of exceptional business ability. And that makes them eligible for an EB2 visa. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, like, you could have never engaged in business in your life, right? You could receive a small loan of $1 million from your parents. Sure. And that would allow.

Starting point is 02:52:52 you to get one of these. Now, people will go through all the usual background checks, right, which according to the EEO will be expedited, right? You can't be like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead now, but like, you couldn't be him with a million dollars, right, and do this, for example. I like the idea that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would, like, try to move to the U.S., but would put his real name and his application for a visa, no one's going to check for this. Yeah, but everyone's like, well, damn, it's unfortunate, man.

Starting point is 02:53:22 He shares that name with a bad guy. And there's like a 50% chance that it would have gotten approved that just like no one would have like had his name on a list. Yeah. He'll just check out, well, look, guys. The Caliph of ISIS is like fucking living in Brooklyn. Oh, yeah. He's going to all those founders meetings, you know, with other CEOs to discuss managing a large organization. I'm excited for his TED doc.

Starting point is 02:53:46 He's put his address as a tunnel in a H-CS controlled area of Syria. No, okay, so Abu Baku al-Bagh, to be clear, is dead. It was killed in the first Trump administration. Yes. A corporation donating for an individual would pay $2 million, right? So it's more expensive if a corpse is doing it on your behalf. And the cards will, supposedly, be gold and have Donald Trump's face on them, which is nice. At the same time, the Trump administration added a $100,000 bill to the H-1B visa application.

Starting point is 02:54:20 So it's a visa application fee. The H-1B, if you're not familiar, it's an immigration scheme for skilled non-immigrant labor. I'm particularly interested in this because this was one of the moments that the Trump coalition began to fracture in the early days of the Trump administration. Like we saw the kind of tech right, as exemplified by Elon Musk, going, like, no, H-1Bs are good. They allow them to bring people to this country and pay them not very much and take advantage of their skilled, is what they allow the tech industry to do, right? Sure. And then we saw the more straight-up white nationalist right being like,

Starting point is 02:54:57 but those people aren't white, we don't want them here. And it seems like it is that cadre of the Trump coalition, that part of his ideological sort of support base, which has won out in this instance, right? Because companies cannot save money paying someone 20 grand less if they have to pay 100 Gs to get them into the country, right? like individuals could make that donation, I guess, and get the visa that way. Like if they came from wealthy family and in another country, I just desperately wanted to

Starting point is 02:55:27 work in the US. But generally, H-1Bs are used because employees, they can't leave, right? Your visa is tied to your employer. So the employment can be much less favorable, especially in the tech industry where people are always shopping and changing jobs to try and get a better wage, better benefits, et cetera. They can't do that. And so that will be coming to an end. Finally, I want to talk about immigration judges, and the Trump administration has fired even more of them, according to NPR. When Trump came into office, there are about 735 of these judges. There are now fewer than 580. What? Oh, my God. Yeah. It's quite a remarkable cut, right? Not all of them were fired. Some of them took advantage of the quote unquote

Starting point is 02:56:10 fork in the road offer, if we remember, like early, early Trump 2.0 stuff. In immigration Judges, just so people understand, like, people are like, what they fire the judge, how can they do that? Immigration judges are not part of the independent judiciary. They are a better way of seeing them would be as civil servants. Nonetheless, they have, in many cases, I guess, worked to bring the trappings and the procedures of due process to the immigration world, right? Like, in many cases, they have, you know, they're not just rubber stamping deportation

Starting point is 02:56:45 orders, right? People do have a chance to make their case in front of immigration judges. And even in Trump 2.0, people are still getting asylum in the United States. The courts right now are extremely backed up, right? People are getting hearing dates in 2008, as we heard earlier this week. Some courts, I read that one court is now running at 25% of its capacity. Like, it's supposed to have 21 judges and it has five. Yep. So this means that people will be in detention for longer. I mean, that's like kind of intentional, right? Like, yeah, well, one could make that case very, yeah. The DOJ has reduced requirements for staffing these positions and the Trump administration has authorized about 600 jags to military lawyers to take on the role. I don't think

Starting point is 02:57:36 they're going to get the rubber stamp on deportations from those people that they expect to get. It depends on it if they sort of handpick those jags or they just got a bunch of people from the National Guard. But I don't think that that's going to be the just like straight up deportation factory that some people might assume it to be. But nonetheless, right now, what we have is 580 judges, tens of thousands of people in detention and detention numbers and detention overcrowding growing every single day. So that is not good. Detention facilities are terrible. At the best of times and conditions are pretty awful from I think I've heard right now. Talking of things that are pretty awful. Here are some products and services.

Starting point is 02:58:32 We're back. And next I think we're talking about tariffs? Wait a second. Do you all hear that music? Casper, Rocky Casper Terry, I don't like it. Rocking Casper, Rocky Casper.

Starting point is 02:58:56 Oh, wow. We haven't had the song for a while. That was nice, wasn't it? Yeah, that was good. That was good. Just like old times. Bring it back. Just like old times several months ago.

Starting point is 02:59:04 Yeah. Garrison has their alarm clock. Do you, Gerson? No. Okay. Okay. Good. Why did you believe that?

Starting point is 02:59:11 That would be too much. That would be too much. I would, I would, I would, I would need, we would need to intervene. Listen, if you're listening and you do, stop. All right, Mia, how are tariffs B do? So, we have some tariff news. One is that we have a Supreme Court date for the case over whether a whole bunch of the tariffs

Starting point is 02:59:31 are going to be allowed to continue or not. That is going to be on November 5th. We also have something, a no movement, which I think is pretty interesting. So, when last we spoke of tariffs, we mentioned that there were two countries that had gotten political tariffs on them, Brazil for arresting Bolsonaro and prosecuting him, and India for buying oil from Russia. And there was a lot of speculation that these would be fairly quickly resolved. They have not been. They are both still into effect. This is having massive consequences on a whole bunch of stuff. And the place that I want to focus on with

Starting point is 03:00:10 this is U.S. agriculture, because we have been seeing some extremely alarming things out of the American agricultural sector that has really not broken out of, like, Midwest agriculture circles very much. So, one of the major consequences of, in some sense, also the tariffs on presentable, one of the major consequences of the U.S. tariffs on China is that, like China did in 2018, China has simply refused to buy any American soybeans. The U.S. grows for export 52 million tons of soy every year, and more than half of that is sold to China. And again, if you're conspiratorial and believe that, like, you know,

Starting point is 03:00:55 the soy is ruining people, you should support this. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, you should, you should be opposed to this because you should be wanting to export soy to China so that you can make the Chinese woken soy. Yeah, that's what I was saying, yes. Oh, yeah, you never do that. Yeah, yeah, you should support the export of soy to China.

Starting point is 03:01:17 We're getting it out of the U.S. And to our greatest feel political enemies. The other people who support the export of soy to China are American farmers. So, I guess this is like, this is like the farming thing that I say on this show. I did technically, there was technically a farm behind my house growing up.

Starting point is 03:01:35 This is something that's very common in Midwestern agriculture, is a soybean corn rotation. Doing a soybean corn rotation is good for the soil, so it's very, very common in American agriculture. Sure. You can fix nitrogen in soil with legumes. Yeah. But in order to do this, you have to be able to sell the soybeans.

Starting point is 03:01:52 And when this happened in 2018, this was kind of behind the scene. So there was a whole big trade standoff in 2018. And one of the things that played a big role in ending it was the fact that China just didn't buy soybeans from the U.S. for a year. and it really, really, really messed with the American agricultural market. I'm going to read an account from the progressive farmer. This is a quote from Mackay. For most soybean farmers in North Dakota, you're looking at about $100 to $150 loss per acre

Starting point is 03:02:22 on every acre of soybeans planted, Brackle said. On his own farm, he expects losses could top $400,000 this year. Grackle said the losses are not just tied to individual farmers. It's the small businesses, local grocery stores, hardware stores, or local schools or financial institutions. They are all feeling the hurt from this. So what is happening right now is that there is a bunch of soybeans that are just sitting there. Yeah. You know, like no one wants to buy them.

Starting point is 03:02:50 And I've seen a few things talking about like, okay, there's, you know, there's processing plants opening up. We can turn them into like soybean oil and use like in the U.S. and do that. But like this is becoming a really serious logistical. problem? Because the thing about corn and soybeans is that it's not like you store them in different things, right? Because if you're a farmer, you're growing both of them. The sort of storage hubs that they use are the same ones. And the problem is that there are basically stockpiles building up of these soybeans that can't be sold. And this is becoming an increasing problem because there's the corn harvest. And you have to put the corn somewhere. It's a good example of the kind

Starting point is 03:03:30 of little miniature logistical nightmares that are cropping up all up and down the supply chain as these tariffs sort of continue to roll in and as the instability of them continues to roll in that you and I aren't seeing yet or we haven't seen much of the effectiveness other than some small price increases but down the supply chain there are increasing parts of the population

Starting point is 03:03:51 who are just dealing with these just horrific logistical nightmares this is going to be we're going to see the acceleration of this with a de minimis exemption being eliminated and in the meantime China is just basically going to the country that the U.S.

Starting point is 03:04:06 slapped 50% tariffs on. They're going to Brazil and attempting to basically supply their entire soybean demand largely from Brazil, which is like the other major soybean exporter. So this is also very important politically because the American farming sector is very, very powerful.

Starting point is 03:04:24 There have been some bailouts already, but they're not going to be able to sustain the American farming sector, especially if this goes on for more than one year. There was only one year in 2018 where they didn't buy it and it was a fiasco. If this goes on for an extended period of time, it is going to cause significantly larger problems. Also, the economy was doing a lot

Starting point is 03:04:42 better in 2018 than it is right now. I mean, it was still kind of my best, but yeah. So this this is going to turn into an increasing sort of political thorn for Trump among a bunch of people who are supposed to be his base because people are very, very frustrated about this. And it is getting very little press attention. This has, this has been the American farming tariff update, question mark? No, I mean, why would we want to hear about farming tariff news when instead we can just keep the culture war machine going to have everyone just gobsmacked over that instead?

Starting point is 03:05:16 Like, that's the whole point of their political machine. It's not that everything is a distraction from something else. It's that if you keep everyone engaged with this, with like culture war nonsense, left-wing terrorism, Charlie Kirk, whatever, like all of this stuff, no one's going to care about farming. terming terror of news. Even if you're a big liberal outlet, right?

Starting point is 03:05:37 You put this out there and like half your fucking audience is going to be like, lo, la Mao, they voted for Trump, sucks for them, like. Yeah. Yeah. And the question effectively is, are the people who previously had been kept in line by woke bathroom, anti-DEI, like trans women in sports stuff going to be able to be kept in line when the soybeans are rotting in the field? We will see.

Starting point is 03:06:03 We shall see. Yeah. Speaking of some Charlie Kirk Culture Award, the Department of Education has partnered with the America First Policy Institute and Turning Point USA for a new civics program. This is called the America 250 civics education coalition. They'll work with over 40 national and state organizations to quote spearhead nationwide initiatives to engage students,

Starting point is 03:06:29 educators, and communities and conversations about liberty, citizenship, and America's enduring values, unquote. The other organizations, a part of this coalition, include Prager You, Moms for Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, and three explicitly Christian lobbying groups. Now, all of these groups are basically Christian lobbying groups, but three with, like, Christian or religious names

Starting point is 03:06:55 in the title of the organizations, now partnering directly with the state for this educational coalition. Let's play a video from the new website explaining the initiative. American education was once a shining light, guiding generations, built on faith, heritage, patriotism. But over the past 60 to 70 years, that brilliance has been dimmed. A great institution has been crumbled from within. Playing footage of the civil rights era.

Starting point is 03:07:31 and division from fundamentally transforming the United States of America Oh, that's a triggering phrase for me Critical race theory, gender, queer, drag queens now on the 250th anniversary of Farnation the Department of Education

Starting point is 03:07:44 the America 250 civics education coalition and partners across America are re-igniting that light. Restore understanding and returning education to the states where it belongs for this was bunch of white kids

Starting point is 03:08:00 that inspired the world. and under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary McMahon. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, are you fucking kidding me. AI generated lighthouse. Oh my God.

Starting point is 03:08:21 Oh, my God. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. Yeah. Oh, my God. So the framing of the video is that this lighthouse has gone out, and Linda McMahon emerges, polishes and fixes the lighthouse, which now shines across the nation, igniting our patriotic education. They couldn't find a lighthouse in America, so they AI'd one.

Starting point is 03:08:50 With audio from WWE, Secretary McMahon, it's like the most hyper-reality, American brain rock. What do you even say to that? This is like the years of lead people. thing that we're talking about, like, talking about how American education's been, like, totally destroyed and they're playing footage of, like, civil rights era, like, protests and, like, leaders. You can't parody this. No. No. And it's all set to the, to the soundtrack and edited in the manner of, like, a big

Starting point is 03:09:19 budget Hollywood summer blockbuster from 15 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which I guess, you know, fucking conservative Christians are always about 15 years behind. Yeah, and they're culture. Like, so that scans. But, yeah, Like it, this is like, it sounds like a fucking, uh, uh, who's the guy who did Independence Day. God damn it. You know what I'm saying. I don't know shit about popular culture. But yeah, we should just know that 70 years ago, education was segregated in this country. Well, yeah, that's what they want.

Starting point is 03:09:46 Which is, yeah, yes, I just want to, just want to just sort of drop that nugget and I've listened in person to Charlie Kirk argue that we should repeal the Civil Rights Act. Like, that's what these people want. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to join the dots for folks who haven't. And history is inherently revisionist. that's what we do. We don't just like, go, like, oh, we've done it all now. We've worked it all out. No need for any more historians. That's not how history works.

Starting point is 03:10:08 The chief education officer of Turning Point Education, this is his real name, Dr. Hutz Hurtzburg, Triple H, said that, quote, that was also WWE character. Is it the same guy? No, this is a Christian educator. Oh, okay. He says, quote, Turning Point USA is more resolved than ever. to advance God-centered, virtuous education for students flourishing across our nation. With that in mind, we are honored to partner with the distinguished organizations that comprise the America 250 Civics Education Coalition to restore, revive, and reclaim robust American

Starting point is 03:10:46 civics education for all students throughout our country, unquote. Earlier today is Wednesday, the state of Oklahoma has announced that they will be establishing TPUSA chapters in every high school across this state. Oh, great. Here's the superintendent, Ryan Waters, of Oklahoma. I'm excited to announce today that every Oklahoma high school will have a turning point USA chapter. We have seen the outpouring from parents, teachers, and students that want to be engaged in a meaningful work going on a turning point. They want their young people to be engaged in a process that understands free speech, open engagement, dialogue about American greatness.

Starting point is 03:11:31 a dialogue around American values. We're so excited to partner with Turning Point USA with this initiative. For far too long, we have seen radical leftists with the teachers' union dominate classrooms and push woke indoctrination on our kids. They fight parents' rights. They push parents out of the classroom, and they lie to our kids about American history. What we're going to continue to do is make sure that our kids understand American greatness, engage in civic dialogue

Starting point is 03:12:02 and have that open discussion, we will continue to do all that we can to make sure Oklahoma students have the best education possible. Part of this announcement, he has written on Twitter, quote, radical leftist teachers' unions have dominated classrooms for far too long, and we are taking them back. I think, Robert, we talked with this guy

Starting point is 03:12:21 last year at the RNC. Yep, yeah, we sure did. We might do something with that interview at some point. I wish he'd got, he'd been out of a job, by now, but life, life, huh? The last thing I want to discuss today is

Starting point is 03:12:37 quote unquote, transgender terrorism, something I've seen many friends and posters across the internet be really, really concerned about for, you know, a lot of good reasons. Ken Klippinstein has released a few

Starting point is 03:12:53 articles the past few days. The first one from last week, quote, the FBI ready to use. new war on trans people, the FBI's preparing to label transgender people as violent extremists in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. That is how Ken framed that on the headline and for his tweet alongside the article. Other outlets like them.us has spread this reporting even further, quote, FBI to categorize trans people as nihilistic violent extremist threat group. Report says

Starting point is 03:13:23 the Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly preparing to categorize transgender people as violent extremists. This framing is incorrect. And I will explain why in great detail shortly. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not getting ready to categorize transgender people as like a category, as like a class of people as violent extremists. There is no evidence that this is currently what they're doing. There's no internal communications arguing this. Even the Heritage Foundation's proposal to create a new category of transterrorism is not arguing this. as I will quote from here shortly. Let's get into what the first article from Clippinstein actually wrote

Starting point is 03:14:04 based on a source inside the government. Quote, the senior official explains that there is no process per se for dealing with trans people as a quote-unquote threat group, but feels that trans individuals will be increasingly targeted under the banner of violent extremism. Under the plan being discussed, the FBI would treat transgender subjects as a subset of the Bureau's new threat category,

Starting point is 03:14:26 nihilistic violent extremists, unquote. we've talked about nihilistic violent extremists on this show before, back in spring. And we all know that the Trump administration has been targeting trans people. Like, this is something that everyone who listens to this show is aware of, this is a real thing. But there is not actually any new verifiable information in this report. There's rhetoric from people like Donald Trump Jr. and right-wing influencers talking about transgender terrorists and this trend of transgender terrorists, as they have. been for the past two years. Me and Mia did that piece about fake trans terrorists like almost two

Starting point is 03:15:03 years ago. That was two years ago now? We've been tracking this rhetoric for a long time. So stuff like that fills up a lot of the space in articles like this, but new verifiable information is actually quite short. In this article, Ken has a single unnamed official who quote unquote feels like trans people could be labeled nihilistic violent extremists. Now, in Ken's previous reporting about this label, he misunderstood the NVEE label. This label exists just essentially for 764, the childist exploitation group that operates on the Discord and Telegram and branch off groups from that. We've talked with them on the show over here before as well. And the nihilist of violent extremism term predates the Trump administration. This isn't a cash Patel thing.

Starting point is 03:15:46 This predates the Trump admin. This was active last year. And it primarily is to categorize and map these child's exploitation rings and some overlapping. communities like the school shooter fandom. But in Ken's article here, there's no like leaked documents in this report showing like current memos or communications on this topic. Ken's great for leaks, but there's not leaked documents in this report. Now, as we all know, and we've reported, the right-wing hate campaign against trans people is a real thing. It's real coming from the Trump administration, from state-level government, as well as the entire conservative media apparatus. But I think right now especially, it's really important to read reports like this very carefully.

Starting point is 03:16:31 Transphere mongering massively boosts social media engagement, which then can encourage people to use framing like this that might actually kind of be irresponsible. Now, a few hours before Pilkstein published this first article, the Heritage Foundation and their oversight project released a petition to have the FBI designate a new category of violent extremism. which they call trans-ideology-inspired violent extremism, or TIV. Quote, TIV is based on the belief that violence is justified against those who do not share radical views of transgender ideology. It has led to an increasing trend of TIV domestic terrorist events across the country. In recent years, TIV has played a role in the majority of mass shootings at schools. That is the Heritage Foundation's claim.

Starting point is 03:17:21 The petition includes a list of, quote unquote, TIV motivated attacks, including multiple attackers who either were not trans or were clearly not motivated by trans ideology as reporting at the time and government documents have shown, including acts from the past like six or seven years. But heritage rights that, quote, experts estimate, no citation, that 50% of non-gang related school shooting since 2015 have, quote, involved or likely involve trans ideology, unquote. 50% have involved or likely involved. Yet in this list, they can only list three school shootings.

Starting point is 03:18:02 They can only list three, even in their own list, which they say 50% likely involve trans ideology. There's been more than three school shootings this year. This month. There's been more three school shootings not involving trans people this year. This is a wildly atrocious stat. Yeah, it's just fabricated, right? And again, like, react.

Starting point is 03:18:24 doesn't matter. Like, that's, that's the point. Like... No, this is the Heritage Foundation. Like, come on. Yeah, yeah. But importantly, like, a violent extremism designation would not mean that all trans people as a class are deemed violent extremists. What it would do is it would create a category to use for investigations into violent acts, graph patterns of violence, argue in court documents, and possibly include some preemptive surveillance on people or groups that are deemed as threats as a part of the threat group. But in the petition, Herod says that, no, not all transgender individuals or their allies are domestic terrorists. Quote, they are even free to engage in offensive and hateful speech

Starting point is 03:19:07 under the First Amendment so long as they do not stray into unlawful incitement, defamation, true threat, obscenity, or some other category of non-protected speech. The domestic terror destination becomes relevant only when individuals or groups, one, are motivated by an ideology that encourages, promotes, or condones violence, and two, take or incite on lawful violent action or threats based on that ideology. Both criteria must be met, unquote. That's from Heritage's own petition.

Starting point is 03:19:34 There's nothing in Heritage's own petition or Ken's article that says that trans people entirely are going to be deemed terrorists or a domestic, like, extremist threat group. That's not what either Heritage or what the actual details of articles like Ken's is saying. And to further kind of show this divide, the heritage petition also addresses the nihilist violent extremism label as a completely separate thing, unrelated trans people that they do not want combined into one single category.

Starting point is 03:20:07 I don't know why Ken keeps pushing on this label so much. It's really important to understand how trans people are actually under threat right now. Because they are, right? The biggest threats to trans people right now are access to health care, specifically for people who are under the age of 18 and things like bathroom bans and trying to restrict transgender people from public life. But the other biggest threat to trans people right now

Starting point is 03:20:27 is like ourselves and we don't need to do the government's work for them to keep us so demoralized spreading misinformation or unverified reports like this that just makes everyone panicked and freak out

Starting point is 03:20:40 actually harms us and our community. The trans panic industrial complex is dangerous and people need to be very careful about this because it's an extremely like dangerous time and having an accurate assessment over what's going on

Starting point is 03:20:54 is going to be crucial to survive the next few months to years. No. And again, we've seen this on the right and this has played a role

Starting point is 03:21:03 in radicalizing a lot of people on the right and getting them to do fucked up shit is years of like they're coming for you, they're coming for you, they're going to be coming for you

Starting point is 03:21:13 tonight, right? Like you're already dead, you know? There's money in pushing and there's clout in pushing hopelessness. And I don't want to be telling people everything's good because it's not.

Starting point is 03:21:27 Things are very dangerous for trans people right now in a way they have not been at any point previously in very recent history. Things are much worse, right? Nobody's denying that. But you have to look at like the facts of how they're worse as opposed to not reading an article

Starting point is 03:21:45 or analyzing what the article actually says or analyzing what the Heritage Foundation says and saying they're declaring all of us terrorists, right? Because that's not going to end well. No. Don't panic, organize. That's the actual solution to this. I also want to briefly note on,

Starting point is 03:22:04 I've seen a lot of comparisons of this to the black identity extremism designation, and I want to bring this back to something that Garrison mentioned earlier about the way that the nihilist extremism category was specifically designed to target, like a specific sort of complex network of... Yeah, pedophile discord servers.

Starting point is 03:22:24 Yeah, this is the same methodology that was used for black identity extremism. Black identity extremism wasn't a category they conjured out of nowhere to go after all black people. It was a category that was specifically designed to go after specific activists in the wake of Occupy and the wake of Ferguson. Yeah. And this is completely just not the process. that is happening for this, right? Like, we're not dealing with, okay, there is a specific group of trans activists

Starting point is 03:22:54 that the government wants to target, so they're creating a label for it, right? We don't have any evidence of that at all. What we have is anonymous sources saying they feel like something might happen. That trans people could be targeted, and you're like, yeah, trans people have been targeted. Like, that's what's happening.

Starting point is 03:23:11 Yeah. Are they going to be labeled a nihilist of violent extremists at this point unlikely? Could the FBI consider adopt something like the heritage proposal for for tiv. Yeah, possibly. Yeah, that is that is absolutely a possibility. Would that come into reality the same way that people are talking about it online or the way that headlines are framing it? No. It's not about designating all trans people as terrorists as a class. It's not about that. And it also wouldn't function like the black identity extremist

Starting point is 03:23:39 thing because again, that was a like they already had people they were going after and they wanted a legal category that they could deploy in order to go after them. That's not what's happening here. They don't have like a list of like trans discord servers that they're about to round up for like doing a protest. Like that's not what's happening here. No, but they could go after people who make threats online. And that's something that I'm sure Cash Patel's FBI would love to do.

Starting point is 03:24:06 And if they can sort those people into a category like Tiv to argue in a prosecution or to or to make like a flow chart to direct investigations, then that's the realm they're going to use. Yeah, but even that we are so far away from them even like starting that process that you should be concerned about the actual threats from like, I don't know. I mean, just like literally there's there's been a series of attacks on trans people just like in neighborhoods in Seattle by just like gangs of dudes, right? That's like an actual substantive thing that is happening that is not this.

Starting point is 03:24:43 It is not a sort of nebulous, like we are relying on opinions of unnamed officials. We can look at and evaluate and figure out what we're going to do about it instead of just giving into the panic industrial complex and panicking about it. Things that are framed bombastically like this go super viral and they spread a lot and that's what the algorithms are encouraging. I mean, same thing with the algorithmic boosting of false flag conspiracy theories because those are so much more satisfying. They spread like wildfire across blue sky and Twitter and like.

Starting point is 03:25:13 even things like Instagram stories. And just be very careful about anything that goes viral because that claim is trying to influence your brain. It's trying to worm its way into your brain to take the form as a thought that you had yourself and be super careful. Because this type of weaponized unreality has been used so successfully the past 10 years against the right.

Starting point is 03:25:34 This is how the whole, like, you know, migrant panic wave started. Lies about immigration, this like panicked framing, these things spread like wildfire online. and now you have large swaths of the country believing in this genuine, like, you know, migrate crisis. And this is how social media functions to influence how your brain thinks and how your brain processes is fact from fiction

Starting point is 03:25:54 and forms like a collective sense of reality. And you are also being targeted by this same process in different ways than the right is, but this process is still targeting you as well. And it's like super important to like read things critically and take time before jumping to conclusions because I don't think we need more quick emotionally satisfying conspiracy theories in our life. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:26:19 Anyway, that's the news this week. We sure did report it. Yeah, it's the news this week. We reported the hand out of it, yeah. Go away. We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here.

Starting point is 03:26:42 is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it

Starting point is 03:26:55 could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time

Starting point is 03:27:10 as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast. If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then if we got good news for you, Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time. There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways,

Starting point is 03:27:51 disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards. So check out the Stuff You Should Know True Crime playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From IHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise.

Starting point is 03:28:27 Listen to Havoc Town on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin. into New York from Asia. I had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you know that. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying.

Starting point is 03:29:01 Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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