Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 252

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Starting point is 00:02:51 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, you're listening to It Could Happen here. My name's Carlos Perrios Polanco. I'm a journalist and writer, and I'll be your host for today's episode, which is about the ongoing campaign of boat strikes by the U.S. military. that have turned the oceans around the Americas into killing fields. To give a high-level overview of what I'll be talking about today,

Starting point is 00:03:35 since September 2, 2025, up until the time of recording, the U.S. military has carried out at least 70 strikes on civilian vessels in the Caribbean basin and the eastern Pacific Ocean. At least 234 people have been killed by these strikes, according to reporting from the New York Times. Per air wars, there have been survivors almost every month of the campaign, but only free out of the 28 total have ever been rescued. These strikes originally started in the Caribbean following the mobilization of military assets into the region, which includes the reactivation of the once-dormant Roosevelt Road's military base in Puerto Rico, where I live and am currently recording from.

Starting point is 00:04:20 I'm sure that I've seen some of the aircraft used in these strikes and other military operations in the region from the hill that overlooks the base's airstrip. And I've probably watched every single one of the videos the Trump administration or the U.S. military has posted announcing that these strikes took place. You've likely at least seen one yourself. It's almost always a social media post, sometimes a press release, typically showing a black and white video of a go-fasting. vessel, colloquially known as a panga or a yola, depending on where you're located. They're typically sipping across the waves only for a missile to rain down from the sky shortly after the video starts, turning the boat and all the people aboard it into a giant ball of fire.

Starting point is 00:05:09 Per air wars, these posts almost always follow the same formula, naming who ordered the strike, the amount of people killed, calling them drug traffickers or narco-terrorists, saying they're part of a, quote, designated terrorist organization, end quote, in stating the location where the strike took place. To be honest with you, even if the victims are blurred out and you rarely get an up-close look at how these people are torn to shreds, these are essentially snuff films that the Trump administration has used to hype up itself and its war on so-called narco-terrorism. The Trump administration has been laying the fin legal justification as well as the moral and philosophical foundation for this quote-unquote war since essentially their first day in office. More than two months after the first strike, defense secretary Pete Hegsef officially announced Operation Southern Spear as the quote, overarching DOW operation to disrupt the flow of narcotics in the Western Hemisphere from drug cartels that the president has named as a dead. designated terrorist organization, parentheses, DTOs. Per a DOD Inspector General Report, Southern Spears' mission statement, as well as several documents that created the legal justification for these strikes and other related operations

Starting point is 00:06:30 are classified in secret from the public. However, as this Inspector General report states, the aim of Southern Spear is to, quote, defend the homeland, protect regional partners, and ensure stability and security across the Western Hemisphere. Operation Southern Spear has since evolved into Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, which essentially means that several partner countries in the hemisphere are working under Trump's banner of anti-narco-terrorism, whatever that means. The Trump administration has repeatedly said that the people killed in these strikes are, quote-unquote, narco-traffickers, and therefore enemy combatants, according to a January 20th,

Starting point is 00:07:14 2025 executive order that labels the groups that the dead allegedly belong to either, quote-unquote, foreign terrorist organizations or, quote-unquote, specially designated global terrorist. Two terms that sound like they're the same thing, but essentially delineate groups marked by the State Department and the Treasury Department, respectively, as terrorists. There is substantial doubt as to whether the Trump administration is even able to identify these people before massacring them. However, as has been evidently clear to anyone with eyes, these people are not terrorists, and there are serious doubts as to whether they're even actually connected to drug trafficking organizations in a meaningful way. Because these strikes occur in the open ocean, sometimes in international waters,

Starting point is 00:08:02 any evidence that could help in identifying the victims sinks beneath the waves relatively quickly, making positive identification nearly impossible. A list compiled by Air Wars identifies 26 victims by their full names. A lot of these names come from media outlets hitting the ground and interviewing people in the communities where the men who've been killed by these strikes used to live. Per the list, a lot of these names come from the Los Angeles Times, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, the Associated Press, and some were identified by Costa Rican authorities as reported by La Nacion, as well as a collaborative investigation project titled Los Bombardiados,

Starting point is 00:08:43 Sin Derecho to the Defensa, or the bombed No Right to Defense between Air Wars, El Centro Latino-American of Investigation Periodistica, otherwise known as El Clip, and several other Latin American or Caribbean media outlets. The Air Wars list includes names from the first strike, up until strikes in May earlier this year. This doesn't mean that they've stopped working on it, just that they haven't been able to identify anyone by their full name after that. In other cases, these outlets and others across the Western Hemisphere

Starting point is 00:09:16 have been able to find nicknames and general descriptions of these men. Air Wars keeps a list of these in their individual trackers per strike as well. I have all these sources linked in the episode description. I've tried to include English as well as some Spanish language, news sources, the list by Air Wars, the Los Bombardados investigation, and the killing spree report by the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, were huge sources for this piece. So if you're at all interested in learning more about this topic, please go read those. The evidence found by these outlets points to the killed victims being a mix of fishermen, motorcycle or

Starting point is 00:09:54 bus drivers, and boat captains. The men are mostly from some of the poorest areas of Latin America and the Caribbean. And when they are connected to drug trafficking organizations, they appear to be, quote, among the lowest ranked members, end quote, per air wars. Among the identified, there's a quote unquote local crime boss, a fisherman pressured to get on drug trafficking boats because they had no other options to make money to feed their children, an indoor soccer player, people who left home in search of work, and fishermen who appear to have been stalled at sea fixing their ship's motor. The majority of the men hail from Venezuela and Mexico, while a few are from Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Lucia. The Los Bombardiados investigation has been able to

Starting point is 00:10:42 geolocate seven of the boat strikes, free in the Pacific and four in the Caribbean. Of the two in the Pacific, two took place broadly near the Mexico border, and one strike occurred about halfway between Mexico and Ecuador. Of the four in the Caribbean, one took place in the open ocean between Venezuela and the island of La Spaniola. Another appears to have taken place broadly near the Gulf of Venezuela.

Starting point is 00:11:07 One took place in the Gulf of Paria between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. And another took place along the spine of the Lesser Antilles close to Martinique in St. Lucia. Elclips reporting identifies other strikes, including one off the coast of Costa Rica, one off Ecuador's Santa Cruz Islands

Starting point is 00:11:25 and another about halfway between Santa Cruz and Ecuador's coastline and one near Mexico's coasts. Although the strikes originally started in the Caribbean only about a third of these strikes have taken place here. Meanwhile, the other two thirds have taken place

Starting point is 00:11:40 in the Pacific. I'm going to talk more about the identities of these men later on as I talk about the individual strikes. But before I keep going, I want to take this moment to say that it does not not and should not matter whether these men were simply fishermen or if they actually were drug traffickers. Any level of criminality, whether real or perceived, is not in any sense of the word,

Starting point is 00:12:05 justify the murder of defenseless people on a boat who had no way of fighting back against the missile coming from the sky. As many experts on U.S. Maritime International and Humanitarian law have noted these strikes on civilians because they absolutely are not combatants and the U.S. is not at war against the groups that they pretend that these people are a part of are basically murder. As Ben Saul, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while countering terrorism wrote in a briefing note, the attacks are, quote, in violation of the right to life, being untowion.

Starting point is 00:12:48 justified in national or personal self-defense or under international humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotic suppression conventions, or international counterterrorism law. Later on in that same document, he wrote that there is, quote, reasonable ground to believe, end quote, that the United States strikes, quote, constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law. Before I can talk about it. any boat strikes. I need to explain how, according to the Washington Post, the Trump administration has been pushing for these strikes on drug traffickers, on alleged drug traffickers, I should say, since they took office and how they repeatedly sidestepped, purged, fired, or steamrolled any lawyers

Starting point is 00:13:46 who questioned their plans. First, I want to broadly talk about why the U.S. is doing this. The Trump administration essentially believes or purports to believe, at least, that since these alleged drug traffickers, which they have not published any evidence that these people are who they say they are, aka alleged drug traffickers, are poisoning the U.S. with drugs, then it's fair game for the U.S. to kill them.

Starting point is 00:14:13 To the U.S. government, this is quote-unquote self-defense. However, as UN Special Rapporteur saw highlights in his note, even if, and there's a big if there, if they're actually drug traffickers. This is in no way comparable to a direct, military action. Drug trafficking and military actions could never amount to be the same thing. They are simply incompatible. To quote from Saul's note, drug trafficking is not force at all. The Trump administration also alleges that these non-state actors are being sent by states,

Starting point is 00:14:49 namely Venezuela. After putting Tren Derawa on the FTO list, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to declare that Trendaragua was engaged in a quote-unquote invasion of the U.S. on behalf of the Venezuelan government. It used this as pretext to send 147 Venezuelan men with seemingly no connection at all to the gang to El Salvador's Saccat prison in March, where they suffered from torture. Along similar lines, in November 2025, the U.S. listed the Cartel de Los Soles as an FTO. the Trump government had for a long time contended that Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan president, was the leader of the Cartel de los Soles,

Starting point is 00:15:30 even though experts like those of inside-insight crime claim it was more like a loose network of cells inside the Venezuelan armed forces. Also, going out of timeline here, but the U.S. government dropped the accusation against Maduro that he led the cartel earlier this year during his court case in New York. shortly after Trump declared several of these criminal groups FTOs, Hegsef began purging the DOD of any lawyers or commanders who would serve as quote-unquote roadblocks to Trump's orders, according to the Hill. A similar thing was occurring at the Justice Department, per the New York Times.

Starting point is 00:16:10 And this is like absolutely the type of thing you do when you're planning to break the law or do something evil. The top echelon of the Trump admin has done stuff like this across all aviose. available to it. Imagine someone breaking a key in a door lock so that no matter how much you want to lock the door, it's impossible unless you change the whole mechanism. This is what they were doing, essentially. Staying on this door analogy, the Trump administration essentially just made it so that the door to doing something wildly illegal and immoral could never be fully closed to them by the people who would actually stop them from opening it. These strikes were originally supposed to be carried out by the CIA, but lawyers at the spy agency questioned whether killing civilian drug

Starting point is 00:16:56 traffickers was legal under domestic law. One person familiar with the debate told the Washington Post that, quote, there is no actual threat justifying self-defense, end quote. This is perhaps the first time the CIA has said it didn't want to get involved in Latin America directly. That's a joke, of course. The CIA is definitely here. Just look at the two agents that died in Mexico earlier this year. The CIA is also providing the targeting assistance and intelligence necessary to conduct these strikes, according to the Guardian. Per WAPO, the Trump admin quickly moved on with an alternative plan to use the U.S. military for these strikes. During the summer of 2025, the Justice Department signed a secret opinion justifying the boat strikes by saying that the U.S. was in

Starting point is 00:17:45 armed conflict with, quote-unquote, narco-terrorist, and that using lethal force against them, was okay because it protected national interests and because they were a, quote, threat to the U.S. akin to a foreign nation attempting to invade. Senator Mark Kelly told WAPO. However, this was in a capital W war, so they didn't need congressional authorization. Instead, it's a, quote, non-international armed conflict, end quote. For a separate WAPO article, the Trump admin's legal justification, quote, does not stand up to the facts, end quote, to lawyers inside and outside the government.

Starting point is 00:18:25 While this memo was produced during the summer, it was not signed until September 5th of 2025, after the first boat strike occurred. According to the Guardian, the memo states that these groups are using the proceeds from drug trafficking to wage war, which is something that the Taliban did, but that experts have said these cartels designated as FTOs or DTOs are simply not doing. Also, you have to remember that these people, if they're connected to the cartels, are at most low-level members, and their deaths, while extremely gruesome, have little impact on drug trafficking in the region. Perwapo, the strikes have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the U.S., according to a Drug Enforcement Administration assessment. Also, did I mention

Starting point is 00:19:14 that Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, who'd been sentenced to 45 years, years in prison in June 24 after being convicted of importing more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. between 2004 and 2022. I'm again stepping out of timeline here, but I wanted to jump ahead to illustrate how this anti-drug policy is pure farce. It's fake and violence seems to be the point of these boat strikes for the Trump administration. Sorry to digress. Anyway, in mid-20, Trump signed a classified directive that authorized the military to use force against a secret list of 24 DTOs. Not to be left behind, Higgs have followed this up with an execute order in August 2025 that contained targeting instructions that didn't require positive identification of a target. Instead, quote unquote, reasonable certainty that a person is a member of or affiliated with a DTO per the Washington Post.

Starting point is 00:20:17 I want to stop right here and say that under Obama, the standard for drone strikes in the Middle East was quote-unquote near certainty, and they still struck a marriage possession in Yemen. There is serious reason to doubt the U.S. ability to know the certainty of any target they're planning to hit. Earlier this year, a joint U.S. and Ecuadorian operation on an alleged narco-terrorist compound actually raided a dairy farm with no arrest, but the Ecuadorian military did, allegedly torture some folks, per the New York Times. Meanwhile, according to reporting in Bloomberg, serious issues with the AI-assisted, quote-unquote, kill chain used by the U.S. military, led to the strike that killed at least 120 free children at a girls' school in Manab, Iran. United Nations investigators recently concluded that this was likely a war crime. Funnily enough, the boat strikes do not constitute a war crime because were simply

Starting point is 00:21:17 not at war with the cartels in a strictly international legal sense. The criteria established by the Execute Order to attack these ships is really unclear. Democratic Senator Tim Cain from Virginia revealed that the both strikes are being carried out using free criteria that he was not allowed to disclose. However, he was allowed to disclose that, quote unquote, evidence of narcotics was not one of them. Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky said during the same hearing that having weapons on the vessel is not one of the criteria either. This was during a full committee hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee for the fiscal year 27 State Department budget, by the way. Anyway, in August 2025, the U.S. military mobilized to the Caribbean. And on September 2nd, 2025, the first strike event occurred.

Starting point is 00:22:11 and I say strike event because there were at least four missiles fired on that day. Per the Washington Post, Defense Secretary Pete Hexef's order was to, quote, kill everybody, end quote. Video published after the attack shows a boat racing across the waves, lighting up with a tower of fire after being hit. Nine people died because of that first missile. However, after the smoke and fire cleared, surveillance video being watched by U.S. military officials,

Starting point is 00:22:40 but not released to the public, showed two people clinging to the remains of the vessel. They stayed in those freezing waters for roughly 45 minutes until Admiral Frank Bradley, then head of the Joint Special Operations Command, also known as J-Soc, ordered SEAL Team 6 to hit it again, killing the two remaining survivors. Per the intercept, Admiral Bradley sought legal counsel from J-Soc's legal advisor in between the first and second strike. Although the response isn't known, a lawmaker told the intercept that the follow-up strike was deemed legal. Two more missiles finally sank the vessel.

Starting point is 00:23:20 Bradley, who's now chief of Special Operations Command, said that he ordered the extra strikes because the shipwrecked men and the fragment of the boat still posed a threat, sources told the intercept. For the New York Times, the survivors had managed to get back on the boat's remains and were waving to the planes before the second missile killed them. The aircraft used to carry out this strike was reportedly painted to look like a civilian plane. However, this practice has stopped since that first strike, according to the New York Times. That same article states that the men had spotted the plane and turned the boat around back to Venezuela. For sources who spoke with the intercept, J-Soc did not know the names or supposed affiliations of all the persons aboard this vessel. Of the victims who've been identified by Air Wars,

Starting point is 00:24:08 eight were from San Juan Dunare in Venezuela, while three others were from local towns close to San Juan Dunare called Los Estigos Anguidia. The one victim there's the most information about online is Luis Chemaria Martinez, who was identified by the Associated Press as a quote-unquote long-time local crime boss that made his money mostly from smuggling people and drugs across borders. He had previously been jailed after a boat he was operating capsized, in 2020, killing, quote, about two dozen people, end quote, including several of his relatives. He was jailed in Venezuela, to be clear.

Starting point is 00:24:47 Some family members believe that Che Maria was one of two bodies that have washed up on the shores of Trinidad and Tobago, per an anonymous source who spoke with N plus Univision from Martinez's native Guidia. The anonymous source compared Che Maria to an errand boy for drug traffickers, not the owner. per the killing spree report by the Washington office on Latin America, there's a significant possibility that many of the victims who died in that first strike were passengers traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago. The report cites El Klip and I will hear as well. Quote, some people who are familiar with boat movements, end quote, along the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Venezuela, told El Klip that, quote, it is common for the same boats that

Starting point is 00:25:35 carry drugs on the outward journey to bring passengers back. The Capitanes, as the boat operators are known, take whatever work they can get, end quote. The second boat strike we know of occurred on September 15th, 2025. Alejandro Carranza Medina, a Colombian man, was when a free men killed by that boat strike. Family members told RTVC, a Colombian news outlet, that he had been on board the boat and that it was an artisanal fishing vessel. citing the video posted by the Trump administration online, family members posited that the ship had been having engine trouble at the time that it was fired upon. When the New York Times spoke with Caranza Medina's family, the mother of his free children said that he had never been involved in drug smuggling. Quote, if he was some kind of narco-terrorist, then why are we living in misery instead of a mansion?

Starting point is 00:26:31 she asked a reporter. Gustavo Petro, who is still president of Colombia at the time he made these remarks, said that Caranza Medina might have been involved with drugs intermittently as many fishermen are forced to because poverty leaves him little else in terms of work. Her reporting from El Eraldo and the New York Times, he had previously pled guilty in a scheme to steal weapons confiscated during legal proceedings, but it appears that he never served jail time for this. I add this context because the truth of who these people were is extremely nuanced,

Starting point is 00:27:05 and regardless of whether they were quote-unquote criminals in the eyes of the state or not, they did not deserve to be killed. In fact, as Petro said, for these poor communities, because of the economic desperation these fishermen face, it's common for them to be extremely vulnerable to being exploited by drug trafficking organizations. Per the team behind Los Bombardillos, The four men killed during the October 3rd 2025 strike were also from Guiria. Luis Ramon Amundarang had traveled from his home to Trinidad and Tobago in search of work.

Starting point is 00:27:39 He was a motorcycle taxi driver and a boat captain who accepted his first drug running job because he had no other way to pay for his youngest daughter's dermatology treatment or to feed his four other children. According to El Clipp, Ramon's cousin, Robert Sanchez, was a woman. also on the boat and was killed. For the AP, Robert had been pushed by economic pressure to join a drug smuggling job in hopes of getting enough money to buy an engine for his fishing boat. Ramon's wife told El Klip that, quote, if Ramon had really been a narco-terrorist, if he'd had money, if he'd been living large. Believe me, I wouldn't be living where I live now. And if you go to the homes of the other free men they killed, you'll see that they don't have much either.

Starting point is 00:28:27 because none of it belonged to them, end quote. I should say that El Klip notes that all signs point to them about to go on a run for illicit cargo, but a friend of Ramon's told Al-Clip that he was sure no drugs were on board at the time the boat was hit, because a boat traveling from Trinidad and Tobago to Venezuela is going to pick up merchandise, not deliver it. Quote, boats carry drugs from South America nor fords, not the reverse, end quote, said Maria Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of El Klip to the Guardian. On October 14, 2025, a strike killed six people. Chad, Charpo Joseph, and Ritchie Samarou were among the victims.

Starting point is 00:29:22 They were both from Trinidad and Tobago, and they were fishermen, per CNC-free TV. Joseph's grandfather characterized a strike as a, quote, active evil, end quote. They seemingly had no connection with drug. trafficking other than Joseph's uncle being a quote-unquote drug lord for the T&T guardian. Per a lawsuit filed by the families of Joseph and Samaru against the U.S. government in the district of Massachusetts, Samaru was working on a farm in Venezuela and had called his sister days before he was killed to let her know that he had found a ride to Trinidad. Similarly, Joseph had told his wife he had found a boat ride from Venezuela back home and would see her in a couple of

Starting point is 00:30:06 days. They never arrived. Her air wars, Dushak Milovich from Guidia was also one of the men killed during that strike. He had once been a cadet at the Venezuelan National Guard Academy, but dropped out to run drugs per the AP. The lawsuit against the U.S. by the families of Joseph and Samarou is currently stalled pending the completion of judicial proceedings in Trinidad and Tobago that would declare the two men legally deceased and allow their families to take control of their estates per the Trinidad Daily Express. I'm sorry to say that I don't have the time to name all of the victims that we know of or the circumstances which led to them being killed in the ocean, forced into an unmarked grave. However, you can see the picture that's building through the

Starting point is 00:30:54 strikes that I've mentioned. These people appear to be either common fishermen or forced into smuggling drugs because that's the only type of work that they could find in a poverty that they had lived through most of their lives. Even the ones who were nominally part of a drug trafficking organization, perhaps one of the 24 on the secret list were low-level members at most or only quote-unquote affiliated, perhaps because they were traveling on the same boat as someone who was a member or hitched a ride on a boat carrying drugs. The truth is we will likely never know the full details of who all these people were, and what made the U.S. target them specifically. After the first strike, an official admitted that only one victim was considered a member of a

Starting point is 00:31:43 designated terrorist organization, per the intercept. The rest were affiliates. Pentagon officials have claimed that they knew the identities of everyone on that first vote, but per Senator Mark Warner, ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview with ABC, quote, they don't know all of the individuals on many of the other boats, end quote. I should also mention here that Maritime Interdictions have not stopped while these boat strikes have gone on. Per El Clip, on the same day as that very first strike, the Colombian Aerospace Force, its Dominican counterpart, and the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force South, carried out Operation Seuss, which led to the seizure of nearly 450, kilos of cocaine and the arrest of two people.

Starting point is 00:32:32 Seuss and other operations like it have occurred in parallel to the violent extrajudicial killings of the boat strikes. This shows that contrary to what the Trump administration has said, blowing up random people on boats isn't the only way to curb drug trafficking. There is certainly another way to stop it that doesn't involve murder and guarantees a person's day in court. This is in line with a new tactic utilized in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, where Southcom forces have been interdicting alleged floating refueling stations

Starting point is 00:33:07 that support illicit drug trafficking. Many of the publicly listed press releases related to these inedictions specify that they operate for Los Choneros. These vessels are also sunk via an explosion, and per the press releases I've read, the crew on these ships are disembarked and then handed over to their respective country's authorities. However, speaking of a day in court, free people have been rescued as survivors

Starting point is 00:33:37 in two incidents. On October 16, 2025, two men were pulled from a sinking semi-submersible vessel. Andres Fernando Tufino-Chila of Ecuador had previously been convicted of cocaine distribution, but his sister told El Paso that he'd been working as a fisherman before the U.S. struck the vessel he was on.

Starting point is 00:33:57 Jonathan Obando, the second survivor who's from Colombia, had no criminal history and no cartel links, according to El Paix. Even though Trump promised to prosecute them, they were eventually let go without being formally charged by either the U.S. or their home countries. Obviously, this begs the question, if these people are really, quote-unquote, narco-terrorists, why have they been able to go free? As El Paix notes, Trump's strategy is paradoxical. The Trump admin has enough justification to kill them extrajudicially,

Starting point is 00:34:33 but not to charge these men in a court of law, question mark. All possible evidence that could link these men to alleged drug trafficking, if there ever was any in the first place, goes up in literal smoke the moment that these boats are hit. El Paiz noted. It's likely that a court case would expose much of the case. of the legal scaffolding that upholds the Finn legal justification that the Trump administration is using for these strikes, as well as put on display that many of these people might really

Starting point is 00:35:02 just be fishermen forced into participating in the drug trade as a lookout or a guide or something like that because they had no other opportunities. A note on survivors, there haven't been more of them because the U.S. is apparently intent on not looking for them. per the intercept after December 30 strikes sank free vessels, Safcom said that it, quote unquote, immediately notified the Coast Guard, but it took the Coast Guard almost 45 hours to begin searching the attack zone for survivors. It is believed that the 11 people on these vessels drowned at sea. To end this section on March 21st, the Ecuadorian ship La Negra Francisco Adwarte II,

Starting point is 00:35:44 which was coming back from weeks of fishing at sea was hit by an apparent U.S. military drone strike, according to N-plus Univision. The crew had been forced off of the boat by apparent U.S. military personnel, although it's unclear from which agency they could have been. Photos from another ship that was detained in the region show that it might have been Coast Guard personnel,

Starting point is 00:36:08 per N-plus's reporting. Crew of La Negra Francisco Duarte II, as well as the Don Maka, which was intercepted on April 30th, alleged to DropSight News and Mongaveh Latam, that they were arbitrarily detained and tortured. The crew of the Negra Francisco Duarte was moved roughly 900 miles north from their position and turned over to the Salvadoran Coast Guard.

Starting point is 00:36:33 Meanwhile, the crew of the Don Maka told DropSight they had been, quote, held hostage and hooded for eight days. La Fiorela, another Ecuadorian ship, and its crew went missing in January, per the New Yorker. The wife of the captain who commanded the ship told Dropsite that her husband had called her on an emergency line saying that, quote, American aircraft, two drones, and a blue patrol ship, end quote, had been circling the boat. The next day, the Fiorella and its crew disappeared.

Starting point is 00:37:04 The prosecutor who had led the investigation into the Fiorela's disappearance was shot dead alongside her sister in Manta, per the New Yorker. There do not appear to be any links between these free boats and drug trafficking, for the report cited earlier. Unlike the boat strikes, the U.S. has not taken boastful credit for the disappearance and detention of these ships and actively denies having done anything to harm them. For their part, the Salvadoran military says that the men of the Francisco Duarte

Starting point is 00:37:35 had been shipwrecked and then rescued as part of a quote-unquote, humanitarian operation. It's unclear if these are related to Operation Southern Spear or Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, its evolution. There was a brief two-month pause on these boat strikes from July 21 to August 23rd, but at time of recording, the strikes have continued unabated. There appears to be no end in sight for this terror. These strikes are part of the Trump administration's focus on exerting control over the Western Hemisphere, the so-called Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. As part of this renewed focus on the region, Trump attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its president Nicolas Maduro. He is currently sitting in jail in New York. Meanwhile,

Starting point is 00:38:24 the U.S. has started partnering with other countries in the region to attack so-called narco-terrorists. These countries, such as Ecuador, Colombia, and Honduras, have agreed to join. operations on their soil with U.S. personnel. These include airstrikes, which I previously mentioned as the attack on that dairy farm. It's clear that this rising tide of anti-narco-terrorism actions will become more prominent across Latin America. I should also say, quote-unquote, anti-narcoterrorism actions. Alleged narco-terrorism. On September 22nd, the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,

Starting point is 00:39:05 Republic of Dominican, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guillauna, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago, published a joint statement declaring that they were announcing the, quote, first joint action under our newly announced pillars, individual and collective action to confront the scourge of narco-terrorism. As such, we declare our intention to impose as applicable and in accordance with our respective international and domestic legal obligations. as it freezes immigration and visa restrictions for members, associates, and supporters of the organizations, and criminal liability for individuals knowingly providing material support, including logistical support to the organizations, among other measures. This announcement has seemingly been a long time coming. At a conference of the America's counter-cartel coalition in March 26, Stephen Miller told Latin American military leaders that, quote,

Starting point is 00:40:03 these organizations can only be defeated with military power. And I see some heads nodding up front because they understand you're dealing with a lot of lawyers in your country, I'm sure. You have my permission not to listen to them, end quote. This is frightful, to be honest with you. There's not enough space in this episode today, but I assure you I will talk about this more later at some point. if you want a brief intro into what the U.S. is done in Latin America before you can listen to my episodes on the Dominican Republic and my episode on the U.S.'s colonies. To be honest with you, things are not looking good in terms of democratic rights in the Americas. I want to end this episode by highlighting this quote from the Washington office on Latin America, Killing Spree Report.

Starting point is 00:40:57 If normalization of the boat strikes takes hold and the U.S. president can assert an unlimited license to kill, the protections of the rule of law will be gravely weakened for all of us, not just those who are the most immediate targets of state violence. Thank you for listening. You can find me on all social media as at Vacero 2x, and you can follow Cool Zone Media at Cool Zone Media, pretty much everywhere. is now in Ontario. The name you know and trust,

Starting point is 00:41:36 which means credibility, impeccable 24-7 customer support, and an easy-to-use app are also here. So you can play here, there, anywhere. The hard rock back casino app is now in Ontario. Download the app.

Starting point is 00:41:52 Roll with us. Must be 19 years of age or older to play. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling or that of someone close to you, visit connectsonterio.ca. I'm Lacey Mosley,

Starting point is 00:42:02 the author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcasts, The True Crime Comedy Podcasts, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debrie, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Beyer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job.

Starting point is 00:42:24 And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. And I'm also here to laugh with you.

Starting point is 00:42:48 So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhane. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft.

Starting point is 00:43:15 Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. Okay.

Starting point is 00:43:27 A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys? I've done Terry Gross's Peloton class. No! I've been dying, too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Starting point is 00:43:39 by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14th. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland bookstore yesterday and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday.

Starting point is 00:43:55 A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometime. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:44:20 A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to two. tootateans to Montegro, so. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter.

Starting point is 00:44:52 Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all. You got to give Bruce and the guy's credit. They're Republican. They don't give a shit of money. It's now. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis.

Starting point is 00:45:16 Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans are. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story. I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up.

Starting point is 00:45:42 But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The comments were to real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion, and this is biggest rivalries of all. Time, Season 2.

Starting point is 00:46:01 The New York Liberty versus the Houston Commons, the very first rivalry of the WNBA. They picked us to finish last, and they picked them to finish first. That's all you need to know. I remember looking around thinking this is going to change things.

Starting point is 00:46:15 Basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship.

Starting point is 00:46:34 Oh, we're coming back to win. Hello, everyone. I'm welcome to it could happen here. My name is Donna El-Kurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking with Harsawalia, who is an activist and writer based in Canada. Her book, Border and Rule, Global Migration, Capitalism and the Rise of Racist nationalism, I think is essential reading for all of us who are concerned with the rise of fascism and its connection

Starting point is 00:47:06 to anti-immigrant sentiment and narratives that are taking root in a lot of our societies. I spoke with Harsha about the, for lack of a better term, incident that happened in the Spanish enclave of Seota on the tip of Morocco exactly a month ago. So we recorded this podcast on September 10th. A month ago, exactly, I think something like 70,000 migrants attempted to cross over into the Spanish enclave to seek refuge in the European continent. Some of these migrants were from Morocco, but many were not. and there was a huge outrage and backlash against migrants and against what happened there from the left and the right, as we'll discuss in the interview.

Starting point is 00:47:44 So I spoke with Harsha about what the implications of these arguments have been and how do we understand this anti-immigrant sentiment that, again, sometimes comes both from the right and the left. So I hope that this is a useful interview and useful for some of us who are trying to center migration and freedom of movement in our struggle against fascism. Without further ado, here's Harsha Waya. So I'd like to start with maybe just a brief summary for our listeners, since the world is on fire and things move quickly, about what happened last month in Seuta. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah. And it's almost exactly to the day. It's

Starting point is 00:48:31 been 30 days. And so what happened a month ago is approximately 70,000 migrants from Morocco. And here it's important to say, you know, migrants came from Morocco, but not all the migrants were Moroccan because, of course, Morocco is one of many transit routes for migrants looking to come through the Mediterranean into Europe. And so the 70,000 migrants who came from Morocco were not only Moroccan migrants, but included migrants from Sudan, Mali, Yemen, Gaza, Palestine, 48, and others. And so what happened to 70,000 migrants transited into Seota. And Seota is also a transit point into the EU. Seota is one of the Spanish held enclaves in Moroccan territory and has long been held by Spain and is claimed by Spain despite being on the continent of Africa. And because it is

Starting point is 00:49:32 under formal Spanish jurisdiction, a lot of migrants looking to come into the EU have transited through the enclaves as they're called. So Seota and Malilla. Another one is the Canary Islands. You know, since the 1990s, this has been one of the major routes of migration. And so while it may seem incredibly significant and spectacular, which it was because of the scale, the fact that Seota and Malila are transit points into the EU for migrants is part of a very long and ongoing trajectory. And so what we saw, particularly because of the scale of 70,000 people crossing into Seyota, was, you know, this global kind of uproar that frankly came from many parts, you know, came of course from the right, where the right and, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:21 nationalists across the spectrum. So the far right, but also conservatives, and at a global scale, right? So not just in Europe, but also in the United States and elsewhere, this fed into, of course, the perfect anti-migrant storm that far right and fascists and conservative forces are always fueling. But also we saw a lot of, I would argue, misinformation from many leftist commentators who arguably actually used a lot of right-wing rhetoric to claim that this was an attack on Spain because of Spain's very vocal position

Starting point is 00:50:58 in support of Palestine. And so this created really a perfect storm for a lot of misinformation across the spectrum, particularly for people who had frankly never even heard of Seattle before. And so this is kind of what happened both in terms of the really significant scale

Starting point is 00:51:15 of migration that took place, but also what we saw after in terms of how people responded to this moment. Yeah, thank you for sending it up that way. We'll definitely get into, for me, of interest as the leftist misinformation that we saw all over the internet. But before I get into kind of some of the details of the aftermath, I also just want to kind of break down. Why did migrants think this was a good time to try to make it to Europe?

Starting point is 00:51:38 Like, why in this scale? Yeah, it's a good question. And, you know, I think a lot of what's happening is, frankly, still being pieced together because, you know, one of the things that we did see in the aftermath, was a lot of, you know, clipping and hypotheses. And there are still people on the ground who are talking to migrants to find out, you know, why did you make this journey at this moment? What is the circulation of information that was happening?

Starting point is 00:52:03 So a lot of that is still coming out, which I think I want to emphasize, because I think in like a hot take economy, we aren't sitting with accurate information always. And there isn't a simple answer because, again, I would emphasize that migrants who migrated in that moment, again, were coming from very different backgrounds. And by backgrounds, I don't just mean the kind of national origins that I pointed out. But, you know, many of the migrants have left, but many of the migrants are still there. And so people were in very different situations as to why they chose to make the move in that moment. There isn't a single answer. Some of the factors that we can point to and we can see is, you know, there was a Supreme Court decision in Spain just a few

Starting point is 00:52:45 weeks prior to this mass migration in July. And so that that decision was in June. And, you know, that decision was a very specific Supreme Court decision in Spain about regularization because Spain has been regularizing migrants, which has been really significant, actually, in the context of, you know, this rightward drift in the EU that has been escalating. Spain's regularization program was significant. And there was a Supreme Court decision associated with that about travel and travel routes. To kind of put it simply, what we saw is several misinterpretations of that Supreme Court decision that started to circulate. And, you know, for anyone who is familiar or who has family, who has been looking to migrate, you know, from all of the many situations and horrors around the world,

Starting point is 00:53:35 we know that, you know, information travels fast. So one of the kind of conspiracy theories is, like, there's no way 70,000 people would have all gotten access to the same information. And frankly, that is a complete misunderstanding of how diasporic communities and communities who are immobilized who are looking to migrate, how information travels. Travels much wider. Travels much wider. Many of the WhatsApp groups, for example, that in this situation people were referencing, there was at least two groups that had almost 200,000 people on the WhatsApp groups. Yeah, yeah. And this is not a conspiracy theory because actually coincidentally yesterday, a number of declassified. documents were released by Spain. And so these Spanish documents revealed that there were some of these WhatsApp groups had almost 200,000 people on each of them. And so if you think about it,

Starting point is 00:54:25 that's just a fraction of the people, you know? So the issue is not how information travels. It's just whether people choose to act on that information, how verified they think that information is. And so that was significant. The misinterpretation of the Supreme Court decision bolstered a lot of these WhatsApp groups to think like actually now is the moment. Right. Actually, just yesterday, the information that I was referencing actually suggested that the Spanish government was told by Spanish intelligence that there was going to be some significant movement in July, in mid-July. Okay. Because of access to these WhatsApp groups. And we know that many of the migrants, particularly non-Moroccan migrants in Morocco, we're waiting to move in the summer because that is actually typically when people move. Not at the scale of 70,000, but it is not unheard of for thousands and thousands of people to be. the move through the summer trying to get into Europe, particularly crossing through the Mediterranean. So that is actually just, frankly, a baseline when it comes to a lot of migration. And then, of course,

Starting point is 00:55:23 we did have the element of, you know, to what degree did the Moroccan government and Moroccan authorities not necessarily, you know, foster this in an active way, but definitely suggestions that, you know, Moroccan authorities were not as heavy-handed as they have been in the past when collaborating on border securitization and perhaps using this moment to leverage with Spain with respect to Western Sahara. So, you know, multiple factors were at play. But it is the main things that stand out, particularly from migrants who both returned or are still in Sueta, is really the Supreme Court decision. And then just this kind of surge that happened in the moment where more and more people felt in the moment that they could make the crossing because of the seemingly lacks.

Starting point is 00:56:11 border securitization in that moment. I want to get to Morocco and Western Sahara in just a moment. Listeners will remember, or hopefully will remember, a episode I recently did with Western Sahara activist to Muhammad Saddam. So I'll link that in the show notes. But before we get to that, just to kind of break down the aftermath, the kind of immediate aftermath we saw in Spain. And as you said, like not just Spain, not just Europe, but also the United States. But let's maybe start with Spain. Like, has there been kind of an anti-immigrant backlux? as a result of this and what has that looked like? And then how has that kind of fed into these narratives,

Starting point is 00:56:58 like especially in the United States, like the great replacement theory, like people really hooked onto these things. So maybe you could break that down for us. Yeah, you know, the things that have been happening on the ground, you know, I'm also obviously not there, but being in touch with comrades there and following what's happening has been incredibly alarming.

Starting point is 00:57:18 You know, so it is undeniable, of course, that we are overall in a crisis, of neoliberalism and austerity. And we know all of the ways in which that means people feel intense economic pressures in their lives. Seota is not a huge place in terms of geography and population. And so just the ability for the infrastructure, the local infrastructure, to actually support people in a good way has been significantly strained. However, you know, while that is true, that is often layered as we see in many places with anti-migrants xenophobia, right, where migrants become the scapegoat for capitalist austerity, become the

Starting point is 00:57:57 scapegoat around scarce resources. And almost every day in Seota, there has been anti-migrant protests since the last 30 days, almost every single day. It initially started by far-right forces coming into Seota from other cities, particularly from Spain and elsewhere, really to foster this phenomenon. And unfortunately now it has extended into Seota locals as well. And so Seota has historically been known for being a very multicultural space. You know, it is, it is a borderland. And so I use multiculturalism, not in the liberal way, but in a very sincere way of what it means for people to have lived together for a very long time. And I don't say that to romanticize all the anti-migrant violence that has been ongoing in the securitization of the enclaves since the 1990s.

Starting point is 00:58:49 but I mean within the local communities. And that has been fracturing. You know, many of the organizations that have been operating in Seattle to support migrants are now facing attacks. You know, they are being called traitors. They are facing a lot of hatred just for supporting migrants, just for doing accompaniment, just for doing documentation. And they've been doing incredibly important documentation work,

Starting point is 00:59:13 documenting how migrants have been stranded alone on the beach. Many migrants have been corralled and told that They cannot leave certain areas. So they are basically enclosed into certain areas of Seota. Many of them have been denied registration. So registration is the process through which you become registered into the state registry in order to access supports. So they have documented that when they accompany people,

Starting point is 00:59:38 they are being arbitrarily denied. And when they're denied, that means they can't access any of the supports. There have been beatings by local police authorities. There have also been local attacks on migrants by right-for. So it has been incredibly hard and horrific to witness this. And what I find particularly hard about this moment, just to return to this earlier moment, you know, when migrants were first landing on Seota in July, the way that so many left-wing comrades were quick to dismiss it, I'm not saying the left is responsible for the violence, but it has meant a very quick

Starting point is 01:00:15 turn away and abandonment of migrants, because people were quick to just call. it an invasion and say, well, so many of the migrants have come back, it was not an issue. But that ignores the fact that there are, in fact, many migrants who are still there. I mean, again, particularly migrants from Palestine, from Yemen, from Mali, from Sudan, who have been, again, you know, just kind of stranded on the beaches. And for organizations in Seattle who are supporting migrants and migrant justice organizations, you know, they've said that they haven't seen anything like this in decades in terms of the work and the impact on the ground.

Starting point is 01:00:48 And just desperate conditions for these people that I think, like you said, the left lakes. Not all the left. Let's just be, you know, everybody, nobody gets upset with me. But some large parts of the left and the global north that like really loves a neat narrative. Yeah. So let's maybe get into that. Like, why did we see, for me, especially English speaking, goinsers and pundits who speak on the left? Like, why did they connect this to an Israeli plot?

Starting point is 01:01:18 Yeah, I mean, I think what we've seen in the past few years since the ongoing genocide, various kinds of lefts have emerged, you know. One of those lefts has been very quick on the takes, on the upticks. You know, we see content farming. And in particular, we see very simplistic narratives where people may not actually know the extent of place-based geographies and movements and have only seen clickbait about what countries have done to stand up to the Zionist enemy, right? And that is important. Spain, for example, is one of those countries that has stood up to the Zionist entity. We saw this with, you know, tremendous support,

Starting point is 01:01:57 for example, for South Africa during the ICJ hearing. And at the same time, we had organizers from Sudan saying, hey, can we talk about what's happening between the South African state and the UAE and the closer relationships, you know, none of which is to simplify in the opposite direction, but it is to actually sit with internationalism in a meaningful way and to look at all the contours of what is happening. And so what we saw in the aftermath of July, and really from commentators who, frankly, in my humble opinion, have any connection to migrant movements, right? So did not know the history of Seota, do not understand Seota as a transit point for many decades, really harping on this idea that because it was migrants entering into Seota, it was an attack on

Starting point is 01:02:44 on Spanish sovereignty. You know, there was all these clips of these migrants are military aged men. Just look at them. They're like 18 to 45. And it's like, who do you think most migrants are in general? Like, that is actually the demographic of many migrants, not exclusively, of course.

Starting point is 01:03:00 But that is the reality of migration, particularly on dangerous routes, right? That has been one of the impacts of securitizing the borders is that it does make it harder for elderly or kids to migrate because those routes are becoming more dangerous. So, but, you know, the narrative became, look, this is a U.S.-Israeli Moroccan-backed plot to destabilize Spain and Spanish sovereignty at a time when Spain is standing up to Palestine. Like, that was the through line, and all of the evidence was clipped and farmed to justify that.

Starting point is 01:03:33 And so, you know, that was why we saw what we did. I think in this moment we're seeing many other similar narratives in that trajectory that are not about Seota, but that are in that same vein, where people want to suggest that everything is a U.S. Israeli-backed conspiracy. Frankly, you know, people straight up saying, like, you know, if anyone is against Spain, they must be backed by Zionists. Like, you know, and it is clear cut and nuances terrible and nuances is two-sidism, you know. And so I think there was an uptick because that has become part of some segments of leftist discourse. Yeah, people in the Palestine space, I'll speak for myself in particular, like this struggle to have a truly internationalist perspective has been, yeah, a growing

Starting point is 01:04:27 struggle in the movement, like, to kind of push against the easy narratives that people want to latch on to. And your argument is that, like, treating it as a foreign military, like, maneuver, like you're just conceding the far rights premise entirely. So let's maybe also talk about the Moroccan role here. You mentioned already that like there is an interest of the Moroccan state to use migration as a leverage and Western Sahara plays a role in this. So could you maybe break that down for us? Yeah, I think as I mentioned, you know, some of this is still being parsed out. And so, you know, we don't know for sure. But what we do know is that Morocco, and state authorities likely relaxed their kind of border controls in that moment.

Starting point is 01:05:24 And I think it is important here again to emphasize that, you know, both Morocco and Spain have for a long time collaborated on border controls, right? And so, you know, one of the arguments that I generally make is that we have to understand borders as a linchpin in state violence, that, you know, while there are many things often at play in terms of global geopolitics, whether it's imperialism, of course, or bilateral kind of relationships between various states. One of the things they have always collaborated on and continue to collaborate on is borders. It's completely global. And, you know, Spain and Morocco have long collaborated.

Starting point is 01:06:01 Spain has often funded Moroccan border securitization. And so while there are many significant differences between Spain and Morocco, for example, on their positions and alignments on Palestine, you know, Morocco's normalization, Spain's significant stance against Zionism and Israel, although imperfect, significantly more than Morocco, that is undeniable. Despite Spain and Morocco's significant differences on Western Sahara, they have collaborated on border securitization. So that is important to hold as the overall context. And then in this moment, you know, it's hard to say precisely because, again, we don't have all of that kind of information. But what we do know is that a different

Starting point is 01:06:44 times, Spain has leveraged the border. And Morocco has leveraged the border for their own personal interest, particularly around Western Sahara. And with respect to Spain, Spain has actually fluctuated on its position on Western Sahara over the past several years. In 2021, as we know, Spain reversed its position on supporting an independent referendum on Western Sahara. This moment in 26 has been really important because Algeria and Spain have reestablished relationships. While we don't know the extent of that relationship, we know that those relationships being reestablished did cause some discontent for the Moroccan state. And so, you know, we can speculate that that is one of the reasons, particularly in this moment, that Morocco may have decided to really leverage the border in a

Starting point is 01:07:37 particular way to have Spain rethink any possibility of rethinking its position on Western Sahara. And to emphasize, Spain has not yet reversed its decision from 2021, but people understood that maybe this gesture towards Algeria might suggest that Spain was going to change its position on Western Sahara. Interesting. Yeah. No, I think it's a very important point to underscore that there is, as you've mentioned in your previous work, this kind of externalization of enforcement and that there are all of these states around the world that play that role, you know, Fortress Europe. I don't know, catchphrase is the right term here. But like we talked a lot about Fortress Europe like, I don't know, 10 years ago and the role that a lot of these Middle Eastern states, despite a lot of differences,

Starting point is 01:08:22 like you said, like play in the maintenance of border imperialism. I kind of want to maybe end on this idea from some of your commentary on this particular incident a month ago about how, you know, we need to understand like people will keep crossing. That's going to be the significance. So for those of us who aren't taking an anti-immigrant position, either from the left or the right, what should someone who takes that seriously actually be organizing towards right now? Yeah, I love that question. Because for me, when I think about the externalization of borders as we're talking about, to me, it means that if we see bordering as happening not just as, you know, a line on a map that's about people crossing in particular moments, or, you know, especially right

Starting point is 01:09:08 now what's happening, for example, in the U.S. or what we see with AFD's victory in a region of Germany, all of this to me really points to like, it is impossible to separate out the rise of fascism from anti-migrant racism. And so when I think about, you know, what can we do to support migrants, it really is a much broader struggle to dismantle fascism because despite all their differences and all polls for the past decade have shown this, that in different parts of the world, people vote for fascist parties for different reasons, right? Because obviously not every geography is the same.

Starting point is 01:09:46 But the two most significant similarities is anti-Muslim racism and anti-migrant racism. That is the most consistent similarity in very disparate parts of the world. Because, you know, for example, white supremacy is not necessarily at play in India. Right. Right. Like that is not the governing framework for fascism, but it is Hindotva, which is motivated by anti-Muslim racism, caste supremacy, and also anti-migrant racism, right? All of the changes that we're seeing under Hindutva that are denationalizing and stripping

Starting point is 01:10:19 people of citizenship, particularly from Muslim regions of India. So those are very connected in many different parts of the world. And so I think it is so important to understand. the ways in which anti-migrant racism is not only about migrants on the move, but it is part of a much bigger project of fascism. And so dismantling fascism is actually so central to thinking about no borders and, you know, the freedom to move. And also, for me, it really is about the freedom to stay, right?

Starting point is 01:10:48 So all of our struggles against imperialism. But an anti-imperialism that's inflicted with internationalism that centers, you know, the way in which borders are a structure. of imperialism, that we cannot continue to see the nation state as an anti-imperialist formation. The nation state as a form. I'm not talking about particular governments, you know, whether they're anti-imperialist or not, but as a form. Of course.

Starting point is 01:11:11 And so thinking about anti-imperialism from an internationalist perspective is so central to migrant struggles, you know, like, how do we make sure that people are not being displaced and immobilized by bordering regimes and the dismanting of capitalism? So for me, really thinking about bordering. as a through line, through our struggles for abolition, through our struggles against imperialism, through our struggles against displacement and genocide and gentrification, all of these are very similar forces, right?

Starting point is 01:11:40 Very different, of course, in how people are impacted, but similar in their logics. So to me thinking about bordering as central is how we actually fight for people on the move. It is to refuse to silo migrants into this other struggle because that is actually what the right relies on, right? Like, if we actually think about it, Migrant is one of the most state constructed categories.

Starting point is 01:12:01 Like, we know everything is constructed. Race is constructed. Gender is constructed. But migrant truly is so constructed. You know, it's literally just about a paper. Right. And so, you know, to refuse to feed into the idea of that construction is to understand migration as inherently connected to all of these struggles, right?

Starting point is 01:12:19 It is actually a symptom and cannot be siloed as a kind of separate side issue that people who stand for migrant justice are just, you know, this little pro-immigrant silo alongside all these struggles. It is to see bordering as the linchpin that sustains so many other forms of violence. No, that's so well put. I think we all could do in all of our respective communities to do a little bit more work understanding what fascism actually is. Like, what are the building blocks? What are the mechanisms of fascism? And if there's consistency in being anti-fascist, then you see this very clearly that the immigration issue is essential. But unfortunately, there is not always consistency.

Starting point is 01:13:03 But yeah, thank you so much, Hasha. This has been such a wonderful conversation, and I know that a lot of people will get a lot out of it. So thank you for your time. Thank you so much, and thank you for your work. Your work is just so deeply appreciated. Please know that. Oh, thank you so much.

Starting point is 01:13:16 I appreciate it. All right. Take care, everybody. The music you love, the radio stations, the podcasts everyone's talking about, all in one place and it's free Whatever you want to hear Listen anytime anywhere

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Starting point is 01:13:54 Download the free IHard Radio app today Hi, this is Kylie Breakman Angel Geratana Jeremy Colhain Patrick McDonald And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast

Starting point is 01:14:08 where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore.

Starting point is 01:14:24 Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14th. That's crazy.

Starting point is 01:14:40 I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween.

Starting point is 01:15:01 He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The True Crime Comedy Podcasts all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer.

Starting point is 01:15:34 Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers.

Starting point is 01:15:52 Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil.

Starting point is 01:16:23 So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokitines to Montegrozzo. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold. rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now, people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all. You got to give Bruce and the guy's credit. They're Republican kids. They don't get a

Starting point is 01:16:59 money. It's now. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol Kingpin of Iowa, became the King of Corn in Brazil, and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story. I remember sitting with a couple of male writers. All whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail?

Starting point is 01:17:38 No one's going to show up. But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The Comets were a real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion, and this is biggest rivalries of all time, season two.

Starting point is 01:17:59 The New York Liberty versus the Houston Comets, the very first rivalry of the W&N. They picked us to finish last, and they picked them to finish first. That's all you need to know. I remember looking around thinking, this is going to change things. Basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win.

Starting point is 01:18:34 Welcome to Iqadabin here. I'm Kevin Foster, and today we're separating the art from the artist, specifically taking McElmore's solid political takes and isolating them from his, let's just say, iconic bars like, what up, I got a big cock. For those who aren't caught up, McElmore was touring with Ed Sheeran not long ago before he was removed from the tour for espousing pro-Palestine statements on stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Specifically, he said, free Palestine a few times and thanks students at Columbia University for kicking off the encampments movement in spring of 2024. Those students inspired his song Hins Hall, the title student protesters gave Columbia's Hamilton Hall, named after Hind Rajab, a five-year-old who was brutally murdered by the Israeli defense forces in Gaza in January of 2024. In a beautiful case of Leopard's eating faces, Ed Shearin's entire lineup of opening acts

Starting point is 01:19:40 and his backing band withdrew from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore. In his next performance, Shearon gave a sort of apology speech to the crowd, reading off a teleprompter in which he did not use the words genocide or Palestinian. Rather than focusing on that, due to the outstanding negative response to McClmore's statements from Zionist billionaires, I think it's worth listening to some of what he actually said on stage. Here's a clip from his Instagram. To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love, for all human

Starting point is 01:20:28 beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. So I say free Palestine. I say free Lebanon, I say free Cuba, I say free Congo, free Sudan, free all people in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ice. None of us will be free until we are all free. This song is called Hens Hall. Some deeply frightening stuff in there, at least for Robert Crack. the pro-Israel billionaire owner of the New England Patriots football team, Angelette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, near Boston, where McElmore was set to appear on tour with Shearhan. Kraft was not happy with McElmore's support of Palestinian equal rights on stage,

Starting point is 01:21:19 and he confirmed to Rolling Stone that he barred McElmore from appearing at the Boston shows over, quote, recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Shearin's shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, unquote. Despite McElmore's clear calls for equality and peace, Kraft felt his presence at Gillette Stadium would stymie the supposed goal of providing a, quote, welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that all events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech, unquote. funnily enough, those shows ended up getting canceled anyway due to severe weather warnings. But Kraft allegedly did not stop there.

Starting point is 01:22:06 According to a post by Macklemore following his removal from the tour, Sheeran apparently said that Kraft had rallied other stadium owners with an ultimatum. Quoting from that post, if McClmore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues, unquote. Messina Touring Group, the promoter of the U.S. portion of Sheeran's tour, said in a statement that they were notified by venues from the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they would not allow a concert to take place with McElmore in the lineup. Obviously, this represents a serious affront to freedom of speech,

Starting point is 01:22:40 something that is far from new on the matter of Palestine. As of yet, Kraft has not discussed or denied the allegations of mounting this pressure campaign against the rapper. In response to the controversy, basically everyone and their mother chimed in, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pretty well lays out the real focus of this episode. This is about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue, in this case the genocide in Gaza,

Starting point is 01:23:13 but it doesn't stop there. It could be speaking out about AI. It could be speaking out about any issues. Here's where things get interesting. Rolling Stone lists seven stadium venues that allegedly objected to McElmore's inclusion in the tour, and of those seven, five are publicly owned by either the city, county, or state in which they reside. I could spend quite a lot of time talking about how I think Ed Sheeran is a coward, how it is a political statement to fold in favor of genocide deniers,

Starting point is 01:23:45 but what I'm far more interested in is the First Amendment implications of craft's alleged actions and the ways in which billionaires are able to wield authority over our rights, even through public institutions and capital. To discuss this in depth, I've interviewed Friend of the Pod Mo Meltzer-Cohen, a law professor at CUNY School of Law, experienced in defense of people targeted on the basis of First Amendment protected beliefs, identities, and association. And let's dive right into that.

Starting point is 01:24:15 I'm kind of wondering if you can just tell me, from what you know about this case, what do you make of a billionaire kind of organizing a censorship campaign like this? Have you seen similar things in different contexts around free speech? Well, certainly. And they're all manner of ways

Starting point is 01:24:36 in which coercive social or economic pressure is brought to bear on different people or different events or forums in order to construct, the expressive conduct of different people or different groups, there's certainly nothing at all that is unique or unusual about that. I think what's important to recognize before we really get too deep into this is when we're talking about free speech principles, we can talk about

Starting point is 01:25:09 free speech as or free expression as a shared cultural value. But the First Amendment only applies to the government, right? So when we're talking about censorship, we need to be clear about whether we're talking about a private individual or company refusing to platform particular speech, which is certainly censorship, but it isn't government censorship

Starting point is 01:25:43 of the kind that the First Amendment is concerned with. Right? Yeah. The First Amendment as a legal principle, a set of legal principles, is a constraint on the power of the government to censor political speech or to censor free expression, right? It's a constraint on the power of the state to restrict people's ability to speak, to associate with each other, to, believe freely. And so I think what's interesting about this particular situation that you've raised is that, you know, an event planning company or a private theater or Robert Kraft himself as an individual are certainly at liberty to decline to give a platform to any speech that they find offensive. craft takes umbrage at somebody's music, he is under no obligation to subsidize it, to support it, to give it a platform. But you've pointed out that some of these stadiums at which these performances were scheduled to occur are owned by cities, are municipally owned or are owned by

Starting point is 01:27:11 the state. I think one of them you said is owned by the state of Florida. Yeah. So I can like dive into a little bit of the details on that. There's specifically the stadiums that are in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Tampa, Indianapolis, and Arlington, Texas. They're not all operated by public entities, but they are all owned by public entities between, you know, city, county, and state. But in the examples where they are privately operated, it's like the Atlanta Falcons or the Philadelphia Eagles. But that, you know, I reached out to these different groups. And in some cases, they tried to push it onto the operators. Like in Philadelphia, they told me to reach out to the Eagles for Lincoln Financial Stadium.

Starting point is 01:27:54 They did not respond to my emails. And then I had this in loop. I think it was Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. They did actually respond. But that was from the Capital Improvement Board for Marion County, Indiana. And they said, quote, we can confirm Messina Turing's announcement that McElmore will not be performing at the upcoming show. And then they said Lucas Oil Stadium is a public facility. and as such as content neutral, which, you know, I had to follow up and ask about that.

Starting point is 01:28:21 And they didn't respond to that, but it's a bit silly when they're sort of barring a performer. But like you said, where I feel like this was especially sort of troubling was in Tampa. They're both owned publicly and it's operated by the Tampa Sports Authority, who did not respond to my request for comment. And that seems to create this sort of complex situation. I don't know exactly what all the contracts are behind the scenes and who gets to control these things. But if it's a publicly owned and operated facility, I mean, does that raise some concerns? It sure does.

Starting point is 01:28:57 And so it's interesting that they reached back out to you that Lucas Oil Stadium said, we are content neutral. So that's a legal term of art. So let's keep out a little bit. Yeah. So as I said, the First Amendment is a constraint on the point. power of the government to dictate speech, right? It says the government cannot be the arbiter of expression. And so if you have a stadium that is owned by the government, presumably that forum is a public forum in the same way that a public park would be considered a public

Starting point is 01:29:44 forum, and that's legally significant. Why is that legally significant? Because in a, what's called a traditional public forum, land an area that is owned by the government, well, the government is permitted to impose constraints on the time, place, and manner of expression. Those constraints, first of all, they have to be reasonable constraints. And those constraints may not be imposed on the basis of content or viewpoint discrimination. So that's what they're saying when Lucas Oil Stadium says, Lucas Oil Stadium is content neutral. It's a very inelegant way of saying we aren't discriminating on the basis of viewpoint.

Starting point is 01:30:37 So constraints may be imposed, but they have to be content neutral. They can't be based on viewpoint discrimination. They have to be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government purpose or a significant government interest. And there are a range of things that are understood to be legitimate or valid significant government interests, right? They are things like public safety, making sure that school children's educational activities are not disrupted, making sure that people have access to and from public buildings, right? These would be considered valid government interests. Now, that issue sort of points up the fact that with respect to stadiums in particular,

Starting point is 01:31:34 there are frequently events held at stadiums where, In the wake of those events, typically sporting events, there are threats to public safety. There are very often extremely foreseeable incidences of boisterousness, shall we say, after, you know, the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. you know, publicly owned stadiums are not exercising their right to impose reasonable constraints on the time, place, and manner of expression by shutting down the Super Bowl, right, in anticipation of what they could reasonably expect to be rowdiness. I think Mom Doni would be recalled if he tried to stop the Knicks games over public safety concerns. I don't think Mom Donnie would ever do such a thing. No, I know, they won. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:32:39 In any event, it is really important to understand that it is permissible for the government to impose constraints on expression. They have to be reasonable constraints. They have to be content neutral, right, not discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. They have to be narrowly tailored, meaning they can't just be, okay, we're going to shut down everything because we have some concern, some speculative concern that, like, maybe there's going to be some rowdy behavior. And finally, and critically, those constraints have to leave open what are called ample alternative channels of communication, right? So absolutely canceling a performance would not leave open ample alternative channels of communication,

Starting point is 01:33:39 right? Yeah. And it's not clear what the public interest is in this case. because, you know, there are exceptions. There are things that fall outside the zone of First Amendment protections, and there are things like fighting words, you know, hate speech, true threats. But it's very clear that criticism of Israel, support for Palestine, solidarity with Palestine, those things are not hate speech, right?

Starting point is 01:34:10 Criticism of the political ideology of Zionism. these are not instances of anti-Semitic hate speech, right? Yeah. And so it's, you know, however offensive Robert Kraft or anyone else might find solidarity with Palestine to be, it is not speech of a kind that is exempted from the protections of the First Amendment. So, you know, if, again, if there's a private event company or a private event company or a privately owned stadium that says, we don't want to have Metro Moore play, they're at liberty to do that, right?

Starting point is 01:34:51 They can make that decision. What we can't have, or at least what deserves interrogation, what deserves a serious inquiry, is a publicly owned government-run entity shutting down speech at the behest of a wealthy, powerful individual, not on the basis of needing to impose a reasonable constraint or a reasonable restriction on the time, place, or manner of expression based on a content-neutral analysis

Starting point is 01:35:26 that is narrowly tailored to serve some significant government interest while also leaving open ample alternative channels of communication, right? I am concerned about a public stadium bowing to that kind of pressure, particularly in light of the fact that Kanye West can perform freely. And Kanye West is pretty openly. This is sort of a not even really a side note, but Kanye West performed multiple times at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa at the end of June. And, you know, while the set list FM doesn't say that he performed his song, Kyle Hitler, that I guess came out in 2025, it's hard to believe where we're at sometimes. But it's the open hypocrisy of that is just astounding.

Starting point is 01:36:24 Well, it's never been about anti-Semitism, right? I mean, just as a side-side note, there are more Christian Zionists in the United States than there are Jews in the entire world and they are explain. motivated by explicitly anti-Semitic goals, right? One of which is to create a mass exodus of Jewish people from the so-called, you know, global north. Oh, God. And the other of which is to hasten the apocalypse, at which point, according to the Christian

Starting point is 01:37:00 Zionist eschatology, some Jews will become Christian and remaining Jews. will go to go to hell. So this is not and has never been about anti-Semitism. It is about criticism of Israel. It is about solidarity with Palestine. Now, you know, we're looking at this very sort of niche and narrow issue of what are the implications for the First Amendment when we have a municipally owned or a government-owned event space and a performer is prevented from or forbidden from performing in that space,

Starting point is 01:37:46 clearly on the basis of what would typically be understood to be protected speech. Why does it matter? I mean, just to clarify, I am not an expert, certainly, in whatever kinds of leases or contract arrangements there are between these cities or states and, you know, third-party event planning companies, which, you know, if there's enough space in between, you know, the stadium and the decision being made potentially by a private third party, that might vitiate some of those First Amendment protections. Yeah. Right. I don't know, because I don't know enough of the facts on the ground there. And nevertheless, I think it is really important for us to address ourselves to

Starting point is 01:38:41 this question. Am I a McElmore fan? I, you know, not particularly. I mean, he's fine. But my concern is not with a wealthy and powerful recording artist. My concern is that we look at this situation with McElmore and I think it is obscuring a whole range of threats to free expression for the rest of us, right? Because, you know, is anyone going to be real worried about McElmore's welfare? No, he's fine, to his credit, by his own admission, he's not suffering. My concern is not with McElmore not being allowed to play a show. My concern is with the implications for the rest of us when we're allowing these kinds of incursions into First Amendment protections. And I think this is such an interesting case because the fact that it's McElmore is actually functioning, I think, to camouflage what those threats are.

Starting point is 01:39:57 Yeah. Right? Because we're also focused on the fact that it's this wealthy, powerful. guy, that we're missing the fact that the First Amendment can't be mobilized to protect his free expression. How else might we see these end runs around constitutional protections for the rest of us? I think there are a lot of things that are protected by the First Amendment that aren't necessarily legible to us as First Amendment. protected beliefs associations or activities, right?

Starting point is 01:40:36 Because we often will think about things that are First Amendment protected as being like the right to go to a particular kind of religious institution or the right to go to a protest, right? But a lot of the most important First Amendment case law deals with things like our multiple adolescents allowed to hang out on the public sidewalk together without getting arrested, right? Does it constitute probable cause of unlawful conduct for there to be more than two black children hanging out together on the stoop? Yeah. Right? That's not the kind of First Amendment protected activity that most people think about. It's not the top of mind when you say First Amendment,

Starting point is 01:41:28 right? I think people are thinking about, you know, people like marching against the war in Vietnam. Yeah. But we do many things every day that are protected by the First Amendment, not just, you know, posting on the Internet, not just, you know, having privacy with respect to who we're calling, right, being permitted to make phone calls to anyone we want. Like, a birthday party is a first party. is a First Amendment protected gathering, right? Our right to assemble, our right to free association, right? And so having an incursion into those protections, any incursion into those protections,

Starting point is 01:42:18 has implications for all of those other things. And if we stop paying attention and we say, oh, this is sort of a, hunch line, right? Oh, McElmore's being canceled by the rich right-wing stadium owners. And we don't look at the fact that there is a public performance that is being canceled by potentially the government. We're missing a whole range of risks because what's at stake is not McElmore's career. What's at stake is the ability of all of the rest of us to freely associate, to petition the government, to believe the things that we believe,

Starting point is 01:43:14 without being censored, without being punished for doing so. One of the other things that deserves to be said here is one of the reasons that this is a little bit confusing and that the waters are so muddied is this issue that I referred to a minute ago with respect to these publicly owned stadiums leasing out additional authority to these third-party companies, right? Yeah. Or private and which are as non-government entities are not subject to the constraints of the First Amendment.

Starting point is 01:44:06 That's not a problem with the First Amendment. That's a problem with the privatization of public life. Yeah. And I think we're seeing that in a lot of other realms as well. So, for example, as we see traditional government functions being more and more assumed by private utilities, we have a situation where what, you know, 40 years ago might have been, people petitioning the government not to build a pipeline, right? That would have been a First Amendment protected gathering, right?

Starting point is 01:44:46 We might have a protest at a government building. That would be protected by the First Amendment. Now, if you have a group of people who want to protest, for example, a pipeline, that whole process beginning to end may be so controlled by a private corporation that there's no government building to protest at anymore, right? And so what would have otherwise been a First Amendment protected protest is now a bunch of trespassing charges. Yeah. Right? Because the place that people are going to do that protest, to carry out that protest, may be private property, right? Yeah. You know, we're no longer petitioning the government. Now we're

Starting point is 01:45:32 petitioning, you know, energy transfer partners. This sort of, you know, raises this question. On the one hand, I'm like, oh, I'm not as worried about, you know, Robert Kraft getting to say, oh, McElmuller's not welcome at Gillette Stadium. I'm thinking about the ways in which he's able to use his wealth and capital to sort of manipulate the situation with government entities or call on his NFL buddies to kick them out in other places. but there is also a consideration of around the concentration of wealth

Starting point is 01:46:05 and the ways in which privatization is rapidly happening in various different instances across the country. And at what point do you see the shrinking of the public square just generally across the board? And the ways in which billionaires are then able to control the narrative through that ownership. Yeah. I think one of the other things that is worth pointing out, is a lot of times when we're talking about First Amendment retaliation or, you know, what we're seeing here, right, where you see an organization, public or private, engage in this kind of really obvious censorship on the basis of viewpoint. We usually do not see the kind of smoking gun,

Starting point is 01:46:57 but, you know, putting it in an email. Yeah. and saying, I don't want to see this individual being allowed to perform for the following reason, which is that he expressed solidarity with Palestine, right? We usually see at least a little bit more, well, usually we don't have a smoking gun email. Yeah, or talking to the press about it. Right. And I think that one of the things that's actually unusual about this situation is that maybe just due to wealth and power,

Starting point is 01:47:29 Robert Kraft didn't have any compunction or concern about very publicly saying, I don't want this to happen because I am offended personally by the political content of his speech. Yeah. And I would say, you know, typically people who are at least in government who have the kind of power know better than to say the quiet part out loud. Yeah. And I think it's sort of interesting. I guess just that the billionaire.

Starting point is 01:47:59 class has become so comfortable. Yeah. With their own strength, I guess, that they're not concerned about being publicly very honest. Yeah. About their desire to censor certain people. And so, you know, in this instance, it may actually be an interesting opportunity just because some of these stadiums are publicly owned. And so to the extent that those stadiums can be shown to have canceled the show under pressure from this private actor.

Starting point is 01:48:37 And on the basis of that private actor's sort of personal convictions, it does create an interesting opportunity. You had said something about not being clear on what the leases were and the, you know, the arrangements and contracts. And I am also not clear on what those contracts are, how they might implicate First Amendment concerns or undermine First Amendment rights. But if there were to be, for example, a lawsuit filed about it, some of that stuff would come out in discovery in the process of turning over evidence. And so if nothing else, I kind of hope that, you know, one of the impact litigation outfits, does file a suit, not because I am concerned about vindicating McElmore's First Amendment rights, but because I think we need to really be vigilant and alert to the actual legal mechanisms by which the government is performing an end run around constraints on state power.

Starting point is 01:49:54 To wrap this episode up, I just wanted to highlight again, Although it may feel a bit silly to talk about all this in the context of Macklemore, a multi-millionaire, I think the point is that this sets a bad precedent. Notably, we've witnessed crackdowns on university students over Palestine's solidarity protests. There was a new ruling against a student from the University of Texas Austin just last week. There may still be open questions about these stadiums and their complicated contract arrangements, but either way, the wealthy are wielding influence over the public square. With all that said, here is Moe with one final note.

Starting point is 01:50:30 I would just like your listeners to be alert to all of the ways in which our daily lives are frankly made possible by First Amendment protections that we don't think about very often. And I would like to plug the concept and the practice of not talking to law enforcement. until you have had an opportunity to consult with counsel. Yeah, always good. Property taxes keep going up and Toronto families are feeling the pressure. Mayoral candidate Edward Gong has a clear plan. Cut property taxes by 3% yearly. Cut waste.

Starting point is 01:51:21 Stop unnecessary spending at City Hall. Property tax relief is Mr. Gong's top priority. Not tomorrow, not later, now. Toronto taxpayers deserve real relief. Vote 22, Edward Gong. Authorized by the official campaign, I'm Edward Gong. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana.

Starting point is 01:51:43 Jeremy Colhain. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling?

Starting point is 01:52:02 Yeah. It's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No!

Starting point is 01:52:12 I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday, and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday.

Starting point is 01:52:34 A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 01:53:00 I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Skamb. Godess Podcast, the True Crime Comedy Podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debrie, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Beyer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I could talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job.

Starting point is 01:53:23 And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. And I'm also here to laugh with you.

Starting point is 01:53:47 So if you like fun, if you like comedy, and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of cold. in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatines to Madagroso. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade.

Starting point is 01:54:21 But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now, people are questioning if his climate is. solutions have anything to do with climate at all. You got to give Bruce of the guy's credit. They're Republican kids. They don't give a bit of money. It's now.

Starting point is 01:54:42 On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. Talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story.

Starting point is 01:55:15 I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up. But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The comments were to real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing.

Starting point is 01:55:34 from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion, and this is biggest rivalries of all time, season two. The New York Liberty versus the Houston Commons, the very first rivalry of the WNBA. They picked us to finish last, and they picked them to finish first. That's all you need to know.

Starting point is 01:55:51 I remember looking around thinking, this is going to change things. Basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Is there bad blood between you in the comments

Starting point is 01:56:10 as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen here. My name's Kim Kelly, and I'll be your host for today's episode. To introduce myself, I'm a labor journalist. I'm the author of a book called Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor, and I'm a third-generation union member

Starting point is 01:56:40 based in Philly. Obviously, go birds. And I'm just over the moon to be back here in the cool zone. Shout out to Sophie, Robert, James, and everyone else for letting me cool-laid man my way onto their network now and again to catch you up on what's been happening in the labor movement

Starting point is 01:56:56 in the U.S. and otherwise. If you've been paying attention, you'll already know. September was a very busy month. But if you haven't, well, that's what I'm here for. So let's start off with some good news. And look, I'll throw your bone. Here's a quick one for the gamers. In a big dub for tech organizing,

Starting point is 01:57:17 1900 video game workers in Activision Blizzard have just won their first union contract. Hell yeah. Workers at the company have been organizing in various ways since 2021, but they formally unionized with the communication workers of America in 2024. So it's been a long time coming. This shiny new contract includes a lot of good stuff. They got protections for remote workers, huge for the tech world.

Starting point is 01:57:44 And against outsourcing, they got some language around AI development. They got a three-day in-office hybrid work week, which, damn, I feel like the four-day work week is still a huge pipe dream. These guys are out here doing three. Unions are good, you know? And they even got May Day off as a paid holiday. It's really great work. all around. You love to see it. May a thousand more tech worker unions bloom. Speaking of contracts, this is a big one.

Starting point is 01:58:15 800 Walmart workers at a distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, have just won that company's first ever union contract in North America. Now, Walmart has long been the labor movement's white whale. It's one of the largest employers in the world, is run by evil Arkansas billionaires who hate unions, its workers regularly make the news for the despicably low wages that those rich people pay them. But organizers in the U.S. have yet to crack the retail giant. And look, it's not for lack of trying. In the past, Walmart has simply shut down stores who have tried to unionize. For example, back in the year 2000, which is so much further away than it really feels like it should be. Back in the year 2000.

Starting point is 01:59:05 After meat cutters at a Texas location voted to unionize, the company eliminated its entire meat department in Texas and in five other states for good measure. I'm thinking about it, I don't think we have a meat department in South Philly. Like, imagine cutting out an entire section of your store, of your enormous nationwide retail shame because a handful of workers in one place were like, hey, what have you treated us a little better? I like, it's petty and it's cruel and it's very on brand for Walmart, so folks are understandably very excited to see workers in Canada sticking it to them. And when the Ontario Union Drive went public two years ago, of course Walmart rushed to punish those workers and did its damnedest to bust their union drive. But importantly, this time, those union busting efforts failed.

Starting point is 02:00:02 So we can only assume that the Walton clan is hopping mad about the whole situation. Again, love to see it. And honestly, now that our Canadian counterparts have notched this major win, I'm really curious to see what kind of organizing efforts we might see here in the U.S. I mean, when Amazon workers in Staten Island unionized, they set off a little chain reaction when Starbucks workers in Buffalo unionized they sent off a big chain reaction. You know, these guys are over the border,

Starting point is 02:00:36 but it's only a few hundred miles from New York. It's not that far. Could this contract in Ontario be the beginning of a domino effect? Are we finally going to unionize Walmart? Look, it would take a lot of doing, but, you know, someone's going to be the first, and now that someone's proved it can be done, look, I'm just saying a girl can dream.

Starting point is 02:01:01 Speaking of New York, York, a couple of hundred miles south in New York State, caregivers with the state's consumer-directed personal assistance program have filed for a union election with 1199 SCIU. CDPAP is a Medicaid program that allows folks who are eligible for home care services to train and choose and hire their own in-home caregivers, which can include family members and friends. So it's always exciting when we see overworked underpaid workers organizing and fighting for better, but the sheer scale of this particular union drive is honestly incredible, and it's legit historic. Nearly 70,000 caregivers have already signed union cards signifying that they're down to join the union.

Starting point is 02:01:51 And if they're successful, if the union drive is successful, the union would include almost 190,000 workers across the state. this would be the largest union election in U.S. history, like all of U.S. history. And it's being led by workers whose labor is deeply undervalued and rendered almost invisible to those outside the walls of their unique workplaces, which they're not working in a factory. They're not working in a store. They're not in a retail setting. These are workers who are completely atomized, isolated, working in people's homes. the fact that they've been able to organize an effort this scale is just, it's so impressive and it's long overdue. You know, prior to this, the record for the largest election in modern U.S. history happened in 1999.

Starting point is 02:02:47 When about 74,000 L.A. County, home care workers voted to form a union with SCIU. Sound familiar? Nearly 30 years later, these caregivers in New York are following those footsteps. As the union noted, the filing comes at a fraught moment for care in America. Medicaid-funded services face devastating federal cuts enacted under the Trump administration, which has villainized this workforce with its waste-fraud abuse campaign. At the same time, the nation's rapidly aging population is driving growing demand for care, as they wrote in a press release.

Starting point is 02:03:26 For many people, this specific program can be a lifeline. The difference between seeing your loved one left to loneliness and neglect or to having them be cared for in their own homes by people they trust who love and advocate for them. The difference is really stark, but don't take it from me. The union shared a few worker and client testimonies with me, and I want to share them with you now. So the first quote comes from a worker Angela Jimenez, who was a full-time health care worker and 1199 SDIU member before she left to join the CDPAP program to care for her mom. So Angela says, I love taking care of my mother, but love doesn't pay the bills. Rent, groceries, and health care keep going up while our wages aren't keeping pace.

Starting point is 02:04:18 Care is essential work, but the waiver paid doesn't treat it that way. way. Caregivers like me shouldn't have to struggle to survive. I'm joining with caregivers across New York because together we have the power to demand what this work is worth and make sure we can afford to keep doing it. Solé Bian, who works as a caregiver for her 79-year-old mother, an Alzheimer's patient, says, I need a community. I need a pay rise. A labor of love is still labor. And 68-year-old Dominique LaRouche is a former caregiver herself, who was a proud union delegate for 1199 when she was younger. Now, her daughters care for her through the CDPAP program. She says, my daughters help me get out of bed in the morning, help me get dressed and brush my hair, and help me cook meals from our

Starting point is 02:05:08 culture that I enjoy eating. But what they really give me is the chance to live my life. Because of my daughters, I can see the people I love, be part of my community, and experience the world around me. CDPAP has given our family's safety, dignity, and peace of mind. That's why I'm proud to stand with my daughters and thousands of other CDPAP caregivers as they come together to join 1199 at CIU. So an election date has not yet been set. Under Trump, the NLRB remains a cluster fuck, but here's hoping we get some more good news on this

Starting point is 02:05:45 soon, because I don't know about you, but I feel like the working class could really use a win. and an historic union win. That'll be pretty good right about now. And speaking of caregiving, once again, I've got to shout out National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S., for continuing to just be incredibly based. This time, they're leading a week of action

Starting point is 02:06:10 against Peter Thiel's data-gobling surveillance demons at Palantir. The tech company has happily and profitably provided technology to ICE to surveil and target immigrants in the U.S. and to Israel's Ministry of Defense to use in its ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. As truth out reported, the union is pushing public institutions, including hospitals and other health care providers, to end contracts and partnerships with Palantir and to divest from the company. Unlike many people in power, in and outside the labor movement,

Starting point is 02:06:45 NNU has not been shy about speaking out against. these atrocities. In August, they called out Israel's bombing of hospitals, schools, and public infrastructure. And their executive director, Kunit Maharaj, said plainly that, quote, the intentional bombing of hospitals, schools, and public infrastructure necessary for basic living, are war crimes against humanity. The Israeli government must be held accountable for these atrocities, and the genocide must stop. Nurses and caregivers truly are the best of us, man. Now, hold that thought while we take a quick little ad break. Hello again.

Starting point is 02:07:34 You're still listening to It Could Happen Here, and I'm still Kim Kelly. Now that we started off with a little treat, let's get into some of the bad news that came crawling out of the labor world this past month. So you know how oil has gotten really expensive because of the U.S. slash Israel's Fun New Forever War in Iran? Well, when oil is available, someone's got to get it from point A to point B. And I don't know how about you, but I think it's probably for the best that those someone's working conditions are safe and stable and decently paid, so they don't have to go drive for DoorDash when they're not navigating huge tankers full of toxic and economically invaluable fossil fuels. You know, seems like common sense. Given all that and the inherent volatility of the job, we also probably want them to be protected by a good union contract, right?

Starting point is 02:08:23 that's what deck officers at Alaska Tanker Company and overseas shipholding group thought too, which is why an overwhelming percentage of them chose to unionize with the international organization of masters, mates, and pilots back in 2024. As a quick aside, I've been to a lot of union halls, but the MMP union hall is definitely one of the coolest. They have so many model ships, like more than you can ever imagine. But anyway, so the maids voted. to unionize. The NLRB ordered their employees to recognize the union and start bargaining. And then, radio silence. It's been two years, and these workers are still without a first contract.

Starting point is 02:09:07 As the union noted, their fight now reflects the same first contract crisis seen at Amazon, Starbucks, and other major employers. Corporations drag in their feet, knowing they're supposed to be bargaining, knowing that they should be treating their workers with respect. It's like the same old story. It just keeps repeating and repeating, repeating, repeating in different industries and in different areas. And it's like, we can see you. We can see you doing this. Being a bad boss, being a union buster, dragging out these union contracts, it's not a good look. And the employees are not going to just sit there and take it.

Starting point is 02:09:43 In the case, these deck officers in the Masters Mason Pilot Union, they pointed out that the company's subsidiaries also received millions of dollars. others in federal subsidies, and said pretty plainly that, quote, companies benefiting from taxpayer support should not be permitted to violate federal labor laws while denying basic bargaining rights to the American mariners risking their lives at sea. Now, that latter point is important because, like, again, this bizarre war that we've become trapped within, that impacts them pretty significantly. Word recently broke. that an Iranian military official identified one of these companies overseas shipholding group as a candidate for potential retaliatory measures, which is not what you want to hear

Starting point is 02:10:33 when you're a person who works on an oil tanker. That's not, like, good. It's frankly, terrifying, especially given how hard the U.S. military is fucking up, this entire thing. So, look, while we're still a little ways away from transitioning, to renewable energy while we're still dependent on oil. We have the world we have right now. The folks who are working on these oil tankers and risking their lives so people can drive five minutes down the street to go to fucking target. Like, let's take care of them. Let's help

Starting point is 02:11:08 them out. The mates are asking folks to sign their petition that they have calling on the companies to stop stalling and start bargaining. So please sign their petition. We'll drop it in the show notes for you. So unfortunately, there really is never any shortage of stories about rich people being evil to workers, but the big bad villain of this past week or so comes from a rather unlikely source. On September 23rd, journalist America Fagi published a blockbuster story for documented New York titled Cesar Alar-Larsons dismantles unions. Why is he now creating them that you truly need to go read? Because it is just a little bit. wild. And before we get into it, I want to make sure we're all on the same page. So we're

Starting point is 02:11:55 going to take a minute to talk about union raids. So generally speaking, unions are supposed to play nice together, what with their shared history and stated goals and the whole solidarity thing. And a part of them is agreeing not to try and steal another union's members. Doing so was called raiding, and it's a very unchill move. Back in the bad old days, unions went to war over stuff like that, and things got real bloody. Now it's tactically legal, but it's still very much frowned upon. There's a little less dynamite involved, but still not a good look. So given all the risks, why would a union bother trying to go raiding? Why would they try and go to a unionized workplace and try to displace the union that was there before them and swoop in and take their

Starting point is 02:12:47 members. Seems like a weird thing to do, no? Well, it usually comes down to math. More members means more dues money, and more money plus bigger membership means more power, politically and otherwise. Sometimes, though, the math falls apart and things seem to turn upside down. In the case of Cesar Alarson, it seems like he's purely in it for the love of the game. And that game, for him, his union busting. Askefagi uncovered, Alasson has had a long career in quote-unquote union avoidance, a sanitized term that consultants and their clients like to trot out to make their slimy actions seem a little less contemptible. It's a union-avoidist consultants job to persuade workers not to unionize. When you hear about captive audience meetings and things like that,

Starting point is 02:13:39 These are the people that are parachuting into workplaces to try and convince workers that unions are actually a bad thing. That's their whole job. It's a very lucrative business that rakes in about $1.5 billion a year from anxious anti-union employers who somehow have not realized that they could simply pay the workers, the wage increases that they're probably going to be looking for in their first union contract and save a bunch of dough. but, you know, captism industry are not necessarily renowned for their adherence to logic and empathy. So that's where the Union of Boydian's consultant comes in. With that kind of background, why then did Alerson walk into a golden-crust manufacturing plan in the Bronx,

Starting point is 02:14:27 identify himself as a representative for progressive workers of the world local 311, and start trying to convince the workers there, who are already unionized with IBW Local Union 1430 to join his group instead. And how many times has he apparently done this before? Like, you'll need to read the whole article to find out, but it includes a whole lot of twists and turns. There's corruption, there's family drama, there's Union Buster on Union Buster infighting,

Starting point is 02:14:59 there are mafia ties, Donald Trump's hatred of unions and workers comes into play, The phrase, that's just paperwork that has nothing to do with me. Does a lot of heavy lifting. The whole sordid tale shows just how low employers and their anti-union goons will stoop to ensure that workers are kept underpaid, overworked, and unrepresented. Until near, you got to read this thing.

Starting point is 02:15:22 Shout out to Amir, he rules. Now let's take a minute to collect ourselves before we head into our next tale of work, wins, and wo. All right. So we got some good news. We got some bad news. And now I'm going to leave you with some news that's neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

Starting point is 02:15:54 But first, a rumor. I love gossip, and I'm always down to investigate a nice, juicy, transportation strike rumor. This one's been flying around for the past little while, but I'm pretty sure it's a non-starter. And a classic case of social media not actually being real life, I know I'm shocked too. News began to spread a few weeks ago on Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit that truckers were planning a strike for October 1st to protest skyrocketing diesel prices. There's even a goofy AI flyer out there calling on drivers to, quote, park it, stand together, make our voices heard. If a large-scale trucking strike or even a partial disruption were to actually happen, it could have a massive impact and grind the entire economy to a standstill.

Starting point is 02:16:43 Transportation and logistics workers hold an incredible amount of power, which is, of course, why so many of them are forbidden from striking under the Railway Labor Act. Truckers, many of whom are independent contractors or members of established unions like the Teamsters, don't fall under the Act and theoretically could engage in labor action if they wanted to. They just haven't done it yet. I've got to say, though, if a potentially paradigm-shifting nationwide strike was actually in the works, chances are that Facebook wouldn't be the first place you'd hear about it. Remember when Joe Biden killed off the railroad worker strike before it even had a chance to start?

Starting point is 02:17:22 The corporate media was flooded for weeks with stories and statements justifying that debacle and inadvertently showed how powerful that kind of action could be. This might not be legit. I would be really surprised if we saw any kind of strike activity or extortion. stoppage activity on October 1st, but, you know, that's not to say we'll never see it. Much to consider. And speaking of transportation and union busting, for our last story of the episode, it's time to get into the zone, auto zone, where workers at a location in White Plains, New York,

Starting point is 02:18:04 just won their union. Hell yeah. Eleven workers at this small but mighty shop will join UAW local two. making them the first store at the country's largest auto parts retailer to successfully organize. Now, AutoZone execs are not thrilled about the development, and they actually wasted over $200,000 trying to keep it from happening. That's right, tried to bust the union. They hauled out all the classic tactics.

Starting point is 02:18:34 Captive audience meetings, remember the whole union avoidance thing we just talked about? That's them. in addition to surveillance, threats of discipline and retaliation for supporting the union, and they also got a little funky with it by flying in 17 different managers from Memphis, from Indiana, California, and Florida to lurk around the stores, push anti-union propaganda on the workers and keep an eye on their conversations. Honestly, this brings to mind the scenes at the first union drive back in Buffalo. Starbucks when there's just a flood of managers and execs wandering around the stores,

Starting point is 02:19:16 like trying to mop and getting underfoot because they were terrified of the thought of having to bargain with their workers. A side note, it's still fuck Starbucks. We are boycotting Starbucks, Workers United gets their first contract. Make your coffee at home or buy it from a union shop, just not Starbucks. But back to the zone. This is not. This is not a the first time AutoZone execs have locked in to crush a union drive either. Back in the early 90s, the Teamsters tried to organize one of their distribution centers, but were unsuccessful. Even though the union drive failed, the NLRB still dinged the company for its unlawful conduct during their union busting spree. I guess old habits die hard, because this time around, according to Nathan DeCong,

Starting point is 02:20:04 a parts equipment manager, AutoZone was trying to do everything possible to destroy us. us to destroy our union. It was a show of force to intimidate us to make sure we don't even think about talking about the union. That's what you told the chief, a really great labor publication that you should also read, who did a great story on the whole situation. The workers voted unionize anyway, a historic win that AutoZone celebrated by promptly firing DuCong, who was the primary leader of the union drive. The company insisted that he was a supervisor and therefore ineligible for the unit. Which Dukong disputes, he says that he did not have firing, hiring, or disciplining power,

Starting point is 02:20:45 but did try to remedy before the vote by refiling the union petition. Didn't work. The day that it went public, the manager who fired Dukong told him very bluntly that his support for the union was why he was being asked. Quote, despite repeated instruction not to advocate for the union, you continue to participate and or facilitate union activity at the store. The horror. The chief also reports that days after AutoZone fired Dukong, management fired a supervisor at the store for, quote,

Starting point is 02:21:19 failing to stop the union. It's just ridiculous, you know, like the whole situation. Like, fuck it, relax. Like, God forbid, you got to give some workers a race. Eleven workers you got to deal with, like, grow up. But since then, labor has rallied around to Kong. And I'm so sorry if I'm saying your name incorrectly too, Nathan. Let me know if I fucked it up, and I owe you a drink.

Starting point is 02:21:46 But a GoFundMe has been created to support him and other fired workers. It's raised about 13 grand so far. Phenomenal. Gonna need more because this is going to be a long fight. So we'll pop that in the show notes so you can add to that number. Let's get it up as high as we can. This is a developing story, but it's really been heartening to see how much love Dukong and his co-works have been getting. And it makes sense.

Starting point is 02:22:12 His union organizing story is very modern and very relatable and very New York. He's gotten support from artist and director Boots Riley, whose latest film, I Love Boosters, DeKong cited as a direct influence on his decision to try to organize, which is so cute and so timely. Like, damn, that John just came out. It's a great movie. You should go see it. And, you know, maybe he'll get some ideas. On the organizing side, he also got an early boost from the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, great project that you should look up if you are you and curious. Now, he connected with them through his work as a volunteer field lead for now Mayor Zoramandani's successful campaign.

Starting point is 02:22:55 It just goes to show there are a million ways to get started in organizing. And a Boots Riley movie marathon might not be a bad way to start. As for DeKong and the UAW, they're not back and down. As he told the chief, anybody who's interested in forming union at their auto zone, we want anybody interested in that to reach out to us. Their union busting certainly works, but not well enough. Boom. How did you not want to support that dude?

Starting point is 02:23:25 That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if any of this has caught your interest, you want to do some more reading, you want to dig into it, you want to taught your co-work. a little bit, then my job here is done. Until next time. The cost of living is high, and times are getting tougher. Edward Gong says Toronto families need immediate financial relief, while the current administration has fallen short. That's why he is calling for $1,000 in emergency relief for Torontoans, aged 18 and over. Pull numbers may change, but the bills you face won't wait,

Starting point is 02:24:05 and $1,000 in direct relief can make a real difference. Vote for Gong, number 22. Authorized by the official campaign, I'm Edward Gong. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Coling. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft.

Starting point is 02:24:31 Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. Okay.

Starting point is 02:24:43 A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday, and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30.

Starting point is 02:25:03 No way. You have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone.

Starting point is 02:25:21 I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Skagit. Godess Podcast, the True Crime Comedy Podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debrie, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer. Ooh, I scammed them. What?

Starting point is 02:25:54 I could talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please.

Starting point is 02:26:15 And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. And I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to scam goddess on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatines to Montagroso. And he brought a team of executives.

Starting point is 02:26:50 They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now, people are questioning if his climate solutions have any. anything to do with climate at all. You got to give Bruce of the guy's credit. They're Republicans. They don't get a

Starting point is 02:27:18 money. It's now. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHeart Radio app,

Starting point is 02:27:34 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane. and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story.

Starting point is 02:27:52 I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up. But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The comments were to real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up.

Starting point is 02:28:07 They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion and this is biggest rivalries of all time season two. The New York Liberty versus the Houston Commons, the very first rivalry of the WNBA. They picked us to finish last and they picked them to finish first. That's all you need to know. I remember looking around thinking this is going to change things.

Starting point is 02:28:32 Basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the I-Hard radio app, Apple, podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win. This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.

Starting point is 02:29:11 Today I'm joined by Robert Evans and special correspondent Bridget Todd. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. excited to talk through some of the worst stuff imaginable with you, fine folks. Yeah, it is a hard week. This week that we are covering is September 23rd to September 30th. I'll start with a few shorter news stories that I think our little panel here might find interesting. On Tuesday, Donald Trump, the president, launched America.gov, a website to host an AI chat bot

Starting point is 02:29:44 that pulls information from across the multitude of federal government. websites. America.gov and this little chatbot probably deserves its own focus in a future episode. But also on Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order to rename artificial intelligence to superintelligence after running polls on social media for the past week. And he also met with the heads of six tech companies to sign the quote, White House Accord on Super Intelligence, which essentially promotes self-regulation in the age. AI industry. Speaking of super intelligence under Trump's signature on this document, the United States is

Starting point is 02:30:26 written as the United States. Excellent work there. This document was also signed by Sundarvichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Kajenzhen, Huang of Navidia, Greg Brockman of OpenAI, and Anthropics Dario Amade. Does anyone have any notes on this little chatbot or superintelligence they'd like? to add? Not really. I mean, what is there to say?

Starting point is 02:30:55 We can just move on. Yeah. Now, Dario's inclusion in the White House Accords is a little funny because earlier this week, a memo circulating the White House named Dario as a leading figure in the cultish, effective altruism movement, which, according to the memo, is responsible for the AI doom panic threatening technological innovation and national. security. Robert, if you've not seen this memo, that document cloud link has it there. You should take a look. It's pretty funny. Oh, yes. No, yes. I have seen this. Yes.

Starting point is 02:31:29 The memo covers Anthropics ties to effective altruism and identified effective altruism as a quote, heavily male, white, non-religious, politically left or center left, and usually vegan or vegetarian. I love that they throw in their diet, like a little detail. And I don't even fully agree with that statement. But okay. This memo tracks the, quote, AI doom pipeline back to effective altruism, consequentialism, and long-termism, based on effective altruism's, quote, impartial maximization. Do the most good, wherever and whenever it occurs. Extend the calculation into the far future through long-termism, enter human extinction as the loss of potentially enormous future value, unquote. The memo also talks about, you know,

Starting point is 02:32:16 shrimp consciousness, bestiality and killing babies, pulling from a variety of affective altruism, like thought experiments and writing. Yeah, yeah. It's, this is why I don't really agree with calling them even a left or a center left,

Starting point is 02:32:28 or at least there's elements of that, but there's elements of like classic far right, like eugenic thought. And this document even notes that. You know, it's talking about some of the stuff singers said about disabled kids and the like, but they're leaving out,

Starting point is 02:32:41 like it's interesting to me that this seems to. I haven't done like a deep dive, but at least from what our, remember, and from what I'm looking over now, it does not seem to be mentioning Nick Bostrom. He's like the guy who is generally considered the father of long-termism within the EA subculture and is also like the biggest eugenicist within like the prominent chunk of that, that movement. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that the Trump allies might not be talking about those aspects of EA.

Starting point is 02:33:07 Yeah. But, and like a lot of this memo does focus on anthropic and homicides. day. Yeah, because the government's been beefing with Anthropic for for months, especially following the Iran War and statements that Anthropic has made about military use of their technology, which has led to the War Department, publicly attacking Anthropic and, as of last week, effective altruism itself in a series of posts. What a time to be alive. Quote, Americanism, not effective altruism. The United States will continue to be AI dominant. We're this close to Pete Hegseth talking about Aola's birthday gangbang as a matter of national security.

Starting point is 02:33:49 And I, for one, am ready for this glorious day to come. Oh, man. Dark timeline. I want the younger listeners or anyone who's like, you remember like hanging out at parties in your early 20s with some like absolute dipshits? Now imagine the president. It's like getting really angry at those dipshits. And like you hate them, but he's not angry at them for a good reason. That's what this is like for those of us who've been following the EA movement for years.

Starting point is 02:34:17 Such a good analogy. It's like, well, these guys suck, but not for these reasons. The post that they put out, it's clearly AI generated. Oh, got it. People should see it. One of them, it almost looks like a really bad over-the-top AI-generated flyer for like a theme night at a nightclub. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pulling from a bunch.

Starting point is 02:34:41 I mean, the whole War Department feed right now, pulls from a whole bunch of like, what I'll call downstream from telegram aesthetics. Yeah. And I think these follow that also. These are all descended from like the white boy summer aesthetics we were seeing for five years ago. Which of course is pulling from kind of like nightlife aesthetics as well. Yeah. It's a really horrible mix of things.

Starting point is 02:35:01 It's a ruberos. Another post from the Department of War. The United States will never be an effective altruist country. I agree. Pretty cool. Yeah. Fair. And he's right, he's right. Pretty cool.

Starting point is 02:35:19 Moving on, about a week after Pennsylvania Senator John Vetterman sent a little video to the Republican Midterm Convention, the Intercept reported that Fetterman has been fundraising using GOP email lists with campaign fundraising emails coming from the address, quote, info at gop squad.com. Now, one of these GOP linked fundraising emails said it was from friend of the pod, James' favorite senator, Mike Lee, who wrote in this email, quote, friend, I just got an email from John. He's basically a Republican now.

Starting point is 02:35:53 Wow. I need your help to draft him. Sign here, unquote. And then there's John Fetterman, you know, campaign insignia as below this little email chain. So cool stuff there. Two great tastes to go great together, Federman and Mike Lee.

Starting point is 02:36:07 And while speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival this past Sunday, Federman did a little bit of, a little Freudian slip. Let's take a lesson. Hindi from Dallas and they ask, why not become an independent? Because I'm a lifelong Republican.

Starting point is 02:36:26 Democrat. Every time, every time it's funny. That's a moment right there. That's clipable, ladies and gentlemen. Circulate. Go, go, go. Internet. Spin wildly. Wildly spin Internet. I guarantee you. That's going to

Starting point is 02:36:42 break through. That'll get clipped. Yeah, I'm a lifelong Democrat, though. You're not spinning. He just said he was a Republican. There's no spin to do. Yeah, that'll get clipped. Doing my part, I guess. Yeah, man, that's that.

Starting point is 02:36:56 I just love the, like, they're going to take this out of context. No, the context was you called yourself a Republican, man. Like, yeah, it was a slip-up, but it's, like, no one's taking it out of context. You said it. You just said that. Speaking of our totally cool Congress, Palantir. was named as a, quote, top supporter of the Congressional Black Caucus at their annual charitable gala this month, with Palantir's name plastered on tables at the event and a big

Starting point is 02:37:25 thank you banner in the convention center. Oof. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has very publicly returned donations from Palantir. Yeah, I was at the CBC here right in Washington, D.C. Yeah, that was, I wasn't my save. You know, when you went into the building, there was this. image that was like a orange image of the late Shirley Chisholm, who is one of my idols. Yeah, Shirley Chisholm's awesome.

Starting point is 02:37:52 She's awesome. Unbought and Unbaugh. She was the first black woman elected to Congress. It's her picture with Palantir's branding on her image. That's fucked up. That was like getting kicked in the nuts right when I went in. And, you know, I just, I can't imagine that anything about what Palantir is doing Chisholm would have been down for.

Starting point is 02:38:13 No. No. Yeah. It was not my fave. No. That sucks. For some positive Shirley Chisholm representation, though, if you watch the relatively new history of the world by Mel Brooks TV show that was on,

Starting point is 02:38:26 I think, Hulu, I forget which streaming platform, Shirley Chisholm plays a major role in it. It's a loving tribute. I need a pallet cleanser. I might have to watch that tonight. Yeah. It's not bad, actually. In a statement to Huff Post, Palantir said there, quote, proud and honored to support

Starting point is 02:38:42 the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's mission of creating pathways for promising young people to enter public service who may not have the networks or financial means to do so without support, unquote. Basically, we want to own them, yeah. Surveil them, track them, get them into our databases. I mean, and you can't fault some of these guys

Starting point is 02:38:59 who are in their 80s and 90s who don't really know what Palantir is necessarily. By you can't fault them, I of course mean you should be faulting them. They shouldn't be in office. They should, they're too old. The former chair and current influential member of the Congressional Black Caucus, 86-year-old, Jim Clyburn recently told Box that he only learned what ChatGPT was earlier this summer. I think I'm too old to be an elected leader now because when people bring up like TikTok or influencers,

Starting point is 02:39:25 I just black out and find myself holding a gun these days. So like I can't imagine being 80 and trying to keep up with this shit. You don't think of yourself as an influencer at all, Robert? Oh, gosh. I make media. That was a rage bait question and you fell for it, my friend. I want Robert doing makeup tutorials on blue sky. I could do that, yeah.

Starting point is 02:39:49 Paint dazzle camouflage on your face. Anyway, sorry, Gary. Well, with just a little over a month left until the midterms, the federal government has begun airing pro-Trump television ads paid for by U.S. taxpayers. These are, for all intents of purposes, Republican campaign ads paid for by you. There's at least three different ads in circulation.

Starting point is 02:40:13 One of them, a single black and white shot of Trump walking down a hallway with a voiceover talking about, quote, a final battle with you by my side to demolish the deep state globalists and warmongerers. And if that little last part sounds a bit outdated, that's because this was literally a Trump 20204 campaign ad. Yep. But with one important change, the on-screen text at the end of the ad reads, paid for by the U.S. government, unquote. This ad is played during sports games and on Fox News. Another one of these Trump ads airing on TV is edited in the form of, like, a hype video with like quick flashing images on screen, with text reading, largest tax cuts in history,

Starting point is 02:41:00 re-igniting American manufacturing, and defend law and order and police. Too many hands. So as images of Trump and these little phrases flash on screen, the song Love Me by JMSM plays in the background. Let's take a listen. Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country. Oh, God.

Starting point is 02:41:41 Paid for it by the U.S. government. Yeah, that should be illegal. Probably is illegal. Adding this to the ever-expanding bucket of, um, Is that legal? How are they allowed to do that? Now, the White House has defended these federally funded, but clearly partisan ads to influence the midterms, by calling them public service announcements akin to Biden's PSAs about the COVID-19 vaccines. Are you fucking kidding me? Sure, man. Public service announcements about how our great leader is perfect and can do no wrong. Love me, love me. To quote the White House,

Starting point is 02:42:19 The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads. President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it's worth defending at home, at the border, and abroad, unquote. Their country? That's not what they were singing, Love Me Too. They were singing Love Me to images of Donald Trump with his arms wide open. Like the fucking Jesus at Rio.

Starting point is 02:42:46 It's wild. It's bad. I don't like this, yeah. With a few other kind of election-related points I want to hit. Last Thursday, the California Supreme Court ruled that Sheriff Chad Bianco violated state election law by seizing 650,000 ballots for the Prop 50 special election on redistricting as a part of his quote-unquote election fraud investigation. Now, I think it's worth noting that emails leaked in 2021 revealed that Sheriff Chad, Bianco, was a dues-paying member of the Oathkeepers since at least 2014.

Starting point is 02:43:29 And in a debate earlier this year during the sheriff's unsuccessful bid to be the Republican nominee for governor, Bianco said he was proud of his affiliation with the Oathkeepers. You're an Oathkeeper. We all know that. And I'm very proud of it. Well, you should. I'm very proud of it. And everybody that wants to like, again, lie and emotionally get all. spun up about the Oathkeeper organization.

Starting point is 02:43:51 I just would, before you do that, and I know none of you have, I want you to go read the mission statement of the Oathkeeper mission statement and the ACLU. I saw them on CNN attacking the Capitol. And the ACLU. I saw a politician molesting kids. Does that mean you molest kids? What? Exactly.

Starting point is 02:44:07 Really compelling stuff from Sheriff Oathkeeper. But this whole story gives us an interesting look into possible election interference done on like a county level with chud sheriffs just seizing huge swaths of ballots to try to invalidate as many as they can after an election based on vague allegations of quote discrepancies in the count but now going forward at least in california there will be protections against this tactic you know you said that it was found that he did this and that he violated state election law will he be facing any consequences it doesn't look like he'll be facing consequences no. The ballots will be returned and destroyed, but no, this is not going to result in anything

Starting point is 02:44:53 for him personally. He just can't continue his investigation. Speaking of allegations of election fraud, earlier this summer, Trump and DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen claimed they had uncovered hundreds of thousands of non-citizens who were registered to vote. And we didn't report on these claims in depth because the White House provided no evidence for these extraordinary claims. But in communications to state election officials following this big public announcement, the Trump admin already began to de-emphasize the certainty of these large figures. Nevada was first told by DHS that they had as many as 15,903 non-citizens on their voter rolls.

Starting point is 02:45:39 But in a meeting between state officials and DHS last month, DHS said that that number might not be totally accurate because each voter had not yet been manually reviewed and the true number may be closer to 185 voters. After this meeting, DHS emailed Nevada officials clarifying, quote, we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185. We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not. U.S. citizens, unquote. So still keeping open the possibility that there could be upwards of 16,000 non-citizens on the voter rules, which have been flagged, but then DHS themselves narrowed that down

Starting point is 02:46:25 to at least 185 confirmed cases. So, after this, state officials then checked those 185 alleged non-citizen voters and found that every single one was actually a U.S. citizen. In a letter obtained by the New York Times through an open records request, the Deputy Attorney General in Nevada Gray Goat wrote to DHS, As for the 185 individuals, Our records indicate that they were citizens. You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise. Nevada's Secretary of State said in a statement, quote,

Starting point is 02:47:03 Our records do not support DHS's claims, and DHS has still not provided evidence to change that. Instead, DHS officials continue their, attempts to intimidate election officials into compliance and deter voters with huge claims of fraud with no evidence. Repeating unsupported claims does not make them true. Unquote. All of this relates to our first main story this episode. On September 25th, the Supreme Court ruled six three on ideological lines to allow the Trump administration to use a janky citizenship database from DHS to purge voter rolls. Though, the worst potential effects of this will be delayed until after the midterms.

Starting point is 02:47:45 Now, we've talked before about the ongoing legal battles over Trump's attempts to restrict mail and voting. This new shadow docket ruling centers on the implementation of the other half of Trump's March 2025 executive order to, quote, protect the integrity of American elections. The creation of a new list of verified U.S. citizen voters. After Trump signed the election integrity order last year, DHS began to expand something called the Save Database so that it could be used to verify large batches of voters. Quickly, voting rights organizations sued, and a district court blocked the order, finding that the overhauled safe program, quote,

Starting point is 02:48:24 trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. But the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to stay the district court's ruling, and last week, without a full briefing or oral argument, the Supreme Court granted that stay, clearing the way for Trump to implement the new SAVE database. The SAVE database was created decades ago to verify the citizenship and immigration status of people applying for public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. But the newly modified SAVE system incorporates confidential data from the Social Security

Starting point is 02:48:59 Administration and allows authorities to conduct bulk searches of multiple individuals at once. Currently 27 U.S. states use the SAVE system to verify voters. and last year, some states began testing the newly modified database. More on that later. In the lawsuit that first prevented the government from using this newly overhauled database, the plaintiffs alleged that the integration of Social Security Administration data violates multiple privacy protections, and that the use of the data to purge voter rolls

Starting point is 02:49:28 risks irreparable harm to voters who are mistakenly removed from the roles due to inaccurate or out-of-date information in the database. And this part is really crucial because social security administration data does not necessarily reflect someone's current immigration or citizenship status. And SSS data is not just your social security number, but also names, dates and places of birth, citizenship indicators, death records, and any information obtained while processing requests for social security numbers. So there's a bunch of very, very personal, very private data that gets stored here. It's not just your however many digit number. So if this new database flags someone or a search comes up inconclusive, voters could be required to take additional affirmative steps to prove their citizenship or naturalization,

Starting point is 02:50:21 possibly within a very short time window, or they risk being removed from the voter rules and unable to exercise their right to vote. In the dissent penned by Justice Jackson, and she echoed the concern of the plaintiffs that, quote, the staleness of Social Security Administration's citizenship records risked disenfranchising recently naturalized U.S. citizens, unquote. And absolutely, if someone's afraid that they might get into trouble or ICE might go after them for registering to vote,

Starting point is 02:50:53 even if they are legally allowed to, or if that fear prevents them from taking certain actions, that is real and active harm. And this type of stuff isn't just future speculation. According to a ProPublica report from last February, quote, DHS has had to correct information provided to at least five states after save misidentified some voters as non-citizens.

Starting point is 02:51:16 In particular, in Texas, one woman had her voter registration revoked without her knowledge and two more people had to provide proof of citizenship to maintain registered voter status per Jackson's dissent. So this can also happen to you and you not know about it. So you can be removed from your voter roll, not actually know necessarily. Maybe they tried to contact you and that just didn't work. That just didn't happen. So then you think that you're registered to vote, but you actually aren't, which of course then makes you unable to vote.

Starting point is 02:51:47 These are all real actual harms, but the majority opinion of the Supreme Court didn't actually consider any of these harms posed to lawful voters, but just focused on the harm that the government could suffer if they were. if they weren't allowed to use this new save database. And weighing the legality of DHS using what's otherwise protected confidential data from the Social Security Administration, which the majority ruled DHS was allowed to do based on the illegal immigration reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, Section 1373. And this is the big kind of legal debate regarding, is this database actually legal?

Starting point is 02:52:28 are they allowed to use this protected data? The district court said no. The dissent says no. The plaintiffs say no. But the federal government, and now Supreme Court majority, says yes. And I want to get more into kind of the weeds of this legal argument in a future episode. Because to quote Jackson, the argument being made by the majority is implausible. And they are very clearly misreading a federal law.

Starting point is 02:52:58 Like it's just, it's a very plain misreading and interpreting a specific law in a way that no one else has interpreted it before and would fundamentally alter privacy protections in this country and goes directly against the Clinton administration's interpretation of this law as well. But I'll get more into that kind of in a future episode about the various efforts to undermine elections going into the midterms. So as bad and bullshit as all of this is, this ruling will, quote, likely have a minimal short term impact. Act, according to Jackson. And that's because the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from, quote, systematically removing the names of ineligible voters from their rules in the 90 days prior to any primary or general election. So they cannot do these massive bulk searches that this database is designed to do. They can't just like remove tons of people all at once from the rules. But that doesn't mean that this will have no impact on the midterms.

Starting point is 02:53:55 because the government is still allowed to use this new save program to conduct, quote, individualized inquiries per the majority. So they can still go after individual people, just not bulk searches. Jackson writes that states will, quote, at most, conduct individualized voter rule maintenance using the modified save system. And she concludes her dissent by saying, quote, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action

Starting point is 02:54:33 that it likely lacks the authority to take, unquote. I'm glad she named that in her dissent because I can't get over that bit of, what about the harm to the government? That's wild to mean. Yeah, no, there's another line I have saved in my first. report of this, which is so funny. She writes, it cannot be that the government is injured whenever it is prevented from violating the law. That's kind of a really good sub-up of, like most Supreme Court kind of debates during Trump's second administration, is that the government is constantly claiming that they're going to suffer harm if they're not allowed

Starting point is 02:55:16 to break the law. Considering all of this, I think it's important to reiterate that non-citizen voting is relatively rare and statistically insignificant. It's not something that is altering election results or causing harm, but what could cause harm or alter results is the mass disenfranchisement of voters, scaring naturalized citizens into not voting, and DHS forcibly deregistering lawful U.S. citizen voters because of their wildly inaccurate voter verification system. Now, regarding the massive numbers thrown around by the Trump admin, like 300,000 non-citizen voters, 16,000 flagged in Nevada, it's not yet clear if the new save system is where DHS is getting those numbers.

Starting point is 02:56:07 But considering the fact that the 185, quote, manually confirmed cases in Nevada, turned out to be all U.S. citizens, you cannot take anything DHS is saying at face value. Basically, this whole illegal voting panic is functionally a sciop to purge U.S. citizen voters. It's to convince as many states as possible to use this new save system using threats and intimidation with the ultimate goal of purging voter rolls, which they're not allowed to do in the three months before the midterms. But going forward after the midterms, DHS now has the ability to do bulk searches and removals ahead of future elections. So this is definitely something we will keep an eye on going into 2028. Anyway, let's go on an ad break and then return for some bad news.

Starting point is 02:57:08 And we are back. Let's turn to Bridget Todd for our next main story. Yeah, thanks, Gare. And I have to give a quick heads up in the form of a trigger warning that this segment deals with some pretty rough stuff. Sexual assaults, drugging, so just know that before we talk about it. Cutting in here, just to say,

Starting point is 02:57:40 if you would like to skip this section on Cornell and Title IX, you can skip to the next ad break, which should be around the 55-minute mark. I can't know the exact timestamp because that depends on the ads that are loaded into your individual podcast feed. But the next section by Robert Evans, should be around the 55-minute mark after the next ad break. So y'all have probably been hearing about what's happening at Cornell right now.

Starting point is 02:58:09 And I want to start by walking through the timeline because this case did not just suddenly emerge this month. New York Times actually had a really detailed breakdown at the timeline that was super helpful in me kind of just understanding what's going on. All of this happened almost two years ago, but there is a reason why folks are talking about it right now. So back in October of 2024, according to Jane Doe's lawsuit, earlier that night she had been out at bars and Greek life events. Around 11 o'clock, she goes to the Kai Phi fraternity house to meet a male Cornell student. She's also a student at Cornell at this point. She said that she thought of this student as a friend to her.

Starting point is 02:58:49 Now, according to this lawsuit, she was then pressured into consuming drugs and alcohol, including ketamine, and that seven men sexually assaulted her while she was incapacitated from the drugs and alcohol and weaving in and out of consciousness. I looked at the lawsuit that she filed. The details that are laid out in this lawsuit are truly horrific to the point where I don't even necessarily feel comfortable like getting into all of them here,

Starting point is 02:59:16 stuff like her being forced to snort ketamine off of an erect penis. Oh, God. Yeah, it's pretty bad. and her suit says all of this went on for hours. According to her complaint, one of the men posted a message to the fraternity Snapchat group during the night that said, quote, free pussy. Obviously, her suit interprets this as an invitation for other fraternity members to join in the room and join in the assault.

Starting point is 02:59:44 This is not even like super in dispute. You can find pictures of that Snapchat message and like see the replies to it. And even the do-nothing district attorney, who I'll be talking about more in a moment, has since described those Snapchat messages as, quote, morally disgusting. And he said that his office was examining whether or not those Snapchat messages could have criminal significance. So three weeks later, on November 8th, Jane Doe goes to the Cornell University Police. And, you know, I don't think anybody is surprised to hear that in situations like this, there's always some victim-blaming fuckery. So here is some victim blaming fuckery. So that Do Nothing, DA, the Tompkins County District Attorney Matt Van Houten, said that

Starting point is 03:00:30 Jane Doe's original statement to the police described at least some of her drug use and sexual activity that night as voluntary and consensual. That's his words in our mind. He says that that was a major reason that his office determined at the time that there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges. So when I heard that, I kind of did that Scooby-Doo, like, what the fuck do you mean? That seemed absurd to me. So I looked into this, and I only learned this from researching the situation, but there is a wrinkle in New York State law that critics have called the voluntary intoxication loophole, which is basically that under New York law, if you voluntarily get even extremely drunk, the fact that you were too intoxicated to meaning.

Starting point is 03:01:18 consent does not by itself legally established that you were incapable of consenting to sex, which to me is, I mean, I, maybe I'm a Pollyanna, but I did not know that. I was learning that for the first time from researching what happened at Cornell. Like, I get legally, especially in a situation like a party where multiple people are drinking, like how do you adjudicate after the fact without like blood tests and stuff, the level of intoxication of everybody. Like, I understand how there's like complications there, but it seems like something other than just not addressing it would be the right thing to do legally. Yeah. And basically this law posits that you essentially have to be, if you're talking about consensual drinking, you basically have to be

Starting point is 03:02:05 incapacitated to the point where you cannot move or speak on your own in order for that, and that alone to establish that you were incapable of consenting the sex. So if you're, you know, drinking but still talking, even if you're like extremely, extremely drunk, that by itself does not legally establish that you were not capable of consenting. So I really take your point, but it seems to me that like, okay, well, we'll just codify that into law, seems rocky to me. And there are lawmakers. It just seems like they abrogated, like making an actual, like, decision on any of this

Starting point is 03:02:39 and just sort of picked, I don't know, like, it doesn't seem like where you should draw the line. right? Like just, okay, when somebody's passed out, like in nothing before, that just really, it just seems very irresponsible and incomplete. Totally agree. And there are lawmakers who are actively working on changing this, this intoxication loophole. And I'm glad that you said that, Robert, because to me, this is just me editorializing. I think it raises a fundamental question about how consent works because a person can voluntarily use drugs or drink and be sexually assaulted. A person can consent to one. one sex act and then not consent to another. Consent is... Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that we just have to... I want for us a society where we have more conversations about what consent actually looks like and how it works so that more people kind of fully understand that.

Starting point is 03:03:30 I don't feel like we're having those conversations now, unfortunately, like in wider society, particularly with young people. Yeah. So that Do Nothing, DA, that I told you about, Van Houghton, he also has pushed back on this sort of emerging claim that Jane Doe's... original statement was fragmentary or incomplete, or this idea that the investigators just did not do a good enough job of getting a detailed account from her. He says that Jane Doe gave police a comprehensive statement and made more than 20 handwritten corrections to that statement before signing

Starting point is 03:04:01 it. So that's what he says is like why his office declined to pursue charges. But Jane Doe's attorney disputes all of this, including the idea that her original statement means that her current allegations are inconsistent with what she originally reported. Her attorney has argued that she was traumatized and incapacitated and that authorities failed to adequately investigate what actually happened to her. So I should say that Cornell did take some actions following this report. According to both Cornell and third-party reporting, the university did temporarily suspend the Kai Phi fraternity and impose some temporary suspensions or restrictions on students accused in connection with this incident while they investigated.

Starting point is 03:04:42 Cornell University's police did contact that DA, which like, okay, a lot of good that did. And prosecutors, again, reviewed the allegations and ultimately decided not to, you know, pursue criminal charges under New York state law. Then, in January of 2025, Jane Doe filed a formal Title IX complaint with Cornell triggering a totally separate university review process.

Starting point is 03:05:04 So in case you don't know, Title IX is the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding and dictates rules around how colleges are required to respond when a student reports something like sexual assault or sexual harassment. According to the New York Times, by May, Cornell's Title IX Committee had held at least 12 hearings involving these allegations in this situation.

Starting point is 03:05:29 So Cornell now says that this investigation eventually resulted in what they describe as serious disciplinary sanctions, what they describe as things like. suspensions and expulsions, and that the Chi Phi chapter that was involved in this is still barred from campus. However, we don't actually know exactly what happened to each individual student because Cornell has declined to publicly disclose any of those details, citing federal student privacy laws. Jane Doe's attorney told CBS News that two of the seven students were expelled, and at least some of the men who were named in the lawsuit have denied allegations

Starting point is 03:06:06 through their attorneys. So if you've heard about this situation, you've probably heard about one particularly grim detail, and that is the essays. So Jane Doe's civil complaint alleges that several of the accused students were, quote, afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell,

Starting point is 03:06:27 like written papers that you would write in a class. Cornell has since pushed back on that claim, but in a way that I find interesting. because they did not say that none of the students involved were made to write an essay to mitigate, you know, their conduct. What Cornell said was, quote, none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement. So, like, it kind of does sound like maybe they were made to write essays. Like, I'm not sure what that exactly means. So Cornell says the disciplinary process resulted in a range of sanctions, including,

Starting point is 03:07:06 suspensions and expulsions, but again, we don't really know what all went down there. So after that, the story kind of fell from public view until very recently this month. This month, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the defendants, including Cornell University, Kai Phi, her sorority Delta, Delta, Delta, University officials, and seven men that she says participated in this assault. And that lawsuit has really pushed this whole situation more into public view. like, how did the university handle it? How did the authorities handle it? And I have to really champion the student journalists at the Cornell Daily Sun here, which is Cornell's independent

Starting point is 03:07:47 student newspaper. The Daily Sun's journalists have been reporting on these allegations going back to 2024, and they have been aggressively pursuing and covering the lawsuit and the university's response. There is a really good Q&A with one of the student editors, Ceres Kuzba, in the cut, about what it was like to break and cover this story. And one of the things that she said was that weirdness around whether or not these students were asked her write essays to mitigate this, like, really, really awful behavior. But it clarified that for me because she basically says that Cornell treats sexual assault on campus as a more of an education issue, not a public safety issue.

Starting point is 03:08:29 And she really describes the kind of environment where, like, it would make sense that the university would think that having students do workshops or write essays would be an appropriate way to mitigate harm. She told the cut, when you search the Task Force website, you see what they're doing as classes, workshops, and website links. It's pretty easy to assume that those who would often commit the sexual assault will most likely not be the ones attending the voluntary and optional sexual assault workshops.

Starting point is 03:08:54 Within the editorial committee, we feel that sexual misconduct cannot be solved in the same way we try to attempt to solve plagiarism. These are very fundamentally different issues, she told the cut. So if you have seen the names of these men circulating publicly, that is because of the Cornell Daily Sun. On September 21st, the Cornell Daily Sun's editorial board published the names of all of the men who were named as defendants in this lawsuit. They said that they believed Cornell had failed in its obligation to protect the students and to adequately account for its handling of the allegations. So I do have a couple of updates on September 28th that Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houghton, you know, that do nothing DA I was describing earlier. Well, he announced that his office was actually going to do something and that is to reopen this criminal investigation.

Starting point is 03:09:47 Van Houten says that his office has assigned a senior prosecutor with experienced prosecuting sex crimes and is preparing to present the case to a grand jury. Also, New York Governor Kathy Hockel called for an outside. Council to conduct a transparent, independent review of how the university handled Jane Doe's situation. Specifically, she wants this review to determine whether or not Cornell met its obligations to protect students and pursue justice. So that's kind of where the Cornell situation sits right now. I have a couple of other sort of pieces there. I don't know if you would call this person a journalist. I'm going to refer to him as a substack troll. Oh, no. Are you going to talk about who I think you're going to talk about? It's Michael Tracy. Oh, yes. God, damn it's time for Michael Tracy.

Starting point is 03:10:36 Oh, damn it. Is this not his first appearance on the pod? No, we've talked about Michael and him being sure the Americans were about to invade to help Ukraine because he wound up accidentally at a U.S. Embassy in Poland. We've talked about Michael a few times because he's always wrong about everything he says. Well, you might not be surprised then to find out that he is trying to reveal Jane Doe's identity. This is not the first time he's gone after a survivor. Yeah. Yes. He tweeted, if you happen to know who this Cornell Jane Doe is, get in touch and I would be happy to publish her name and identifying information. And yes, this is 100% permitted under the First Amendment. Whatever threats or emotional blackmail people might want to deploy. So just a real lovely guy,

Starting point is 03:11:23 really lovely addition to this whole shit show. There's been a few other kind of far right content creators who've tried to docks. This woman has, have put out identifications that, who knows, if they are real or not. But this is definitely not just Michael. This is not just a Michael problem. This is across the whole kind of Twitter-America-first Groyper sphere as well. Yeah. And I'm glad that you mentioned that.

Starting point is 03:11:52 You know, when I was researching for this, I actually found myself in the behind the bastards or or Cool Zone subreddit. And one of the posts on there caught my eye, which was, I think this person is right, but basically asking, does it seem like there's an uptick in kind of, quote, gender wars, stuff being used in incidiary ways? Yes. And he was talking about some of the conversation around the Lindsay Clancy trial. And I do, I mean, I'm lucky that I've, on my side of pocket of the internet, everybody is you know, supportive of Jane Doe and they want a more transparent, clear process for when this kind of thing happens. But I do think we're seeing an uptick in this kind of thing being used to divide and in sight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Lindsay Clancy here, whatever name is case, I'm also seeing used a lot

Starting point is 03:12:40 that way in the right of like women want to be able to murder their babies and stuff. Like, there's definitely a concerted effort to push gender conflict shit. Yeah. And I'm, I hate that it is effective. I hate that it's the kind of cultural issue that really can move people along these lines. And, you know, I think it's important that we know that this situation at Cornell is like not isolated. Campos rape is not an isolated thing. And there's actually another story that you might be hearing less about, a student at Louisiana State University named Kendall Francis. Basically, Kendall Francis is a student at LSU, a young black woman. This is from law commentary. LSU found a football player responsible for sexual assault and forcible rape

Starting point is 03:13:26 through its Title IX process, then reduced his one-year suspension on appeal to two years of probation without restrictions, subsequently allowing him back on the LSU football team. So this finding remained in place in that case is now under criminal investigation. So you're probably thinking, what the fuck? Basically, law commentary reports that Francis, the student at LSU filed a formal Title IX complaint in January of 2026. After investigating these allegations and the players' accounts, the university did find him responsible for sexual assault and forcible rape. LSU initially imposed a one-year suspension.

Starting point is 03:14:06 That player appealed. The university upheld the sexual misconduct finding, but then reversed the suspension, replacing it with that two years of, quote, disciplinary probation without restrictions. This, of course, allowed him to reverse. return to campus, campus life, campus activities, including returning to the LSU football team. So the student has been saying, you know, I've been made an incredibly anxious by this. Like, I wanted to be on campus and live my life.

Starting point is 03:14:35 But the idea that the person that the university agrees assaulted me is just allowed back on campus is unacceptable. So in response, she filed a criminal complaint. And that complaint was brought to the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office for review on September 22nd, 2026, where they are now investigating. And that's kind of where we're at right now. But LSU says that they're standing by what they did. They said that they followed the policies and the process correctly

Starting point is 03:15:02 and that they're working with law enforcement to solve the matter. She's been speaking up on social media, using her real identity, which is an incredibly fraught thing to be doing. I wanted to play just a little bit of a video that she posted to social media. media. We had a pretty rough hearing. The hearing was not the best and then LSU said that he was accountable for rape and then proceeded to suspend him for a year. Even though for rape, the suspension is two to three years. Even with him admitting on the record that he did rape me, they still just gave him a lesser sentence in which

Starting point is 03:15:44 he then appealed. During this appeal process, it took so long, and they took a long, long time to give it back to me. And I ended up coming back to LSU because at first he was suspended, and I did not think that they would suspend him because they had already found, or unsuspend him because they had already found him responsible for rape. After the appeal process, LSU decided to send me the email of the appeal process during my class. So I ended up reading the appeal in my class, and during the letter it said that he was still responsible for rape, but he's able to play football, join orgs, and everything like that.

Starting point is 03:16:19 And so that made my anxiety really, really bad because I don't want to face this person. So this caused me to go online full time, and now I'm just trying to speak on my story because LSU does really protect their athletes, especially their football players. And I'm sorry for anyone else who has gone through something similar to this. My DMs are opening. You guys are more than welcome to message me. I really just wanted to bring awareness upon this situation because I'm just dealing with a lot right now. and I think that this story needs to be heard.

Starting point is 03:16:51 Thank you guys for listening to my story, and I hope you guys all have an amazing day. So she's been really speaking out on social media, and I'm really happy that we are galvanizing around Jane Doe at Cornell, and I think that all survivors and victims deserve to have their stories shared, deserve to have support, deserve to be believed. And so I just wanted to also highlight what's happening at LSU with this Title IX complaint as well.

Starting point is 03:17:20 And coincidentally, I do have some Title IX news because on September 28th, the very same day that that DA announced that they were reopening the Cornell investigation, the Trump administration formally reinstated the Title IX regulations that were created during Trump's first term. This has been a little bit of a political and legal tug-of-war

Starting point is 03:17:42 back and forth for years. During Trump's first term, his administration rewrote the Title IX. 9 rules back in 2020. Among other things, the regulations that he changed narrowed what kinds of sexual harassment schools were required to address under Title IX and also strengthened procedural protections for students who were accused of misconduct. The Biden administration rewrote those rules again in 2024.

Starting point is 03:18:09 Those Biden rules broadened protections against sex discrimination to include explicitly extending those protections to discrimination based on sexual or sexual or orientation and gender identity and changed how schools could handle sexual harassment complaints. But those rules then got tied up in lawsuits, and in January of 2025, a federal judge struck them down nationwide. So the 2020 Trump rules were effectively kind of back in place. But what happened this week is that the Trump administration made that official. The Education Department formally removed those Biden-era regulations from the books and restored those Trump 2020 regulations. So if you ask me, those rules make it more difficult for some students who experience sexual harassment or misconduct or assault to come forward and get real help from their schools.

Starting point is 03:18:57 Now, to be clear, the Cornell case and this Trump change are different developments. They're not, you know, related. But it is hard for me not to sort of read them concurrently because it feels like we're watching this Cornell case raise all these questions about what happens when a student reports, you know, sexual assault or sexual. misconduct, who believes them, who investigates what the university does, what they are, what they have to do if they're getting federal funding, what law enforcement does, you know, while the federal government is simultaneously deciding what obligations schools have when students come forward with stuff like this. Yeah, and I mean, to the degree to which the Title IX issue was motivated by transphobia as well, just shows how much transphobia ends up hurting everyone, you know, you're going to

Starting point is 03:19:45 talk about, you know, keeping women safe in locker rooms, and that's why you're going to attack trans people. But then you're actually going to be reinstating a version of Title IX with less sexual assault protections. Oh, yes. I have said this many times. It's like that Beyonce quote, when you play me, you play yourself. When you dabble in transophobia, ultimately,

Starting point is 03:20:06 you are hurting everyone. You're making everyone less safe. Thanks for that report. Bridget. We'll have one more ad break. And then Robert. we'll have a special report with Darn Tootin. And we're back. So in April, earlier this year on this very show,

Starting point is 03:20:34 I celebrated the massive upset parliamentary elections in Hungary, which saw right-wing authoritarian Prime Minister Victor Orban forced out of office. Over the past decade in change, Orban had disintegrated what checks and balance has existed in Hungarian democracy as he cracked down on political opponents, destroyed academic independence, and censored the media so effectively

Starting point is 03:20:53 that his regime was used as a, model by the U.S. right wing ever since. Hungary started hosting its own CPAC, and people like Tucker Carlson produced vaunting coverage of Orban's regime in an effort to copy it here. Then came Peter Magyar, whose name is the Hungarian equivalent of a guy in the U.S. being called Pete America. As centrist conservative, Magyar rose to power promising to take back Hungarian democracy and punish Orban and his cronies for their years of outrageous corruption.

Starting point is 03:21:19 On the campaign trail, he called Orban's government a mafia state. Magyar laid out a road to jail program. in which he promised consequences for right-wing politicians and appointees who abused their power, and this was a massively popular part of his campaign, and it's something that Democrats in the United States should be paying attention to. After Magyar's Tizah Party won among the celebrations was a tinge of very real worry, what if Peter turned out to simply be a different kind of authoritarian, or what if he was just feckless and did the same kind of thing our own political leaders did in the U.S.

Starting point is 03:21:50 when Trump lost in 2020? In other words, what if he completely failed to hold oral? Orban and his people to account out of fear. There was good reason to worry that the Road to Jail program would get dropped entirely now that Magyar and his Tizap Party were in power. As Kino Versaq noted in an article for Deutsche Well, quote, Orban had laid out plans that stretched decades into the future. In the event of his party losing the election,

Starting point is 03:22:14 civil servants who would be difficult to replace would sabotage the work of new governments. In addition, billions were scrolled away to continue financing Orban's network. They were left in Hungary with kind of the same problem we are going to have in U.S. if we ever do get Trump and his people out of office, which is that you can't just beat them in an election. You have to undo the stuff they did and punish them in order to cripple their networks and stop them from rising again. And that was an open question after Magyar won in Hungary, and it's now looking after a few months like he is committing to going after Orban and his network. With a two-thirds majority in parliament, Tisa has launched what I've seen translated as

Starting point is 03:22:50 Operation Purge or Operation Pergatory on different news sites. I'm not really sure what's a more accurate description of what Magyar actually meant. I think Operation Purgatory, because, as Deutsche well notes, Peter has a known penchant for religious and historical symbols. That's okay. On Monday, Hungarian prosecutors detained two of Orban's former ministers over corruption allegations. These guys are still incarcerated.

Starting point is 03:23:15 Parliament had previously voted to lift their immunity. Per a Euro News article by Sandor Zeros, Sestak, who served as development minister from 2014 to 2018 is suspected of taking around 30 million euros in bribes linked to bus tenders. Honko is being investigated over the disbursement of 46 million euros in cultural funds to public figures, which the authorities largely regard as campaign financing. Now, both men deny any wrongdoing, and I don't know how this is going to shake out, but I suspect it looks like the government is going after them pretty hard. And I think this story is important to watch, both because obviously Hungarian democracy matters,

Starting point is 03:23:51 but also because this should be taken as a model by Democrats if they ever do manage to unseat the Republicans and take back some form of control. Magyar isn't just going after Orban and his people because they broke the law. He's doing it because it's excellent politics. Political analyst Sablek's Dole told Euro News that fighting corruption has been a major source of Magyar's continuing popularity. In other words, voters continue to support him going after Orban. Quote, this is the core issue of Peter Magyar's politics.

Starting point is 03:24:18 He has always had the greatest success in the campaign by prime. promising accountability, confrontation and consequences. One of these elements is that he will hold those responsible for the past period to criminal proceedings and even send them to prison, the promise of handcuffs and bars many times. Now, the elephant in the room here remains Orban, just as Trump would be if things were reversed here. Victor Orban has not yet been charged with any crimes, but Magyar's party has been hard at work building the judicial infrastructure to make that possible, and I also consider this very relevant for Americans. The heart of Operation purge is a new government office, the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which is dedicated to

Starting point is 03:24:56 going after people who robbed the government during the time that Orban's very corrupt party was in power. This new body has been empowered to take over corruption investigations from traditional prosecutors, as well as to start new investigations and to issue warrants. They have several other Orban cronies in their sights at present, and it looks likely that Victor himself will soon face charges over his criminal liability in a case involving two Ukrainian cash couriers who were legally stopped and had their money confiscated. As you'd expect, Orban's Fidesz party has issued complaints about their treatment, calling it arbitrary and complaining that tisah tyrants want to imprison half the country. Within parliament, Magyar has also faced resistance.

Starting point is 03:25:34 His own immunity was lifted at the request of the prosecutor's office over a minor theft claim that just makes him seem cooler. In May of 2024, he stole the phone of a man who was filming him dancing at a nightclub and threw it in the Danube, which honestly is pretty sick. proper etiquette. Yeah, that's just awesome. That's just rad as hell, bro. It's also worth me noting that Magyar and Tiza have been busier than just this. During his first month or so in office, he had Parliament approved cuts to the salaries of lawmakers and ministers and introduced a new maximum limit to the time that a prime minister can hold office, two terms, which is really

Starting point is 03:26:11 noteworthy, both that like his party's in power and they're voting to give politicians, including themselves less money and limit their own power in office, that's a really good sign. Yeah. In terms of like him actually giving a shit about restoring Hungarian democracy. Also on Tuesday of this week, the Hungarian parliament passed a raft of anti-corruption measures. I'm going to keep covering this as Magyar continues going after Orban. I think this is really worth watching. And so far, I'm pretty optimistic about what's going on there.

Starting point is 03:26:38 No, especially in terms of how much Orban's regime was like the blueprint for Trump's second turn. Exactly. This gives us, you know, this look. into a what-if potential. You know, we've talked about the outrageous levels of corruption in the second Trump administration. And I don't think many people are very confident

Starting point is 03:26:55 that the Democrats, upon taking power, will actually hold the Trump admin accountable. I sure am not. But I think looking at stuff like this, it gives us a good barometer to kind of hold the Democrats to a certain extent. Yes. Yeah. This can work.

Starting point is 03:27:08 And this can work electorally, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you said it was excellent politics, Robert, I agreed with that. And I was like, and that's how I know they're probably not going to, The Democrats probably aren't going to do it. The Democrats probably aren't going to do it.

Starting point is 03:27:19 Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. I do, before we leave, also want to turn our attention briefly to another nation that recently ousted a right-wing wannabe tyrant, Brazil. And this is a somewhat less optimistic story. Several years now after Jair Bolsonaro's ouster, which he's in prison now for the coup that was launched after he lost his election in 2022, Brazil is in the thick of another election that many fear might return the right and the Bolsoniaros to power.

Starting point is 03:27:45 The most recent polling from 30th of September by Emilio slash idea showed Lula the current president with 39.4% of the vote and Flavio Bolsonaro with 38.4% of the vote. They go through like multiple, this is the second round of voting, right? And that is still a statistical tie. Although it has, this does represent Lula has widened his first round lead against Bolsonaro, but it's still like statistically a tie, right? Neither of them can win with the numbers they're putting up. Things are drastically close still. another vote on Sunday, October 4th, and as it stands, about 32% of voters say that they might change their vote before Sunday, October 4th, right? So it is very hard to tell what's going to happen here. And Bolsonaro's son could, in Flavio was Bolsonero's kid, could very well win this election. It's entirely possible. Writing for Chatham House, Dr. Christopher Sabatini said of this election, quote, a Bolsonero victory would mean Trump-aligned governments dominate South America. Now, I won't have time to cover this election in detail, but it's worth noting that the

Starting point is 03:28:45 incumbent, Lula de Silva is 80, whereas Flavio Bolsonaro is 45. That said, it's unclear to me if age is a major factor in this. I doubt it's a non-factor. But these numbers are not far from the 22 numbers, right? Lula won his way back into power with 50.9% of the vote to 49.1% for Jayao, after polls consistently undercounted Bolsoniero support, right? One thing I'll say is this doesn't look like a massive shift. They were pretty close to tide when Lula won. and they're pretty close to tide now, right? Per Dr. Sabatini's analysis, quote, this year's contest is more than a familial grudge match.

Starting point is 03:29:23 For one, it looks a lot like recent presidential elections in the region. In June, elections in both Peru and Colombia went to a second round. Each resulted in a narrow victory for conservative candidates who, like the Bolsoniaros, are aligned with the regional diplomatic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump. Both Lula and the younger Bolsonaro face high levels of voter rejection. More than 54% of Brazilian voters disapprove of Flavio, according to one poll. Lula does little better in the same survey, with 52% against the president running for a fourth term. Brazil also suffers from much of the same electoral malaise that we do.

Starting point is 03:29:54 Only 37% of Brazilian voters say they are satisfied with their democracy, a drop of nearly 50% since 2013. The highest levels of dissatisfaction are, of course, seen among Bolsonaro voters. And, as a recent Guardian editorial noted, most voters disapprove of most men. In tracing the significant developments of this campaign, the Guardian summarizes, quote, Lula social programs are extensive, but frustration at Brazil's enduring failure to match its economic

Starting point is 03:30:19 record to its potential may hobble him, especially with growth slowing. Violent crime remains a top issue. Then came the Banco Master Financial scandal, which has snowballed into a corruption case spanning Brazilian politics in the judiciary. First, Flavio Bolsonaro was caught on tape asking the failed banks playboy owner Daniel Vorkaro for almost $27 million to make a film about his father. He denies wrongdoing. Then compromising messages between Mr. Vorkaro and the Supreme Court judge who led the

Starting point is 03:30:44 prosecution of the ex-president Bolsonaro were revealed. The allegations fed the perception that politicians are all dirty and bolstered the unfounded far-right claim that Mr. Bolsonero's senior was stitched up. So this is incredibly close. A Bolsonero could wind up leading Brazil again very soon. And if it does, a big part of the reason is that nobody presented Brazilian voters with a candidate they liked. Right?

Starting point is 03:31:08 Like, Lula is very popular among like the Western left, but he's not popular in Brazil right now, right? he's more popular than Flavio Bolsoniaro, but they're both disliked by a majority of the country. So if there's a warning that every other country should take out of it than that, it's make sure whoever you run against the far right is someone people like. Right? Again, excellent politics. Hope we do it.

Starting point is 03:31:33 Yeah. Anyway, that's Brazil. We'll see how that goes. I hope Lula wins because I really, I don't want to see a Bolsonero running Brazil again. But whoever wins, I have one prediction for Brazil, which is that. that Jair Bolsonara will wind up in a hospital again within the next three months. That's, I mean, that's, that's, that's barely a prediction. That's just a statistical certainty, I think.

Starting point is 03:31:57 But no, but this is a really good wake-up call and a reminder that, like, as fun as it is to have these kind of grandpas on the left, you have to pass off leadership to new people. Like, you have to pass the torch. Even if they're guys who've done some really good stuff in the past. And he's too fucking old. It just is. I think I saw, like, Ryan Grimm, musings. about running Sanders again for 2008, like recently.

Starting point is 03:32:17 I'm like, dude, what the fuck are you talking about? I have fond feelings for Bernie. He's too old. He's too old. He'd be like 90 years old, dude. We gotta, we gotta move on, people. Get real. Get real.

Starting point is 03:32:32 I'm sorry. Before we close this episode, let's pivot to Mia Wong for a special tariff talk segment. So let's talk tariffs. As Trump's Trade War, with Canada continues with no sign of any agreement in sight, Trump's tariffs are finally getting their day in court. But not the 50% tariffs that Trump levied against Canada using what can at best

Starting point is 03:33:16 be described as the extremely dubious powers, quote-unquote, of the 1930s smootholy tariff act. Oh no, the tariffs that have finally reached the U.S. Court of International Trade are the Section 301 tariffs that Trump levied back in July. Now, by the time you are listening to this, a couple of days in the future, it is going to be October. Now, the first lawsuit against these tariffs was filed again in late July,

Starting point is 03:33:48 and it's now October, and we're getting, you know, we're getting the initial arguments on, like, September 30th. Meanwhile, the 10 to 12% tariffs on almost all U.S. imports remain in effect, and probably will continue to remain in effect while this case winds its way through this court, probably an appeals court, and then probably also the Supreme Court, despite the fact that these tariffs are just obviously absurd usage of Section 301. So, for those you've forgotten, Section 301 are supposed to be the tariffs for unfair trade practices.

Starting point is 03:34:25 The July tariffs are, once again, on 99.4% of all imported goods. And these ones are nominally supposed to be about forced labor. There's like a whole... The thing about Section 301 tariffs is that you can't just impose them immediately. You have to do a whole investigatory process, at least nominally, about the specific unfair trade practices that the country is doing. But, you know, so these are supposed to nominally be about forced labor, but they're on an unbelievable number of countries that just happened to, again, constitute 99% of all imported goods in the U.S.

Starting point is 03:34:59 And as the litigants in this case have, you know, begun to argue in front of the U.S. Court of International Trade, it doesn't actually make sense to just have two categories of tariff levels and then just be like, oh, yeah, all these countries did force labor or weren't harsh enough about cracking down on other countries doing forced labor. so we're just going to set this tariff rate for all of them. That's not what Section 301 tariffs is supposed to be for. They're supposed to be for, you know, like deliberate, very specific targeted tariffs on a country for a specific thing, not we want to impose a 10% tariff again. And our last thing that was letting us impose a 10% tariff is failing. So we're going to do this one now.

Starting point is 03:35:45 And as you sort of might expect, the initial arguments do not. seem to be going well for the administration who, you know, showed up in front of the court with the bumbling ineptitude they have become known for when they're forced to defend administration decisions in recent times. There's a bunch of reports of, you know, one of the representatives of the administration is like giving this, starting to try to give this like giant speech about the evils of forced labor and one of the judges just like immediately interrupt him. And they're doing again another thing that's a staple of if you've, If you listen to or seeing clips of like any administrative proceeding for like anything this administration does in court, you will see administration representatives be asked basic questions about a case and just not know the answers to them.

Starting point is 03:36:35 So this is already going poorly on day one. However, again, like this is the first of like three courts they have to go through and probably these are going to be in effect until I don't know, probably the Supreme Court gets to it. So incredible, incredible stuff happening. in the U.S. legal system where the president can just impose whatever tariffs he wants by making up legal authority, and then they just stay in effect until a bunch of months later when they're found to be illegal, which point he's moved on to the next tariff. Again, we're one tariff cycle behind with the Section 301 tariffs, right? He's already using Holly Smoot for the Canada tariffs. Now, it is worth noting. This is part of the reason I'm talking about the Section 301 tariffs,

Starting point is 03:37:17 is that Trump is also threatening to do a different set of Section 301 tariffs to do these, they're called quote unquote excess capacity tariffs that he's had these like investigations going for a while now. So excess capacity is, it is a thing that exists in the world. It refers to, you know, steel is the context in which it comes up the most. It refers to, oh yeah, there's actually like a lot more steel production than they're supposed to be. in these countries that are producing more steel than they need

Starting point is 03:37:48 and pumping it all on the market to depreciate steel prices. They're nominally doing investigations about a range of goods with excess capacity. I did an entire episode about this last year about the sort of core economic causes

Starting point is 03:38:01 of this and the way that this sort of like chronic overproduction and underconsumption where you have a bunch of stuff being produced that's going to waste because people can't use it because they don't have any money.

Starting point is 03:38:14 This is a structural feature of capitalism. Yeah, I did an episode last year when there was another big fight over steel tariffs. That was about overcapacity. It's called the economics of the tariff regime, if you want to go more into the steel overcapacity stuff. But these tariffs mostly seem to be another attempt to do basically the same thing as the other Section 301 tariffs that he just levied. So it's to have some kind of another way to impose a broad percentage tariff on a whole bunch of different countries. And these are the kind of tariffs that Trump has been salivating over ever since he took

Starting point is 03:38:53 office and he's been trying to find increasingly obscure ways to do them. Sent his Supreme Court overruled his initial, extremely bizarre claiming of powers that he used to do it last time. Now, to close out my section here, let's wrap up the story of, I guess now ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. who, if you will remember, Trump attempted to have investigated by federal prosecutors nominally for corruption around like the remodeling of the Federal Reserve building. This is a whole thing that Trump and all those people were pushing at the time

Starting point is 03:39:29 in the middle of this like conflict he was having where Trump was trying to get Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. But that's like not a thing that the president is supposed to be, you know, pressuring the Fed to do that defeats the entire purpose of the independence of the Fed. And, you know, Trump was going on TV all the time and talking about like, ah, they're like turning the Fed into like a palace. They've like using all your government money to to like make giant like glowing bathrooms and stuff, which is really funny when you like look at all of the shit that Trump was doing, like does all of the unhinged,

Starting point is 03:40:02 weird golden like renovation quote unquote stuff that was happening in the White House and the whole sort of ballroom bullshit. Real sort of classic case of projection. But these like very absurd charges led to a fairly serious situation. where you have Jerome Powell getting subpoenaed by the Justice Department. And this is unprecedented, right? And then he ends up as a response releasing what I can like really only describe as like a preemptive hostage video where he's just talking about like, hey, yeah, I am like the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Starting point is 03:40:34 And I am being persecuted for political beliefs by the president of the United States. And this, you know, caused kind of enough of a firestorm, even among Republicans in Congress, that eventually this federal investigation is dropped in exchange for Trump's nominee for Fed chairman Kevin Warsh getting a hearing in the Senate. And the end result of that was that this investigation

Starting point is 03:40:59 was sort of moved to the Fed's independent watchdog. And this week, the Fed finally released a really like 126-page-long report that clears Jerome Powell of any criminal wrongdoing, which like, I mean, yes, obviously. he didn't commit a bunch of crimes in this remodeling. There is a bunch of stuff there about like, ah, there were cost overruns and they should have had like a cap on costs,

Starting point is 03:41:25 but I don't know, like, A, the Fed funds itself, like it's not even tax dollars. It's like they fund itself from fees. And B, like, look, I'm not a Federal Reserve fan, but like, oh my God, there were cost overruns from subcontractors doing bullshit in a construction project. is like, like, come on.

Starting point is 03:41:47 Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, yeah, no shit. Of course, of course there were cost overruns. On a pseudo-government construction project from like costs increasing. Like, okay, this whole sort of chapter appears to largely be over. Although it still remains to be seen whether we're going to get a confrontation between Kevin Warsh and Trump

Starting point is 03:42:09 over interest rate cuts. Warsh has been kind of bailed out. like at least this quarter by inflation data was like slightly better than people was expecting, but, you know, there is also still just a chance that, you know, next quarter inflation goes up and we see like a direct conflict between Warsh and Trump over what's going to happen with the interest rates. Once again, as, as happened with Jerome Powell. And if that happens, we will keep you informed. Finally, here is a quick message from James Stout, who was out in the field.

Starting point is 03:42:45 Hey everyone, it's James. I wasn't able to join the rest of the gang for ED today because I was in Lochiel, Arizona, where a group of people have been defending a cottonwood tree against destruction for the building of the border wall. They have so far been able to stop construction. I believe it'll be 66 or 67 days. If you hear this on the day it comes out, and they have done so by occupying this giant cottonwood tree 24-7. If you're not familiar with cottonwoods,

Starting point is 03:43:17 the very important trees in this ecosystem. They often grow near water. In this case, these cottonwoods are several hundred years old, and there used to be a contiguous canopy between what is now Mexico and what is now the United States. At one point, there was a tree sitter in Mexico, also occupying one of those cottonwoods, trees, they were asked by landowners to come down.

Starting point is 03:43:39 After those landowners were threatened by border patrol, according to people I spoke to on the ground. But the tree sit in the United States side is still ongoing. In between those two trees, there were other old cottonwoods that were, they weren't cut down. They were pushed or pulled down by excavators. You can see where their root balls have been torn out of the ground. It's really, really, really horrible to look at.

Starting point is 03:44:01 If people are interested, there is a day of action on the 4th of October, and they are also able to look at the camp website. If you want to look at the camp website, it's very new, but it should be ready by the time you hear this, and it is camp, C-A-M-P-O-Shad-O-R-G. I will also include that in the show notes. find updates from the camp there. And if you want to know more about the planned day of action, you can click on the Get Involved tab at the top of that website. I noticed that they also have a list of things that they need, which people can drop off if they are in Tucson, Arizona. All right, that does it for us here at It Could Happen here. Bridget, where can people find you and your work online? Yeah, you can check out my audiobook.

Starting point is 03:45:01 about how tech companies and AI companies are using our deepest, darkest thoughts to exploit us called Love at First Prompt, AI and the Future of Intimacy. You can check out my podcast, there are our Our Girl on the Internet. You can follow me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in D.C. Awesome. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you so much for joining us this episode. We reported the news.

Starting point is 03:45:22 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 is a production. of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzone Media.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app,

Starting point is 03:45:44 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian,

Starting point is 03:45:55 creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The True Crime Comedy Podcasts all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me.

Starting point is 03:46:09 That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Scam Goddess! Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhain, Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast.

Starting point is 03:46:30 The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween.

Starting point is 03:46:55 Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Whether you're a seasoned NFL fan or new to the game, there's one place to keep up with all of it, the league's newest podcast, the NFL report, hosted by me, Andrew Siciliano. It is your home for everything football, breaking news, expert analysis, game picks, and hear from your favorite players too. Join me at an all-star cast of experts for everything you need to know from around the league. Get new episodes to the NFL report Monday through Friday all season long. Listen to the NFL report podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever. you get your podcasts. The miles change how you move, but more importantly, they change how you show up for your life. I'm Emily Abadi. On the hurdle with Emily Abadi podcast, I sit down with elite athletes, record holders,

Starting point is 03:47:45 coaches, and everyday runners to unpack the mindset behind pushing through when things get tough. Because the discipline, grace, and grit you build out there on the pavement, that's what helps you show up as your best self everywhere else. I'd just love to say,

Starting point is 03:47:58 I never know who's watching. So you want to make sure you, you through and through, and you just stay true to who you are. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Fox Sports Reporter, Jenny Taft.

Starting point is 03:48:12 And I'm former U.S. Women's National Soccer team player, Carly Lloyd. And on our new podcast, whatever it takes, nothing is off limits. I played with players that didn't truly love the game. I found the love with the ball at my foot. I don't care what I'm being asked to do at Fox. I'm going to go get some reps and love it,

Starting point is 03:48:32 and embrace it. Listen to whatever it takes with Carly Lloyd and Jenny Taft on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.

Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 252

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