Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 53

Episode Date: October 1, 2022

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode.

So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's got to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart. This week we have an episode that is in the vein of what my co-host Garrison Davis and I like to call Here's a Problem Goodbye episodes. And the problem is that there has been a massive and as far as I can tell unprecedented wave of

swatting incidents against public schools in multiple states over the last couple of weeks. And here with me to talk about that is the person who noticed it first. Anti-fascist researcher and community meeting note taker Molly Conger. Molly, you are socialist dog mom on Twitter where you are a sensation with your delightful little pups. And also one of the best researchers that I know in the biz. Welcome to the show. Great to be here. So, yeah, you want to start?

Yeah. So this has been going on, I guess for two weeks there's been this wave of swattings against schools across the country. And I didn't notice it until it happened here. We had to restart this so many times. I feel I know. I know. I'm going to say the joke again. It's great though.

You should. Because it happened here. I love it when they say the name of the show. And we finally get to do it. Yeah, but you know, my, you know, my attention is primarily local. So on Monday when every cop in the region was dispatched to Charlottesville high school because there was a false report of an active shooter inside the school. It was quickly determined to be a swatting. Right.

So they dispatched everybody. They locked the school down. They cleared the classrooms with guns, you know, kids reported being terrified of, you know, because nothing was happening to them. They were just enjoying, you know, an afternoon at high school and all of a sudden there's a man with a rifle in their classroom. And it was quickly determined to have been a swatting. And I was listening over the scanner and by the time they were clearing the scene, that's what they were calling it. So the police identified it as a swatting, like through over the, yeah. And I think that may have, they may have arrived at that conclusion more quickly because a dozen other districts had it at the same time.

So across the state of Virginia districts, you know, from Hampton roads to Arlington, Culpeper, Lynchburg, like tiny towns in Shenandoah County, like a town with 4,000 people down, you know, in the southern part of the state. We're hit almost exactly the same time with these hoax calls about, you know, got to get somebody down to the school because there's somebody with a gun. Good Lord. It's so, you know, it happened all over the place. All of these schools were quickly cleared. No one was hurt. Thank God. But as the news was coming in, I was picking, you know, picking through trying to find the districts where this was happening.

And I was pulling up these news articles and it wasn't just us and it wasn't just that day. So it's, I think the earliest I can find in this rash was, what is that, two weeks ago in Texas, a bunch of districts in Texas were hit. And the one in Houston, I think is particularly grim because the caller, the caller said, you know, oh, 10 students have already been shot. They're in the classroom. It's two guys with ARs. And they gave this is one of the one of the ones that's the best described in the media is that the caller gave a description of the two shooters. And that's what scares me, right? The cops show up with a description in mind.

They're going to act with extreme prejudice if they see someone who fits that description. Yeah. There's a Hispanic guy in the parking lot that, you know, could be a risk. Yeah. Well, and that's that that's the first one, like when I shared your early posts on this, people from Houston started showing up and saying, like, hey, you know, we had something like this hit a couple of weeks ago, and it sounds like it's the same thing. And these are, I mean, like. Number one, the scale of this, it feels unlikely that at some level, I know there's there's certainly possible, an extreme likelihood that some of these are copycats, some of these are people falling in, but the sheer number of them makes it seem it's hard to believe that this would all be unrelated. All of these calls would be unrelated to each other.

And then, you know, I don't know what the background level of normal swaddings is, right? Like, I'm sure to a certain degree, this is happening somewhere all the time. You know, people are saying, oh, it's just kids who don't want to take tests. Yeah. 15 schools in Minnesota were hit simultaneously yesterday. This isn't kids who don't want to take tests. Right. Simultaneously, so many schools. And it's there is a point there, which is, you know, because people when I started sharing this and stuff, people are like, well, what are we supposed to do?

And the first thing that occurs to me is actually not a preventative measure, but is purely just like, well, we should probably have some sort of at least at a state level system in every state for letting people know how many fake swatting attempts to get schools are happening, how many like false reports of mass shootings at schools occur. Like, it would be because otherwise we can't tell if this is rising above the level of background. I think it's clear this is because neither of us can think of a time when there were this many in such a short period of time, but. Dozens a day. Yeah. Dozens a day. There should be some method of keeping track of that because it is. I mean, I thought that was the lesson of 9-11, right, is that we don't have interagency communication.

Like, you know, on Monday, when it was hitting all these schools in Virginia, some of the early reports were, you know, quotes from local authorities saying, we talked to the state police and this happened to two other people. And it's like, well, I've already found 10 other reports to the state police know about those. Yeah. And it's it's this is obviously none of this is as bad as a single actual mass shooting at a school. But this isn't like nothing either. It's not like you you file a false report about, I don't know, a break in and the cops drive around a neighborhood for a while. Like this is kids getting guns pointed in their faces. This is children thinking that like their friends have been massacred.

This is like parents thinking their kids might be dead. This is this this is an act of violence. Like doing this is an act of violence. And it ripples, right? The effects of this are compound and unfathomable. You know, I heard from friends in the community saying, you know, I got a text from my 13 year old son saying, I don't know what's happening, but I love you. And even if even if, you know, 30 minutes later, the danger has passed and everyone knows it was a false alarm for that 30 minutes. Those parents thought thought that their kids weren't going to come home.

And that's a background fear that parents have every day when they send it. But that's the text no parent wants to get, right? You know, before we lost the recording earlier, I was telling you about a surgeon here in Charlottesville. She's a surgeon at UVA hospital. So the hospital was alerted about a possible mass casualty incident so they could prepare their operating rooms. She gets the mass casualty incident alert as she's scrubbing in for a scheduled surgery. So she has to walk into that. She has to walk into that or without her phone.

Knowing that her child's school to her knowledge in that moment has a mass shooter inside of it. And so she doesn't know if when she walks out of that OR are her children going to be in there. That's horrific. That's horrific. And also like that could get somebody killed. And this is nothing. That affects the level of care. It would not be surprising if she was less able to properly provide care in that situation.

That's just being a person. So this is serious, very serious. And so yesterday a rash of them hit Minnesota and some locals in Minnesota were saying that. So one of the schools that was hit was East Mankato High School the day before. So the day before yesterday, that high at that high school, a student at that high school attempted suicide with a firearm in the parking lot. So kids came back to school the day after this, you know, the students survived in his hospitalized. But, you know, they're coming to school, hopefully to, you know, access counseling resources and deal with the fact that one of their classmates shot himself in the parking lot. And suddenly they're sheltering in place and there's cops with guns.

There is a baseline reality for these students every day that gun violence is present. And this is just cruel to them. One of the things that surprises me, you and I, you started, what was it four days ago now, kind of reporting this on your Twitter, which is where you do your reporting on local news and the anti fascist reporting as well. And so I started sharing your stuff and we started chatting about doing an episode and my suspicion, the thing I was expecting was that like, well, we'll probably get scooped on this, right? Like there's probably like vice or somebody's going to put out something because there's just there's too damn many of these. It's Thursday now, the start of Monday. I still haven't seen any coverage of this as a as a wave of swattings and I'm kind of surprised by that. There's a few like, you know, regionally people are putting together and doing these little quick hits about like, oh, this happened in a dozen districts in our state.

Yeah. But I'm not I'm not seeing anyone connect the dots nationally, you know, in some of these local stories, they're saying, you know, local authorities are talking to the FBI. But I don't know that there's a cohesive nationwide investigation into this as as a phenomenon. Regionally, there is some indication that like these calls are connected. So I saw an article that just came out an hour ago in Minnesota that all of the Minnesota calls came from the same IP address. Ah, so this that's that's I mean, that's what that's the proof we're looking for, though. The evidence we're looking for that like, there's a significant degree degree to which this stuff is is coordinated. And when I because this is something that since you started talking about it, every researcher I know who covers extremism has been talking about at least a little bit in like private conversation signal loops.

And the thing that keeps coming up is like, is there some shit on Kiwi farms? Is there some shit on 4chan? Is there some shit on like these these little spaces? I haven't seen anything. So yeah. You know, to some degree, there is the possibility of social contagion, right? Like I found a few stories that don't fit the pattern specific cases. Like yesterday in Roanoke, a 14 year old girl was arrested for making one of these threats.

She didn't make all of them. She made this one. Yeah, she do this. Was she inspired to do so because of this? Was it unrelated? It's hard to say. So this at some point, even if it did originate in one incubator, it breaks containment. And I'm, I'm, I am certain that's part of the intent, right?

Like when you do the benefit of, if you're thinking about his, again, we don't know who did this. We don't know what kind of ideology or whatever or why was behind it. But we know that a significant number of them like occurred from a single source, which means like something coordinated was happening at some stage of this. That's a reasonable conclusion to draw from the extent information. And I think it's just pure psychic terrorism, right? Because my first thought on Monday was, is this someone testing the fences?

Is this someone timing response times? Is this someone watching local news coverage to see what kind of equipment the police have? That doesn't make sense at this scale. This isn't how you would do that because this is going to draw too much attention, right? And like, why would you want to know the, you know, the police capabilities in Emporia, Virginia, which is just like three truck stops in a high school, no offense to the beautiful town of Emporia, Virginia. It is Virginia's greatest speed trap.

God bless them. But like, that theory immediately fell by the wayside for me because it doesn't make sense. But it is interesting. So I've been, you know, trying to compile follow-ups on some of these reports because the initial reporting is vague and people use 911 as shorthand. So they'll say a 911 call, but was it actually a 911 call? Because that makes a huge difference here. Dialing 911 is, you know, I'm not a genius about how technology works.

But if I dial 911 here from my living room, it hits my closest emergency communication center, right? It's my local 911. If these calls are being made from out of state, it takes a high degree of technical ability to hit a 911 dispatch center where you aren't. Yeah. Right. So we know we're not dealing with someone who is capable of that. Alternatively, we know perhaps that this person knows that making a false 911 call

is a separately prosecutable crime, right? So like, the articles that are specific will say that the call came in directly to police dispatch or the call came in to the front desk at the sheriff's office. So these people know well enough how to contact the, you know, the front desk at the police department and the name of a school that's nearby, right? Yeah. It's not so vague as to just be dialing random police stations and saying go to the high school. Well, no.

And that also, again, because we've just mentioned, I haven't seen any evidence of this in the places you would expect if this was, the way a lot of these doxing campaigns have gone, the way a lot of Kiwi Farm stuff goes, the way a lot of swatting happens, where like you have a shitload of people openly talking about and talking about bad things happening to a targeted person, and then some of those people do swattings, right? There's no evidence of that. And the way in which it seems like the bulk of these have gone doesn't seem like the way it would happen if you were just kind of targeting someone in a public area

and hoping that enough people made the decision independently to make these calls. My other thought, too, is that, you know, it's sort of a libs of TikTok phenomenon. Like they're targeting schools with, you know, woke policies, CRT, gender inclusion. They're not. I mean, Lynchburg, Virginia, which is Jerry Falwell country. Yeah. There's no demographic or political consistency to the district's being targeted. Well, and the right hasn't picked this up at all.

I haven't seen any kind of, like, very, no one, very few people seem to have at this point. So this is just such a, if I were to guess where this is going down, it's some sort of communications platform where people have a degree of privacy. And I don't know if it's not testing the fences, which at this point it seems too widespread to be, then it may just be kind of, I mean, one thing that occurs to me is just like, there's the pure accelerationist value of setting up this wave and hoping that the copycat effect will just keep it going for a significant period of time of shutting down dozens of schools around the country, of traumatizing kids,

of continually making those schools roll the dice. Because any time you have a cop with an AR busted into a fucking school, hyped up thinking there's a shooting, there's a chance someone's got to get shot, right? And that's, I mean, there have been deaths from swaddings. And that was my feeling. So it happened here two days in a row. On Tuesday, it happened at our middle school. And so like the second time they responded, they didn't respond as hot and heavy.

But yeah, anytime you get, you know, cops charging into a scenario where they think they might get to or have to, depending on how you feel about it, use their guns, the risk of someone being shot by accident is astronomical. And honestly, I'm kind of shocked that has it happened, especially in the cases where, you know, the caller gives a specific suspect description that, you know, puts anybody who vaguely meets that description at great risk. But I think this is just, you know, Joker mode nihilism. Yeah, that's that is, if I were to like make a raw, irresponsible,

like public guess, not that I don't think this is actually that irresponsible, but like we just don't know. But that's that's what this, that's the the MO this fits best so far is kind of raw. I want to disrupt the system. I want to scare people. And I want to do so in a way that's the problem with a mass shooting from the perspective of someone like this, is that you're going to die or get arrested doing it, right? That's the way all of them end.

And so that limits the number of people who are going to be inspired to carry out a mass shooting. If you can show that, yeah, people can call a dozen of these fake reports and some of them, you know, we're going to end violently, then maybe a bunch more people are willing to do that. And the overall level of disruption and chaos that you cause is substantially higher. Right. So it's a relatively low threshold for involvement, right? Exactly. You don't have to be ready to die.

Yeah. And maybe you won't get caught. Although I think, especially in the Minnesota case, they're going to catch somebody. Governor Tim Walts' son goes to Mankato High School. Yeah. No, I mean, you upset the governor's son. You're going to get caught. Yeah.

And you did it all from a single, like, and I have to suspect the FBI is looking at this. They never, I mean, it's policy. They're never going to confirm that until the point at which like it becomes, there's, it's a big enough story that they kind of have to for PR reasons. But I would be surprised if there was not an investigation at the moment. Every couple of days when one of these regional stories comes out, you know, they'll quote the local FBI field saying, you know, we're working with local authorities to help them investigate. But the FBI is absolutely investigating this nationwide.

There's no chance that they're not. It's too, it's too clear of a pattern. And it's not unprecedented, right? That a couple of years ago, there was that Adam Waffen swatting ring that those guys did go to prison for. Yeah. So it doesn't have to be a lot of guys. This could just be a couple of people. So, you know, we're saying we're not seeing this leak out anywhere.

It's not being discussed anywhere. It could just be, you know, three or four guys. We're four people in a discord with some like auto dialing apps that they've they've either coded or found somewhere on the Internet, which if they if they are using some sort of like program to do this, that's meant for, I don't know, sketchy salesmen or whatever, there's a decent chance that's what brings them down because all of that shit has terrible security. But so does discord. I don't know. Like, I, it'll be interesting to see what happens here.

I think one of the questions for from the perspective, certainly of like people listening, what can be done here? Well, on a local level, one thing that people can fight for and advocate for, especially if you're involved in local government is like, I would like to know every year how many times the police go to a school over a false report of a shooting, right? How many times are classrooms being cleared? How many times are the cops showing up for this? Because that's important information. And that also should tailor the way the police are being trained for this and the ways like that. There's a number of things that you should be doing. If you know, hey, we had no mass shootings this year, but the cops showed up with guns drawn 45 times, right?

That that should inform the way you do things in the future in order to minimize the trauma these kids go through. That's one thing that is an immediate thing people can take and that you can do people can advocate for locally. I mean, it's a tough line here, right? Because, you know, I think every district is really eager not to be the next Ubalde police. Of course. Yes. They're showing up hot and heavy. They're going right in there, you know, knocking down doors and pointing guns at kids. You know, that the video that came out from that classroom in Houston, they frisked several children at gunpoint. I'm not sure why that if they were sitting at their desks, they were obviously not committing a mass shooting or in Denver on Monday.

They evacuated the whole school onto the football field with their hands in the air, like was that necessary? Which is horrifying. Right. That's, you know, even as a police abolitionist, I recognize that in the system in which we currently live, there is no response to a school shooting that does not involve the police. That's where we are. But are they are they doing this smart? Yeah, as a rule, I think everyone can agree that given the current realities of the world we live in, if a guy is shooting up a school or a lady,

it's good for people with guns to come and stop them. And that that's realistically going to be the police in our current system. But that doesn't mean we can't be like, well, okay, they came up 50 times falsely and traumatized all these kids by pointing guns at them on the fucking football field. We should change the way in which they're responding to these. Like that shouldn't be the default. These are things people can lobby for at a local level that will have an impact on at least the quality of life for kids in the schools. And for parents, you know, like, you know, in Uvalda, there was the parent who, you know, slipped around the police line and got into the school and got her kid yesterday. No, two days, two days ago in San Antonio, they had a, you know, a hoax call, somebody called in, Swatch showed up and parents showed up because they got the emergency alert text. So the parking lot fills with parents.

A father punched through a window, cut his arm up and was tackled and handcuffed by the police. Because he just wanted his fucking kid. Of course. This is going to keep playing out here on Tuesday at the middle school. You know, I was listening to my scanner after they, you know, they cleared the buildings, the police left, and then a call came over the scanner and said the school is requesting that the police come back to handle the parents. Because parents are angry. Of course they are. So how do we, how do we navigate this tension of, yes, we need police to respond if there is a school shooting. But how do we as community communities navigate this space where we also don't want them to point guns at our kids.

We don't, we don't have a lot of trust and communication with our police department. So I don't know if that's a space we can navigate. This is a problem that has to be adapted to right. There is the potential you have this problem, right, which is that it is apparently easy to weaponize the reporting system for mass shootings. The problem is compounded by the fact that you can't ignore the risk of a mass shooting because kids can die. People will get killed if you are wrong about that. At the same time, it is unreasonable to say that every single time one of these reports happens, if the ratio is hundreds of false reports to one actual shooting. Every time it happens, you go and you stick guns in the face of a bunch of kids and you traumatize all these parents who wind up going crazy for understandable reasons. There are structures that can be built into the system to mitigate those harms, at least.

And I think that is, you know, from the perspective of who is doing this and how can they be stopped. That is a question that will be answered either by law enforcement or by independent researchers. But that's a research problem, right? That's a cracking case problem. My fear is that the response to this will be putting more cops in schools, right? The cop in the school doesn't stop the school shooting. We know that from empirical evidence. In several of these cases, the news story says Dispatch contacted the school resource officer and said, no, I don't see anything. So is the solution going to be put a guy in there who can look? He's not going to do anything, but he's going to look.

The city of Charlottesville took school resource officers out of schools last year. Two years ago, time saved now. So my fear is that even people who applauded that decision will at this point say, maybe we should put him back. Maybe we need a guy in there with a direct line to dispatch. Yeah. And I and maybe we do. I don't still think they need to have. It needs to be a man with a gun who has the ability to arrest children, right? Having having a first responder on scene at every school who can be the yes, there actually is a shooting or no, there's not. Maybe a some medical training is perhaps a different thing that could happen rather than let's put more armed men in schools, right?

Like that that's not an inherently unreasonable proposition that I don't know that police are going to be receptive to the idea of let's ask some questions first, right? Because as I was listening to the scanner, again, you know, I have the most information about the two incidences that were in my neighborhood. I was listening to the scanner on Tuesday and it takes time for cops to arrive at a scene, even in a relatively small town. By the time they had dispatched this response to the scene, they had already spoken to the principal over the fall. They already knew this was not true. We'll see. And there's another solvable problem because if you're if you're having guys with guns still show up because it's policy. When someone at the school has said, no, there's not a shooting. Well, that's again, that is a problem that can be altered or that can be fixed to mitigate harm.

That seems pretty simple, which is be like, well, maybe if somebody at this, maybe if the school's principal says, no, nothing is happening here, you don't send the gun guys. Maybe you still send a squad car to check it out for diehard purposes. I'm sure we all remember what that movie has to say about these kinds of problems. But, you know, I there's a lot that can be done with the information that this is a problem. And to a certain extent, I think I'm hopeful that once this kind of blows up and I'm certain this well, I'm certain that maybe even by the time this launches, there will be some big national stories about this because this is just this is a really substantial problem. Very obviously is a substantial problem. I hope that one of the things that does is perhaps lead to the authorities taking swatting and threats of swatting and communities that engage in swatting much more seriously because by God, they have not so far. And it's not the laws about it are not super consistent state to state that, you know, there's been some attempts on the federal level to make, you know, blanket legislation about this specific because, you know, it's illegal to make a false report to the police.

It's illegal to make, you know, a false 911 call, but to specifically and intentionally weaponize an armed police response because you hope it will hurt someone in most states isn't its own crime. Right. Like I think in California, they have specific legislation that like you can be charged like financially responsible for whatever it costs to have that response. Yeah, like there's not uniform agreement that this is a separate crime. This is a separate harm that should be punished in a specific way. And maybe maybe we'll get that out of this. I don't know that that solves it. Yeah, again, it will. Like you were saying that this is a lower barrier to entry crime. But if you up the punishment, maybe that threshold to decide to do it goes up. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I think there's there's a variety of things that can be done. Now that we know this is a problem. And one of the reasons why I think this is important for us to cover on a show like this is a lot of these are problems that can at least be mitigated at the local level. Right. You do have power. If you're involving yourself in local politics to do things like advocate for a system in which you track how often this is happening to do things like advocate for changes and how the school handles this sort of thing like that is a thing that you that people can handle locally. And that is you'll get a faster response handling it locally as well than you will trying to advocate for some sort of big national swatting law.

And you're going to get you're going to get faster and better results changing local departmental policy than you will getting any law that changes how the police. Yeah, highly unlikely. Yeah. And so I think this is important. I think it's important for people to engage with this from the perspective of like, we don't know why this is happening or who is doing it yet. It may be a while before I'm certain we will find out at some point these people will get caught. But it almost doesn't matter because the system is so easy to weaponize. The solution is to try to find ways to make it less harmful without reducing the ability of people with guns to show up if they need to to stop someone who's murdering kids. Those are the two things that need to be done, not reduce the efficacy of the system, which is not very good, to be honest, at stopping mass shootings and and it's piss poor at that. So it would be hard to make it worse. I will say when people talk about, well, what happens if they, well, they're bad at it now, they're terrible at it now. It's not like I'm not worried about making a change to like mitigate the response of swaddings in this instance, harming kids, because as it is, the system almost never saves them when there is an actual mass shooting. So simply reducing the amount of time that kids have cops pull guns on them in these false reports.

That's more of a priority to me than anything else. When we're talking about the issue of swatting and I think there again, there's just there's things that can be done there. Molly, is there anything else you wanted to get to on this on this subject? No, I think that covers it. I just, um, this is still happening. It's happening today. Like it's still ongoing. This phenomenon is ongoing. I think it will continue to build until it hits a breaking point. Like you said, I definitely think some of these people will be caught. Yes. But I don't know what that changes, right? Like once this breaks containment, once people see that this is a thing that they can do.

Yeah. Yeah. Do we do we deal with a wave of this before it gets under control that gets even bigger? Or is that what's actually happening right now? I don't know. And is this when does this desensitize people to the idea of these threats? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But you know, kids get shot.

I hope no kids get shot. If you're a journalist and you're trying to, you are trying to report on this in some sort of concerted way, you can find Molly on Twitter at SocialistTalkMom. She's done, she's written most of your article for you. You can steal, like. But I think if the journalist is listening to this, I think it's important to tell them, ask the right questions, right? Like when you're, you know, when you're getting your three questions into the press conference with the local sheriff's office, ask specifically, where did the call come in? What number was dialed by the caller? Yeah. Right?

Because I don't think these are 911 calls. I think people are using 911 as shorthand. So ask where the call came from with the substance of the call because I think, I imagine that some of these calls are verbatim and we just don't know that. I think some of them are probably identical and we just don't have any way of. It's hard to connect the dots when the police won't tell us. So I think if, you know, if journalists are listening, ask more questions than you got in the press release. That's critical because if there were, if there was a, if there was a Virginia state like repository where every time we get a false swatting attempt against a school, we report when it came in, who was called and what was said over the call, right? All of which are things that they could pretty easily get because this shit is always recorded.

I don't know that that's true though. That's another sort of tactical. 911 calls are recorded. But if you call the front desk at the police station, it probably isn't. That is a fucking good point. In any case, that is another thing that could be dealt with because then you would at least be able to see, oh, there's 40 swatting attempts in the state in the last five days. And 38 of them, it was the exact same script. There's probably a single source of this that we should be like looking at.

And that can help not just law enforcement, who's generally bad at these sort of investigations, but people like you who are good at these sort of investigations and can maybe then start doing keyword searches and figure out where the fuck this stuff is originating from. If it's anywhere on the semi open internet. Again, things, there's a lot to be done to respond to this problem that doesn't start with like throwing more cops at it or, or, or whatever. Like there's, there's a number of different problems that this is revealed. So hopefully those get solved. Anyway, Molly, you got anything else to plug before we go? Oh, defund your local police department.

Yeah, subscribe to your local newspaper. Sure. And, yeah, if, if you're at a school right now, good, good luck. Those poor fucking kids. They are really the kids these days are dealing with a lot. I'm more grateful every year that my, my childhood was as uneventful as it was because boy, howdy, is it rough to be a student today? And they still have to take their tests. They still have to take their fucking tests.

Yeah, they have to go to school. They got to read the great Gatsby while this is going on. Unbelievable. Sorry, kids. It's, it's, it could happen here. The podcast that we open sometimes. Yes, this is, this is, this is how we do this job. It is, it is also a podcast that is very, very often about strikes and someone surprisingly, this is, this is an episode that is not about the giant rail strike that everyone was focused on that didn't happen.

And the reason it's not about, okay, I mean, obviously it's not about that because it didn't happen. But the other reason it's not about that is that there was another giant strike that was really, I think, ignored by both sort of the media and the people who normally would be following strikes that was happening at about the same time. And that is a massive 15,000 person nurses strike up, up, up in Wisconsin. And to talk with us about that. Wait. Did I say that right? Minnesota. Did I confuse Wisconsin and Minnesota?

Oh my God, I always do this. They did threaten a strike. You are. Yeah. For different reasons. There's some part of my brain that never quite figured out which one was Wisconsin and which one was Minnesota. And it just flips them in my mind. They're just like, they're just the state that's sort of over there from Illinois.

I know. It's the Midwest. This is an accursed place. I don't really have an excuse because I'm from here. I've lived not in the Midwest for like six months now. Wow. Okay. Like a year of my life when I was like, unbelievably small child. But yeah, it is. Yeah.

There's been a bunch of strikes in Minnesota. And with me to talk about the strikes that are not happening in Wisconsin is Danielle, who is a nurse at Methodist Hospital and a steward for the Minnesota Nurses Association. Danielle, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming on.

Okay. So I guess the first thing that I wanted to talk about is the kind of strike that you all were doing because this is something that I've seen a lot with nurses strikes, but I don't think people who aren't in nurses unions like talk about very much, which is basically doing a three day strike or doing a strike that's for a set number of days, but is not indefinite. And I wanted to ask about that specifically as a tactic a bit. Yeah, absolutely. It's not uncommon in the healthcare sector at all to do one day, two day, three day, five day, seven day strikes. We usually leave like an open ended strike for kind of a last inch effort to get the employer's attention. But there's a lot to coordinate to compensate for a three day strike. It affects everyone's job at the hospital. And then after three days, they have to flip everything back. That type of disruption in capital has been really effective across the nation. So we're hoping that they hear us loud and proud, but it's challenging. They have a lot of money.

Yeah. And I think from what I've talked to other nurses about this strike and also other people have done nurses strikes is that like there's like a huge pool of scabs, which makes these really hard. And is it the case that part of the reason why you do one of these limited strikes is that it's a lot harder for them to coordinate like bringing in scabs for a limited amount of time than it would be for like hiring them full time for indefinite strike. Yeah, exactly. So rabble nurses, I mean, they are those strike nurses come in strictly just for those three days they were oriented for, you know, a few hours prior to starting at 7am on Monday. So there's not a lot of time to learn the entire facility. And since we are gone, the only ones left to orientate our managers or any nurses that have to stay for whatever reason, we really didn't have many at all across the line. So it just compromises patient safety and care in general. Yeah, there's no way to create teamwork with just three days of nurses. So just the hospital is just more accountable for system errors. They try to keep those issues as internal as possible and not disclose them to the public.

There's a lot that happened. You know, it's funny, all the media reports are like we're just like straight up printing press releases being like there have been no internal disruptions. I'm like, I don't believe that. Like there's no way there's like, it's just not true. They are just lying. So lying and to prepare for us to go and strike. I mean, they tried their hardest to discharge as many patients as possible Sunday prior to our strike to empty out hospitals. The thing is like you can't just you're not a magician. You can't make sick people go away. Yeah. There was a lot of readmissions because of that you're discharging people too quickly. I know what the children's hospitals, they actually like shuttled 44 children out to other surrounding hospitals to because they couldn't get enough travelers to work, you can't get 15,000 travelers. So that's what they did to try to undermine us. It's a lot of moving things around.

And I am hoping that public there's an uproar with the public about this. Yeah. That's I don't know who's paying for, you know, the cost of shipping kids to different hospitals. Yeah. I assume the hospital is not going to pay for it. Yeah. Oh, God. So yeah, I guess we should move into like how we got to the point where 15,000 nurses or went on a strike, which I think I mean, certainly the largest nurses strike like in the private sector. I can remember like it's I think I think it's one of the largest the US ever had.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, can we talk about like I get this is there's also sort of a broader question here about like what the US health care system looks like in year two of this plague in the sector that's already been sort of just decimated by like incredibly venal profit seeking greedy corporations. But yeah, yeah, so what what what what what have been the conditions that have been leading up to this strike that got this many people off of the line. Um, I mean, our health care system has been unstable for quite some time hospitals have been consolidating so much like closing clinics and facilities. Um, just to maximize profit. It's like their, their whole goal is kind of like how airlines overbook for flights. They create like an artificial hospital beds shortage in order to maximize profit. So they've been doing that for years, and then also just buying up little hospitals to control the market more.

Um, they've also are starting their own insurance companies just to double dip into communities while it's so that's been going on prior to the pandemic pandemic hit. They were not ready. They didn't have enough PPE at all because it's not there's no. It's not financially incentivized to have extra PPE on hand. That's their logic. I remember in the beginning of the pandemic, like my aunt and uncle work for a hospital and like we were trying to get the masks and like we wound up like we were like doing contracts with like like my like my family in China was like, I know a guy who knows a guy who could like, who like has a mass manufacturing thing. It was, oh God, it was so grim. It was, um, yeah, it was a mess. And we didn't have enough PPE. We had to reuse stuff constantly. And we were never compensated for it either. We just were forced to work harder and longer for the same pay. And now hospitals are trying to normalize that staffing shortage and say, Well, that's it. That's, you know, so you just have to work with what we're giving you.

Um, in this shortage is just it's causing unnecessary medical errors and deaths and it's just a disservice to our community. Yeah, it's going kind of down a dark path. So I think all of that during the pandemic hospitals really showed their true colors. And I know the nurses really realized that the hospital is only there to just like fatten their wallets. They're not there for us. They're not the goal is to make us all leave the bedside and just outsource all of their employees. You would escape all liabilities. If you have all travelers in place, there's there's no real incentive to hold the hospital accountable for institutional failures. Can you explain what travelers are for the audience people who may not know? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So travel nurses come across are like are across the entire nation and they are contracted through travel companies that work with hospitals.

So if there's a nursing shortage, they will be open positions to apply for those contract positions that are like short term. So either like a four week, six week, or if it's like a a strike contract, it'd be like three days, seven days, whatever it might be. And they're paid handsomely. I know for our three day strike, those travel nurses, those strike nurses specifically for three days, they 10 K each Jesus for three days. And they didn't even know the facility. Some of them never even worked in a hospital. Jesus, I don't I don't understand the requirements. It's confusing how. Yeah. And I'm not trying to demonize travel nurses in any sort of way. There's amazing travel nurses I've worked with some. They're great people, but they're, it just undermines like our profession, like it's it's hard to improve our profession when you have people that can replace you. There's no real change we can make. It's just we're fighting each other.

Travel nurses are independent contractors. Yeah, exactly. So the hospital doesn't pay them benefits. They don't take vacation. They don't call in sick. They save the employer a lot of money because they don't have to like provide any hospital resources such as like employee health or workers compensation or anything like that. And they just have that six week contract that they focus on and they they're definitely paid their worth. There's less liability on the hospital too. If there's any medical errors, it's easier to like blame the travel nurse instead of blaming like institutional failures. Travel nurses, they just they can't unionize. There's just not a way there's not like a common area for them to come together and yeah, create a union. So that's the hospitals like that. Also, when you have more travel nurses at a hospital, that's less funding that can go to our union.

So like we pay union dues every month. Yeah. And if hospitals are hiring more travel nurses, our union gets less funding, less power, sadly. Okay. Do you know who else wants everyone to work as contract workers so they can't unionize ever? It's the products and services that support the show. And we're back. So all right, I guess moving on from that. Well, okay, I guess I guess before we fully move on to talking about how the strike was sort of organized. Can we talk a little bit more about what staffing shortages looks like and what what the effect that has on patients is because I think people like I think people this is something people like kind of conceptually understand but don't like viscerally get what it means to have a staffing shortage in a hospital. Mm hmm. So with inadequate inadequate nursing staffing levels by experienced nurses, there's an increased rate of patient falls, infections, medical errors, increase in deaths, increase in pressure ulcers,

increase in readmission rates. So having to go back to the hospital because you weren't given like high quality care at the hospital is just kind of mediocre if nurses are kind of strapped with time and have to divide their attention between too many patients. So I don't know if you actually are legally allowed to say this but like how many patients like per day roughly are like you are like you treating patients are we treating the day. Our hospital method is has about 400 beds, and we've been at capacity so above 100% and you're probably wondering well how do you get above 100%. The ER will board patients, meaning a patient will stay on a cart and they'll be in a hallway and always will be lined up with patients that are just waiting for other patients and other units to be discharged so they can take that bed. So they can wait in the ER for up to two to three days, just waiting to be like really admitted. So we've been at capacity for a long time and that is that is purposely done to maximize profit just because of they've been consolidating closing other hospitals. They're charging all those people who are just like laying there in a hallway right. Absolutely or even if people come in for surgery and they have to after surgery they go to recovery.

They can sit in recovery for up to eight hours which normally after surgery you only need to be there like a half hour to an hour kind of depending on how you wake up from anesthesia and then you go to your room. But we are just holding them in recovery because we're waiting on beds and rooms to be available because the hospital does not plan in advance at all. That's not cost effective. Yeah, it's funny because it really seems like literally this entire process would be enormously less expensive if you hired four more people and didn't close every hospital around you but it's not about efficiency, it's about making sure you have as many dying people sitting in a hallway so you can charge them more. Exactly, sick people are profitable and not healthy people. Yeah, I mean it's really it's like there's just something like sort of particularly venal and disgusting about here. It's like you know it's all of the same like okay well we've built up a monopoly and we're using a monopoly to force everyone to use our services and then we're you know we're using contract workers to replace the people who would normally do the jobs but it's like well it's with healthcare and it's like instead of just like every TV show being awful it's here's a bunch of people who are getting sick and dying because we just don't have enough nurses. Exactly, and then the only thing the hospitals do is they have all the managers go around and tell nurses okay today we got to flex up they'll use terminology like that that sounds like empowering and like strong man, we got to flex up today meaning we want you to take more patients than you like safely can.

Meaning like if you're if you work on a medical surgical unit, it's usually like four to five patients is what's recommended for one nurse to have for 12 hours, they'll ask you to take six or seven Jesus. And they'll call it flexing up and they're like well yeah but Bob over there is flexing up why aren't you flexing up and it's just it's that type of like corporate speak and empowerment language. That forces us to risk our license. Yeah. And I think one of the consequences of this that I mean it's really obvious if you've been following Secretary at all is that okay well it turns out if you if you work a bunch of people like basically to death and you don't give them enough resources and you're making them take too many patients. It's that people just start quitting. And yeah, can you talk a bit about sort of the shortage that's been happening because of that too because that's I think a really bleak like just in the long term too is just yeah. I don't know like if you want to have an even vaguely functioning society the fact that you can't keep people as nurses.

Yeah, really bad. Absolutely. Yeah. The pandemic hit and nurses realize that they're just they're not being paid their worth there's travel jobs that are you can make 200 grand a year 300 grand a year just doing travel nursing and then they're kind of sold on the idea that you own your schedule and you can just kind of plan around vacations and other times off you need and you just kind of book like a four week stint at a hospital if you don't like it you can leave. So, they kind of just sell our jobs back to us but it's not good health care. Yeah, it's like, you know, I've talked about this with like, like people who work at Starbucks for example or it's like well okay like if you just constantly moving people around and nobody's like actually stays at a place and you never you build up a community of people who you're working with like your cares.

You know it's like okay well you're not going to get good stuff but it's like yeah like this is like this is people's lives. Yeah, exactly. And those travel travel nurses I mean their their goals are usually like financial freedom. Yeah, like all of our goals. So, and their goals are always short term you know all I have to do is just deal with this hospital for four weeks and then I'm gone. How is that going to fix any institutional error errors? I mean their issues they're I mean they they never will hold the employer accountable. Yeah, and especially like it seems like you know even even even if like everyone walk it like I don't I don't think you could have a functional hospital system if everyone was a travel nurse but like at some point it feels like there's no way for there to be like.

There's no way for people to like keep leaving hospitals to go be travel nurses and also for travel nurses pay to stay that high. Yeah, exactly. Eventually it'll get saturated and that's kind of the goal of hospitals is to push all of their permanent employees into traveling. So once that industry becomes saturated, then you can decrease wages and we'd have to compete amongst each other for certain jobs with certain hours that we need or whatever will just be it's just a race to the bottom we're just going to. Yeah. Yeah. Then the employer will control the market and it's. Yeah, and I can't imagine 20 years from now.

Trying to be a travel nurse, it's just going to be hard to compete with those younger people that are that could work harder and faster and longer than me for less money. It's not sustainable for a career. Yeah, it's just doesn't seem like a good way to do health care. Like, yeah, that also, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I guess the next thing I want to talk about in terms of OK, so how do we make this better is about. Yeah, this is a very large multi hospital strike across multiple cities, which is really impressive thing to pull off. I was wondering if you talk about how how that happened. Yeah, you know, the pandemic really pushed a lot of nurses to want to fight for change.

And I think that it all started there. We all started coming together with the same issues and problems and. Yeah, finally just started organizing more. All these hospitals were currently unionized, but somewhere more like involved in their union than others. Yeah. And I'd say now a lot of nurses are more involved in the union and it's a lot of younger nurses too. Just because they're people are finally realizing that we are the union. It's not a separate entity from us.

It's something that we can control and be a part of and be able to use it to balance power. It just, yeah, it's our only way to fight this health care sector. I also want to ask about what the negotiation process has been like because. I mean, five months is I mean, you know, OK, like that you very rarely get fast contracts when you're dealing with bosses. But yeah, like the contract negotiation process seems to have been really bad even by sort of like regular contract negotiation standards. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the our negotiations, we probably have negotiations like once a week, once every other week. And the hospital shows up with five of their like elites that just hide behind a corporate lawyer.

Who is just a union busting lawyer. And all they do is just gaslight and demonize us and say, well, the hospital staffing shortage is your fault because you guys are calling and sick too much. Or I mean, they just turn everything around to blame the nurses. It's very demoralizing. It's we feel very just underappreciated, especially with everything we've gone through with the pandemic. And they've just been dismissive of what we're what our needs are. And especially like the calling in sick too much is like, well, yeah, OK, maybe your nurses wouldn't be getting sick if you weren't making them work with no people without PPE and a pandemic like Jesus Christ. Oh, it's just it's just comical.

The arguments as they have. I know. And like, we don't we can't ever get vacation that we're asking for. Yeah. One of one of our proposals is just to get a two week block vacation for every nurse in the hospital, guaranteed every year. Because we don't even get that. We we have a cap on our vacation hours. And then we get denied our vacation constantly.

People call in sick because we need a day off. We need a break. Yeah, we're burnt out. Yeah, like, OK, like if you have vacation hours, but you can't use them, you don't actually have them like, it's not this works. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's a benefit they control. Yeah.

What one of the things that I've been reading about that you all been fighting for that it's really interesting to me because it's something I've seen in a few other struggles kind of proposed but never like really like. Put in the center of the thing is talking about like. Like giving giving giving workers a role in staffing decisions. Yeah. Yeah, can you talk about that because that that's really interesting to me. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, currently we don't own our profession. We have no say in staffing ratios.

The hospitals decide what is safe care. And they're doing it absolutely wrong. Yeah. So we want to be able to take that back and control that and to say this is what we need because our patients are sicker. They're staying longer in the hospital. And in order to provide safer care, we, you know, these need this many nurses for this many patients. So would that be on like a sort of like, okay, you like you have a negotiation you said this is this is like the like this is just a ratio is this like a data is an individual day to day thing. Yeah, I'm wondering how this would work.

Yeah. Right now, let's see, I know we are asking for like a committee that's made up of, I mean, administrative staff, but also nurses, but we want the nurses to be able to have the power to implement policies and change. If they think it needs to be done. Yeah, yeah. So it would be like a grid review, I think it's yearly is what we're asking for. But can be up to quarterly, if need be kind of just depending on what we're hearing from other employees on other units. So I, I think it's kind of like on a, a week to week evaluation to see what's working and what's not. I know the hospital's argument for that is it would take nurses away from the bedside.

But in reality, It doesn't make any sense. In reality, it would retain staff. And also, okay, it's like, oh no, we've taken a nurse away from the bedside for one hour to go to a committee meeting where they say we could put more nurses in. Exactly. And like we want this committee like made outside of like that, like those nurses schedules. And then we also want them to be paid for their time. Yeah.

The hospital disagrees with all of that. They only want to pay nurses for their time to create safe staffing ratios. Yeah. It's hard. So like the people that are in power, they're just a bunch of narcissists. Yeah. That's all they are. And that's the only way to remain in power is to have no empathy for your employees.

So that is what we're up against. So every negotiation, I feel like I'm just arguing with a two year old. Yeah. I mean, it really like, they really seem like a kind of people who you can only actually, the only language they understand is power. And like the only way you can get an investment of anything is just like, you're whacking them over the head with it. Which, as David Graber had this thing about, it wasn't him. I think he had this thing about how like the, trying to think of how he actually phrased it.

It was basically like, okay, if you have a lot of like, if you have it in like a large amount of actual physical power over someone, you don't need to like use eloquent arguments at all. You can just sort of like tell them what to do and they have to do it. And like the less actual physical power you have, the more you have to sort of like use argumentation to like convince people to do things. And this really seems like the peak of, here are a bunch of people who have been so powerful for so long. They don't even like, they don't even know how to like make a compelling argument because they've never had to. All they've ever had to do is use brute force. And it like sucks trying to use like logic and reason against people who like by design don't know and don't want to know how to do this. Because if they, if they're ever in a position where they have to, it means that their power has been diminished.

Exactly. Well, and also nurses, like we're natural people pleasers. We're like kind of a, we can be a little more submissive and we've been like that for years and we're finally standing up for ourselves and they really don't have arguments. Yeah. I mean, it's like they're killing people. It's like they are killing people for money. There's not like, there's not actual moral justifications here. Exactly.

I know. Yeah. It's just, God, what, what a terrible way to run a healthcare system. Like just, oh. I know. And I know a lot of hospitals are getting more into like creating executive care and executive hospitals, executive clinics and which all that is is just a hospital that is just dedicated to exactly like the elites. And you would pay that hospital like a country club membership. So like 200 grand a year or whatever.

Christ. It's, they're not going to take Medicare. They're not going to take Medicaid. It'll be strictly out of pocket, not insurance, out of pocket money. And you can just get all of the care you need at that one facility. It'll have all specialties. You can see them same day. You can text your doctor.

It's just healthcare that's just on demand and readily available for those people that can pay it. I know. Meanwhile, everyone else is like waiting 17 hours with like a whole in them in a whole way. Exactly. Like Fairview is one of the hospital chains in our, in Minnesota, and they're creating a thousand bed hospital for the ultra elite. They're going to be doing that soon. And then they're also bargaining with the nurses and saying that they don't have money to pay them raises. They don't have money to give them family leave.

They don't have money to create better staffing models. You know, and one of the things that keep hearing about this is they're like, oh, like the rich hospitals will subsidize the ones that don't make money. It's like, no, they won't. Like you're just going to, you're just going to keep all of that money and continue not funding the poorer hospitals. Like you won't, you already do this. You can't actually fool anyone who has spent more than two seconds like looking at this works. Exactly. I know.

I know. They're going to prioritize those executive hospitals and just follow all their money and resources that direction. It'll for sure be non-union and they will push so much non-union propaganda at those facilities too. Yeah, it sucks. It does suck. It does suck. I know. And just a lot of people don't know about it.

It's kind of scary what we're, what we're heading towards. And that's, that's, that's what we're fighting for or fighting against. And I mean, I mean, I will say like, I do feel like like a lot of the, I don't know. I've been thinking about this a lot with like what happened in 2020 and like why that kind of thing happens. And I think a lot of like, okay, there, there is an extent to which people sort of don't care about violence. There's an extent to which people like are able to sort of like rationalize it. But, but I think there is an extent to which like the average person on the street has no idea this is happening until they're like sitting in a hospital room and then they don't understand why it's happening. And so I think, yeah, like I, I, I don't like this, this is not an acceptable state of affairs.

And I think, I don't know, like the, the, the, the, when people start to fight back and then when people like actually know about what is happening, I think it's going to be like, hopefully it will become harder and harder for them to do this stuff. Because, you know, hey, like, yeah, people are literally dying and being like, previously injured because the hospital refuses to pay more. Exactly. No, they just, the hospitals just push that propaganda that they're underfunded, they can't afford staff, they can't afford this. And there's a nursing shortage and there's nothing they can do about it. And it's actually, there's not a nursing shortage at all. There's a shortage of nurses that want to deal with this shit. Yeah. They're just leaving the bedside for better jobs.

And I think the thing I wanted to sort of start closing on is about, like, okay, like there, there is some negotiation going on about pay raises because, hey, guess what, inflation is happening, et cetera, et cetera. But like the extent to which the negotiations aren't about, like aren't about pay because this is something we've been seeing. I mean, this was a, this was a thing with the, with the rail strike that's temporarily been averted. This was a thing, this has been a thing in a lot of places. It's been dragging people out of the workplace just everywhere is that, yeah, like it's, like this strike isn't really, like if I think it like, I don't know. Okay. Tell me if this is wrong. I don't think the strike would have happened if it had just been people not getting paid enough.

Like I think if there was adequate staffing and I think if there was like, if people weren't being forced to take more patients, like there wouldn't be a strike right now. Or there wouldn't have been a strike. Yeah. Possibly. Yeah. For sure. I think we're definitely not paid our worth, but also that's not all we want. There's definitely way more to it. Yeah, it's, we just, we want to reclaim our profession.

Yeah. Like it seems like it really seems like they're like the stuff that's happening. And I think sort of broadly like is, like it's not just sort of about compensation. It's about the fact that for, I mean, my entire lifetime for like 25 years, like before that, like employers have had almost limited power and they've used their almost limited power to just make everyone's lives absolute like living hell. And they've used it to sort of like, just to force people to work hours that are like unbelievable, to force people to like, you know, like force people to stand there with like cans so they can pee into while they're still on an assembly line. Forced people just like, just like unbelievably just sort of horrible and degrading stuff that's like, it's like, no, you can't actually just fix this with higher wages. You actually have to change like something actually has to change about how the workplace works because otherwise people are just going to stop. Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. Um, yeah, I know one of our proposals, we want to work a max of three 12 hours shifts in a row. Because right now our contract says we can't work more than seven 12 hour shifts in a row. And we obviously, if that is way too much, and that's something that would even even three is like, like every single time I read one of these things, it's like, okay, like, hey, like, yeah, okay, we want for only one of our fingers to be cut off per shift instead of four. And it's like, this is like, oh God, it's like the demands are incredibly reasonable. Considering what you're being asked to do like Jesus. Oh, yeah, we want the hospitals to have six months of PPE on hand at all times. They've already declined that. Yeah.

I was like, Oh, who who who needs PPE? Like I don't really everyone the splice is like, Oh, who who needs to have who needs to have like stories of critical spare parts. No one this this will never come back to haunt us. We will never be in a position where we suddenly don't have the spare parts. Oh my God. Yeah, I know. We have a pandemic proposal we want. We want to pass and that's just to give the nurses the power to decide what we need when another pandemic hits to provide safe care and like safety for ourselves. Yeah, the hospital didn't include us on any decisions during the pandemic. It was, yeah, we were just used and abused. Yeah. And we had to use our own sick time and vacation if we were exposed or if we had quarantines or were diagnosed with COVID.

Yeah, which I was like, did you get COVID while this was happening? Um, I only had it once that I know of. Yeah. I mean, okay. I only had it once is like, like, I don't know anyone who work as a nurse who didn't get COVID at least once and most of them got it at least twice. Oh, yeah. Like just I God, I don't know. Yeah. It's just so bleak.

Like, it's just. I know it just depended on like your patient population. I'm in surgery, so I'm a little more like guarded from that COVID population. You know, we only did surgery if they really needed it done and if they were positive for COVID. So we kind of got to pick and choose a little bit. But other nurses, obviously they could not avoid COVID. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't.

It's just kind of like, I can't just cut like just this is just the worst possible way you can run a medical system. And it's just. I know. I know. And I know, like I know, and let's see, Samford is another big hospital joint giant that's like in South Dakota, North Dakota, and I'm from South Dakota. So this kind of all like really hits home for me is they're hiring 704 nurses like from Venezuela, Mexico, wherever as like, they're pretty much using them as travel nurses, just to avoid actual travel nurses here. They will bring them here by 2025 and they'll sign like a three year contract. The hospital will provide housing for them and they will drop wages significantly and the nursing world, especially in South Dakota, North Dakota.

They're definitely not going to be paid their worth. I know they're going to be exploited more than we are. I had family like that. Actually, the aunt and uncle I was talking about who were doctors like we're in North Dakota for a bit and they were just like, this is the worst. And they like, they left for like, they left for a vast improvement and being in a hospital in Nebraska, which is like, yeah. I also like, I want to talk about this a little bit because this is like a, this is interesting with the Philippines too, where like, there's like, there are whole industries of like, basically training people and then shipping them to the U.S. So they can be like just horribly exploited. And that's been like one of the things that's been like, I don't know, like bolstering the profits of the medical sector for a long time is you just like import people and exploit them.

Yeah. And like the fact that they're like, oh God, this is some like the fact that these people are going to be like living in like houses that are owned by their bosses is some real like. Yeah, gilded ancient. Yeah. I mean, the thing, the thing that most like this is this is like standard practice in China, for example, and it's a disaster. Like I like, I don't know if people have ever like actually seen pictures of what the inside of these dormitories look like. But like it is like these are you get a room that is like smaller than the college dorm room that doesn't have air conditioning that like, I don't know. Like I talked about on this show, like the which we talked about a worker like a couple of weeks ago who like died during the heat wave because when he came home, I mean, he was working a bunch of shifts and he had to work like. He had to work a shift in like 104 degrees, like loading stuff onto a train. And he came back home and there was no air conditioning and he's in this tiny apartment and he died in his bed because, you know, it was too hot and like this is the kind of stuff that happens, especially when you have like when when when you're sleeping in corporate dormitories

and when you're sleeping in a place that like your boss owns, like this is the shit that happens. And it's really, really bleak. And I hope these people are able to unionize and like fight their bosses. But like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, fear of being exiled. I highly doubt they're going to be able to unionize. Yeah, because yeah, because I guess everything like like the way the visa process works, right? Like it's really easy to like if someone's here on a work visa and then suddenly you're like, oh, hey, I want to unionize.

Well, nope, screw you. You don't have a job anymore. We're going to get you deported. And that's exactly. Yeah, exactly. Which I mean, I guess it's it's, you know, it's another one of those things where like, like we all of the different sort of disparate like fights, people are having are connected. Like this, this, this wouldn't be happening. Like if we didn't have the sort of Buddha regime that we have right now, like affirmation system wasn't just like, you know, and like, and it just.

If it wasn't just like a giant like torture machine for millions of people. The stuff wouldn't be happening if we weren't in this sort of moments of like, you know, if you weren't in a moment where the power of unions has been collapsing for decades. Like if you weren't in, if you weren't in a place where like, I mean, even, even, even sort of like on the level of Obama going like, we're not going to like, we're going to make our health care system worse because it will cost insurance jobs. If you make it any better, like, she's like, oh, yeah. So like, like, I feel like I feel like the medical sector is like people working in health care is like it's one of these places where just like. Every possible it's kind of it's kind of like prisons where it's like like everything that's gone wrong in our society just like gets focused into like one nexus point and it's the point where people have to go where they die. I know. And the only thing that's holding hospitals accountable are unions in this country.

Yeah. If there was no unions, the wages would be much lower and I don't even know where health care would be right now. Yeah. I don't know. Not good. I mean, like, I keep going back to China because it's like that's like the other health care system as a disaster that like I have family and it's like. Well, I mean, this is the thing that's been happening in the U.S. to have like the increasing violence you can staff, but like China has a huge, like a huge problem with basically riots breaking out because people like someone's family member dies because their care was really bad. And so they'll just be like a riot and people will go attack the doctors.

And it's like, yeah. And it's like, OK, like I get why they're doing this, but it's like it sucks. And this is this is a huge problem they've had with with retention because their numbers are like. They're like their staff to patient ratios are unreal, awful. And yeah, like, you know, like that kind of stuff makes health care systems fall apart. Absolutely. Yeah, like. Yeah.

And that's kind of like they've been doing that here. Hospitals have been demonizing nurses instead of like actually saying that they do have institutional failures. And it's their fault. And we're only as strong as like the safety protocols and policies that are in place. Yeah. And like, I mean, the like the best nurse in the world can't be three nurses. Like. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so if they kind of do this foreign nursing deal, I mean, South Dakota, North Dakota, they're right to work states. So they it's almost impossible to unionize you can, but it's it takes a lot of work. Yeah. But when most your staff is already travelers, like I was told by another nurse like in North Dakota, Sanford, their staff is 80% travelers will help and you even attend to unionize. And that's, that's the goal of hospitals is just to create so much turnover where.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's just turning hospitals into Amazon, which the system editoriously works great. Exactly. And travelers are less likely to speak up because they're just afraid of their contract being canceled. Yeah. So they're going to be blacklisted and blacklisted just means like there's a common website that all hospitals will go on just to look at travel nurses that are recommended not to call or not to give a contract to Jesus. Yeah. Exactly.

So and you can blacklist a nurse for any reason. Yeah. And the reasons are not disclosed. It just says do not call next to that name. Well, that completely ruins their travel career. Yeah. It's like, it's amazing. It's so formalized.

Like I know people have been blacklisted from other professions, but it was like very like, it was kind of an under the table thing. This is just like, no, we were literally going to put your name on like a list that everyone just has. Like, oh God. Yeah. Exactly. I know. So there is, you know, safety issues at a hospital. Those nurses are less likely to speak up and they're less likely to even, you know, leave their contract because they're afraid of retaliation like that.

It just incentivizes just terrible care. Yeah. Okay. We have now spent an enormous amount of time talking about how unbelievably messed up this whole system is. And what will people do to A, help this strike and B, like we'll help with contract negotiations and B, like just in general, try to like fight for better healthcare for people. I know I've been asked that a lot too. We have a website with MNA, Minnesota Nursing Association, where we do like to have people share their stories about surprise bills or firsthand experiences with understaffing, etc. And that's something like we've just been kind of collecting stories.

Just so we can kind of keep exposing the corruption. Yeah. Also donating to our strike fund is always much appreciated. Yeah, yeah. We'll put a link to that in the description. Yeah. It's how you create change is just public pressure. Yeah.

Do you have anywhere else, anything else that you want to say? I don't think so. I don't think so. I feel like I covered a lot. Cool. Yeah. I just wanted to bring awareness to this topic. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing on the show and for talking to us about this because, yeah, this is definitely something that people need to hear.

And I'm really glad you were able to join us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. This has been Nick Hadappen here, a podcast by Cool Zone Media, and I guess also iHeart. Yeah, you can find us in the usual places. Yeah, make the world a better place for nurses and a worse place for hospital executives. Yes.

It could happen here. It's not, it's not October yet, but this is a preview of kind of how I'll be recording certain things when Halloween gets near. So I'm done with my work for the day. The rest of you can take over now. Cool. I guess that's me. Hi. Yep.

It's me, it's Christopher. What is this episode about, Christopher? Is it about Halloween? No, this is about a thing that did not happen somewhere else, which I guess is slightly off-kilter for us. But yeah, also with me is Garrison and Trine and Sophie. Hi. Yeah. Excellent.

All right, seems like the episode started. Good work, everybody. All right, we did it. We got there. We've gotten through the introduction. Now we can get to a conspiracy theory that's been like all over Twitter, but not kind of in the usual places where you'd expect a conspiracy theory to be on Twitter. And that is this whole thing where an enormous number of people were convinced that Xi Jinping had been ousted in a coup and that he was being held by the army under house arrest. And, okay, so we're recording this on a 27th.

Earlier today, I think Xi Jinping, like, reappeared. And it, you know, we had the final definitive proof that he had not in fact been, like, disappeared by the Chinese army. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the way I encountered this was Twitter informingly that people were, like, discussing it. And I spent, like, three seconds looking at what accounts were saying that Xi Jinping was being fucking couped. And it was all, like, I don't know, anime tit goblin 423. Yeah.

Like, like analyzing satellite photos and stuff like, no, we don't. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna wait to hear what's up with this one. Anime tit goblin. That's great. Yeah. It really did like a, sorry, like a, like a word cloud of, like a network map of who was spreading it. And it was accounts with names like that. Yeah.

I believe you. And I mean, and it has spawned, like, articles from Al Jazeera, Snow. Oh, it's way worse than that. It's way worse than that. Like, okay, I'll skip ahead a slight bit too. The place we were at two days ago was Republic Media Network, which is, like, one of the biggest news networks in India. I saw some, I saw a source claiming they get 155 million views a week. Yeah.

Because it's literally. In India, it's like one of the biggest in the world. Yeah. They were literally running a China Watchers parody tweet. Like, like he had a, they had a China Watcher guy had a thread that was like him making fun of it. That was like him walking to like random empty places and being like, this is a coup. And they like, they straight up ran the, like his tweets, like as a news story about the coup. Like, unreal bullshit.

Like, I know. Oh boy. Well, this is, again, a point we make regularly on all of our shows. But like, you can't, you can't have that kind of fun anymore. Like it just immediately gets picked up and weaponized. Like making jokes about like fake, oh yeah, idiots are spreading bullshit about a coup. I'm going to make fake coup news. Well, congratulations.

Now you've convinced a third of India that there's a coup in China. Yeah. And like, I think like the China Watchers, I think we're like, because, okay, it, like, and this is the thing where I, there are, there are, there are very specific China Watch people I am very mad at because when, when, when they were interviewed by the press and when they were writing about it, they were like, well, a coup could kind of be plausible, but it's not happening. It's like, no, no, it's not. It is not. I'm sorry.

Like it is a joke. Like anyone who actually plausibly suggests that Xi Jinping is going to get overthrown in a coup is not serious. This is not a serious person. This cannot happen. Like this is, this is, this is like, this is like fucking I like Steve Bannon is getting the death penalty shit. Like it's actually less plausible than that. Like it's nonsense. And when you say, because I'm not, I'm not a China government nor when you say it's impossible.

Is it just because like we have a long history of what happens when like people who are in power in the Chinese Communist Party lose power and it's not coups? Well, I mean, here's the thing, right? So people will make a, there's like, there's like a whole big thing about how like Hu Jintao was like the first like successful, like nonviolent, like like transition of power in Chinese history. That's kind of true, like in the modern CCP, because like, so after Mao, there's another guy who takes power and he gets like fucked up by Deng Xiaoping and like his sort of minions, but like, okay. So the first thing you have to understand about this, and this is something that's going to come up later here,

is that the Chinese army is not going to stage a coup. Like this is impossible. It is not going to happen. The Chinese army is not a political faction that works like this. There has never been like the Chinese army has never done a coup. Like the army of the people's liberation army has never done a coup. That's not how this works. It is, it is like, it is insane.

It is like just bafflingly incomprehensible that anyone would think they could do this because they can't. It like, this is not what this is not what the PLA is as an institution. Insofar as people get overthrown inside of the party, it's by other people in the party doing like factional maneuvering against them. And that can sort of happen. But like, okay, this is the year 2022. Xi Jinping has basically like clobbered everyone in the party who like, anyone who was actually going to present a serious challenge to him like was clobbered like 10 years ago. So, I mean, 10, 10 is probably slightly over.

But like, you know, he just finished part of the background to the story is that he just finished purging like a few of his like last remaining like kind of serious like not even really serious. But like, he's had another one of anti corruption purges and he's like had a guy like executed for corruption, right? Like, this isn't like that. That's how stuff actually works in the party is someone gets arrested for corruption and then put in prison for a long time or killed. Like, but like, like, you know, executed for like corruption like that. That's how this actually works. There's there's like, there are no coups. This is bullshit.

I'm going to yell at a China watcher specifically who was talking about this like at the end of this episode because I'm mad about it. Um, but so obviously like right now, like obviously today, the 27th, like Xi Jinping has reappeared in public. So like, this is obviously bullshit. Five days ago, if we turn back the clock, it was exactly as bullshit as it was then. But there's there is some other context here, which is that. So one of the reasons why anyone is even talking about this in the first place is that on October 16th, which is like a bit over two weeks from now. The CCP is going to have the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. And this this is like the big one, right?

Like every five years, like the whole party gets together. And it's where they choose members of the Politburo and it's where they choose the members of the absolutely terribly named Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Wow. There's like another thing. I know that all the stuff is like it's based on like like this the structure of like this is based on like the party structure that the Bolshevik set up. What would be the kind of comparison to this for American politics are really is there not. I mean, it's kind of like like the closest thing would be a presidential election. But imagine if a presidential election was like like imagine if a presidential election was one party got together and they chose the president.

So it's it's it's a committee that kind of gets the different bureaucratic leaders of different like sectors. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's not so much like so it's basically like it has all of like the leader sort of like going down like the ranks of the party like that. You have like like each like like city or whatever like people. Okay. You send delegates to it like originally it was like like back in like the like when the Bolsheviks were doing this and like in like 19 like 1919, right? Like it's okay though. The like these are based off of like like the whole party like the Bolshevik party would have a Congress and all of the sort of leading organizers and all like everyone like all the sort of like local party factions were like elect a person and they would send a delegate to the thing and then they would all fight out and figure out what their policy was going to be.

Now it's like there's I mean there are powers right was like go on but the whole like this is an actual representative of like a mass party thing is just sort of gone. It's just this is this is sort of like what was actually going to happen at this one is we're going to see exactly how much power like Xi Jinping is going to take. Because he's I mean the big story that everyone's talking about is like Xi Jinping at the last one of these like well not the last one of these. This was it was it was a different Congress but he was able to like eliminate the two term limit on Chinese leaders that have been imposed sort of like after Mao because people were like maybe this is a bad idea. So yeah he's going to he's going to get like he's going to get a third term. There's a bunch of debate over like exactly how much power he's going to get and like what titles he's going to get. But like I don't know I'll do an episode about that after it happens. But basically there's there's all there's all this sort of political intrigue stuff swirling around because this is like this is like this is like the big political events like of the sort of like modern periods.

The other thing that was happening well and this is also why he was like purging some of his opponents because. Like well you know so I guess the other thing we should we could talk about with this is like if people have listened to revolutions like this is how Stalin took over the party. Which is that he figured out that the way you take over the state apparatus is by you you make yourself the like the head of the Politburo and then you have enough vote you have like you need all you need to do is control like three people on the Politburo and you sort of like dictate policy down the line for the party. And this gives you this gives you control the state. So like this is this is sort of this that's all like that's like the like ancestor of this is still a very similar kind of structure sort of. Mostly it's just like yeah there's an important political event going on and the other things that Xi Jinping was out of the country. So he was doing he was doing a tour of Central Asia for like like he's doing one of those sort of like fluff tours people do of like we're like reaffirming or like trade ties and stuff. So he was in Samarkand and then he came back I think on the 21st and then he was just sort of vanished for a few days.

And the reason that he vanished was that he was in quarantine which is the thing that like is real in China but everyone else has just like forgotten exists. And so he was actually doing the thing that you're supposed to do because he came back from an international trip. Yeah well and also like well I hate to say you've got to hand it to Xi Jinping but I guess you've got to hand it to him. That is what you should do after getting back from an international trip. Jenny Wiley one of the few things I will say about Xi Jinping is he has gotten covid less times than Joe Biden. He has not gotten covid yeah right like he hasn't gotten it and the reason he hasn't gotten is because they actually sort of like there are ways in which the way that they take covid policy seriously is nuts. Like there are like anti lockdown riots happening right now because they locked down like an entire like they locked down an entire town because one person got covid which like whatever. And you can argue with the covid policy but they he doesn't have covid so just my mind that no one was like this might be an option of why he's not around.

Well every everyone who was like serious like anyone who like yeah that's why it was all nonsense people who were spreading it. Yeah like it was all it was all random Twitter accounts. I think what would kind of the missing piece here and what's actually happened is that so those of you who have followed my career. We'll know that there's a website called Bellingcat that I wrote at that has been in the news pretty continuously for the last almost 10 years because they kind of helped invent the modern concept of open source research. And open source intelligence which has really had its biggest moment since the invasion of Ukraine because suddenly there's all this footage of tanks getting blown up of of Russian soldiers doing this and doing that and. You know cities changing hands and all this stuff and people have been following the war through a lot of these big OSINT accounts kind of the last huge moment in OSINT prior to the invasion of Ukraine was was January 6th. And that was another big moment for people understanding it and kind of one of the popular conceptions of open source intelligence is that random guys on the Internet are getting better Intel than you know the CIA or whatever which there's a degree to which that that's true because a lot of random people did become experts in stuff like you know different kind of munitions tracking and whatnot and did a better job of tracing certain things than than state agencies were doing which is why like some of those people.

Anyway, it's a whole long story but the problem is that it's led people to believe that the best intelligence often comes from random people on the Internet and no one of the things if you if you're trying to evaluate someone who was claiming to provide OSINT. The most one of the most important things to do is number one. Can you actually trace their work back like is it possible to like follow their their thinking and their conclusions to determine whether or not what they're saying is nonsense and number two. Do they have like a track record because like for example Eric toller and Elliott Higgins who I worked with for a while have like a 10 year track record of being consistently right about things and breaking massive stories and doing stuff like uncovering Russian GRU agent operations and stuff. And these were just random accounts that no one had ever heard of on Twitter claiming to have detailed figured out detailed information about a coup in the Chinese government. There's nothing behind them. Yeah, well it's funny too because like OK so once once like actual people we're going to get this a second like once actual people started picking it up like if you just Googled any of the people who were like writing about this it's it takes like five seconds to figure out this person is just nuts. It's like on Chinese Twitter like it's it's a little like like yeah it starts on like like the Chinese speaking part of like China Twitter I'm going to read a thing from the Indian news site first post which like did a kind of cleanup job of like hey all of the other Indian

outlets who are covering this I just have just completely lost their minds here's like what actually sort of happens. So quote a Twitter account New Highland Vision which has over 20,000 followers wrote on the 22nd of September that former Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Premier Wen Jiabao had persuaded Song Ping the former member of the Politburo Standing Committee to take control of the Central Guard Bureau from Xi so I don't my guess is that makes no sense to anyone on like. Yeah, so this is just okay so what this is this is some like old school very very weird like old school Chinese inside baseball shit. The first thing you should know about this is this is complete the first way you can tell this is nonsense is that Song Ping is not doing shit and Song Ping is not doing shit because this man is 105 years old. This man was born in 1917. Wow. It's his time it's his turn. You know what credit to China I thought we lived in a kleptocracy run by like an aging ghoul cast but damn 105. The queen could have lived so much longer.

To be fair China like this guy is like three generations out like this is okay so the sort of like fantasy here is is like Hu Jintao like taking power and Hu Jintao is like he was one of the guys who came in like like he kind of made his bones like purging the people in the CCP who like hadn't been hard enough on the Tiananmen protesters. But he's like he's one of the sort of reform and opening guys. Like Song Ping is like one of the guys who like helped like Hu Jintao advance like Hu Jintao is like a guy from like the 90s right like these are like like people who at one point were genuinely powerful and are now like. I don't know I mean there's persistent rumors they do stuff behind the scenes but like it's it's I don't know they are like unbelievably and ferociously decrepit. And okay do you know what else is unbelievably and ferociously decrepit nicely done the gold company that's now advertising. Guys listen listeners you're probably going to hear some gold ads from a very they're very silly ads. Don't buy gold the only precious metals you should invest if you're going to invest in precious metals which I don't necessarily recommend the only ones you should invest in lead lead and brass yeah.

But yeah I don't care about these like look when the fucking CIA or the FBI or the Washington State Highway Patrol is advertising on our show we get those ads removed. I don't care you're not going to buy gold don't buy gold but we'll take their money and we'll use it to pay our salaries it's fine like enjoy it. Ah we're back boy you know what guys I said what I just said there and I just bought a hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars in gold. I'm gonna go I'm gonna go bury it right now actually. Exactly exactly. I can't even buy gold I'm allergic to it for real. Yeah. Really.

Yeah I'm not meant to be rich. Wow. I didn't know you could be allergic to gold. I also did I knew you could be allergic to like rings and stuff yeah that makes sense. Yeah I mean like the metal I'm not like gonna like die if I touch it but like yeah I came up on an allergy test so it's like legit. I wonder if you're only allergic to like broke people gold and if you're not allergic. Or maybe. Poor people gold.

I love that there's poor people gold and rich people gold. I know I know it's just very funny that that's and I'm sure the people advertising on our shows are selling like it's like asbestos bricks covered in gold leaf. Yeah we should talk about this not right now Chris. Off air Chris let's continue. Okay so back back back to another kind of incredibly bizarre fantasy so like there's there's a group of like people who are like like Chinese dissidents or whatever but like whose thing is that like they think that like Xi Jinping is like an unreconstructed Maoist and that like you know one day like the like the people from the reform period who like ended Maoism or one day kind of like sweep him out of power like this is nonsense like it's like the only equivalent I can think of this is like every once in a while you'll see some Russia expert ranting about how like Putin is like on the verge of being overthrown and like some like liberal no one has ever heard of the 90s is going to do this. And it's the same shit by the way the fake oscent that comes out because it's all stuff like look they've closed the streets in Moscow and like this street you know they've got military out on it's like well yeah they're having a parade. It's like a pre announced parade they do this every year they hold this exact parade every year and they close the street down the same way and you can find that if you look into it.

But people can take like post a bunch of pictures on Twitter of like cleared streets and like soldiers blocking intersections. And it looks to somebody who doesn't know anything about Russia like wow these the the oscent people have done it again they've uncovered another a coup against Putin. One thing the other thing that I'll say about coups is like in the last like maybe three or four years there's actually been a lot of coups. But the thing about a coup right is that like one of the things that happens very quickly usually in a coup if the coup plotters are winning is that like they there's you'll see a message from something called like the government of national salvation or some shit. Yeah and they'll like start putting out statements and if you don't see a statement from like the United Liberation Army of National Salvation or whatever like it's not happening. That's what I'm going to call mine. Wait I'm just okay I understand how it spreads like I'm sure we're going to get into it but I understand how it spread to like people on the internet that want something to latch on to. But if you're saying it got to like El Jazeera and all that stuff like there wasn't like a journalist that like looked into it.

Okay so there's a couple yeah we're going to get to that like so there's two different kinds of things happening right. One of the things about this conspiracy is that there's a lot of people who see it and are like like like I saw a guy who was like an ultra maga account right. Like his thing was like he was like nuclear ultra maga who posted a picture that was like oh my god this is an explosion in Beijing and it was like no this is from a changing explosion in 2015. And the only thing I've ever seen this the next day he was like yeah I'm sorry that's actually not what I thought it was. Like even those guys look at this and we're like. Critical support to nuclear ultra maga. No it was just like those are the people who you would normally expect just get bowled over by this stuff and they were like this is nonsense like what is happening. You know I'm glad that we can rely on the journalistic credibility of nuclear ultra maga in these uncertain times.

Thank god. Nuclear ultra maga was being more responsible than most of the mainstream Indian journalistic outlets which is terrifying. So okay so like the thing about this the original version of this conspiracy though is this is like this is gibberish. Nobody knows what the central guard bureau is like I had to look that up like apparently it's a it's a like the central guard bureau is like this thing that's in charge of like protecting like high level leaders or whatever. Like it's nonsense like this is this is like pure inside baseball shit for like like people who are like really committed like the Chinese dissident what a pads or whatever. So what happens next is so people start kind of picking up on it. And in particular there's a person of Jennifer Zhang Zhang who has like 200,000 Twitter followers. Starts she starts posting this video that claims to be PLA military vehicles heading to Beijing on September 22nd and this like goes viral.

So here I'm going to give us three options. Once is footage from 2014 to it's footage from a video game three video game. I actually think this is real military footage and I think it's actually kind of reason it's just that like it's really easy in China to just like look at a road and see a military truck. Option three it's footage of some fucking like tank on the road in China. It was just like armored cars which is like a thing that like I just move troops around. I just did a road trip up to Northern Washington for a parkour conference and I know and we passed three military helicopters flying in the sky. We passed like two like troop carriers. We passed a whole bunch of military equipment.

I'm not going to feel and be like they're invading Oregon quick. No, like this is this is a thing like if you take one thing out of this episode it is that anytime someone says that they are seeing troop movements. It is always alive. This was a huge thing during Hong Kong because everyone was like terrified the army was going to show up and like every two days there'd be another video someone's like there's an army conflict moving into Hong Kong. It's always fake. It's never real. It's like the only time it's ever real is if there's actual shooting like if there's a literal war going on maybe well and it's never real. You're going to know when it's real.

It's also if you want to look about it at times because there are times where people do oscent on military movements and it's meaningful. A good example would be the months that led up to the invasion of Ukraine. In which case you were able to clearly show here is satellite footage three months ago of this place from the air and here is it now and there's like a million more guys there. Clearly something is going on and we can show this pattern repeating in a bunch of areas. This is a very different thing from the thing that goes viral on Twitter is someone will just post a video of it. And if so and if what's happening is they're posting a video of some military looking trucks that person is and that's all it is 99.9% of the time that person is full of shit. And this is like one of the most common patterns of just like weird bullshit conspiracy stuff is this stuff. But people like love this.

Again, the thing that's happening to open source intelligence is the thing that happens to everything cool that comes on the you have this you have this this thing is figured out that it's made possible because of new technology. People do really rad shit in the case of oscent. It's like prove that the Russian government shot down to make 17 over fucking Ukraine and you know solve all of these war crimes being committed in different areas by figuring out exactly who the perpetrators were and where they were committed and all this shit based off of like sketchy video footage. And then the thing goes viral and elements of the aesthetics of it are taken by people who just want to spread bullshit, or in some cases who think they're actually doing real research and are just dumb. And, you know, then then you you get to this point where kind of this thing that was pretty wild and pretty pretty free for a while has to there's a degree to which it has to become professionalized so that people can know who is full of shit and who is not and like who has a track record and who doesn't. And I'll go back to in terms of like how you can tell us something is real oscent kind of the the earliest big case study of like oscent researchers breaking something is proving that the Russian government shot down mh 17 this Malaysian air flight over Ukraine when the Russians were blaming the Ukrainians for it. And what they did it is there were pictures in the wreckage of the aircraft that were taken numerous ones that showed pieces of the missile. Some of those pictures had numbers on them all weaponry military grade weaponry has serial numbers and shit and using those serial numbers to track it back to the Buck missile battery that the missile had been on. And because the Buck missile battery also has like numbers and shit and you can trace its progress they figured out what base it originated at, and then using a mix of like videos civilians had taken and like other stuff

they were able to kind of trace the path of this Buck missile as it left Russia and entered Ukraine and then found it in a village like a video evidence that just some taxi driver was literally a guy with like a fucking car camera on and he just uploaded footage from like driving around town. You can see in this town next to where the plane was shot down the Buck missile launcher that has the missile that shot down mh 17 driving through that town the day that the plane is shot down is like oh okay well there you go. And again it's the thing in terms of like how to tell if something is valid you can track all of that back every stage of it makes sense every stage of it is repeatable to a lay person and and and if they're good they're gonna demonstrate their work as they tell this as they like show here's the steps that I took. Yeah, they're never gonna just say here's a video of two army vehicles look true movements. Yeah, yeah, okay we're gonna be getting into who she is after these ads. Oh, you know, when I'm thinking about shooting down civilian airliners, I wish I had gold in my basement. I was wondering how you're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna be it came around. Next year we're launching our first trebuchet exclusively using gold as the projectile and the end the end mission by the end is to set up next to the airport and shoot down as many planes as possible using the gold trebuchet. Wow, wow, Garrison Garrison Davis threatening international air travel. Hope your passport comes in soon buddy. Here's here's the beds. I just got my my gold purchase flag I don't know what's going on but it's not letting me buy anymore so I think they're on to me.

Wow. Yeah, that's that's on listeners. We need you to just buy all of the gold you can and mail it to Garrison so that Garrison can fight climate change with his gold powered anti aircraft catapult. So Chris, how's it going? Okay, so okay, so the thing that also should include people in like that something was going wrong is if literally any of the people who were retweeting Jennifer Zing had like literally just Googled her name because it. Okay, so if you do this what you find out is that she is a self proclaimed human rights activists and journalists who writes for like really weird right wing outlets in Japan and also writes for the epoch times. Oh, so really now now finally finally we can pull back the curtain and reveal what has been going on this entire time, which is that and then this. Yeah, what's actually going on here is that Jennifer Zing is part of the Fallen Gong, which is like a very, very weird right wing Chinese cult. She was like, like it she like had to leave China because she went to write a book about them like this. This whole thing's been a fool on going. Yeah, Fallen Gong off the whole time. There we go back. Yeah. Okay, good. Love it.

So yeah, okay, so people who don't know what the long gone is there they were. Okay, so it's a thing that kind of emerged out of a bunch of these sort of like Chi meditation practices. But in the late 80s and 90s like the Fallen Gong, it turns into this like this full scare religious cult. That's like it and as as as a CCP like increasingly sort of represses them, they become like increasingly anti communist. You've they're like literally like you cannot be a Chinese person in the US and not run into these people fucking everywhere. They'll just like march through Chinatown. I mean there's billboards for their fucking music show thing like everywhere around fucking where I live, you know. Yeah, yeah, they have they have a show called Shen Yu and like you put you I'm betting most. Yeah, that's them China before communism. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Billboards, TV ads, radio. The actual show is wild.

Yeah, yeah, they have they have a huge network in the US and like the actual thing that it is it's like it's mostly like China for communism. The actual thing is this weird combination of like half ass Buddhism and Taoism and then like absolutely insane anti evolution shit. It's like a giant Christian Buddhism as well. It's like this is a whole bunch of weird. It's not it's not just like Taoism. It's a bigger why it's more like yeah, it's it's it's very it's very it's a very, very weird cult thing. And like and they also operate at times of a fascist newspaper. Yeah. Although weirdly, weirdly, the epoch times. Okay, so this is this is the part of the story that's very odd, which is that I'm about 80% sure about that original. So the original accounts that did this that that did the original conspiracy that the New Highland vision thing was like a pretty new account and had a bunch of followers and I just vanished. And there were a bunch of other account like tiny accounts that were also New Highland vision. I'm about 80 to 90% sure but this is that that was a fallen gong thing.

But weirdly, the epoch times doesn't really touch this. It's it's it's very weird. They're like I'm going to read a passage from from the epoch times and it's like he bought it in so far as to talk about it are citing ex Indian officials talking about it. Well, like here's a pack. Here's like a quote from a passage of like the thing they're writing about like a potential like stuff like, okay. Yang noted in his article that Lee was promoted to commander of Northern theater command in 19 sorry in 2017 by Xi and that Lee led the formation of flash in the military parade on the anniversary marking the CCP's takeover of China, which shows that she values him. Like, this is just like the most boring ass China watchers shit I've ever seen. Like the epoch times didn't like cover this as like they didn't do the like the thing that all the rest of long gone people were doing which is this sort of like. Oh my god, there's a coup like they just mean that kind of makes sense because if they're on the inside in any way they kind of know it's bullshit so they don't want to kind of ruin some of their reputation at least in like the far right in the states.

So it makes sense that they would only cover it in the extent of them quoting like other people so that they're actually not actually giving their kind of definitive opinion on it. Yeah, it's interesting. And I think also because I mean I think the thing is that they also knew that this thing has limited shelf life because the moment that Xi Jinping reappears in public everyone knows it's bullshit. But before then so the new version of this conspiracy coalesces around like four things one is the sort of military convoys going to Beijing thing there to there's I guess there's five because there's also technically that there's there's an image of the explosion that they claim is in Beijing that's like not in Beijing and was from like seven years ago. There's there's there's the big the big one is there's this image going around that is like partially it's fake and then people try to do on Santa Ana and it sucks. Um, is is they there's this thing that that's like Beijing has canceled 60% of its flights and trains. And there's like there's so the original pictures of it are fake. Right. And then people try to go on flight trackers to like check if it's happening.

But they don't know how to use flight trackers. Oh boy. So they look at the planes are like oh my God it's been canceled if you look at the actual map there's just a bunch of planes over Beijing, which is the thing you would expect there to be happening and they were like, and it was one of those normal things were like, the actual thing that was happening was there were there were some cancellations, but like that's because flights get canceled. Yeah. Like it was just completely normal flight cancellation stuff or like it wasn't even like a statistically significant number of them was just regular flight cancellations and then like planes that had landed but people were being like they were canceled and it's like no like they got there. Yeah. So that happened.

There was a lot of people trying to like do research stuff and just failing. There's there's this whole thing about Xi Jinping like missing this really important military meeting, which like he actually he genuinely wasn't there but he wasn't there because he was quarantining. And he like sense and he sent like a message to it, which is because the like the epoch times actually reports on that. Like that that passage that I read about like the weird like people trying to figure out who's holding a flag as you get promoted like that that that's about that meeting. But yeah, then the last thing is just like where is Xi Jinping like blah blah blah blah if he's fine wise and he this stuff like it's the especially the flights and the convoy stuff like start spreading like wildfire. And the thing that happens that like this thing should have died. Like there shouldn't have been enough stuff to keep it going but it hit BJP Twitter, which is like. Like, so the BJP is just basically like it's the fascist party that controls India. They're like it's like really fanatical like Hindu extremist right wingers.

They hate Muslims. They suck their like I would argue I think there's a decent argument for this that this is the closest thing to like a conventional 20th century fascist party that exists on earth. I mean, we've talked about long gone and the and the epic times would hear before or at least I know I've talked about them a decent amount. Chris, I know you have you have. Yeah, they're kind of they're kind of one of the one of the recurring characters. Yeah, but what's interesting here is is that one of their ops like it just the op doesn't really go towards sort of like American right way Twitter it goes towards Indian right way in Twitter, which that which which is notable. Yeah, yeah. Well, and the reason I think this is how long this is happening is that like, so do you remember like a couple years back when like a bunch of Indian and Chinese soldiers like be each other to death in like the mountains with sticks. It was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So like this is like a thing that there's there's been border disputes between China and India, like since India was created basically like they they they fought a war like okay the the war that people want to talk about the least is the 1962 Sino-Indian war where Mao just kind of like invaded a bunch of India and just like absolutely kicked the shit out of the Indian army and this has been a sort of like there's a sort of like a recurring like India nationalist like bugbear thing where like everyone when border tensions flare up like India people you get a bunch of like really terribly animated things of like an Indian soldier with a giant staff like beating the shit out of a dragon or something. This is just sort of like something that happens on like Indian right wing Twitter

like Jordan Peterson shit. Yeah, literally like it's it's really funny to you because you get two of the like absolutely funniest like you get the sort of like the Chinese like Wolf Warrior like accounts and the like BJP people going at it and it's unbelievably funny to watch because they're two like two of the most like absolutely psychotic like insane nationalists in the world and you just you just got to watch them fight for a bit and it's it's a good time. I unfortunately like so these guys pick it up and it rapidly like it. Okay, one of the things like that there's this right wing Indian astrologer who predicted that in 2023 she was going to get overthrown. Stop. Yeah, that's that is one of the worst ad lib tendencies ever. Wow. BJP Indianist. Wait, that's kind of interesting to me. That's kind of interesting. A right wing Indian astrologer. Oh, yeah, he's like he's like he's like there's a lot of right people who are into astrology sherry. Yeah. Well, specifically, a lot of that is very influential in the RSS, which is kind of the Indian fascist movement that is backing Modi who's the guy who runs the country right now who's yeah it's it's not it's not weird that that happens given the context of Indian politics. It's not surprising to put it sucks. It does suck it for sure sucks we can say that for certain. I wonder what sign he is. I am I right guys fucking Libra. Okay, okay, so a lot of Pisces rising energy actually super bar and some swami who was a guy who was this guy was a six term BJP MP he was a he was a guy this man was a government minister. At one point starts tweeting about this whole thing. Great. And then like it just it just like this thing just like goes through the actual Indian media sphere like fucking wildfire. The Z news which is an outlet founded by the deceased right wing media like in Indian media billionaire suprash Chandra who I rest in piss by the way died in August runs a story called China coup Beijing hiding something big Xi Jinping in deep trouble. What rumors suggest like the fucking economic times. This is the second largest

English language business paper in the world runs a story titled quote Chinese president G removed from power in a coup. Here's what we know so far is nuts. I mentioned this the beginning like what part of the reason this goes viral is that the Indian network like like are probably India's largest TV network is just runs with the fucking runs with it as a story like Fox News. Yeah, it's like Fox News but it's like they're I guess the way I would describe it is like they don't like Fox News has like a really really elaborate like like system because they've been doing this for ages where they have a very very elaborate system for like running like running a dumb thing from Twitter like and turning it into like turning into like a package and turning here they are just like like live reporting from Twitter and I think this is I don't know like I think it's like it's it's it's it's a degree of laziness that like you see this in American journalism a lot to where like people will just literally report like report like things that happen on Twitter like this is how this is how like Goblin mode became a thing like there's a lot of stories that are just it's just like you know they're basically doing this and part of the everything that's going on here is that like you know so like Indian media has just become increasingly right wing over the past decade and they've gotten like increasingly more fascist and when you and you know everything is like fascist are incompetent and like this is basically the result of the sort of hollowing out of the Indian media sphere is that these like Matt like these absolute titanic like cable and news networks are running this just like like stuff that is so bullshit that like like the fucking newsman like there was a newsmax anchor Grant Stitchingfield who's a newsmax host like has like a video about this and the video both starts and ends with him going this is probably bullshit and then in the middle there's like some incomprehensible thing that he like half read an epoch Times article and didn't understand he starts ranting about like the general of the northern war who has just been relieved of his duties as a direct quote by the way absolute nonsense

like yeah but like even even those guys were kind of like this is whack like we can't run with this but that it like the sort of like the sort of like Indian fascist people are like so incredibly desperate for just like any like even more so than the American right I'm more desperate for just like here's an anti China story we can just sort of like throw out because of the sort of like increased tensions around the border etc this stuff just this stuff just explodes and eventually you get like that the Indian media outlets who are like still actual like outlets who are like hey guys this is nonsense like the Hindu stand times and the Tribune right stories that are like really like are you guys kidding me like come on this is like obviously fake yeah and at certain point like this whole thing is sort of like phase but it has this there's there's not there's but then there's a sort of second wave of it which is there are a bunch of people who are like weird like Chinese dissident quote on quote people but who aren't like who aren't following gong people who like looked at this and we're like this is obviously a lie I'm not going to jump in on this wave of the bullshit but then we're like okay I've got a second layer of this that there's there's someone Dr. Li Meng Yan who's like she's like an old school like COVID bio like bio weapon like lab truther person she was like okay okay no no no hold on hold on what's happening here that this whole discourse was a Xi Jinping op to distract everyone from the the alliance with Putin that he's going to announce at the party Congress like he needs to like secretly cover up the fact that he's going to create an alliance to destroy the free world it's just like it's it's a real it's it's a real circus of just like like all like you gotta see like this whole sort of second and third waves of media grifters like looking at the story of being like okay how do we spin this and it's I don't know like I feel like this is a part of like this part of Twitter

like the sort of like it's just this kind of there's a kind of intersection of like weird Chinese cranks and like China Watcher Twitter where you get a bunch of these very weird things but yeah I've talked about this but the thing that's interesting to me is like the sense to which the right doesn't pick this up like this is the kind of thing like you would expect like Alex Jones to be talking about and especially I can tell like Alex Jones doesn't cover it like fucking Bucky Barnes like talks about it like briefly like on like but like while Alex is like walked out of the room talks about it for like five seconds and then stops and I was like really like Alex Jones isn't going to cover this like I mean it's possible I missed part of it if she shouldn't paying is is if like less secure in power and can be overthrown by other elements in the Chinese government then China's kind of less scary that Alex Jones tends to portray it as so that's might be part of it yeah I don't know though we give him some time maybe he'll get on this later yeah I don't know he's got a lot going on right now yeah oh god okay so the last thing I want to talk about is like so I've been saying I'm talking about China Watchers this whole time there's like basically there's kind of an academic career slash profession like in the US that's like being a China Watcher and so you get like some international relations degree you get some like cultural studies degree and you go to China for a bit and you come back and then like your job is to write about like the inscrutable Oriental Mind and I there are like one or two of these people there are like a couple of these people who I like have some respect for re at large I I literally cannot with these people um well so what the Guardian writes an article about this later on they're like yeah this is not happening but the guy they quote writes in a Twitter thread I'm just going to read this tweet because I Jesus Christ a palace

coup in a time of political pressurization is not implausible Gorbachev and Yeltsin were detained during the USSR Russia transition period a coup is not an anathema to China either Emperor Guangzhou was arrested by Dowager Empress Sishi when he attempted reforms that by the way the second the second thing he's talking about that is from like I think it's 1898 is the last coup he can find like you can just say shit like there's a little child like you could literally say whatever the fuck you want and people will be like oh yeah no no no the this coup that is literally two political there are two entire political systems that China has had between right now and the time that the Emperor's Regent like overthrew the Emperor to stop me just I just come on like why why why why are people allowed to say this like what why are people allowed to go oh yeah Gorbachev and Yeltsin got couped so that means that there can be a coup in China in 2022 like what this this this is one of the experts like I just like one of these every single every single one of these articles has this passage where they're like oh well part of the reason why this happening is because the Chinese government is so unbelievably not transparent and I'm like no like part of the reason this is happening is because you guys just literally will say bullshit which means that people will just believe like literally yeah you can just say anything about China you can say that like it's all it all comes down once again as every problem in the world does to the 24 hour news cycle where is this bullshit sure but like got a full airtime it's happening right now people are talking about it so we get to talk about it we don't have to say it's true we can just like talk about it and then we filled some airtime and you know we keep making money it's good and now we're

talking about it yeah I mean it's like if it's a topic that people are not in like I'm going to say something then add a caveat if it's a topic that people are not very knowledgeable about like yeah the inner workings of Chinese politics then they're going to be easier to believe it now even now obviously this strategy can work even for topics that people are knowledgeable about sometimes but especially in something related to like foreign countries that most Americans know very little about then yeah that's super easy to believe like remember a few years ago when everyone convinced themselves that Kim Jong-un died yeah yeah because people because people are really to believe something it's yeah it's like like there's there's a thing I've been like I've run into a lot where like there's there's a bunch of like there's a bunch of people in the American left who's like basically and I don't even really know how they came to believe this because this isn't something that the CCP even says about itself but like they've come to believe that China has universal health care which it doesn't they used to have one and they got rid of it like they literally dismantled the universal health care system like there are people who believe that like like China has like a right to housing and that everyone in China just gets a house and it's like this all this shit that's like I just has like it's so uncoupled from reality that like I can't I can't even trace the source to where they got this up but it's really easy to spread because yeah it's just like nobody knows and especially like yeah it's a foreign country nobody knows anything about it and you can and like the actual people who are experts will just like start spouting shit about how it's plausible there could be a coup against Xi Jinping because fucking

emperor was overthrown 150 like 124 years ago like it's it's it's it's endlessly frustrating and yeah anyway so don't don't use the internet attack global communications infrastructure and have a gold yeah by gold by some gold and if you see something on Twitter or really anywhere online instantly believe it no matter what it is yeah yeah live your life that way it's it's fine also should we plug our our live our live show that yeah yeah so we're doing a live virtual it could happen here and Q&A the entire squad will be there you can get tickets from moment dot co co slash ic hh it's all over our socials you're looking for it and that will be on October 26 that's 6pm Pacific time marker calendars mark your calendars mark your calendar dot co slash ic hh I feel that was beautiful ridiculous for you Sophie and I know we've had a lot of debate about what we're going to be talking about and think one of the most important things in current events right now that kind of indicates the kind of collapse of American society is all of the Try Guys discourse so we are going to be preparing a two hour two hour presentation try guys two hour two hour presentation on the evolution of the Try Guys discourse and what really happened behind the scenes and how it impacts American politics going forward so none of them were ever married so that's it

hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here this is Shareen and you are listening to the first of two parts of the little series I wanted to do about Yemen I think I've been really interested in the history of countries that are currently in turmoil because understanding the history of how they got there is usually so important to understanding their present so Yemen is one of those places I think that is always in the news as experiencing something horrific and I wanted to know exactly how we got to where we are so I wanted to focus on primarily modern events in the last several years for example and so this first episode is going to cover everything up till 2018 and then our next episode will cover the years after that but before we jump to the modern times I wanted to do a chronology of some key events that had led up to the 1990s essentially so we're going to rewind all the way back to the 1500s I know but still the stuff is interesting to me I hope it is to you too let's get into it in the 1500s the Ottomans absorbed part of Yemen into their empire but they're expelled in the 1600s centuries later in 1839 Aden Yemen's capital comes under British rule and then when the Suez canal opens up in 1869 the city serves as a major refueling port in 1849 the Ottomans return to the north of Yemen however around World War I in 1918 the Ottoman Empire dissolves and North Yemen gains independence and is ruled by Imam Yahya after 30 years in power in 1948 Yahya is assassinated so many things happened in 1948 I swear to God that years cursed but anyway after Yahya is assassinated his son Ahmed fights off opponents of feudal rule and he succeeds his father

in 1962 Imam Ahmed dies and he succeeded by his son however army officers then seize power and they set up the Yemen Arab Republic and this sparks a civil war between royalists supported by Saudi Arabia and the Republicans essentially that are backed by Egypt in 1967 Britain withdraws from the south of Yemen after years of a pro-independence insurgency and its former territories unite as the People's Republic of Yemen. In 1969 a communist coup renames the south of Yemen the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and reorients it towards the Soviet bloc. The Soviet bloc aka the Eastern bloc for those that need a quick refresher like I did it's also known as the communist bloc the socialist bloc and the Soviet bloc and it was the group of socialist states in Central and Eastern Europe East Asia Southeast Asia Africa and Latin America that was under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed during the Cold War. In 1970 Republican forces in Yemen triumph in the North Yemen civil war in 1972 there are border clashes between the two Yemen's the North and the South and a ceasefire is brokered by the Arab League. In 1978 Ali Abdullah Saleh becomes president of North Yemen he's going to be popping up a lot in this history and also some modern times so Saleh is a name that we should remember going forward In 79 a year after Saleh becomes president there is new fighting that begins between the two Yemen's. In 86 about seven years later thousands die in a power struggle in the south which effectively drives the first generation of leaders from office Haider Abu Bakr al-Atas then takes over and begins to work towards the unification of these two states in Yemen. However this unification is pretty uneasy

in the early years in the 1990s after the reunification of Yemen in May of 1990 Ali Abdullah Saleh transitions from president of North Yemen opposed to he had held since 1978 to the president of the Republic of Yemen At the same time the Zaidi Shia group Ansarullah or the Houthis gradually gain power and the groups rise has at this point the tacit support of President Saleh. At this point the Soviet bloc implodes the tension between these former states indoors even though they're technically supposed to be united at this point the former states of Yemen is what I'm talking about here Soviet bloc is over So in 1994 a civil war begins. Just years after the reunification of Yemen the unintegrated armies of the North and the South face off resulting in a brief civil war that resulted in the defeat of the southern army and short up Yemen's reunification In May of July of that year President Saleh declares a state of emergency and dismisses Vice President Ali Saleh al-Baid and other southern officials who declare the secession of the South before being defeated by the national army A year later, 95, Yemen and Aratria clash over the disputed Hanish islands in the Red Sea. International arbitration awarded the bulk of these islands later to Yemen in 1998 This brings us to the 2000s which introduces al-Qaeda into Yemen and I guess the rest of the world But in 2000 President Saleh reaches a border demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia which is known as the Treaty of Jeddah and he seeks to disarm the Houthis whom he had previously viewed as a useful weapon against Saudi interference in Yemen

In October of that year the US naval vessel USS Cole is damaged in an al-Qaeda suicide attack in Aden 17 US personnel are killed with this attack In February of 2002 Yemen expels more than 100 foreign Islamic clerics in a crackdown on al-Qaeda In October of that year al-Qaeda attacks and badly damages the oil super tanker MV Limburg in the Gulf of Aden and this kills one person and injures 12 other crew members and it also costs Yemen a lot of money in lost port revenues Between 2004 and 2010 is the Houthi insurgency or the Houthi Rebellion Tensions run high at this point between Saleh's government and the Houthis after Saleh's border deal with Saudi Arabia The Houthis are led by Hussein Badiredin al-Houthi at this time and al-Houthi eventually leads a rebellion against the Yemeni government in 2004 In June through August of this year hundreds die as troops battle the Shia insurgency that is led by Hussein al-Houthi in the north

Starting in June of 2004 Saleh's government begins arresting hundreds of Houthi members and issues a reward for Hussein Badiredin al-Houthi's arrest The leader of the Houthis This fighting continues until al-Houthi is killed in September of 2004 In 2005 between March and April fighting between the Houthis which are now led by Hussein's brother Abdel Malik al-Houthi and government forces surges and this leaves hundreds dead More than 200 people are killed in a resurgence of fighting between government forces and the supporters of the previously slain leader of the Houthis Hussein al-Houthi who had died before his brother had took power And this fighting ceases after the sides reach an agreement resulting in the surrender of the Houthis top military commander Between 2005-2006 these sporadic clashes between the government and the Houthis continue but in March 2006 President Saleh grants amnesty to 600 Houthi fighters I think this is part of the reason that President Saleh goes on to win the 2006 election and remains president

However in early 2007 the Houthi rebels and Saleh's government again find themselves at odds Fighting continues for five months and many are killed or wounded in the clashes between security forces and al-Houthi rebels in the north This continues until rebel leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi accepts a ceasefire agreement with Saleh and this happens in June 2007 with the help of Qatar The ceasefire had not turned a year old when even more fighting breaks out between the government and the rebels By July of 2008 Ali Abdullah Saleh declares an end to the fighting and the Houthi dominated Sada governorate In September of this year an al-Qaeda attack on a US embassy in Sanaa kills 12 people Let's take our first little break before I forget and we'll jump back in See what happens next

And we're back. We left off in September 2008 after an al-Qaeda attack on a US embassy killed 12 people And in November of that year police fire warning shots at opposition rallies in Sanaa These demonstrators were demanding electoral reform and fresh polls Between 2009 and 2010 as operations scorched earth In August of 2009 the Yemeni military launches operations scorched earth to crush the Houthi rebellion in Sada At this point Houthi rebels begin fighting with Saudi forces and cross-border clashes Tens of thousands of people are displaced by the fighting This fighting continues until after rounds of offers and counter offers Saleh's government agrees to a ceasefire with Abdul Malik al-Houthi and the rebels in February of 2010

The Yemeni military simultaneously carries out operation blow to the head Yes, operation blow to the head. This is a crackdown on both the rebels and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which are known as AQAP Thousands flee the government offensive against the separatists in the southern Shabwa province In September of that year government forces besiege the governorate of Shabwa in southeast Yemen to root out the AQAP militants By 2011 the Arab Spring reaches Yemen In January demonstrations calling for the end of Saleh's 33 year rule begin Saleh offers some concessions promising not to seek reelection but the protests spread Security forces and Saleh supporters launch a crackdown that eventually leaves between 200 and 2000 people dead

There's such a huge discrepancy between the death toll because it's hard to know how many people are suffering and how many people die from these kinds of attacks Especially when there's not a lot of international interference or international care essentially In April 2011 Saleh's General People's Congress the GPC agrees to a Gulf Cooperation Council broker deal to hand over power But the president refuses to sign on. This prompts the influential Hashid tribal federation and several army commanders to back the opposition after which clashes erupt in Sana'a In June 2011 President Saleh is seriously injured and abomin and he travels to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment In September 2011 Saleh returns to the presidential palace amid renewed clashes It is not until November 2011 that he signs a deal that states that as deputy Adrabu Mansur Al-Hadi assume power and form a unity government

This unity government would include a prime minister from the opposition and it's formed after months of protests This same month a US-born al-Qaeda leader in Yemen Anwar al-Awlaki is killed by US forces In February of 2012 Hadi is sworn in for a two-year term as president after an election in which he stood unopposed However he is unable to counter the al-Qaeda attacks in the capital as the year goes on 2014 is what's considered the years of the post-Arab Spring and in January the National Dialogue Conference concludes after ten months of deliberations Agreeing to a document on which the new constitution of Yemen would be based In February a presidential panel approves of a political transition plan that includes a draft federal constitution for Yemen that organizes the country into a federation of six regions This was aimed to accommodate the Houthi rebels and southern grievances

But the Houthi seized control of most of Sena in August of that year and they reject the deal Following two weeks of anti-government protests President Hadi dissolves his cabinet and overturns a controversial rise in fuel prices By October 2014 the Houthis take control of most of Yemen's capital, Sena The following month the rebels seized the Red Sea and the port of Houdaida In January of 2015 after being placed under house arrest by the Houthis Hadi resigns as president Despite previous attempts to craft a power sharing agreement between Hadi and the Houthis the two had continued to clash The Houthis later reject a draft constitution that was proposed by Hadi's government A month later the Houthis take control of the Yemeni government and appoint a presidential council to replace President Hadi

But this is a move that is swiftly denounced by the United Nations President Hadi then flees the presidential palace in Sena and he escapes to his southern stronghold of Aden And this is where he later rescinds his resignation declaring himself the legitimate president and deems the Houthi takeover a coup The month after that in March 2005 the Islamic State claimed its first attacks in Yemen Which were two suicide bombings that targeted Shia mosques in Sena, the capital, and this resulted in 137 people being killed The Houthis start an offensive against government forces and advance towards southern Yemen President Hadi then flees Aden and takes refuge instead in Saudi Arabia Shortly thereafter the Houthis seize parts of Taiz, a city in southwestern Yemen

After repeated pleas from Hadi who was still taking refuge in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, and Kuwait Initiates Operation Decisive Storm in support of the ousted president The coalition launches airstrikes against Houthi targets, deploys small ground forces and imposes a naval blockade in order to halt the Houthis advance on Aden The United States then announces its intention to aid in the coalition's efforts In April, a month later, the coalition declares an end to Operation Decisive Storm Saudi Arabia announces it would move on to a phase described as Operation Restoring Hope Despite the announcement, the Saudi-led coalition continues to bomb Houthi positions and the United States increases its arms sales for the Saudi campaign in Yemen This is after Saudi Arabia announced that it would move on to a phase described as Operation Restoring Hope

Despite the bombing, the Saudi-led coalition continues to bomb Houthi positions and the United States increases its arms sales for the Saudi campaign in Yemen This is after Saudi Arabia announced that it would move on to a phase described as Operation Restoring Hope Despite the bombing campaign that the Saudis are carrying out, the Houthis capture the city of Attaq, which is a small city and the capital of the Shabwa government in Yemen It's also southeast from Sena, and it's not that far, it's at only about 450 kilometers south of Sena After three Saudi officials die in a Houthi attack at the Saudi border, Saudi Arabia boosts its border security The Houthi fighters also condemn a UN Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo on the group, calling the decision an act of aggression A month later, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the previous president, had been accused of siding previously with Houthi rebels in support of Hadi's ouster In May, Saleh and Yemeni forces loyal to him announced a formal alliance with the Houthis

The Saudis and the Houthis then agree to a five-day humanitarian ceasefire US President Barack Obama convenes a GCC meeting the Gulf Corporation Council at Camp David to resolve the crisis in Yemen, but only two states send their leaders, which is very sad to me A month later, we're in June of 2015, and the leader of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the AQAP, Nasir el-Wahashi, is killed in a US drone strike in Yemen A month after that, after months of fighting with Sunni tribesmen and AQAP militants, the Houthis take control of the entire Shabwa government The following month, President Hadi returns to Aden after Saudi-backed government forces and those loyal to Hadi recapture the port city from Houthi forces 2016 introduces some foreign intervention, which always sounds like a good idea In April of that year, the UN sponsors talks between the Hadi government and the Coalition of Houthis as well as former President Saleh's General People's Congress Between October of 2016 and May of 2017, both sides of the conflict allegedly break their ceasefires

The United Nations and others try to broker peace talks and political resolutions The Houthis claim responsibility for firing missiles into Saudi Arabia, including the capital of Riyadh Also in 2017, humanitarian agencies and watchdogs decry the Yemen crisis as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world There are thousands of civilians dead and wounded at this point, and there's also an outbreak of cholera And a potential famine that would also leave thousands on the brink of starvation In November 2017, Saudi Arabia intercepts a missile fired towards its airport in Riyadh and blames the Houthis Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah for escalating the war A month later, after Saleh had reversed course and sided with the Saudi-led coalition, fierce fighting in Sana'a between the Houthis and the forces loyal to Saleh leaves the former president dead

Saleh is now dead The Houthis at this point are controlling much of northern Yemen, but they still face stiff opposition from the Saudi-led coalition President Hadi, whose loyalist control much of south Yemen, has called for a popular uprising against Houthi rule in the north Saleh's son, who Saleh is the former president that has now died The son is Ahmed Ali Saleh, and he has vowed revenge against the Houthis for his father's assassination We're now in 2018, and a lot happens in 2018, this is the last year we're going to talk about, but there's a lot of months in 2018 So let's start with January In January of 2018, in a firefight, the Southern Transitional Council, the STC, the United Arab Emirates-backed separatist movement, it seeks a revival of the formerly independent south Yemen, and it seizes control of Aden

Aden is Yemen's main southern city and government headquarters, and it was also the previous capital, if you remember, all the way back when By March of that year, 22 million Yemenis require humanitarian aid In February, the UN appoints long-time British diplomat Martin Griffiths as special envoy of the Secretary General for Yemen Between March and May of 2018, fighting escalates along Yemen's western coast, and dozens are killed in Saudi air attacks and security raids A Saudi-led coalition drone strike kills Saleh Ali al-Samad, who was president of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, making him the most senior Houthi casualty since the coalition began its activities in 2015 International opposition to the coalition's operations grows after an air raid kills more than 20 people at a wedding party In May, UAE forces take over the island of Sakatra, occupying the airport and the seaport, and causing tensions with Yemeni government officials Between June and July of 2018, Yemeni President Adrabu Mansour al-Hadi meets with UAE Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nayhan, and by July, the coalition launches an offensive on the port of Hudaydah

Between August and October of 2018, international outrage over the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen grows after an air raid strikes a school bus, killing 40 Yemeni, mostly children Public opinion of U.S. support for the war effort in the United States plummets as it is reported that the bomb that was used in the air raid was U.S. supplied In October, U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is assassinated by Saudi agents in Istanbul, and this raises additional questions about the U.S. support for Riyadh's war on Yemen U.N. efforts to mediate between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels in Geneva, Switzerland, are fruitless At the end of 2018, November and December, the U.S. political establishment begins to have some unrest for withdrawing U.S. support from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen Former Obama administration officials, including the future Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the future U.N. Ambassador nominee Linda Thomas Greenfield, and the future National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, they all sign an open letter expressing remorse for their support of the war and urging all sides to end the fighting Because a letter in thoughts and prayers is exactly what we need. In December of 2018, the U.S. Senate for the first time votes to invoke the war power's resolution to force the U.S. military to end its participation in the Yemen war Later that month, after U.N. mediated talks, the Yemeni government and the Houthis sign the Stockholm Agreement that includes prisoner swaps, a mutual redeployment of forces away from the Hodeidah port, and a committee to discuss the contested city of Taiz

The ceasefire is set to take effect on December 18th of 2018. Overall, the Stockholm Agreement fails to achieve its goals, and neither side agrees to withdraw from Hodeidah This is where I'm going to leave you for today, a really uplifting point, but tomorrow will continue on starting in 2019, and it'll take us to present day where a lot of shit is still happening But I hope this little history of Yemen has given you an idea of how exactly a country can keep having so much unrest because of constant leadership squabbles, just to say the least, and coup attempts, and fighting, and international intervention So that's all for today, and you'll hear me tomorrow if you want to. Goodbye Hello, you beautiful people, welcome back to It Could Happen Here. This is Shareen again. If you listened to our previous episode from yesterday, you would know that we are today continuing and finishing up this little two-part series about the history of Yemen Trying to understand how its history has led up to Yemen being, in present day, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world So yeah, we're talking about the history. In last episode, we talked about the history up until 2018, the end of 2018, and we're going to continue on from 2019 because that's how time works But I will say, I don't know why, I feel like I need to provide a disclaimer, but this is who I am. I feel like I sounded like a bored professor in the previous episode, so I apologize if it sounded a bit flat

There are just so many dates and names that I feel like I need to get right, and I'm still trying to figure out how to talk about history in a fun and engaging way, if that's even possible. So bear with me Hopefully there were some things you found interesting, and we can continue on this journey together. Okay, enough about me, please Let's continue on in January 2019 in Yemen So the previous month, December 2018, the Yemeni government and the Houthis had signed the Stockholm Agreement that included prisoner swaps, a mutual redeployment of forces away from Hodea to Port, and a committee to discuss the contested city of Taiz The ceasefire was set to take effect on December 18, 2018, but overall this agreement fails to achieve its goals and neither side agreed to withdraw from Hodea So as we enter into 2019, the fighting is continuing, the Houthis launch a drone attack on the El Anand airbase north of Aden, and this injures dozens and also kills the head of Yemeni intelligence Back over in Washington, the Secretary of Defense James Mattis, he had resigned in December of 2018, but his resignation takes effect in February of 2019, and this marks an end to the Trump administration's efforts to engage in the Yemen peace process In April, Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional measure that would force the U.S. military to end its role in the Yemen war

By June, the UAE unilaterally scales back its military presence in Yemen while continuing to support the STC, aka the Southern Transitional Council, and the STC had seized at this point more power in Aden Meanwhile, the Houthis step up their efforts to attack Saudi territory, including launching missiles at oil installations and airports The Saudi and Yemeni forces capture Abu Usama el-Muhajid, who is the leader of the so-called Islamic State Yemen province, the ISYP In July, the Emirates or the UAE announces it has completed its troop drawdown or minimization in Yemen, but by August, the STC effectively assumes control of the southern governance of Aden, Aben, and Shabwa By the end of August, the UAE forces conduct air raids against the Yemen government forces that are headed to Aden to attempt to regain control Also in August, the Houthis launch Operation Victory from God against Saudi-led forces, and the Houthis continue to escalate its attacks on Saudi oil installations These operation names, I will say, poetic in a depressing, sad way In September, the Houthis claim to have used drones to bomb oil processing facilities in two cities in eastern Saudi Arabia

The attacks result in Saudi Arabia losing about half its output capacity, and even though the Houthis take credit for the bombings, the international community at large blames Iran because Iran was thought to have provided the technical expertise that was needed to carry out such attacks In November of 2019, in an effort to end the fighting between the coalition partners in southern Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE broker a power sharing agreement between their respective partners in the Yemen government forces and the STC The Riyadh agreement, which is what it was called, is signed in early November but by December, clashes resume between the two forces Literally just a few weeks after it was signed In January of 2020, leading up to February, fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis picks up Houthi forces carry out missile attacks on military training caps and in Saudi Arabia's southern provinces The Houthis claim to quote-unquote liberate roughly 1,500 square miles of territory from the El Jaff and Marib governance from Saudi-led forces, but this is a claim that the coalition denies

In March of 2020, remember when? Houthi forces capture the strategic city of El-Huzam in the El Jaff offensive and the Saudi forces carry out a retaliatory airstrike on Sena, the capital March of 2020, if y'all remember, is also when COVID officially made its big world debut And I know the first cases happened in late 2019, but I do think COVID really stole the show in March of 2020 and has been the show ever since But regardless, the Houthis capturing the city of El-Huzam and the Saudi forces striking back with an airstrike on Sena, this all happens in the midst of the beginnings of the COVID pandemic The United Nations urges both sides to maintain the ceasefire in order to prevent the pandemic from spreading in Yemen. This doesn't happen. Spoiler alert But fearing that the Houthi rebels would control any incoming financial aid, the Trump administration announced as a freeze on $73 million in humanitarian aid to Yemen It's a very big number, like objectively, but it's a huge number as far as what Yemen needs as far as food and shelter and money like that makes a huge difference for a country that is in deep need of assistance

But Trump fucking sucks Okay In April 2020, Saudi Arabia initiates a unilateral two-week ceasefire to mitigate the risks of the new coronavirus pandemic Days later, Yemen records its first known case of COVID-19 Despite the ceasefire, the Houthis and the Saudi League coalition are both accused of carrying out attacks In the south, the STC once again demands self-rule and it breaks its agreement with the national government In June, the Southern Transitional Council deposes the recognized government in Socatra with government supporters decrying the move as a coup d'etat The following month, the STC says that it has renounced its claim to self-rule and will return to the previously agreed upon power sharing structure

Like not even two months, not even two months after the STC demanded self-rule It's like actually I was just kidding, I want to go back to the power sharing structure from before And a lot of back and forth like this always seems to be happening in Yemen, but it also happens if you just keep in mind In so many nations that haven't necessarily maintained their roots long enough for something to grow And I think Yemen has been in this soil stage for a really long time If you just want to go with me with this metaphor, please In October 2020, the warring sides in Yemen carry out the conflict's largest prisoner swap In the following month, Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have reportedly initiated back channel talks

From the Saudi side, Saudi officials indicated their willingness to sign a ceasefire and deal And end the Saudi air and sea blockade in exchange for the creation of a buffer zone between Houthi control territory in Yemen and the kingdom's borders The Houthis later claim to have fired a missile at the coastal Saudi city of Jeddah In December of 2020, the STC and the Hadi government formalized a new power sharing agreement in Aden Prime Minister Ma'in Abdul Malik Said is reappointed as head of the Hadi government's new cabinet With the seats also going to both the STC and Yemen's Isla party Just weeks later, the new cabinet arrives in Aden from Saudi Arabia and an attack on the airport kills at least two dozen people But no, none of the ministers

The Hadi government and the STC and much of the international community, they blame the Houthis for the attack And Saudi warplanes conduct a retaliatory air raid on Sena January of 2021, the Trump administration uses the December attack to justify designating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization or an FTO The Houthis are still able to consolidate control over about 70 to 80% of the Yemeni population And they threaten Marib, which is a stronghold near the northeast corner of their control zone Marib is going to come up a bit, so Marib is a stronghold just beyond the threshold of the Houthis control And then, you guessed it, February 2021, President Biden now enters the arena and he decides to take a new path He announces changes to the US policy toward Yemen, and this includes revoking the Houthi FTO designation

So revoking the designation that the Houthis are a forced terrorist organization And Biden also declares an end to the US support for the Saudi-led coalition's offensive operations in the conflict He appoints Timothy Lenderking as the special envoy for Yemen Biden shows his support in the UN-led peace process, and he provides assurances to Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of its territory Let's take our first little break here I don't have a witty little segue to go to an ad break, but you know the drill, just listen to the ads or press skip or whatever you do and we'll be right back We're back This is Shereen

You probably knew that So okay, we left off with Biden showing support in the UN peace process, and he's providing assurances to Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of its territory But it also is after he declares an end to US support for the Saudi's offensive operations in the Yemen conflict So after this, the Houthi rebels launch an offensive in Marib city Marib again is the final stronghold for government forces in the north The city is also very significant because of its location It is located very close to some of northern Yemen's richest oil fields Marib also hosts nearly one million internally displaced persons, and intense clashes are expected to displace thousands more

By March of 2021, the conflict between the Hadi government and the Houthis escalates in Marib The fighting coincides with ongoing Houthi missile and drone attacks against Saudi oil facilities, airports, and air bases Saudi Arabia retaliates with airstrikes, particularly in the capital of Sena The US then condemns the Houthis actions Riyadh, aka Saudi Arabia, they propose a ceasefire, and this ceasefire would include the reopening of the Houdaida seaport and the Sena airport The Houthis reject this proposal, on the grounds that a full lifting of the ongoing blockade is a prerequisite for any such agreement Between April and May of 2021, strikes and counter-strikes continue and they escalate Both the UN Security Council and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, they voice their support for this ceasefire between the various Yemeni forces

A discussion takes place between the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and the US's special envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking Lenderking pushes for the Saudi-led coalition to loosen the blockade on Houdaida and Sena The UN special envoy for Yemen is Martin Griffiths at this point, and he's a British diplomat So the US's special envoy is Lenderking, the UN's is Griffiths And the Houthis refuse to meet with the UN special envoy to discuss any kind of the escalation of the conflict We're now in August of 2021, and a Houthi attack wounds eight civilians on Saudi soil and it damages a commercial airliner Amid continued attacks like this from the Houthi rebels, the Biden administration withdraws and removes its most advanced missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia Also, by August of last year, nearly 20 million people, or two-thirds of Yemen's entire population, are dependent on humanitarian aid for their daily needs

This includes very basic things like water and food and shelter, electricity, medical care Martin Griffiths says that five million Yemenis are quote, one step away from succumbing to famine and the diseases that go with it As Houthis continue to gain ground against Hadi government forces in Marib, the country of Oman is also officially called the Sultanate of Oman It's an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia at the Persian Gulf So Oman attempts to broker a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis Saudi negotiators refuse to meet with the newly appointed UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grunberg, before the Saudi-led coalition commits to the full lifting of the blockade on Hodeida and Sena After a very fleeting lull in hostilities, in September of last year, the Houthi rebels renew their offensive in the Marib government Rehabit is a key district in the south of the city of Marib and government forces had previously recaptured Rehabit from Houthi control in July of 2021

But in September, the Houthi rebels capture it again and they continue their offensive in the battle for Marib city At this point in the timeline, the Yemeni people are taking to the streets and protesting over the collapse of Yemen's currency and the inaccessibility for basic daily necessities Government security forces forcefully respond to these widespread protests across southern Yemen, and this at the time kills three protesters On September 18th of 2021, the Houthis execute nine people on charges of involvement in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike of April 2018 This strike had killed Salah Ali Es-Samad, who was the Houthi-aligned de facto president of Yemen A week or so later, on September 27th of last year, a U.S. official delegation is formed, and it includes the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan The Special Envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, and the National Security Council's coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, Brett McGurk This delegation goes to meet with Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman as well as Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defense Minister Khaled bin Salman, and this is done in an attempt for a diplomatic solution for the Yemen conflict

By October of 2021, the UN Human Rights Council votes against renewing the mandate for the group of eminent international and regional experts on Yemen, a.k.a. this is called the GEE And it had previously been the only independent body that was monitoring all parties to the conflict An investigation in 2018 reported possible war crimes committed by all parties, and Saudi Arabia had been accused of attempting to shut down the investigation The clashes are continuing in Marib at this point between the Hadi government forces and the Houthis. By October 17th of last year, the Houthis gained control of three districts in the Shabwa government, as well as two districts of the Marib government Basically, they are slowly capturing district after districts in their efforts to have full control By November of 2021, the Houthis sees the former site of the US Embassy in Sena and it detains its local employees The United States calls for the immediate release of these employees and it demands that the Houthis vacate the premises A Houthi spokesperson announces the capture of two more districts in Marib after already taking two other ones the month prior. Government forces prepare to defend their last remaining northern stronghold, a.k.a. Marib city

And some 2 million civilians at this point are now trapped in the Marib governorate Coalition-aligned forces abandoned their position in the port city of Hudaydah and this allows the rebels to retake the city. A 2018 ceasefire agreement had prohibited fighting between the two sides and the government forces state that they are withdrawing troops from Hudaydah to send them to reinforce the front lines Okay, last ad break. Here we go. Bam. We're back. Okay, we're wrapping out 2021. And in December of last year, due to falling international funding, the World Food Program, the WFP cuts food aid to Yemen In November 2021, the WFP had targeted $11.1 million for food assistance. But as the humanitarian situation deteriorates, the cost of food dramatically increases and becomes even harder to access In the early months of 2022, January and February, the Houthi rebels launched a series of unprecedented attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia. This included air attacks across the border and the seizing of a UAE vessel in the Red Sea. The Saudi-led coalition responded to these attacks with a bombing campaign in Sena, an attack on a northern prison, and a strike on a telecom facility in Hudaydah. This results in a four-day internet blackout across the country, and at this point, UAE-backed forces regain control of some areas near Marib. On February 23 of this year, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions against individuals involved in a funding network for the Houthis. During this time, the UN Security Council renewed for one year its arms embargo on Yemen and continued a travel ban and asset freeze on actors who threatened the peace.

The Council condemns the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE that struck civilians and civilian infrastructure. Four countries in the UN abstain from this UN Security Council decision, and those four countries are Mexico, Ireland, Norway, and Russia. On March 6, the Houthis reached an agreement with the United Nations to address the issue of an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea, the FSO Safer, that posed a threat of a massive oil spill. The World Food Program declares that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is worsening because of the Russian war on Ukraine, and the Houthis continue their attacks against Saudi oil facilities, while the coalition continues its strikes against Sena and Hudaydah. Talks that are sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council in Nariad begin between various parties to the Yemen conflict. The Houthis declined to participate in this, stating that these talks should be held in a neutral country. That same day, Saudi Arabia announces the secession of all military operations in Yemen as of March 30 of this year. In April, the UN brokered a two-month truce between the warring parties that was to start with the Holy Month of Ramadan for Muslims. The agreement was a notable step toward peace, as the last nationwide coordinated cessation of hostilities was during the peace talks in 2016. As these peace efforts gained traction with a two-month ceasefire, Exile President Edrubu Mansour Hadi transfers powers to a new Presidential Leadership Council.

This council is led by Rashad El Alami, and members of the council were selected at a GCC-sponsored talk in Nariad. It also includes those associated with the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, as well as those that were formerly part of the government under Hadi. Hadi fires Vice President Ali Musin Al-Ahmar, who has long been resented by the Houthis, and Hadi delegates his powers to the Presidential Council. After the transfer of power is announced, Saudi Arabia and the UAE say they will provide $3 billion to support Yemen's decimated economy. Despite a two-month truce, Houthi forces resume attacks on the front lines of the battle for Marib, which had previously been static since February. And this happens after the UAE-backed forces pushed the Houthis out of the center of one of the districts in Marib, the Harab district. It's during this time that the Houthis also sign an action plan to prevent the recruitment and the use of children in the armed conflict. A senior Houthi military official had said in 2018 that the group inducted 18,000 child soldiers into its army, some of whom were as young as 10 years old.

That's a baby. Oh my gosh, it's really, my heart hurts all the time. Okay, we're getting close to modern times here. In August of this year, the head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Elalemi, he ordered the UAE-backed separatists to stop military operations in Yemen's south. This notice was issued to the head of the STC and it was seen as an attempt by Elalemi to step in and stop an STC campaign against the rival factions within the government umbrella, and this would include Yemen's Isla party. He said that all military operations should be stopped until the implementation of a troop redeployment in Yemen's south. And this was something that was stipulated in a power sharing agreement from 2019, and he wanted this to be fully implemented before they moved forward. These divisions within the council really expose its precarious nature, because all the members are often ideologically opposed and they're only united by the opposition that they have to the Iran-allied Houthis,

as well as the support that they have from the Saudi-led military coalition. In the southern Shabwa Governorate, which is a very resource-rich area, the STC has made gains against the Isla party, and it's said in September, which is right now, that it had launched a, quote, anti-terror operation in Shabwa's neighboring governorate of Abiyan. This operation, according to them, would, quote, cleanse Abiyan of terrorist organizations, which would include al-Qaeda, while also securing Yemen's temporary capital of Aden and other southern governorates. After the Houthis kind of invaded this governorate in 2020, the STC and other pro-UAE factions, they blamed the Isla party for allowing the Houthi advance. The removal of an Isla-aligned governor, Mohammad Saleh Binado, in December of last year, this cemented the ascendancy of pro-UAE forces. But the instability in the south of Yemen really complicates any kind of UN effort for permanent ceasefire or an attempt to pave the way for political negotiations to end the war. The UN brokered ceasefire agreement that we talked about being implemented in April of this year, aka Ramadan, it has drastically reduced the fighting between the two sides, but the outbreaks of violence still continue.

This month, al-Qaeda attacks killed at least 30 soldiers. The STC, which again is Yemen's main southern separatist group, is backed by the UAE, and last month it expanded its presence throughout the southern Abiyan province in what it described as a move to, quote, combat terrorist organizations and its singling out al-Qaeda. In a series of tweets, the STC-dominated security belt said that six al-Qaeda fighters were killed after the group launched a, quote, terrorist attack on its forces in the Ahwah district in Abiyan. It also added that Yasser Nasrshayi, who was a commander belonging to the security belt, quote, anti-terror brigade, it said that he was killed in the attack along with a number of his companions. I just wanted to bring in that little news because it just kind of happened this month, and obviously things are continuing to happen, and it changes month after month, as you can tell. I'm laughing because it's sad. But hopefully this gives some context to why Yemen is struggling so much, and I want to read some of the stuff, some of the statistics about Yemen really quick because the scale of this is so immense. So this is from the World Food Programs website.

WFP's emergency response in Yemen is our largest anywhere in the world. The current level of hunger in Yemen is unprecedented and is causing severe hardship for millions of people. Despite ongoing humanitarian assistance, 17.4 million Yemenis are food insecure. The number of food insecure people is projected to go up to 19 million by December of 2022. The rate of child malnutrition is one of the highest in the world, and the nutrition situation continues to deteriorate. A recent survey showed that almost one-third of families have gaps in their diets and hardly ever consume foods like vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat or pulses, a.k.a. beans, peas, and legumes. Malnutrition rates among women and children in Yemen remain among the highest in the world, with 1.3 million pregnant or breastfeeding women and 2.2 million children under 5 requiring treatment for acute malnutrition. Sometimes I think we can forget how many people is in a little statistic. Millions of people. We're talking 2.2 million children, 1.3 million pregnant or breastfeeding women. Just that number is so immense, I can't comprehend it, and the fact that this is projected to go up by 19 million in general for all Yemenis by December is devastating. And I think remembering how big numbers are as elementary as that sounds is pretty important from time to time, because I think at this point we are kind of unfazed by numbers.

But let me continue from the world food programs website really quick and wrap this all up. The humanitarian situation in Yemen is extremely fragile and any disruption of the pipeline of critical supplies such as food, fuel and medicines has the potential to bring millions of people closer to starvation and death. The WFP calls for unimpeded access to reach those most in need and avert famine. So, here we are in a quick, very depressing summary. Since 2016, a food insecurity crisis has been ongoing in Yemen, and this began during the Yemeni Civil War. The current level of hunger in Yemen is unprecedented and is causing severe hardship for millions of people. And despite ongoing humanitarian assistance, 17.4 million Yemenis at this point in time are food insecure, and this number of food insecure people is projected to go up by 19 million by December 2022. Maybe I'm being repetitive, but I think it's important to comprehend.

The crisis in Yemen is one of the most dire crises in the world, and this is brought on by protracted conflict, droughts, floods that are intensified by the climate crisis, COVID-19, and other diseases. And despite all of this tragedy that we've been talking about, despite this humanitarian criminal thing that is happening, Yemen has failed to attract adequate support from donors for years. And now it risks slipping further into oblivion. What a terrible, depressing way to end this podcast. But I really do hope that these episodes at least gave you more awareness about what's going on in Yemen and just how dire the situation is. And there are so many conflicts in the world, there are so many causes that deserve our attention, obviously. But I do think it's important from time to time to think about the causes that you may not be affected by. And remember that everyone is human just like you, and the privilege that you have if you choose to engage with your privilege and use it for good can make a huge difference to people that need assistance.

At this point, I'm going to start rambling. So before I do that, I just want to thank you for paying attention to my professory talk and saying that office hours are now closed. Goodbye. Thanks for listening.