Behind the Bastards - The NRA and their Blickies

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

You'd be surprised how many people inside the gun world actually think we need better laws around guns. But they won't ever speak up. Why?! Prop talks about it with Robert Evans.   For Behind the Bastards listeners, check this episode out for more context on Harlon Carter and the NRA. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright y'all, welcome to her politics with Prop. This is a fun episode. I got everyone's favorite connect here, Robert Evans. I swear to you, you would be the greatest plug. If you lived in the inner city.

I have been occasionally. Yeah, you'd be the greatest plug because number one, you're fearless. And number two, it's like you seem to be able to get your hands on anything. I mean, you know, I used to be a lot more fearful of that sort of shit. Like it was a nice, maybe this is just being a white guy, but leaving the deep South for California and the West Coast. It was like, oh, suddenly I'm way less scared about driving drugs around in my car. That's pretty true. Okay, so I'm going to open up the world before I go to the story. I want to ask you a question just off the head that I feel like.

I feel like it would be a fun exercise right now off the head. Can you think of as many like nickname terms for guns right now just off the head? How many nicknames can you think of just rabble them off? A heater, a strap, a piece, I mean, nicknames, not like just like a sidearm, a bangstick, boomstick. Yeah. Licky, burner, chopper, you know what I'm saying? Chopper. Yeah.

Yeah, I just burner and heater. I feel, yeah, that's those. Those are cousins. Yeah, burner and heater. I just think there is, I don't know if there's anything besides like sex and guns that has more nicknames. Yeah. I've always been partial to strap. I don't know why, but that's the one that I find most satisfying.

I think strap helps. I think strap like in a lot of ways. I also feel like the slang you use for your gun has a lot to do with like the year you graduated high school. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like the, you know what I'm saying? So like, yeah, strap is like, yeah, you listen to 90s rap.

You know what I'm saying? That's why. That's exactly. That's why you say strap. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, don't make me have to grab my strap and go rat, tat, tat, tat. If it's chopper, it's like, well, you've listened to Southern rap.

You know what I'm saying? Like you were in the trap music. So, you know, anyway, and then there's blicky, which is what I'm naming. Now that's, I haven't heard that one. Blicky is what the young boys use. You know what's this? Really? Yeah.

It's your blicky, you know, a lot of times. What is, what is the etymology? Cause all the others, heater, obviously it's hot, right? A strap. You like strap a gun on, you know, the piece is obvious. Like what is, what is a blicky? I have no idea, Robert. Okay.

I'll be honest with you. So you have no idea where this comes from. I just heard the little homie say it. You know what I'm saying? Cause I never know with, with the kids slang, I never know if they're just fucking with us. Right? You trick the old people into thinking blicky was a thing.

All right. All right. Producer here. Producer here. Blicky means a pistol to blick someone down is to gun them down. The term blicky has been used by every top 40 rap artists you've ever listened to in the last five years. Oh, okay.

That makes sense. Now that you say to blick, that makes sense. Cause it's like, so they turned a verb into an adverb or a verb into a noun. Yeah. It's like calling it a gat. Cause it's like, yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So many slangs. There's a lot of slang for guns.

Yeah. And because of the obvious love affair that all of America has forgotten. Boy, we sure do love guns. God, we love these things. We love guns more than maybe any other country has ever loved like a thing that isn't bred or some sort of dipping oil. That's what I was going to say, there's just anything that's not food or condiment or. Yeah.

Cause the way Americans love guns is like, is like the way French people love their bread or like in Thailand, they love that like chili oil that they, they put in stuff or like, like it's like, it's a kind, it's a comprehensive love that is normally reserved for food stuffs. Yes. Yeah. Food stuff that is like such a like a stand in for your national and cultural identity. You know what I'm saying? Like, like kimchi is a stand in. Right.

For what it means to be from this part of the world. It's feel like. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same way. Like hummus, right? Like there's massive conflict over hummus in, in, in Palestine with the Israelis. Anyway, I'm not going to get into that, but like it's, there's a, there's so much identity

wrapped up in food and in America, it's like. Guns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like this is our, this is our Nigerian Jollifrice is our guns. This is a Glock 19. Yes.

This is a Glock 19. We just love him. Thanks. Which is just a matter of observation, not of evaluation. Anyway, so since this is a little politics, it must start with some sort of connection to inner city hood living. I'm going to tell y'all a story and then get into what we actually want to talk about. And I would imagine Robert in some way, shape or form, you may have a similar sort of memory.

Maybe not the same, but similar. So I grew up, you people heard this many times. You've heard this many times. I grew up in East side of South Central and then over to area called the San Gabriel Valley, predominantly Latino area. But what comes with being, in a lot of ways, just a person of color is we still went to church every Sunday, right? And in going to church, you know, our churches were very different than sort of white Western

evangelical that was worried about like purity culture and, you know, nationalism and stuff like that. They was just like, don't join a gang and don't get nobody pregnant. That was the extent of our youth ministry. That being said, we went off to youth camp, right? So we did summer camp, like every other little white Wonder Bread, you know, church, we did youth camp like everybody else. The only difference is youth camp costs too much.

But every year, I know this now as an adult, every year that like summer camp place used to do a week that was a third of the price, right? So that now all the inner city churches can go, which I didn't know that. I thought I was, I thought, I thought it cost the same as everybody else. I used to wonder why we would go to youth camp and it just be hood. Like it would just be like a bunch of just rival gangs, rival neighborhoods because we just, we were the inner city churches. I had no idea that's how it worked.

That's just how it worked. So anyway, we're at youth camp, you know, dudes is like stacking on each other like you stacking is like showing gang signs, whatever, right? But either way, you know, everyone's having different experiences. Some people are having a good time. Some people aren't. Some people are not involved in none of this stuff, whatever the case may be. This is the way sort of a youth camp went.

So there was one year that there was these boys that I met that, you know, went to another church like Crosstown or whatever, who decided, most of them decided that they just ain't like me, right? For whatever reason, I just happened to beat a target, right? Which I know you understand that somebody just decided I don't like you. I don't know why they just don't. So once they decided that anything I ever did was funny, a joke, whatever the case may be right now.

Now at my church, I mean, we got some G's, you know what I'm saying? Like we got some brothers that are like not even paying that no attention because they know if it go down, like we will mop the floor with these dudes. So like don't even, you don't even need to acknowledge the fact that they're cracking jokes about you because if it come down to it, I beat the shit out of these boys, right? So that's kind of like the attitude of my little like sort of seventh, eighth grade group of guys. Anyway, last night of those guys, wait, before I say that of those guys, there was like one or two of them that I actually made friends with, right?

That we were cracking jokes, they loved hip hop like I did, whatever the case may be. I kind of made friends with two of them. At one point at the end of the last night, I was headed to the bathroom and it's camp, right? So it's like a big old shared bathroom situation, right? So I was headed to the bathroom and I could see the group of dudes behind me kind of walking a little further behind me, right? Now, as I was headed to the bathroom, the two that were my friends caught up to me, right?

And we're just talking whatever, whatever, hey, where are you, you know, hey, so, you know, when did y'all bus leave or whatever, whatever, so we're just talking about that. And then he whispers, don't go in the bathroom. And then just kept talking, you know, and I was like, what? And he was just like, he's just like real quick, not like, don't go in there, don't go in there. So I was like, he goes, oh, but if you, or he just whispering, if you go in, just go right back out, right? So, so I was like, oh, they finna jump me. They're gonna jump me in the bathroom, right?

So at first I was like, I'm scared of these folks. Y'all said that's my first thought, right? But then, but then I looked behind me and I was like, it's actually a lot of y'all, you know? And I wasn't with none, I wasn't with none of my boys. Like I was just walking by myself. So I was like, by the time any of my friends get here, I probably had had a couple concussions. So I was like, The way fights work, if you're fighting experience comes from movies,

is that if you're one person and there's multiple people, you're going to lose the fight, right? Like it doesn't really even matter, like training, whatever. Every now and then you get somebody who's like a freak at that, but generally you're just going to get your ass beat. Yes, they're not going to attack you one-on-one. They're not in single file that they attack like movies. No, you're going to get piled on, right? You're just going to get wailed.

Yes, and I'm like, it's urinals, it's toy like, I'm like, I'm a fan. No, no, no, no, a lot of nasty stuff can happen. Yeah, I'm not going in there. So that's what I did. I just went in and went out, right? And I didn't look back until I was far enough away and I saw autumn dudes looking out the other door and then looking back at their homies, the guys that gave me the clue, right? And I can't hear what they're saying, but I could see them kind of being like,

basically like, what the fuck, man? Like, you know what I'm saying? And them being like, oh, I don't know, you know, right? Whatever, just them playing it cool, like, I don't know, like, whatever. You know, all that to say, even though their group of people decided that this is the way we felt about this dude, there's no way of telling that if everybody actually felt that way. Because it's possible that more than just those two dudes was like, why are we, why do we even care about this fool?

Like, what difference does it make what he's doing or not doing? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But the rules are you just can't speak up. Because even if you do, even if you like, I'm down for the hood, I'm down for the set. But like, I just, I don't, I don't, I don't know why we, why we so worried about that. Actually, I think, I kind of think some of this is stupid. You know what I'm saying?

But you're not going to say nothing. You're not allowed to say nothing. But, but what, what happens is oftentimes you not the only one that feel that way. Matter of fact, most of y'all feel that way. And then what the homie Jojo, what the homie Jojo said is sometimes some of the stuff like that the set got to do is because just cause your OG like got his feelings hurt from some girl. And now y'all got a beef with this block, but it's really just cause your OG just got his feelings hurt from some girl. And like, but nobody's saying nothing.

You know what I'm saying? Because you got to follow whatever that person was saying to do because they're in charge. Yeah. I mean, no, that like everything works that way. Like to a degree, like that's, that's like why a lot of like you can, you could get on Twitter and see like what the, what the rage machine is like going after every day. And half the time it's like, it's shit like that. It's like somebody, somebody had a beef with somebody else. And so now everybody's angry at like a whole group of people, right? Like it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's history too.

It's like, it's the fucking, it's World War one, right? Yeah. Nobody wanted to go in, but like somebody fucked with like somebody else's friend. And so now we all got to get in. Yeah. And now we all like it's snowballs. Like one dude gets fucking clapped. And like because of that, it winds up being 20 million people get fucking clapped. Like that's the way the people work, right? It's the way the people work.

The psychology isn't any different when it's like a neighborhood as opposed to, you know, the, the Holland's all an empire, right? Exactly. And also the way that the NRA has a death grip on the right wing. There we go. There we go. That's where we're at. Yeah. I want to talk about. Yeah.

I want to talk about this, uh, this, uh, research that from Michael's Dr. Michael Siegel, uh, yeah, Siegel from Tufts University did where he surveyed the way that he's like right wing Republican NRA, you know, gun supporting people actually feel about restrictions on the second one. Yeah. And that, and why ain't nobody saying nothing? Well, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a broad topic, right? Because it relates, um, an awful lot of, I mean, this is something that gets brought up, perhaps not enough, but like a ton of different restrictions. Like when, when you talk about stuff like assault weapons, bands and whatnot, um, like bands on specific weapons

or even things like magcaps, it gets a lot more controversial, but there's a bunch of stuff that like gun owners are broadly supportive of and there's like, which, like universal background checks and there's stuff that gun owners are supportive of depending on how you bring it up to them, right? Yes. They've been heavily politicized. Um, and so if you say, like, do you support red flag laws in a lot of gun owners heads, they'll think about whatever it is Fox News warned them red flag laws were, were, but if you say like, Hey, if some dude like beats the shit

out of his wife and kids, should he be able to buy a gun? They'll be like, of course not. Right? That's a red flag law. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm one of the most important things that the NRA has done over the last there. I mean, it's been like 40 years, but it's really escalated since, since about 2000. Um, one of the most important things they've done is flatten any kind of discussion about gun control to confiscation of all guns versus nothing. Right? Yes.

Um, and if you can, this is, this is not the NRA pioneered this and we talk about this in an episode of three part around behind the bastards coming up. They're not the only thing that this has done. Basically, the idea is that the, the right wing recognized early on and, and really started moving towards this in the 1970s that the best thing to do was to build single issue voters who single issue was something they would not compromise on and that the Republican party would make central to their, to their actives and abortion is one of these, right? Yes.

Guns is another and the beauty of a single issue voter is you don't have to improve their lives. You don't have to like fix anything. You don't have to be good in any aspect of governing. All you have to do is stand with them on that single issue. You either fly his flag or you don't exactly, exactly. Um, and, you know, that is disastrous, has been disastrous for the concept of democracy. It's been disastrous for like the potential future of the human species, but it's very smart politics. Like this is objectively good politics. Yeah.

Yeah. You've, you've, you've already gotten to the punchline of the show, which is great. Um, so let's, let's, uh, let's, uh, reverse engineer the point that Robert just made, which is the point of this episode, which is you create a person into a single issue voter, either you down with us or you not down with us, right? And it works. You know, uh, so like you said, there are four laws that according to this research, uh, that would probably drop gun deaths by 35% and they say that like 70% of gun owners would actually support this if it's presented to them correctly. Like you said, uh, the, the permit requirements, red flag laws, uh, universal background checks. But yeah, the idea of like if a person has

a history of violence, probably shouldn't. Yeah. Man, if you're fucking hitting your kid like right, that's not a, you have, you have a right. A lot of people who are pro gun control don't like to talk about it this way, but you do. You have a human right to own a firearms. Of course. If you're talking about restricting people's human rights, which you are with gun control, you have to be careful about how you do it because among other things that can, the consequences

of that can extend beyond guns because that's the way that like Jewish prudence works. But it's pretty well established that if you do violence to people, you can lose certain rights. And broadly speaking, we all seem to be fine with that. Yeah. Like that's just, this is just, yeah, it's like, this is what, what, for some reason, I don't know why the Democrats don't know how to talk. But when they say things like common sense laws, like the fact that when it comes out of their mouth, it sounds condescending, but it's what it is. It's like, no, for real, like we do this all the time. If you violate

certain social codes, you kind of don't get those rights that are expected of those who participate in society. Yeah. And if I could have notes for them, like one of the things would be when you're trying to talk about this, don't use terms. If you call it a red flag lock, right? Yeah. Then the right wing media can take that and define a red flag law the way they do, which is like, oh, they're going to define being conservative as like, you know, a red flag and one, and then they're going to take your gun. If you, if you instead say, we should

take guns away from people who hit their spouses and kids, right? It's hard to fucking argue with. Easy. What are you going to say? Hard to fucking argue with. Yeah. And it gets to the core of what you're trying to do, right? Yes. Yes. But what, but what radicalization does is what you explain is you boil it down to

a sense of what we're getting to, you boil it down to a sense of identity. This, that this thing is a stand in for who we are, right? So to a bridge that is to a bridge me as a person, you know, and that's a lot of times even in, in like inner city outreach, when we tell you, you know what I'm saying, you trying to get this kid to drop his flag and it's like, you're asking me to drop who I am, right? You know, and then, but there's a lot of work into understanding. I understand where your brain goes with that. I understand the history of your relationship to this thing. However,

it does not have to be this way, right? Yeah. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse.

And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark. And on the gun badass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

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So yeah, you know about your boy, Harlan Carter? Yes. Again, we're doing like a three-parter on Bastards. It's about him. Yeah. Okay. Harlan, about him specifically. Yeah.

He is one of the most important people to know about, to understand how we got here. He really, he's like, I think he's one of those names that like, yeah, bro, like you make a movie about him where it's like his effect on the life we live now. The fact that there isn't more content on him is either A, proves his brilliance, or B is like, oh, y'all, we missed a biggie, you know, because of who he is. Now, I could do, I got notes on him, but you about to do, it seems like this is a promo for one of the ones you got coming up now since apparently you doing that. You could run, I could do a quick overview.

You could do a quick overview. It's up to you. Yeah. I've just done it. Okay. So, yeah, let's, let's, let's have you hit it and because I'm interested in talking about him in the context of like, he, he, what he did to the NRA to take it over. And it's not, obviously, his, his part of what I think is important about the story

of Harlan Carter is that like, he hits both the militarization of the police and the birth of, of American gun culture as it exists, which is crucially important. But like the way he, the way he whipped things together in the NRA is, it was, it was some hood politics. It really was. Yeah. Yeah. So, pre 1977, NRA was not the NRA that we know of, you know, started off at the end of,

was it civil war? Right? Yeah. It was, it was like, all right, you got these like, hotheads that kind of don't really know how to shoot, you know what I'm saying? And like, okay, listen, man, teach you how to shoot, you know what I'm saying? Take care of your weapons. It came out of a fundamentally good place, which is like, boy, I wish, I wish our Northern

inner city kids were better at shooting Confederates. Yes. Yes. That was it. Which is, which is a noble goal. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Where it's just like, look, man, this is how you hold a gun.

You feel be, uh, you know, this is how you aim. This is what you do is how you take care of your gun, just normal gun safety. You know, yeah. And basic marksmanship. Basic marksmanship. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And, and obviously like the idea of like, none of them were like what we would call second

amendment absolutists. Like, no, the second amendment, what no one talked about it. No one talked about it. It was, it was a, it was, there had not, there was not up until fairly recently, like within the 20th century. The Supreme court like basically didn't touch the second. It was like, it was not like a big, part of this is that everyone like guns were not restricted very much in many places in the West, right?

Because they just weren't an individual firearm was not yet particularly threatening. Right? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then into the Black Panthers. Right. Yes.

Right. There's a. Go ahead. I don't know. Please give your bet. And then I'll, I'll say the thing I was going to say. Yeah. Into the Black Panthers, which was like, just like what happens with everything America

does once Black people realize is like, oh, wait, we could do that too. Then everybody goes, wait, hold on now. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on now. Right. So, uh, an interesting example of this, seeing how we're in our midterm and, you know, out here in Cali, we just sent off our, our, our primary ballots. Uh, funny thing about the end of mass slavery in the beginning of reconstruction, the, the, the weird middle between that and the Black codes was once we got the right, we had rights

to vote. You know what I'm saying? Once we was finally set free and what did we do? Well we voted. Right. Yeah. And that caused some problems. And that was the problem.

Cause we started putting, it was like all Black governments because there was more of us and we was like, well, you telling me I get a say as to who in charge? Well, I want my uncle in charge cause he ain't going with me. That man never owned me. Right. Yeah. So it worked. Right.

And once it worked, Fools was like, hold on now, wait, this, this, this working too good. So they said, okay, now we can't have everybody vote. You can vote if your grandmama could vote. Right. Which was like, okay, y'all follow what we're doing here is like, I get it. That's like a very sneaky, but yes, yes, it's like, oh, so, okay, I see what you did there. You know what I'm saying? So take that theory about like, oh crap, it actually works.

Was the same. Well, the path is realized is like, wait a minute, we got a right to bear arms. Yeah. And y'all don't, thanks to the, the first civil rights act, there was, that's what like, there's initially after emancipation, there was like a whole a year or two where it was like, well, they still don't, there's nothing that guarantees these people rights, even though they've been emancipated. And then Congress was like, okay, fuck you.

Like yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And yeah. So after that point, yeah. And this was like not, it didn't start with the Panthers because there's like, what was

it that it was in 1919 when there was like that series of like mass lynchings and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of like, black communities being like, we have a right to bear arms and all these people want us dead. We should probably get guns. We should get some guns.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So like, like, don't think we pacifists. You feel me? Like, I'm a pacifist across your face. I'm sorry. Yeah, exactly. If you've had like members of your family murdered in the woods by mobs, you can't really

be a pacifist. No. You're going to carry guns. You know what I'm saying? You're going to do something. Something, right? You know, we was, you had open carry laws. We was like, all right, well, you said we could have them.

So we finna have them. And they said, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. We don't want y'all to have them. Yeah. Well, what made you think you guys had this right? We didn't think this through. So, so, you know, the NRA changed their tune once the, once the Panthers started actually listening to what y'all had to say.

And there was a, there's an article that just came out today as we would record this in Salon that was like, let me, I have it pulled up here because it was a pretty incredible, pretty incredible title and an example of like, hey guys, maybe rethink the way you're framing something. Yeah. Um, where is this? Okay. Yeah.

So there's this article in Salon when Ronald Reagan's racism saved lives, armed black men meant immediate gun control. Yeah, they deleted that tweet and I think renamed or maybe even cut the article. I haven't checked, but like, oh my gosh, you could just not say that. Yeah. There's a lot you can say about gun control that isn't that. Yeah. We don't need to make that point.

Hey man. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not. Yeah. Maybe not say everything. It pops into you. Noggin, you know.

It's this thing that like you, you catch this and again, not to say that obviously it's not racist to like look at children getting massacred in a school and being like the fuck we, we have to be able to do something like I'm not making that claim in any way, but you do. There is this strain of like liberals who will repeatedly bring up like, well, you know, if we just gave every black man an AR 15, there'd be a gun control and it's like, guys, that's not really, that's still, that's not really the thing to hit. You know, like, still pretty racist, dog.

Like, I don't guys, I don't know if you know that to make that point. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, man. So yeah. So income to Panthers, they changed their story. There's this coup, like a literal coup in 1977 with this guy, Harlan Carter, who essentially radicalized, he took over the leadership, which I wish I would have known what that

looked like, like practically, like, how did that actually look? Oh, I can tell you that. Oh, you can. You actually don't go into much detail about this in the, in the show, but yeah. So it's, the way the NRA worked is like, and it's not like specifically the NRA. The NRA is like a type of organization that there's like a legal framework for in the United States. And it's one example of that.

Like people will bring up a lot that they didn't cancel their, their membership meeting in, I think it was Colorado after the, after Columbine. And a thing that like the NRA defenders will note in kind of like its defense is that like, well, it's legally required for us to hold a voting meeting and to give people X number of days of like warning about like where it's going to be. So we couldn't change the meeting, but like we canceled a bunch of anyway, whatever, there's like a type of structure for an organization at the NRA is one of the things that means is that you have this like managing council, basically a board of directors, right?

And you have some like elected officials who run the NRA and as a general rule, they're in charge of, of like what the NRA does and says, right? But you also have a group of lifetime members and the lifetime members get a vote, right? And it's kind of like, if you can get enough lifetime members to like agree to motions in the room during this yearly meeting, they can pass motions and whatnot without the board of directors type organization or the elected officials wanting that or saying that, right? It's kind of like, you know, you could like, it's almost like they have kind of a republic democracy sort of set up, but there's also this you could the people, you know, the people

who are lifetime members can do a, can do like, what's the fucking term when you like just pull the electorate on something and make the, make a law based on that, I don't know. It's like a plebiscite, right? Okay. So if you can, if you can whip and this had not really ever been done before, right? Like it was, it was like, it was kind of like a procedural thing where like, oh yeah, technically they could like all vote and just add things to like the NRA charter directly and like dismiss

the board. It's possible, but like it never mattered, right? Like what mattered was who was on the board and who was like the, the elected leaders at that point and whatnot. And so it was very much like a, there was this kind of like gentrified aristocracy that was running the NRA. And Harlan Carter and this other fucking dude who was a popular editor for a bunch of different gun magazines got together and whipped a bunch of votes, right?

Like they would, they spent like the entire year beforehand going around to people, going around to different lifetime members, prominent folks within the NRA community, people who were like kind of celebrities within that world and getting them to get their friends on board. And then they like rented a bunch of hotel rooms during the event and spent days like getting all of their people in line for the big voting meeting. Wow. And then when it happened, basically they, they just put enough people who agreed with

them in this massive room where they were doing what was supposed to be kind of a pro forma vote thing to like decide on, you know, a couple of minor is not, not even minor. There was like a, they wanted to, the NRA old guard wanted to put together like a sporting center in Colorado, which these guys didn't like because they saw it as like a move towards the NRA is just a sporting organization as opposed to a second amendment act organization. So they got all these people together in the room and like mobbed them and it was, um, you know, they basically swarmed them and had so many people there that they were able to, to vote out the old guard and like vote in a bunch of things, including a statement

that the NRA was a second amendment advocacy organization. Um, and like, yeah, took it over Harlan Carter was running the NRA by the end of the meeting. He walked into the meeting having resigned from the NRA like a year ago and he left the meeting in charge. Crazy. Look, and, and that, that is like, that is a masterclass in how to do politics, what you just laid out as a masterclass in politics. He did the thing that the right always does, which is they like, look at what the, the

letter of the rules and then figure out a way that those haven't been used yet so that people won't expect them to like take power in that way. Right. They do it. Yeah. Yeah, dude. So, yeah. So that fool did that, um, little story about him when he was a teenager, he shot a little

Mexican boy, uh, got away with it, um, Casiano, 15, when he was 17, when he was 17, he shot a little 15 year old. He used to lead the US, the US border patrol. He started Operation Wetback. You heard me. Yeah. Operation Wetback. Right.

So this militarization of our borders. Uh, yeah. And it's the birth of like the idea, not just of like a border patrol, but of a border patrol that's militarized and that can act anywhere near a border. So right. Not just the southern border, but anywhere within a hundred miles of a border, which is like two thirds of the US population. There was just a Supreme Court ruling today on, um, Bivens, which is like a, uh, this kind

of precedent case that basically the Supreme Court said, actually, we don't think the federal government can regulate what, what, uh, the border patrol does in any way, like that was essentially their claim that like, well, yeah, border patrol, like busts into your house. They don't need a reason. Um, wow. Yeah. Like it's, it's a pretty fucked ruling. We'll see how exactly it shakes out.

I don't want to get into too much detail because I'm not a lawyer and the ruling just came out, but like, yeah, he's the start, like all of these fucking problems that we have with CBP, which is easily like our worst law enforcement agency, um, start with Harlan Carter. Yeah. The man, I got to think about that. Yeah. It's pretty not great.

That's not dope. But yeah, the, the, you know, slaying in tanks to cops. And obviously we have this like, you know, you, we have this bloated spending in our military, you know, for, for like wars, they not fighting, right? And you just got all this, like, yeah, like insurgents fighting surplus stuff that you got to try to get your money back from and you just sell it to cops, right? So when you sell it to cops and then what we talked about, you know, who we, I, we, I know I still get messages to this day about the behind the police thing, but yeah, like

that's a super dope, like recruiting video. If it's like, dude, you want to, you want to shoot, you want to shoot a desert eagle. You know what I'm saying? You want to drive a tank, but you're afraid to go overseas to fight a war. Yeah. People come to the police. Yeah. You could die over there.

These people don't shoot back. You know what I'm saying? So it's such a great, uh, recruiting thing. But anyway, you could trace that back to this full Harlan Carter. Harlan Carter. Yeah. I wish somebody would have slapped the shit out of him at some point. I mean, it's, it's the kind of thing where like he, he grows up, his dad is, so this

is one of the things the, the US Mexican border as, as it is now in like the way that it is conceived of and thought of by people, maybe it's like a hundred-ish years old, right? Yes. It used to just be like this area where people lived and, uh, technically it was the border between two countries, but also like it took fucking, if you were like in the government and Austin in Texas, it took like days or weeks to get out there, right? Yeah. Like there were not like realistic concerns about immigration for a while because it was

just like not within the state's capacity to really worry about too much. This starts to change in the early 1900s, um, and one of the first, like one of the thing that Harlan Carter's dad is a part of, because he's one of like the very first border, border patrol agents. There's a city called Laredo, which is where he grows up and where he kills Raymond Casiano. Yeah. It's like a border town and it's primarily Mexican, um, and it's so in, in, and because it's primarily Mexican, it's run by Mexicans, right?

Yeah. Because it was Mexico two decades ago. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody really thought much about it. Nobody thought about it. Yeah. The border patrol sends a guy in and he's like, holy fuck, all these Mexicans are in charge

down here. Um, and like the border patrol is friendly with the local police who are Mexican. We got to change that. So they like clean house at the border patrol. They send in guys in the border patrol, like does drive by shootings of the police station. It's absurd. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fucking gang shit. Yeah. Like they take over, like they take over the town in order to like force a, a, a, a, a hard to kind of like system over it, right? And Harlan Carter's dad is the one doing that right at the same time that he murders a Mexican kid, um, claiming that he thought the kid had stolen his mom's car. Like this kid is out by a swimming hole, by the way, when this happens. So that's like Harlan Carter, like this was not like an accident.

No. He was a, was a conscious soldier of white supremacy, um, going out of his way to, to do it better. Um, and he was good at what he did, um, which is not great. Not great at all. Anyway, anyway. Okay. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the

racial justice demonstrations and you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aaronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, alphabet boys, as the FBI sometimes you get to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of alphabet boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse.

And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark and not on the good badass way and nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to alphabet boys on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

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

they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories.

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

Listen to the last Soviet on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So NRA and they're going to take it from our cold dead hands. Thanks Charleston Heston, which brings us again more to the modern era where it became such a, again, an identity flashpoint as far as like, you know, it was almost like, like you said, this single person voters thing, you could almost see this like mad, it's like this mad, like almost like hungry hungry hippos. It's just like mad grab for what issues going to belong to what people so like this identity

around guns, it was just like Reagan and him was like dips, you have to say like, that was ours. Right. Yeah. After he started gun control in California, after he started gun control in California, which is like just the most bizarre thing. So anyway, it brings us to why in the world, like how do you, how do you get to a place where surveyed of Republican gun owners who think that there are some laws that actually

make sense, but won't nobody say nothing? Why can't we get our elected officials to do what your people is asking you to do? And it's easy to just be like, well, it's the NRA because it kind of fucking is. But what, what do they got? Like why are y'all so scared of them? Like that's, that's one of the, one of the interesting questions that, you know, we could ask about politics. Why are you so scared of them?

Like what are, what they got that we don't? What's your guess? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a couple of things. So the NRA after he takes over, I think it's 77. Yeah. Um, the modern NRA, one of the moments that people will really say is like kind of the thing that like is a useful kind of chapter point in the history of the NRA is, um, I

think it was 2000 when Charlton Heston, you know, holds that fucking ancient rifle up. Yeah. And again, it's at one of those NRA, there was Justin NRA meeting, right? Like it's, it's one of those yearly members meetings that he does this. Um, that's generally picked as, as kind of the moment. And part of why is that you have, Carter steers it towards second amendment, like absolutism and they start building on that. They become very effective at lobbying, but they're not immediately effective in one of

the areas in which you can see them being like less effective than they became. Is that in 1994, the assault weapons ban passes, right? Yeah. Um, a lot of debate over the degree to which it worked, um, there were less mass shootings under it, actual gun violence, not really different, uh, as a result of it, like overall, this gets into broader questions of like what gun violence actually looks like versus what gun violence tends to get on the news, um, because AR 15s are not a particularly common gun used in gun violence compared to small handguns, which is like nearly the vast majority.

But anyway, that's outside of the point. You saw weapons ban gets passed in 1994, um, it is passed. A lot of other stuff is happening, including you have Waco, you have Ruby Ridge, you have the Oklahoma city bombing in this kind of period immediately before and after the AWB. So a lot of what happens with that is tied into the militia movement. A lot of the militia movement, um, is kind of born in the shadow of the assault weapons ban. Um, and the Republicans kind of, it, it, it's, it takes, you know, it's, it's law for

about a decade, um, for a decade. And then it comes up basically for renewal in 2004. And by the time 2004 comes around in that decade, the NRA has kind of solidified its position as the most effective fundraising arm of the Republican party. Yeah. Um, a few years, like 12 years after that, they'll give $30 million to Donald Trump's campaign at least, right? And like, you know, it's hard to actually know how much they give the bag is too big

though. Yeah. The bag is huge. They give a lot of money to George W. Bush. And so George W. Bush does two things. One he does not, his administration, there's no attempt to renew the assault weapons ban. And then the other thing he does, like the next year, there's a push by the NRA to put through this like law that makes it impossible, basically makes it impossible to sue gun manufacturers

for what's done with their guns. Um, and there's a couple of other things that happened in a similar timeframe, including Republicans, and this is in the late nineties, early 2000s, strip all funding from the CDC to research gun violence. Um, and to research like what happens, like what, what, what, what is the health impact of guns writ large, right? So all of this stuff is happening in this kind of decade after the passage of the assault weapons ban, which really accelerates the growth because they have this, the, the AWB

is seen as this is proof that they're coming for everything, right? Like this was the first, um, you'll get a lot of statements like registration means confiscation, all this kind of stuff, sometimes not helped by democratic politicians who will literally say they want to confiscate all guns. Yeah. Um, but you get this, the, that decade is, is really, and Carter is dead by this point, but he, he builds the machine that makes that decade of activism. And this is really that, that 10 year period, 1994 to 2004 is the most effective period

in the NRA's history. Yeah. Um, they're influential after that, but obviously in the last couple of years, they've started to fall apart as an organization. So really Carter builds this machine and he hands it off to Wayne LaPierre. And from 1994 to 2005 or six, it really, it lays a lot of the groundwork for making it kind of impossible to have, not to have conversations about gun control that are productive or to pass laws that are productive because in 2000 you get Emerson v United States, which is the

first Supreme court case that makes it that, that recognizes the, uh, the second as an individual right. Um, and it's not really clear entirely what that means until DC versus Heller in 2008. And one of the things DC versus Heller says is that like, you can't, you can't just say people can't own a class of firearm, right? Yeah. Um, like a handgun, right? Like you can't just say no handguns, you know, like, like what Canada is attempting to do

right now, like you're not allowed to do that. And then in 2010, the second amendment gets incorporated. So really that like 1994 to 2010 is kind of the most important period of actual things the NRA accomplishes. And because of rampant corruption on behalf of LaPierre, they start to fall apart after that, but the things that they've set up both legally and culturally and the cultural stuff particularly started under Carter because he was a big absolutist, he was a big believer of they're coming for your guns.

This is like part of a communist takeover. This is part of like people who are not white trying to take over the country and like we need these, you know, that, um, that is, is, uh, yeah, that's what, that's what goes down. Yeah. Man. Thanks for that. Yeah. And that, uh, drying of the concrete that like this is the discussion.

This is the only way we look at it. And if you look at this any differently, you out the set is, is, is, it took that decade to get there. And I'm even like tripping like who's homie that just got like the homie that just got like, uh, you know, busted for corruption that was leading it. What's that homie's name? Oh, fucking Wayne LaPierre. Yeah.

Yeah. I was Wayne LaPierre, but they still just, didn't they just read, they just read up his leadership. Yeah. Like he's, there's some good, there's a good podcast on, um, what happened in the NRA. One sec. I'm going to look this up because people should listen to it, uh, because it, it, it really goes into like how fucking corrupt and shitty he is.

Yeah. But he's still in charge. And then I think that, I think that is a credit to how effective Carter was in turning the NRA into an unparalleled like political. Yeah. We've really never seen nothing like it that like, you know, no matter what anyone actually thinks or feels, you got a total line and you can't, you know what I'm saying? So in that, in the idea of like turning an issue into your very identity is a power that

I feel like, uh, uh, for this is like why her politics exists because it's like, we understand that. I understand how that happens. You know what I'm saying? Is that an issue becomes an identity and to break that is very, very, very difficult. And another thing that the NRA does that Democrats have never understood and I don't know if they ever will is the political value of setting the definition because they're the worst at this.

They're unbelievably, so bad. Responsibly shitty. And this is a thing. I was a debate kid, right? When you, when you're doing the competition debate, you start with your definitions, right? And there's a, the logical argument to be made. If you're having an actual friendly debate over issues with like somebody that you care about and you're both willing to like learn something, it's very helpful to start with,

here is what I mean when I say define your terms, the, the first, you know, whatever, first amendment. Here's what I mean when I say like government, like liberty or whatever, like, here's what I mean when I say, here's what I mean when I say a red flag law, right? Yes. Here's what, when I say red flag, look, this is what I mean, right? If you're having a good faith discussion, it's useful to do that because then you're not arguing against a shadow, right?

Like I think we've all been in a situation where you're like having an argument with somebody you care about and then you realize that you're not actually disagreeing. You just are defining different, it's the same thing in different ways and so like that's where the argument's coming up. That happens between people of goodwill. If you're not a person of goodwill, if you want to just like fuck the discussion, then you, and again, the right does this with everything. You hop in and you say a red flag law means a law that will allow the police to take guns

away from Republicans because they, yeah, because they believe in this or they believe in that. So fine, that is a, and this is again, part of what's toxic about this is that it makes it impossible to have important discussion. So an important discussion about a red flag law is, okay, we're saying we want to take guns away from people who are violent, people who make threats. Let's make sure this law is written in such a way that the police cannot just say, well, I think being a BLM organizer is evidence that you're mentally unstable.

So let's go bust into this guy's house and take his gun and oh, we got shot. That's a real fear. Yeah. It's a real fear that they might say, oh, if you're trans, that's a mental illness. You don't get to have guns. That is a real legitimate fear. Yes. Absolutely.

And of course, to be entirely fair, it's not unreasonable for conservatives to be like, well, if you're going to make a red flag law, I want to know that you're not going to define my politics is making me like that is not an unreasonable fear. But when you just say that's what this is, and when you start fear mongering about it, then there cannot be a discussion about it, right? Yeah. And that's not the law in such a way that like this is, and if you're, if you had more competent people who were Democrats about this sort of thing, they would be pushing against

that. And I think doing stuff more like saying, let we want a law to take guns from people who hit their wives and kids, right? We want a law to take guns away from people who threaten mass shootings, right? Clear. That's what we want, right? Yeah. That's harder to fight than like just saying, we want a red flag law, right?

Yeah. To find a red, right? This is again, and this is what the NRA pioneers this and now it's everything, right? Now it's like the light is in the process of defining support for LGBT rights as like support for grooming. As grooming. Yes. It's like, yeah.

If you say this, then that means you're that. And by the time you start arguing with them, because some chunk of people are going to get, are going to like get caught up in that and we'll start like being like, well, obviously I don't like this or I don't like that. And so like this must not be okay. And so like, let's have a discussion about what stuff we should ban and like, then you're on their side. Yeah.

No matter what, even if you think you're being reasonable, you have yielded the floor to these fuckers. And that's, that's, yeah. And that's really like, really that's like that to me, what you're saying is dope because that's like, that's, that's the type of training. Like you said, like a lot of us need to have to where it's like, I'm not going to let you define my terms and, and it's this especially range true for black people because you're now all of a sudden, and I feel like black people, it's not letting you have it.

Like you can't define woke. I don't care what the fuck you say it is. That's not what it is. You know what I'm saying? You can't define critical race theory. You just telling each other, that's what it means. We know that's not what it means. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

You know what I'm saying? What they've done with, sorry, yeah, but like that's incredibly important, what you've said. What they've done with critical race theory is the same shit. It's the NRA playbook. And it makes it impossible, it makes it impossible for you to have a productive discussion and it makes it impossible for them to, it makes it impossible for their voters to think about stuff. Totally.

If you actually, I mean, among other things, yeah, it's, it's. Yeah. My biggest fight with that is most of the time is like, you don't even know what it means. So I can't even, I don't even know what we're arguing over. Like because you don't know what it means. What you're saying is not critical race theory. What you're saying is teaching about history. You're scared of a boogeyman that isn't real.

You're scared of a boogeyman that isn't real. You made that up and now you're going to engage with it. Yes. It's not happening. Yes. Like what you are afraid of is not a thing. Yeah. And you need to like, you're just trying to, to justify censorship.

Exactly. Like that's the, that's the appropriate response, but they keep getting caught up and this is, it's amazing. Again, one of the things that's important about studying Carter and studying the history of the NRA is this is a very old set of strat tactics. Super old. And it, it's, in a lot of ways, it's like early shit posting, right? Right.

But you, there's not, they're not, I haven't seen the fucking dims figure out a solution to this shit yet. I think I know how to deal with it. But it's also like, it's, so much is caught up, so much of like our potential to have a future is caught up in whether or not people who are in politics figure out how to deal with this bad faith shit. And I, I don't think they are. And part of it is that they have built their fundraising arm around the terms that the right

has successfully defined to their people in a specific way, right? And so instead of having more productive discussions about some of this stuff and more, more productive discussions about like how to protect people, it all occurs within this kind of, this kind of framework of like catchphrases that are good at getting the base riled up and getting fun and good at putting together. It's like this shit with like the governor of Louisiana, right? Democrat. Yeah.

There's this anti-trans, you know, kid in sports law that just like got passed. He could have vetoed it. Instead he, he said he was not going to veto it, but posted like a tearful video about how much he supports trans kids. Yeah. And like, I'm sure he's got a fundraise off that, right? Yeah. It's good.

It's something. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I flashed to a moment years, years, years back during the, the bathroom thing. You know, we was arguing over bathrooms. I remember there was a, a lady at our church we used to go to that asked us, me and my, me and my wife, I'm like, Hey, what do you guys think about the bathroom thing? We were like, it's fine.

I don't care. Like your, my house is, my house is a gender neutral about you ever been to a beach? Like those are all gender. Like what are you talking about? Like this is stupid. And I remember the way that she looked at me. Like her eyes got big and she was just like, dude, eyes told, like whispering. I totally agree.

I don't understand the big deal. I don't like whispering. Like, like afraid to say, yeah, I think this is, yeah, I don't understand what the hub of is about. And I was like, that's, that's what I'm talking about. Like, you know, even, even, even the stuff that's being defined to you as such, you're like, well, that's stupid. You know, like, okay.

So all of a sudden sexual assaults, sexual assaults are going to happen if we have gender neutral bathrooms. Like as if sexual assaults don't already happen. You know what I'm saying? Like, so just this like a hole in the logic that at your core, you like, well, not even at your core, just like in the front of your mind, you like, this will, that don't even, it, that don't bother me the way you telling me is supposed to bother me. So your question is, am I tripping or are y'all tripping?

And what I want all my listeners to say here to realize is like, nah, you not tripping. This is bullshit. It really is. You ain't got to like, you ain't got it. You ain't got a, you ain't got a toad a line. You ain't got a toad a line. If you honestly, especially around this thing, like don't be afraid to tell, you know, young seventh grade prop, when your gang is chasing me, hey, homie, you got to get out the bathroom

because they gonna jump you. And I think that's stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, I mean, there's probably more that should be said about this. Yeah. I get like, you know, I come at this from a fundamentally different perspective than a lot of Democrats.

Cause I am something of an absolutist in the, the right to self-defense and the right to be armed. Fundamentally, I don't think the cops should be able to own anything that I can't. And I'm not wild about the idea of a national military, of a standing national military. But like, and you know, obviously there's people on the left side of the program movement who are absolutely no, no compromise, no law type things. I'm not. Yeah.

I don't know what shit you can do. Like, I don't know. I, I'm not against the idea of fucking like waiting periods inherently. I think there should be some option for like, if you've already got a collection or a CHL, like why would a waiting period apply to you? You already have guns. It's not like it's gonna matter. But like, yeah, there's enough people who like buy a gun and kill themselves that day

or enough people who like buy a gun, like that fucking guy who shot up that hospital in the same day. And maybe if you could cool them down, right, like, again, there's, there's stuff I think that can be done and, and that should be talked about because even though I don't think the overall, I don't think the fundamental solutions to the fundamental problems that we're talking about today, any of them will be done by voting or passing laws because it's too big. Yeah. Like fundamentally you're dealing with fucking white supremacy here and you're not gonna

vote it out. Yeah. And also I don't think you should stop people who are poor or like of normal income from being able to arm themselves, which is another thing Democrats keep proposing. They just put a thousand percent excise tax on an AR-15. So it's $5,000. Well, that's absurd. Okay.

So only rich people should have them, right? Yeah, great. That's the, is that what's gonna make it better? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The kid at fucking Uvaldi just got a credit card and bought like a three or $4,000 firearm and like managed it because he didn't care about paying it back.

So like maybe let's talk about some other solutions here. Totally. But yeah. So I have, I come, I come at this from like a different position, but I do think, I think it's immoral to be like, let's just not talk about doing anything because I don't like, like it's the people are fucking like Uvaldi, Parkland, fucking Sandy Hook. Yeah. Like it's fucked up to say like, well, there is nothing that should be attempted here.

Or to say, let's just turn schools into fortresses. I don't like that. That's not good for kids. Yeah, that's good. It's not good for anything. So I think like, I would love it if we could do something. Yeah. But also, I think it is, it's, it's also immoral to, it's immoral fundamentally.

If you are the, not a Democratic voter, but if you are a Democrat in power, it is immoral to not be fucking better at seeing what these people are doing and how they get away with what they're doing. And the fact that they haven't for so fucking long and it extends everywhere. It's CRT. It's the anti-transpanic. It's all the same playbook. You have to fucking understand what they're doing and actually fight it effectively as

opposed to just use the fear of the fuckery that they're doing to drive people to like register to vote Blue No Matter Who. And if they were actually doing that, the right wouldn't be winning as often as they are. He preaching. That boy preaching. Nah, you right, man. It's like, when you just trying to put your finger on Jell-O, you just going to be chasing,

chasing the globs. And that's basically what Democrats doing. They just chasing these globs playing whack-a-mole and it's funny to watch and funny in a horrible way in a sense that like, they're just like, yeah, nah, keep chasing us. You know, you're just, you're just swinging a person around, you know, and laughing as you doing it. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, nah, nailed it.

Yeah. Thank you for that, Robert. Thank you. This was fun. Yeah. Dude, I mean, everybody know who you are already, yeah, I got a, I got a, I got a book. It's called After the Revolution. You can find it everywhere right now, including on, on, on the, the Amazons, if you, if you

are so inclined. Man, a book is very fun. Thank you. I enjoy, you know, fun in a, in an entertaining, still pretty sad, but yeah, it was fun in an entertaining, still pretty sad way to write. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

And, uh, Sophie right there, get off, get off there, Sophie, say what's up. There it is. Sophie is the greatest at holding her tongue when she has comments. I've never seen a bite so good at it. She sure does. Anyway, well, that's the show. It'll probably be, this will most likely be the second part because this is over an hour and, uh, cause that boy Robert got hot, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I'm gonna have, I'm gonna have a, I'm gonna have Matt play some organ hits under there. Dun, dun. You know what I'm saying? Make you sound like a preacher. All right. Anyway. All right.

Show's over. Yeah, this here thing was recorded by me propaganda in East Los Boyo Heights, Los Angeles, California. This mug was mixed, edited, mastered and scored by Matt Osowski. I can totally say his name, guys. It was, it was a shtick. He's going by Matt now again because he got into legal situations with the name headlights. Y'all no comment used to be called common sense, y'all no tip. TI was tipped.

Sometimes it happens. Executive produced by the one and only Sophie Lichterman for Coolzone Media and the theme music by the one and only gold tips, gold tips, DJ Sean P. So y'all just remember, listen every time you check in, if you understand city living, you understand politics. See y'all next week. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse.

And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Find Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space?

Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based

on actual science, and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.