Chapo Trap House - 1001 - The Midwest Bank feat. Maryam Mohamad (1/12/26)

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Minnesotan community member Maryam Mohamad joins us to talk about the killing of Renee Nicole Good and the siege of Minneapolis by ICE and the DHS. We talk about the events and prosecutions that put t...he Somali community in the crosshairs, the regime’s attempt to spin this execution as self-defense, Border Patrol and ICE’s recent history of excessive force, and the predictably weak response from Democratic electeds. Maryam also talks about the Minneapolis and Somali community’s reactions to these horrors and their unwillingness to take this lying down. Follow Maryam on twitter @messyventura Just a few more days to buy the 2nd printing of ¡No Pasarán!: Matt Christman's Spanish Civil War over at chapotraphouse.store Year Zero: A Chapo Trap House Comics Anthology is also 15% off at badegg.co. Through end of year purchases of the book also include a free digital version of the comic. The digital version is also available through GlobalComix. Follow the new Chapo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chapotraphousereal/ And Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chapotraphousereal.bsky.social

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello everybody. It's Monday, January 12th, and Felix and I are back at it. Obviously, on today's episode, the eyes of the nation now turn to the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis as the regime's war on the employed and productive members of society has taken a rather dramatic escalation with the murder of Renee Good by the otherwise unemployed. death squad members of ICE. So, I mean, obviously, like I said, for whatever reason, Minnesota and Minneapolis has become sort of the front lines, as I would describe before, sort of an ongoing siege of this country by the Trump administration. So joining us to talk about it is a Minneapolis resident and a Minnesota-based poster, Mariam Muhammad.
Starting point is 00:01:25 Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm a longtime listener, but this is my first time getting to interact with you guys. I'm really excited. Well, we're pleased to have a long time, first time on the show. I mean, very unusual for one of our listeners to represent the employee, too. I'm glad. Mariam, I just want to start with, could you just like, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Starting point is 00:01:51 And like, could you just tell us a little bit about your background. And also just like, could you give us a sense of like, obviously since the killing of Renee Good, but also in like the weeks leading up to that, Minnesota has been very very, much put in the crosshairs of, I don't know, like, yeah, this, this siege, ongoing siege and war on America that's happening right now. You tell us like, what does it feel like to be in Minneapolis right now? It's bizarre. I mean, I was born in America. Not that any of like that really matters, but I was born in America. I'm from Chicago, but I've lived in Minnesota for the last 13 years. I moved here in 2013. And it's bizarre. It's the strangest feeling.
Starting point is 00:02:32 I mean, I don't want to sound like an alarmist or scare anybody, but it genuinely feels like we're being occupied right now. You hear choppers, helicopters overhead all the time, day and night. You hear sirens. It's the strangest feeling. I've been a little bit, I'm on edge. I have a lot of nerves right now, and I can recognize it. I can see it in other people. people are trying to be resilient.
Starting point is 00:03:01 They're trying to stand up in the moment. They're trying to be strong. But there comes a point where you recognize that you're up against the federal government. And that's a scary, you know, entity to be up against. And we recognize how small we are compared to something as powerful as that. But we're trying our best to keep ourselves level-headed. Something I've been curious about is I was following some of the stuff in Chicago before this and
Starting point is 00:03:31 it seems like some of the things they did in Chicago like you know turning over a few apartment buildings at the behest of some slum lord these humiliation campaigns it was sort of an audition for what they were going to do in Minnesota
Starting point is 00:03:47 but I was wondering just for the average person that lives anywhere in the Twin Cities how do they sort of run headlong into the federal garrison Like does it start with your commute to work? Are the roads just like jammed with unmarked SUVs? Or is it a more just like a, that feeling of helicopters circling overhead? So they know what neighborhoods to target, right? For example, I mean, I used to live in Southside for five years. I just moved downtown like two months ago. So I'm kind of like, I'm in an area where there's a lot of office buildings, federal buildings.
Starting point is 00:04:27 you know, they don't want to have those optics. Microsoft doesn't want to see ice outside of their office building, right? They don't want that to affect them. So the neighborhoods that they're targeting are specifically black and brown neighborhoods in South Minneapolis or other parts in St. Paul as well, where it's a little bit out of the way. It's a little bit. It's not on your like morning commute. It's not on these big roads, right? That's how like we end up in 34th in Portland where Renee Good was murdered.
Starting point is 00:05:03 It's in these areas where this is like highly residential areas, lots of houses, lots of apartments. They want to keep it a little bit away from the like professional class. I'm using quotes here, like professional class. They want to make sure that people don't see this as blatantly as, you know, as it's happening. But there's people on the ground recording constantly. There's a lot of media here right now. So a lot of what I see, even though I'm on the bus, even though I'm walking around all day, even though I'm going into these areas, is online.
Starting point is 00:05:36 I was in that area where Renee Good was murdered on 34th in Portland on Saturday. There was a huge protest there. I'm sure you guys saw that. And I did not see ice presents. I did see police right at the vigil site. I saw a paddy wagon full of riot police, they were like fully loaded up, but they were inside the paddy wagon.
Starting point is 00:06:02 I think they know, right? They knew that the media was going to be watching the protest. They know not to, I guess, be so blatant, but it is blatant because we're all online and we're all seeing what's going on because of the people on the ground recording. So that's another thing I was kind of interested in. It's obvious the direct reason for,
Starting point is 00:06:21 or the stated reason for why they're doing this is obvious. There's this obvious racial animus towards people of Somali descent. The reason for picking Minnesota and Minneapolis in particular is quite obvious. The locus of all like immigrant hatred now is Somalians in America. And a lot of the Trump's second term is about sort of people who have a resentment towards 2020. It's a counterreaction to 2020. It's, you know, office workers who are embarrassed. they posted a blackout square six years ago.
Starting point is 00:06:56 But do you feel that there's also like a, they use these effectively segregated Midwestern cities as a test case because they, it's useful for them because they can go into these downtrodden, you know, more minority populated neighborhoods and just perpetrate like the worst humiliation and brutality and outright murder in some cases? and it's useful for them because they can see how the people who work for these massive corporations that are headquartered in Minneapolis like Target or Best Buy,
Starting point is 00:07:33 they'll see how much they can take in effect. Yeah. Look, like I'm part of this like workforce, right? I'm part of that workforce. And I feel like we are in a way taking it. you know, I'm working, you know, like, I'm still working. I still have meetings. I'm still answering my emails. And everybody else is too. And I can see it. I live, again, like I live downtown. I could see everybody just going to work. And I think there used to be a time where I believed that good people would stand up would be like, well, you know, the things that are happening right now are so atrocious that we can't go to work. We're going to, you know, call off today. We're going to stand with our neighbors. That's not happening. I mean, the images that we're seeing out of Minneapolis right now is that there are cars that people find
Starting point is 00:08:32 on the road that have the seatbelt cut, the windows down. Nobody's in the car, but the keys are in the ignition. Am I supposed to believe those people were raptured? Or am I supposed to like connect the dots here and understand what happened that those people were abducted. And still, people are going to work. I've gotten a few messages from my colleagues who are worried because I'm like one of the only people who is like living in and working in Minneapolis on in our department. And they're like worried about me, but that's on a more personal level that they know me. They're worried about my safety. But then comes into question like, what about everybody else here? What about all of these people who are just trying to go to work, who are just trying to live their lives, and they're
Starting point is 00:09:23 getting abducted to God knows where. A couple of days ago, I'm sure you guys have seen this. Elhan Omar, Representative Ilhan Omar, Senator Tina Smith, Representative Angie Craig, try to go to the Whipple Federal Ice Facility. And they were let in for, I think, about like 10 minutes or something. And then they were told, oh, you have to leave because this building wasn't funded by Congress. It was funded by the big beautiful bill. And then right after that, Chrissy Nome quietly signs some, I don't know if it's, I don't know what to call it. Is it legislation if Christine Nome just says that no elected officials can enter ICE facilities unless they give a seven day notice? Is that, is that legal?
Starting point is 00:10:06 I don't know if it's legal, but she said that. She said, you guys have to give us seven days notice. What can they clean up? What can they cover up? what can they make look better in seven days before an elected official that the people, like me and you, elected into office, enter these facilities.
Starting point is 00:10:24 That's fucking horrifying. Yeah. No, just like just seeing cars with like the windows broken and the seatbelt cut and the keys still in the ignition on the side of the road. Like, like you said, like we have like the leftovers just happened or something.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Like, yeah. And then there's an absolutely no oversight on where these people are taken or what happens to them. And this is obviously. in the context of them just shooting people in the head in the middle of the street in broad daylight. So like imagine what you're not seeing. But, Mariam, I want to ask you, like, obviously, like, the Somali community has been, like, been made the target of, like, months now long, like, right-wing media operation to, like, turn the attention of the nation on the Somali community in Minnesota.
Starting point is 00:11:08 And, like, particularly these fraud cases involving daycare centers or involving the state. Did you give us some background about like those fraud cases, which I mean, I guess we're like originally prosecuted in like 2022. But like what does the Somali community in Minneapolis like feel like versus like how they're viewed by the rest of the country now? It's it's a little bit weird because we're such a small population. I think there's not even like 65,000 people, Somali people in Minnesota. And I think nationwide where heard it here first. They're taking over the state. They're taking over the state.
Starting point is 00:11:42 They're taking over the state. 65,000 people. Yeah, it's, I mean, nationwide, there's only about 100,000 of us. So it's, it's really bizarre. And I feel like this is a, we are a black population and we're Muslims too, right? So I'm Somali. And I've always felt it at the intersection of many things. I almost want to say that, so Pete had said this from here. And this feels very personal. on a certain level, it's like, when I lived in Chicago and I would tell people that I'm Somali, they wouldn't know where that is. They wouldn't know what continent Somalia is on. So it would take somebody who lives amongst Somali people to know who the heck we are. Right. So it feels personal almost. It feels like Heathseth was like, I'm sick of these people, get them out here. But the fraud cases more seriously have been prosecuted and there are still ongoing investigations.
Starting point is 00:12:50 I think last year in the fall, there was another case that was all over the Star Tribune and other local media where there was like four or five people being charged with fraud for some sort of medical billing issue. So DHS on the state level is all over that. People are being prosecuted. There's people who have gone to prison. prison. There's people in prison for this crime, right? So for it to become like a national news story, it's clearly a tool, it's a cudgel, it's a reason to come into Minnesota,
Starting point is 00:13:25 it's a reason to go against Governor Tim Walz, it's a reason to go against the place where Ilhan Omar represents because Trump and the administration don't like them. You know, so many people, we are a blip in this country. We have a strong impact and we're a very, very entrepreneurial people, but we're such a small minority that I question it. I start to wonder, is this is clearly just an excuse, right? Like, I'm just going to shoot straight from there. This is clearly an excuse for them to come in here and to start some shit. Right. And like, but like, you know, the, the arm of this abuse is ICE, which is like, at least theoretically, their remit is about illegal immigration. Now, correct me if I'm wrong or not, but like, isn't most, if not,
Starting point is 00:14:13 not all of the Somali population in Minnesota already citizens? Yes. My parents came here after the Civil War in the early 90s. Their citizens. Everybody I know. The history of like most of the Somali community in America, right? It was like in the 90s, everyone remembers Black Hawk Down. That's how most Americans know about what they think of when they think of Somalia.
Starting point is 00:14:34 If they've seen that movie or not. But the point is small population, but like unlike like other other immigrant groups or may or may not be documented. This only community is overwhelmingly, if not entirely, already U.S. citizens, full stop. Right. 90, 90% full citizenship in this country. So, like, sending ICE to brutalize this community,
Starting point is 00:14:57 well, like, eventually they run into the fact that, like, okay, you're going to see a passport, and then what do you do? Well, what do you do? You get frustrated enough. Just start killing white women in the streets. I mean, like, that seems like, like, a lot of this murder that happened does seem to be in some way a projection of their own frustration and like their lack of ability to deport Somalians as you mentioned a black and Muslim population
Starting point is 00:15:22 that has been made public enemy number one but like the problem is using ice as the vehicle to do that is like they're not illegal immigrants so what are you going to do like I said most on women's head off in the street for trying to kill that ice agent by doing a K-turn at two miles an hour. Right. And that's where the like the crimes, they're committing crimes, they're committing fraud,
Starting point is 00:15:41 they're wasting taxpayer dollars, right? That's where that comes in. Welcome to the club. That's what being an American citizen is. It's baffling to me. Like, I'm sure, I'm sure fraud goes on all the time
Starting point is 00:15:53 when functions of the state, like providing daycare or health care to people, are fucking auctioned off to these like shady middlemen rather than just direct government application of like the government directly, the government directly paying and maintaining dare care centers. Of course, this is the story is all this time.
Starting point is 00:16:11 This is how every immigrant group in America makes it is by defrauding the federal government. Right. Defrauding someone. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's also interesting because, like, the area that they're in, right, so where Renee Good was murdered, it is a mile away from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020. So it's very clear that this is targeted, right?
Starting point is 00:16:38 Why are they over there? Why are this neighborhood specifically, right? Because they saw what happened in 2020. They saw a neighborhood that was willing to stand for justice. They saw, you know, they saw the, I'm using quotes again, sorry, woke whites. And that's how a white woman gets killed in the streets of Minneapolis, right? it's gone so far beyond any like social justice like issue this is a I'm genuinely saying this is a federal government versus the American people issue now yes white woman gets killed in the streets you
Starting point is 00:17:16 think that that only happens to black people because historically that's what happens to now white people are getting killed so it's not a racial issue this is the federal government declaring war on American people. You know, and like, I feel like I don't need to editorialize too much about this because I'm sure everyone listening to this feels like, feels as we do. But like all I will say is I would really just encourage everyone not to lower yourselves to start arguing over like split second freeze frames of this video. We all saw what happened.
Starting point is 00:17:48 We all know what it is. And there is nobody on the planet, least of all the person you're arguing with, who genuinely believes that ICE agent. was afraid for their lives. Okay? No, like, this is a demonstration of power. The fact, and every video that they keep releasing to, like, be like, oh, this, well, case closed,
Starting point is 00:18:06 he's exonerated is the one where he calls her a fucking bitch after he blew her head off. That doesn't sound to me like a guy was very much in fear of their life, you know? And, like, you bring up the George Floyd protests, and I remember with that, like, it took the right a certain amount of time to congeal on a narrative that, like, oh, he was on fentanyl,
Starting point is 00:18:24 and that's why he died. Whereas, with, with, this killing, it's so appalling that, like, it seems like their initial reaction was to say, she's a deranged terrorist who tried to kill this guy with her car. How, like, just in terms of how you're observing it, like, how do you think that line is going over? And, like, I, I, I, they, they settled on that early, but it's beginning to break up pretty quickly. Because, I don't, I'm like, everybody saw the video. We all, like, there's nothing to, there's nothing to it's pretty hard to deny. It's very difficult to deny. I think, even the most conservative people I know,
Starting point is 00:18:56 personally have taken issue with the DHS narrative of what happened last Wednesday, right? They were so quick to respond. They, I mean, within hours, they had their own statement, like you said, well, declaring her a domestic terrorist. An investigation hadn't even happened. The car was still on the street when Christy Noam came out and, forgive me, I forget her name, the press secretary for D.OCHL McLaughlin. Yeah, McLaughlin, yeah, when they came out with their narrative. The car was still on the street.
Starting point is 00:19:34 There was still blood on the airbag when they said that this is exactly what happened. So, I mean, any rational thinking person will know that no investigation had happened, whereas the evidence, they were fighting over whose investigation it was because the FBI was there, MPD was there, ICE was there. So there was this huge argument over jurisdiction, which is an ongoing argument. Attorney General Keith Ellison put out a statement a couple days ago saying that they were going to do their own investigation after the FBI said that this was their jurisdiction. I'm trying not to make too many jokes, but it really feels like an episode of the wire, like where they're like, no, this is our jurisdiction. Like, it's so weird.
Starting point is 00:20:22 But getting back to my original point, DHS was so quick to put out their own narrative. And then we see all of these videos from all of these different angles, seeing exactly what happened. It falls apart pretty quick. And even, again, the most conservative people I know are like, calling bullshit on that. I've noticed just, like, over the weekend to, like, this morning,
Starting point is 00:20:44 it seemed like there was, there was some, at some point, like, all the people who, like, spent days being, like, case closed, this is a direct. ranged terrorist. The officer acted totally appropriately. He was he was afraid for his life. Now they seem to be coming around to like, Donald Trump was asked today, do you think the use of deadly force was justified in this, in this shooting? And his response was, she was very disrespectful. And law enforcement officers shouldn't have to quote put up with that. And it's like, they're just saying that like, if you make fun of one of these bozos, if you laugh at them,
Starting point is 00:21:17 if you don't show them the proper respect for their like fake-ass job. that nobody wants them to do and no one fucking cares about other than like a deranged minority of basically socially maladroit Cretans that you deserve to die. But like contained in that like rather nasty rhetorical shift
Starting point is 00:21:35 is an acknowledgement that they're like, well, you know, it's a difficult situation. You know, like Donald Trump tried to show the video to be like, he was run over with a car and then they were like, Mr. President, the video doesn't show that. He goes, I don't even like looking at it.
Starting point is 00:21:48 And the fact that they're trotting out J.D. Vant to take complete ownership of this killing spree should tell you on some level that they know what a fucking loser this issue is for them. That's what I was going to say is that just the fact that they've given JD the Kamala role of borders are. Of delivering an explanation
Starting point is 00:22:08 that is like self-contradictory just within a single one. His first one was like, listen, it's a tragedy that this stupid bitch was rightfully executed. And you could tell that he was like for the first time nervous on his own footing and maybe for
Starting point is 00:22:24 the first time ever in this administration suspecting that he had been given the Kamala border job when he made I think what I think is the most disgraceful and lowest post ever made on X, the everything app where after he made his like
Starting point is 00:22:40 one death is a tragedy a million is his statistic speech he posted like a quote tweet about like some ice cream bullshit an added R-FK. Is this going to be in the food pyramid?
Starting point is 00:22:54 Which is like any time throughout, we've been on Twitter for like 13 years. Every time that there's something where it's like, hey, this guy came to a tweet up and there were mirrors on his shoes and he went into the women's bathroom. Any kind of weird about a guy, like something's about
Starting point is 00:23:10 to come out. They're just like, any good movies out lately? They're just, yeah, yeah. What's the favorite ice cream? It's like, I know you're, your mentions are on fire right now. JD just like, you know, oh my God,
Starting point is 00:23:24 did I waste my life for the first time ever I've picked the wrong father figure, et cetera, et cetera. How do I like, how do I like send everyone off the scent of my panic? And he's like, why is it ice cream in the food group? That's a great,
Starting point is 00:23:39 you fucking fat crack baby. You know, on the on the JD thing, there's a large Somali population in Ohio too. So, I mean, it gets to a point where you, I mean, who knows about Somali people? Like, I can't get over this. Like, who knows about Somali people? Like Will said earlier, the most, the biggest thing we're known for is Black Hawk Down. And that's about it.
Starting point is 00:24:05 That's like our cultural touchstone. Like, I haven't had Omar, but, you know. And there are so many wonderful, memorable Somali characters in that movie. as well. There's taking 6-9 out of the Twin Cities. That was a big one. You mentioned how people in Chicago didn't know where
Starting point is 00:24:26 I just want to defend people from my hometown for a little bit. In Chicago's schools, public and private, we're still using maps from antiquity where the world just falls off a cliff after about Pullman. You know,
Starting point is 00:24:42 as a long-time listener, Felix, I know you're from Chicago, So I had to drop that tidbit in there. I was like, look, I know my people. So I need to be recognized as like, Chicago's my hometown. So that's where I got my education from. So I have to defend us too.
Starting point is 00:25:01 But I forget. One more Somali cinematic cutstone is the film Captain Phillips in the line. I'm the captain now. Yes, Tom Hanks. Oh, my God. You know what? My friends are going to be so mad that that.
Starting point is 00:25:16 came up. How dare you you sell out. I just want to get back to like, you know, like our chubby vice president and the various reactions to this killing. And like, I think there's something like very important to keep in mind about like the video we saw. And then like, so the subsequent video there was released. That was a video that was recorded by the officer himself as he was killing this woman. Now, people have been following this case will know that, like, apparently there was no body cam footage of any of this happening.
Starting point is 00:25:56 However, there was footage of the officer himself holding a cell phone and recording while he was supposedly doing a traffic stop. Now, many people have pointed out, like, this is not exactly a protocol for law enforcement to have one hand occupied with your fucking phone while you could be potentially in a life or death situation, as they would describe it. I'm not saying he was in a life or death situation. But people have pointed out that this may be the result of basically an official order by ICE for their agents to produce content that they can make go viral. Well, congratulations. I guess they've been successful in that regard. But there's one other thing that I think is very important to remember about the circumstances of this killing. And now I'm going to read, this is a news article from the year 2014, okay?
Starting point is 00:26:43 2014. The Los Angeles Times obtained an internal review of U.S. Border Patrol's use of force policy. which U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to release publicly. Members of Congress have seen a summary. While the Times did not offer the report in full, the paper did publish previously unseen snippets that portray a law enforcement agency operating under loose use of force standards and little accountability. Here are some of the key findings of the review released by the Times Thursday.
Starting point is 00:27:08 Border Patrol agents have intentionally and unnecessarily stepped in front of moving cars to justify using deadly force against vehicle occupants. This is something that was clear to me from the moment that this happened, is that, like, if you are in a car near any of these deranged thugs, that is all the excuse that they need to kill you. And the idea that, like, oh, she turned the wheel toward him and was menacing him by doing a K-turn. These guys are professionals at putting themselves in a situation
Starting point is 00:27:42 that could conceivably, in a barest legal sense, justify them killing the person who they're there to intimidate and terrorize. And that's exactly what they've done. You'll notice the very conflicting vocal commands being given to drivers of either Renee Good or any of these other
Starting point is 00:28:00 traffic stops. Keep your hands out of the window. Step out of the car. Move the car. Get out of the car. They create and then like stepping in front of a car as it very slowly turns. Oops, I fear for my life. Time to dump three bullets in the head of a fucking woman like in the middle, you know, just
Starting point is 00:28:15 for no reason. And like, we all know that's what's happening here. And like the people celebrating it know it too. And what they see here is a celebration of like a projection of their authority. And the idea that if that authority is belittled, then you must die. You must be executed. I mean, I'm reminded of, uh, I was reminded of two things, uh, the first day after this. Uh, one is the Daniel Schaver shooting that really fucking horrifying video from Texas from about, eight or nine years ago of that guy just getting just executed while crawling on the ground.
Starting point is 00:28:52 And the thing that reminded me of that is the contradictory command specifically. Because that was the big thing with the Shaver shooting was that he could not, there was no way for Shaver to follow the commands of his murderer in such a way that would avoid his execution or
Starting point is 00:29:09 could possibly, there was no way for him to possibly follow all of them. It was the, the same thing. Get up, get down, hands up, hands down. But it also reminded me of the Sean Bell shooting from now about 21 years ago where the big thing with that is, it is kind of like, there's a reason that in, at least in the written guidelines for you know, probably most major city police departments and
Starting point is 00:29:35 federal law enforcement, you don't shoot someone in a moving car because then you have like a fucking 10,000 pound battering ram, potentially just careening all over the place with no means of stopping it. Yeah. You know, with the conflicting commands thing, it always pops up into my head. Like, their rhetoric, the Trump administration's rhetoric is always like this fog of war, whenever they're called to account for anything, right? Especially like what happened, I think it was last week, right, in Venezuela.
Starting point is 00:30:06 And whenever people in the media were asking them detailed and specific questions about exactly what happened, they kept talking about this. concept of like the fog of war, right? The confusion. That's the fog of war, you know. We don't have all the answers. Everything that America is doing abroad overseas, they're bringing, it's coming home to Roos. They're doing it here, right? Like they, they want this chaos. They want this confusion so that they can't be held to account so that when it comes to the time to find the facts to gather information, there's so much conflicting stuff. There's so much conflicting stuff. There's so much chaos that it's hard to make sense of what's going on. And that's what they want, which is,
Starting point is 00:30:50 which is, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, I'm sorry, I say that all the time, but I have to stop saying that. I mean, what, what are we going to do? We're going to have to be as clear as possible. We're going to have to be as communicative as possible, communicate as possible exactly what's going on on the ground. So that we don't let them have that, so that we don't let them create this chaos so that we that so that they can't hide behind this fog of war as they say i think that's a great point though that this um sort of an ethos of confusion it's something that's been brought up a lot with the management of the american empire that it differs from all other globe spanning empires in human history because instead of um managing our our properties
Starting point is 00:31:35 and outposts through order obtained, either through brutality or paying people off. The goal of the empire, at least since the middle-to-ladder Cold War, seems to be creating conditions in areas that are not under our direct control to make them be as chaotic as possible. Syria being a great example, but tons of other places. Sometimes we do it through our proxies, the Saudi Wahhabization program of the 7th. through the 90s is a great example of this, creating what John Dolan termed an emir for every block system, where there is maximum division, chaos, and confusion.
Starting point is 00:32:17 And it's under those circumstances, you don't have the legal or the public-facing obligation of having some colonial viceroy like Paul Bremer, but you can still loot and harvest proxy soul. soldiers who don't even know that they're fighting for your goals. You could do all types of these things. And now, I mean, I think it has been home for a little while. There are some places in America that seem to be under the same regime of controlled chaos.
Starting point is 00:32:51 But this Trump two thing differs in that it's just, it's, everything is like that. Everything is, there's a maximum amount of confusion and distrust and paranoia to engender the maximum, the maximum, the maximum, amount of passivity people. Right. And to your point, I mean, even ice agents, right? Sometimes they're uniform, sometimes they're playing clothes, right? The reason why they do that is so that when I'm walking down
Starting point is 00:33:16 the street, I'm looking at a guy who might not have any swag, right? He wearing a baseball cap to the cat in shorts or something. I'm like, if that an ice agent? Is that a Fed? But it could be just a guy. You know, so they want us to be as confused as possible so that we're suspicious of each other.
Starting point is 00:33:35 so that we don't have clarity of the situation. And we really, really, I mean, I think that is like one of the main things that we have to focus on is getting the facts straight. These are no, you know, the leaders of this country right now, the Trump administration, they're not, they're not organized, they're not recording things. We have to be the ones who are keeping the record of history so that they can't deny it when it comes time, hopefully, to hold them to account. Well, you bring up like speaking with clarity about what's happening, right? How would you rate the city and state officials of Minnesota, beginning with Mayor Fry in Minneapolis, up to Governor Tim Walts? How would you rate the way that they have spoken about and responded to this campaign of terror in their own state? Right.
Starting point is 00:34:25 They're saying a lot of the right things. I was listening to NPR this morning. they had Mirrify on. He seemed alarmed. I'm not going to lie. He sounded like he was in a bunker, which is very scary. I mean, he was on like some landline.
Starting point is 00:34:41 The feedback was crazy. I was like, if he's in a bunker, what am I doing? But that's my allegation, allegedly. Well, he did use the F word. He did say the F word in a person. They're saying, yes, they're saying a lot of the right things. They're standing up.
Starting point is 00:34:58 But in reality, I mean, that's grandstanding if there's no action behind it. I could not imagine being the governor of a state watching federal troops come into my state and occupy the streets of the two major cities, including the capital, right? St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota and just not do anything. The only time Walls mentioned sending out the National Guard was in case the protests got too crazy. So they can say all the right things. They can go on CNN.
Starting point is 00:35:35 They can write for a mayor five wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. But if there's no action behind it, then I'm pissed. People are pissed. I mean, last week after Renee Good was murdered, ICE agents went into Hennepin County Medical Center, which is a hospital in Minneapolis, and started. harassing the staff and employees there. Mayor Fry could have told the police chief Brian O'Hara to trespass them, to get them the hell out of the hospital. They didn't do that, right? So it is so bewildering to see what's happening here and see that our elected officials are not doing anything. Christy Nome announced today that they're sending a thousand more Customs and Border Patrol to the state of
Starting point is 00:36:28 Minnesota. Why? And Tim Walls and Mayor Fry are standing around twiddling their thumbs, going on NPR, going on CNN? I mean, something has to happen here. People on the neighborhood level are standing together, trying to record, trying to stay and get in the way of ice, trying to make sure that they're not abducting people, abducting their neighbors. And it gets to a point where regular everyday people are up against the federal government and the state is not doing anything about it. Yeah. And like, I know like, I know like, I mean, like, well, I mean, they can always, you know, try out the supremacy clause. But like, there are many law enforcement agents, you know, under the badge and flag of the state of Minnesota in addition to the, you know,
Starting point is 00:37:15 flag of the United States of America. You'd think a governor or mayor could, you know, instruct them to protect the people of their own state against these, you know, occupiers essentially. But I'm sure they there is a litany of excuses for why they can't do that or why they can't arrest these murderers and fucking, just these thugs and like who are there to, I'm sorry, terrorize most directly, anyone who even looks to be not white or perhaps is undocumented. But like, make no mistake. They're there to terrorize and kill everyone. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:50 Everyone. And so like, okay, so then the responsibility for that falls to just, just citizens. People like Renee Good. People who are there who like, I'm sorry. And people are saying like, oh, she has no right to interfere with a federal law enforcement agencies. Well, that may be a crime, but like it's your duty if you have fucking souls a person to do something to interfere with the fucking macad, you know, with the operations of this like racial purification Gestapo who are murdering people in your fucking neighborhood.
Starting point is 00:38:21 Everything that we know is Americans, everything that we're taught from a very young age, is that America is a land of like these, we went up against the British, the British Empire, right? Like the American Revolution. I know that all of this is like so valorized. It's so whitewashed. But we're taught like, hey, no tyranny. Don't tread on me. And then we try to do that. When we try to stand up to these federal government forces that are impeding on our inalienable rights, then we're told, hey, you're not letting us do our job. You deserve to die. You deserve to be murdered.
Starting point is 00:39:00 You deserve to be abducted off the street and sent to God knows where. I mean, it is so crazy to me. For me, we didn't even get to, like, arresting and charging this ICE agent, right? Because we're so focused on the rest of ICE brutalizing and terrorizing the people of the Twin Cities. We can't even, like, make our demands. because we're so busy trying to not get abducted. See how we get in this precarious situation? I'm glad you brought it back to that because like that to me would be like the test case here.
Starting point is 00:39:36 This fucking officer needs to be charged and prosecuted for murder in the state of Minnesota. And if that doesn't happen, then that's a pretty good indication. I know J.D. Vance has already announced that like he has absolute total immunity. I'm saying, at least charge him. Get him in a courtroom, even if it doesn't work. do something to fucking take away the freedom of this fucking murderer who is one like I said like the the reason that this guy has a job is to put himself in situations where he can conceivably kill someone and then claim qualified immunity I feared for my life that is who these people are
Starting point is 00:40:10 and quite frankly we've heard a lot about like how poorly trained these ice guys are he was a 10 year veteran of ice and a fucking Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran before that his training is what allows him to do shit like this. That's what they're trained to do. I prefer if they had less training, to be honest. Yeah. And I mean, like, of course, we have to talk about this in context of 2020, right? Derek Chauvin was charged, I think George Floyd was murdered on May 25th, 2020. And Attorney General Keith Ellison was able to bring charges against Derek Chauvin. I believe it was like June 3rd or something. Correct me if I'm wrong. But it took a couple of days, right?
Starting point is 00:40:53 There was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of, it was wild over here. I mean, this time compared to last time, we are being very measured and level-headed. And there's not as many, the uprising is not as, I guess we're not, like, people are not destroying buildings like we did in 2020, right? We're trying to tell the line. George Floyd was killed less, like about a mile away from René Friedman's murder. Yes, less than a mile away, yes. And so like last time in 2020, the uprising was so chaotic.
Starting point is 00:41:28 A lot of property was damaged. People were mad. People were angry. There had been a series of police killings because of Minneapolis Police Department. And this was like just like the eruption. George Floyd's murder was just like, we can't take it anymore. And we were still like the city's demands were met when Derek Chauvin was arrested when he was charged. now he's in prison, right?
Starting point is 00:41:52 That's what we were demanding then. That's what we're demanding now. We're taking a much more measured way of protesting because we're being put in this precarious position where it's like if we do start uprising to the level that we did in 2020, then we deserve whatever happens to us, right? Like we deserve to be mowed down.
Starting point is 00:42:12 We deserve to be killed by ice, right? We deserve to be abducted. We deserve to be sent away to Sika or wherever else. Sure, the transfer of another thousand DHS law enforcement officers to Minnesota, I'm sure, like, to a large degree, they are hoping that something like that happens to justify even further violence and crackdown on civil liberties and right. Just like further opportunity to kill more people that they regard as traders or others or some evil in some way. Right. But then if we're being peaceful, we're still, roll over. They still get what they want regardless.
Starting point is 00:42:44 Exactly. We're being peaceful. And we're still getting, you know, railroad. by ice. We're getting completely brutalized by these forces and we're expected to not make demands. We're expected to just be like, oh, it's fine if you don't arrest and charge
Starting point is 00:43:00 to this guy. As long as you guys don't kill us, what kind of a situation is that to be in? They're putting us in a very, they're putting us in, they're cornering us, basically. They're cornering us. It's like, hey, you guys are being peaceful. We're still sending the forces in. We're still going to brutalize and terrorize you and you better not retaliate.
Starting point is 00:43:19 The reaction of Frey and Waltz has been interesting because, yeah, Frey brought out the F word, even though I don't think he should call it the vice president that. You know, it's definitely like up. It's bringing up the IPBM. But a friend of the show, Rocky, Vipoy, from critically acclaimed stream, Camano Friend Zone,
Starting point is 00:43:43 said that Tim Walts reminds him of an authority figure in Beavis and Buthead, who would be way late. But he would not know how to deal with them. He would not, he would have no idea. And with both of them, it seems like the only thing they want is just to, like, get them out, not deal with this anymore. And it really, it really makes me pessimistic about, you know, when and if the next time Democrats turn power.
Starting point is 00:44:11 Because the charging this guy is not an insane position. any country that had halfway functioning institutions or even just a cynical interest in keeping this thing going would do that and if you do like if you don't if all your only move is just to like use the F word you might not believe in constitutional crisis but you're fucking in one yeah this here whether you want it to be or not
Starting point is 00:44:37 and you either rise to the occasion or you drown in it yeah I mean they use the constitution a lot lot, right? They're like, oh, it's your rights. You have a, is it third or fourth amendment? Where you don't have to let these soldiers or these. Ah, the off, off the forgotten third amendment. No ordering of soldiers in your property. Yeah, yeah, you don't have to house federal agents. Well, okay. Well, what if they just don't care? We see they don't care, right? We see them not caring. We see them not adhering to the Constitution. So, I mean, I'm of the belief right now from everything that I'm seeing that the Constitution is gone. It's up in flames. We don't have the rights that the
Starting point is 00:45:20 Constitution promised us. We don't have any elected officials who are trying to even uphold these rights, right? So, I mean, I'm operating with the lens that the America that we once knew or were lied to about is gone. That's gone. That's out the window. They're going door to door. they're breaking people's car windows to drag them out, cutting their seatbelts. I mean, what am I supposed to believe? I'm operating under the assumption that at any moment, regardless of if I have my passport with me or not, as a, this is my birthright as an American citizen to be here, that they can arrest me, detain me, abduct me, and send me wherever the hell they want.
Starting point is 00:46:06 And I think everybody should seriously know that, all of us. It's not just people who are here illegally. It's everybody. Yeah. Like a little bit earlier you talked about how like everything America does in foreign policy over the course of our lifetimes seems now to be being applied directly to the United States of America. And like long ago in this show, I described like what is the MAGA movement about? And they're seemingly, in like their turn against what they were like nation building or, you know, interventions in foreign countries.
Starting point is 00:46:38 Obviously they're not really against all of that as, as, as, as. evidence by the last week or so. But the point I made is that like the Republican voting base has soured on wars of foreign entanglements or like the neo, what was essentially the neo-conservative vision. I mean, they're still basically doing the same things, but like some slight tweaks. But the point being is that like they, they were no longer psychically satisfied by kicking the shit out of a country like Iraq or Afghanistan and killing people over there. Because it didn't end up the way they wanted it to. And it was like a big fucking embarrassing for everyone involved. what they want
Starting point is 00:47:11 and immigration is like the wedge at which like this finds this expression is they want to wage a war on this country they were like why should we have troops overseas when our real enemies are our neighbors are just people who live down the street from me people people who work at Target high school students
Starting point is 00:47:29 you know a mother in her fucking car they want the war on America and like to me that sums up what MAGA is and we're seeing it right now This is a, this is what they want. Anyone who opposes them, like, they, they think, like, this, this is how they will gain the respect that they lack in their own lives. And I don't know, like, as some bomb to the self-loathing that they must feel constantly.
Starting point is 00:47:52 That's why, like, blow women's head off. Fucking. And remember, like, I mean, Somali people are here because of a, it was because of the civil war that was happening among Somali people, but American intervention aggravated that. And it caused a lot of influx of Somali, to come to America, right? So we're here partially because of American interventionist policies. So they ruin our country, right? They ruin Somalia with their interventionist, with their interventionism. And they continue to do so. Trump boasted about drone strikes in
Starting point is 00:48:27 Somalia. Obama did the same thing. I'm not sure about Brandon, but, you know, probably, right? And then we come here, my parents and their generation have their children here, buy homes here, have businesses here. I'm an American. I was born here. And then all of a sudden, like, the guns turn on us on American soil. So what are we supposed to do? I mean, we're supposed to just, okay, go back to Somalia so that they can turn guns on us over there? Well, like, you mentioned like your parents came here because of, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:03 the desperate conditions in the country that they were born in. I'm sure they probably would have liked to stay here. But they came to this country, became citizens, and like you said, had a family, started a business, are members of the community. That is what makes Somalians a target for people like ICE and the Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance and the Trump administration. It's not that like you're like some sort of refusal to assimilate. or that you're so violently anti-American.
Starting point is 00:49:30 No, it's because you have families, businesses, and are part of the community, and are probably more family and community-minded than any average white person in this country. And that's equally true of Latinos as well. It is precisely because immigrants are part of America, have businesses, part of the community, and basically are just a success story.
Starting point is 00:49:49 That is the threat to these people. That is what they seek to attack. That is, I think, like, the point of this occupation of this country. That's why they have to talk about, immigration in terms of invasion. Right. And I mean like also like Islam right with the religion of Islam goes against a lot of like capitalistic tendencies right like interest rates like if somebody gives you a loan you're not supposed to charge interest right. That's like moral. Yeah. Completely anti-capitalist right. No gambling. You're not supposed to be gambling. Everything is gambling now.
Starting point is 00:50:21 The whole fucking economy now. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is casino. So a lot of like our inherent values, values, cultural values are anti-capitalists, and they don't like it. They don't like it. They don't like us because we don't adhere to these capitalistic values. But what you do adhere to is everyday normal traditional American values, as most people understand them, which is like, you know, go to work, raise your family, just, you know, hang out, have games on, games on, you know. Yeah, like, I mean, I grew up watching the WWE, which is like the most American thing ever. So I think, come on now.
Starting point is 00:51:01 You bet I got something to say. You check it out. Ooh, the most beautiful body in professional wrestling. And I got something to talk about. Another example, I want to mention to this, like, I guess, like Imperial Boomeran. Is it like also on video, on audio after the killing are these fucking, like I said, these feral cretans denying medical care to the woman they just blew whose head they just blew up. There was a doctor who was like trying to intervene being like, I'm a medical and they were just like, relax, stand away.
Starting point is 00:51:31 Denying an ambulance. There was no medical like EMS people on scene at all. Where have I heard that before? From now on, I'm calling it the Midwest Bank. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, of course, everything goes back to 2020. But not only was Derek Chauvin charged, the officers that were standing around not doing anything, they were charged too for aiding and abetting.
Starting point is 00:51:53 So whoever was on the scene there, I see. that we're on the scene just waiting around turning the doctor away, they're culpable too. I mean, we're not just calling for the charging and arresting of Jonathan Ross. We're calling for all of those people who were standing around him and not allowing medical aid for this woman
Starting point is 00:52:15 to be charged as well. And like if you, as I've seen people desperately try to do, craft some argument by which be like, hmm, I know this looks bad, but like police involves shootings, It's often like maybe morally wrong, but like legally okay, or it's hard to say. With second reactions, it's an unfortunate situation. Both parties behaved in a way that exacerbated the situation, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:52:38 If this were just a normal, what, like, you know, what would be advertised as like, you know, a regrettable. Well, first of all, for it to be regrettable, any of the people talking about it would have to act like it's regrettable at all. And then what these assholes did was immediately celebrated instantly and say the bitch got which what was coming to her. But that being said, like, at every moment of like what should be normal law enforcement protocol involving a shooting or any event leaving up to what could be a come a shooting was abrogated in the most flagrant ways. The most flagrant ways. Like the fact that this guy escalated the situation that he stepped in front of her fucking car, that he shot her when she was behind the wheel of a car. And then that like after the shooting happened, there was like absolutely like that no attempt to maintain any forensic evidence. The crime scene was fucking trampled.
Starting point is 00:53:21 denial of medical care to the person who was shot. They did not act in any way like this was anything other than a murder they were trying to cover up, which is what it was. Right. And we have precedent. We have, I mean, a similar situation happened. It was MPD. It wasn't a federal agent, but we know that police shootings or these, you know,
Starting point is 00:53:44 murders at the hands of law enforcement, there's a legal action that we can take here. And I don't, I, I am so bewildered as to why this legal action isn't happening. I mean, this woman was murdered last Wednesday. Today's Monday. What are we waiting for here? What are we doing here? What's going on? I mean, I am just, I'm trying so hard not to be screaming at the top of my lungs right now.
Starting point is 00:54:11 I'm trying so hard not to be, like, just pissed off and trying to come across as a rational person. you get to a point where you're like, what the fuck is going on? Sorry. No, I'm with you, but like one more piece of evidence for the Midwest Bank theory is I did see news reports today in which protesters are bringing their children to these protests. In the news report, in the news report, law enforcement described the children as, quote, human shields. Yeah. Need I say more? And see, that's what I'm talking about when I say what America does abroad or what it, what it, what it,
Starting point is 00:54:49 funds and bank rolls abroad, we just watched three years of the genocide in Gaza. That is still ongoing where they use the exact same rhetoric. They're using their children as human shields. Anything that they say and do abroad, they bring it back home to use against us. It's crazy. I'm reminded of Hillary Clinton calling Haiti the petri dish of the life. Oh, yeah. It is always a test to see not only what works, but what people will accept. Going back to what you, going back to what you said about like wanting to wanting to come out this measured and level
Starting point is 00:55:25 headed but just feeling like a white hot rage not only at the events but the lack of any attempt to make them pay for it on the parts of an opposition party. It just I'm reminded of this
Starting point is 00:55:41 argument that I kept having with a regular Democrat friend that I've talked about where it just we kept going back to the same thing. which is it doesn't fucking matter if the next president is a Democrat
Starting point is 00:55:55 or if Kamala had won this one if no one fucking goes to prison. If no one's afraid of the consequences if they do this shit again. Even if you are the most cynical like, you know, all I want out of this project is to build more
Starting point is 00:56:11 fucking condos, whatever the fuck. There's no way, there's no route back to that that doesn't run through some, a few federal trials, a few fucking dozen of them at this point. The only conclusion that I can come to as to why the Democrats are not doing anything about this is that they want to do it. Right?
Starting point is 00:56:31 Like, once they get the reins of power, they... I got a lot of trouble for saying that not too long ago. But like, I mean, it's indicated once again. I mean, like, it's a one-party state, essentially. And there's a left and right wing of one party. But essentially, they're on the same team. you know, and the fact that like they're, I don't know, seeming reticence to
Starting point is 00:56:52 prosecute anyone or just put these fuckers in jail, take away their money in power. Because like, if you don't, this shit's going to keep happening. And the answer is like, they're okay if it keeps. I mean, look at, look at all the Democrats who up until like a month ago where it's like voting for symbolic resolutions to like
Starting point is 00:57:08 thank ICE for their bravery. Or the ones now who are just being like, they need better training. Get rid of them. Prosecute every one of these assholes. I know. There were. You know, last year, when the ICE question was part of the, sorry, not last year, when was that, 2024, right? Time is so finicky.
Starting point is 00:57:29 The ICE question was part of the election, right? We were asking these elected officials, well, what are you going to do about ICE? And the Democrats were saying, well, abolishing ICE, we're not for that. We don't want to abolish ICE. What conclusions can we come to from them saying that? It's that they want to use ICE for their own. purposes, right? They want their own federal
Starting point is 00:57:52 agents to do whatever they want with, right? But I'm also sure that knowing the Democrats, even if they had ICE within their own control, they would not be using it to this level. If it was a Democrat
Starting point is 00:58:08 and I wanted to have ICE, but under my purview, fine. Do it, but fucking zip tie and deport Elon Musk and Peter 2. Do deranged evil, illegal immigrants who hate this country, our history, our constitution, and are currently looting it for parts and turning it into the fucking third right. Exactly. Yeah, they're just so ineffective. What was that onion headline? Oh, Democrats walk back on the brink of courage. I've butchered it.
Starting point is 00:58:37 I butchered it. But it was during the government shutdown where they just didn't do anything then either. I mean, everything that we've seen happen for the last year or so. where it was time for the Democrats to step up, have some courage, have some bravery. They've done nothing. And I'm not surprised. I'm not shocked at all. Just one thing I want to get back to you. I mean, you talked, we've talked a lot about, like, you know, like the parallels between this and George Floyd, both from the, it's geographic, you know, distance and proximity. But like, once again, it comes back to, like, why Minnesota, why Minneapolis? And you mentioned that, like, Derek Chauvin was eventually charged, prosecuted
Starting point is 00:59:18 and convicted, along with several of the other officers. There were obviously uprisings, riots, whatever you want to call it. There was property damage. And like, obviously, since 2020, every time I hear Minneapolis described in the media, it's described like it's like still on fire or that like it's like fucking bad max or something. But like, you think that like once again, there is sort of a symbolic as much as practical reason for why like as sort of Minneapolis being like the revenge because someone like Derek Chauvin was convicted and that like people did rise up and like, you know,
Starting point is 00:59:50 were fed up with being killed by the police. They, you know, burn some property. Everyone freaked out over it, but like, oh, those officers were charged. Do you think like what I mean like Minneapolis both as a site of like, you know, a visible and much demonized immigrant community as much as like a symbolic national platform for revenge against any kind of accountability or public or like, you know, democratic dissent against like law enforcement and the agents of, you know, the state. Right.
Starting point is 01:00:20 Minneapolis and Minnesota in general has been a thorn in the side of the federal government for like at least 100 years. In 1934, there was like a horrible worker strike here in Minneapolis that was like super violent because workers were demanding better working conditions and we're trying to organize and unionize before workers had the right to unionize and organize. that led to FDR signing legislation that gave workers the right to unionize and organize, right? In the civil rights era, Minneapolis was also a huge, you know, zone, a hub of civil rights activism that helped lead to the, you know, civil rights wins of the 1960s.
Starting point is 01:01:07 We have like, Minnesota was the only state that didn't vote for Reagan during one of his elections, right? So we've been an annoying thorn in the side of the federal government for a very long time. And this is just a continuation of that. I love being, like, living here. I love Minneapolis, even though, like, Chicago was a very similar place to Minneapolis, but I love being from Minneapolis and living here because once we get set off, once you piss off the residents of Minneapolis, the whole world will know, right? Like we don't just go quietly.
Starting point is 01:01:44 We don't. If something happens here, we are in the streets. We're active. We make sure people know how pissed off we are. And it's very special that way. But then, of course, it leads to being in the crosshairs of the federal government. But that's not going to make us back down. If anything, I've seen people even more pissed off.
Starting point is 01:02:07 We were pissed off a week ago. Today, we are even more pissed off because we see. the federal government saying, oh, we'll send a thousand more agents. Okay, well, I'm not sure what the next week is going to look like, but I'm sure people are going to be in the streets organizing and making a very loud ruckus to make ourselves, make our position known. We're not going to just lay down and let them just bombard us and railroad us. We're not.
Starting point is 01:02:35 So that's a big part of the reason why we're so often in the news, why Minneapolis is so often in the news. I wish that the very talented, creative people, entrepreneurial people of the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota were spotlighted for their talents, for the good things. I mean, you know, it's very good to stand up for your rights. But for non-political reasons, I wish we were highlighted and spotlighted for what makes the Twin Cities so special on a human level. But when bad shit happens, when shit goes down, we're not going to just take it. I think that is a really good point to hit on. That besides the obvious reasons, maybe Minnesota is singled out in particular because it has some of the only remaining Americans who won't just be spit on and traded like pigs.
Starting point is 01:03:29 They will not, like Texans, happily freeze through the winter and sign a pledge pledging to never boycott Israel. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like, Minnesota is everything Texas fucking thinks they are. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:03:44 And like Texas, maybe it should become its own breakaway republic after. But one of the last things I want to bring up is like, you know, given the abuse and demonization of the Somali community in Minnesota, in the Midwest in particular, do you think Americans would be, I mean, like, I'm shocked at like, obviously the ignorance of the American people. But like, do you think people would be more welcoming or they would feel differently about Somalis if they knew that God literally promised Minnesota to the Somalian people and then it is the indigenous homeland of the Somali people that are now returning after long exodus.
Starting point is 01:04:23 Yes, I mean, look, Utah wasn't the only state that was promised to people. It's in the Bible, look it up. Yeah. You know, no, but like that's the very good thing about Somali people is that like we are very very humorous, like, people. I mean, we meet a lot of things that were faced with, with, like, humor and joking around and honestly trolling. I mean, I've spent, like, since 2009, like, trolling on Twitter.
Starting point is 01:04:53 So, like, this is what we do. This is our gig. I mean, I think you probably saw it, like, I saw it was, like, a Somali Uber driver arguing with ice agents at the Minneapolis airport. And you could tell that those ice agents just, like, were not ready for, like, being argued with that hard. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:09 I mean, all we do, I mean, like, if you, if you come to Minneapolis, which, by the way, please do, you will just see, like, at the coffee shop, like, a group of uncles every day just, like, sitting there, we're, like, politicking, like, arguing with each other about, like, political events and terror events and stuff. Not on their phones having their fucking brains melted by an iPad, actual community, which is horrifying and terror, which is an abomination to the rulers of this country. Right, right. Yeah. So all we do all day is argue amongst ourselves, right?
Starting point is 01:05:41 So like when somebody else injures the chat, right? Like the proverbial chat, like we're ready to go. We're ready to fire off. So, I mean, it's, so many people are very resilient. I was talking to somebody at the corner store today, actually, this morning when I went to get my red bull. And it's an East African man and Ethiopian man. And he brought it up.
Starting point is 01:06:05 Like, this is on the top of everybody's mind. basically occupying the Twin Cities, the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. And he was like, well, you know, I'll be fine. What are they going to do? Like, send me back to Africa. Like, I'll be fine. And that's like, you know,
Starting point is 01:06:23 somebody who's staring down the barrel of the federal government just basically being like, I'll be fine either way. That's the type of people we are. People who have literally packed up, left everything that they knew behind, everybody that they knew behind came to a country where they don't even speak the language and then they still you know own businesses own homes have families here learn the language right speak english very well once again i come back to that's exactly why when i see these ice agents
Starting point is 01:06:53 you know like you know like they're the eight chins peering out from underneath the ski mask waddling around slipping on ice uh the fact that most of these guys couldn't get a job as a fucking mall security guard that's why they hate immigrants so much because they have something. They work hard. They have skills. They're a member of the community. Unlike these unemployable adults who's like, you know, only way to feel good about themselves is to kill a woman. Right. Right. So we're strong. We're resilient. And that's the American spirit. You know, that's the, that's what people learned when they came here. And I'm sure they had that, of course, as as proud Somali people when they came here. But you're not going to break us down. They're,
Starting point is 01:07:32 they're not going to break us down. We'll be resilient and we'll fight back. Um, and And what happens will happen. I'm hoping for the best, but we'll still fight back the best that we can. I'm reminded of the time where I was at my job at Billy's on Grand, and I actually found a 10,000-year-old coin that had Somali script on it. Yeah, that's facts. God promised Minnesota to Somalian people. And like, look, you've been very generous in sharing it with like, you know, Norwegians and
Starting point is 01:08:03 Germans for as long as you have, you know, since the 90s. I will just, I'll end this episode. Meriam, I really want to thank you for your time and, you know, for sharing your experience with us. And please be safe. We're all rooting for you. But I just want to end the show by saying, Minneapolis has a right to exist and Minnesotans have a right to defend themselves, okay?
Starting point is 01:08:24 Anyone has a problem with that? You're anti-Somaliants. Anti-Somalianism. And I'm not going to stand for it. I had more rights as a non-Somalian in Ramsey County than I do in New York City. Well, thank you so much, guys, for having me. I'm a huge fan. So this is like a super surreal moment, but I'm so honored.
Starting point is 01:08:48 And thank you so much for like letting me speak my peace. Thank you. Well, yeah, I wish we could have talked to under slightly less grim circumstances. But as the occasion demands, you met it wonderfully, Merriam. So really, thank you so much for your time. Stay safe and keep fighting the good fight, okay? Thank you. All right.
Starting point is 01:09:06 Marion Muhammad, everyone. We're going to leave it there for today's show. Any business to conduct at the end, Chris? Yes. Our holiday sales on both of our books, the comic book and No Passeran, the second printing of Matt Christman's book, are still available.
Starting point is 01:09:21 I believe we are running our holiday sales through the end of this week, so this is your last opportunity to buy. The comic book Year Zero, Chapo Trap House Comics Anthology, plus No Pasaeran, Matt Crispin's Spanish Civil War. Links for that will be in the description,
Starting point is 01:09:35 and of course follow us on Instagram, Chapo Trap House Reel, on Blue Sky Chappo Trap House real, on Twitter, Chapo Trap House, and subscribe on patreon.com slash Chapo Trap House to get every episode. I think that's it, though.
Starting point is 01:09:51 All right, that does it for us today, everybody. Until next time, bye-bye. Bye.

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