Fourth Reich Archaeology - The Big Con(gress) 1

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

This week Don is back with another guest: Andrew Myslik - a former legislative aide to Representative Rashida Tlaib. Andrew joined Rashida’s Congressional staff at the very beginning of her career on the hill, spending several years in her office until leaving recently. This will be the first installment of yet another Fourth Reich Archaeology excavation into the workings of Congress, that Amerikan Reichstag. In this episode, we dig into the inner workings of Congress and begin to explore how the corruption machine works to ensure that the so-called “People’s House” is run for the benefit of corporate persons (who, since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, have all the rights of human beings) rather than us flesh-and-blood mortals. Since Congress is ultimately so monomaniacally geared towards the enrichment of war profiteers and the glorification of Israel and its genocidal exterminationist agenda, we also spend time exploring how and why that is. This is Andrew’s podcast debut, and we feel privileged to be the first pod to have him on to share his insights into the inner-workings of the legislative branch. If you can believe it, we’re even able to find a glimmer of hope in the morass, and we look forward to continuing the discussion with Andrew in future installments of this series. Patreon: www.patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeologyEmail: [e-mail]: @fourthreichpod

Colonialism or imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources. We found no evidence of conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission, the science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America.

America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to require information which showed that there were two wars going. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more easy victims of a big lie than a small one. For example, we're the CIA. Now, he has a mile. He knows so long this is to die, afraid to be never be secure.

It usually takes a national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? This is a day. I'm a national globe.

This is coming. This is Fort Reich. Archaeology. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. I'm Don. is off this week, immersing himself in the 1920s gangland Chicago milieu that gave rise to the subject of our next installment of the Warren Commission decided, of course I'm talking about Jacob Leon Rubinstein, better known as Jack Ruby, and in preparation for that deep dive into the

of one of the great enigmas of the Kennedy assassination lore, well, Dick has locked himself in a room and is watching on repeat Season 2, Episode 17, of Star Trek, the original series, namely, a piece of the action. This week will be joined by a very special guest, whom I'll introduce shortly, but before I do so, I would just like once more to thank you for tuning in, for liking, rating, reviewing, subscribing to, and otherwise sharing the pod because we are reliant on you, listener, to spread the word about this project, as it becomes more and

more clear that we are living in the Fourth Reich, it becomes all the more imperative to join forces with like-minded comrades to figure out how we just might dig our way out. You can always reach out to us at Fourth Reich Pod at gmail.com or contact us on Twitter and Instagram at Fourth Reich POD. And if you're feeling generous and would like to support the longevity of our project, please consider signing up on our Patreon. We are so grateful for our patrons. And we would like to give a word to the wise that if you are signing up for our Patreon,

to do so through the website and not through the adolph. if you're using an iPhone because I only recently learned this, but apparently sneaky little Tim Apple has his hand in Patreon creators' pockets if you sign up through the app on his little store. So don't give that to him. Getting back to today's episode, like I said, it is one that we've been excited about for a long time, because joining us today is a first-time guest on this or on any podcast. His name is Andrew Maislik, and he served as a legislative aid

to Congresswoman Rashida Talib for about seven years on Capitol Hill. This is the first in what will be a multi-part exploration with Andrew, and perhaps some other friends as well, into what we're calling the big con. That's right. The United States legislative branch consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the body charged with making law. and with allocating all of that money that Uncle Sam takes out of the pockets of us working people in the United States.

While we may meander a bit along the way, the principal goals of this series will be, one, to demystify the operation of Congress, because many people, probably, the majority of people have either no idea how Congress works or have an idea informed by media representations, which in turn, often, if not always, serve some broader propaganda agenda rather than an informative one. So that's what we'll be doing a lot of in this first installment to just understand the nuts and bolts of how a congressional office works, who's involved, what their roles are, and what the dynamics are like. Zooming out from that goal, this would not be Fourth Reich archaeology if there wasn't

some bigger picture goal of placing the operation of Congress in the context of the fourth. Reich. That big, beautiful, shiny white dome right there smack dab in the middle of Washington, D.C. is less a symbol of democracy and rule of for and by the people than it is an embodiment in physical form of the hypocrisy of American democracy, because while the members of Congress are presumably elected by the people to represent the people's interests, as we on the Fourth Reich archaeology are all too painfully aware, the order of the day is far more often to serve the interests of the worst of the worst, the owners of capital, the military industrial complex,

the Israel lobby, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, much less than a democracy, what we have is a spectacle of democracy, and a sorry one at that. And that brings me to the final goal of this series, which we don't get too deep into in this first installment, but will become a focus in future episodes, namely to bring to bear the experience of congressional insiders on the question of what is to be done. Does electoralism hold any promise for the future? Can the Democrat Party be taken over by a progressive wing, or must it be abandoned? And if so, how might people interested in bringing about that mass exodus from the Democrat Party pursue that end?

All these questions and much, much more awaits you the listener here on Fourth Reich Archaeology. So without any further ado, let's get digging. All right for Africa As time they go Things just day bad They bad more and more Poor man they cry Rich man they mess

Democracy Crazy Democrisie Demonstration of Greece Crazy demonstration All right Well we are thrilled To be joined by Andrew Mislick who brings a load of relevant Fourth Reich expertise garnered right there in the halls of the Great Dome,

the what we're calling the Big Khan. That's right, the United States Congress. Andrew, welcome to Fourth Reich Archaeology, and thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Don. It's great to be here. Andrew, before we jump into it, I think it would behoove our listeners if you could give just a little bit of an introduction on your background, where you're coming from, sort of

what you have done in the Congress. Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do so. I'm from a small town in Connecticut, but never really expected or wanted to get it. into this line of work for sure. I for many years worked as a line cook and in construction and ended up going to school in Washington to George Washington University. It's in the city of D.C. And to study international affairs, a bit of a nerd. And while I was there, I ended up interning for Rep to Leave. I started on her second day. So it was one of the first staffers for her there

in D.C. and it just kind of snowballed from there, as it would be. So over the last, until this past September, I was a policy advisor for the congresswoman, covered a whole number of issues, but most prominent to a lot of our minds lately being Palestine and the genocide, as well as forward affairs and national security more broadly, and then human rights and civil rights and civil liberties as well. So happy to be here and looking forward to chat more with you guys. Yeah, I mean, it's not every day that you get to peek behind the curtain of the Congress. And, you know, I think it's something that most of our listeners, probably, and definitely most Americans, really have no idea.

how the Congress works, right? I mean, I think you have a few examples from television. You've got your West Wing, more focused in the White House. You've got maybe Veep. What do you think? Well, I have seen West Wing and I could say maybe that's the way it once was, but it certainly isn't today. That's a fantasy. It would be nice, but sadly no. I do hear. Veep is much more accurate. I have never actually seen it. I kind of have been forced to live under a dome-shaped rock for the past seven years or so focused there. So I haven't, I've missed quite a lot of TV as it would be. But that one I do here is somewhat, it captures the absurdity of it all. When my friends have asked me to describe it, I think the most accurate way would be imagine a middle school student government crossed with a retirement community. It's about as close as I can describe it, right? It's not as mature as a high school student government would be, really. I mean, votes can depend if a member got their Diet Coke or not,

and that will change their mood, and that might change the entire outcome of something, right? You never know. So it really is that ridiculous at times. So looking forward to pulling back the curtain on Oz with you guys. Yeah, I mean, I think we've talked about this. We're hoping that this will be ultimately a multi-part exploration. And, you know, together we will excavate more particularized areas of policy or of procedure with you about, you know, different things. I think, you know, we could, I'm sure, just talk. for hours upon hours about APEC and trying to oppose genocide from inside the legislative body that is actively committing it.

Yeah, exactly. And which is practically the property of the lobbying arm of the Israeli government, right? Absolutely. But before we do that, I think for this episode, what we'd really like to do is to walk through a little bit more of the practical background and just start right at the ground floor as we hear on Fourth Reich Archaeology are want to do with any subject matter and understand actually what the fuck is going on in there. So if you could, Andrew, I mean, what is a congressional office like? I think we vaguely could imagine it's the member at the top and then a bunch of underlings running around to serve the member in various capacities. But if you could unpack that for us a little bit, what is the structure? Yeah, absolutely. And it varies a little bit, you know, from every office.

office one to another. Imagine each of them as their own little businesses or entities occupying the same real estate. So they all are, right, like one thing that has been happening over the past few years is a movement to try to unionize political staff and congressional staff. And you have to unionize each individual office as its own individual bargaining unit. So that's one way that might help explain it. So the House and the Senate are quite different. Over in the Senate, I'm not sure the exact numbers on staff. Their budgets vary a bit based on the size of their state, right? So senators from Alaska, because the population is so much smaller, and they have a smaller population to serve, we're going to have a smaller budget in terms of

number of staff for casework and things like that compared to California, where they have to serve a much larger number of people. But those offices tend to have much larger staffs, I'd say 50, 60 plus at least. I could be off on that. I've never worked in the Senate. But you have quite large staffs that support the senators over there. And in the House, you're generally talking between 18 to 24 individuals, some of whom would have to be part-time.

And in both roles you have kind of, or in both sides, you have kind of similar structures. At the very top, of course, the member, you know, the rep or the senator. Then you have the chief of staff who's effectively the member's right hand. They are, you know, the executive of the office in terms of administration, as well as, you know, the last stop for any say before actually talking to the member themselves. Below that, the structure will vary. Some offices will have deputy chiefs of staff or, you know, you have this kind of next level, right, of managerial staffers generally. So you can have your deputy chief of staff, a district director, so someone that runs the operations for the member in their district offices.

members have an official office in Washington, D.C., and then they have, at minimum one, but typically more, offices throughout their districts. And so the district director would run those operations, and typically that individual also runs all the casework that offices do. If they actually do casework, good offices do, and some just, you know, are better than others. Maybe it's not a universal term. I mean, I vaguely understand what you mean by casework, but what do you mean by casework exactly? Oh, yeah, we could probably do a whole episode on what your member of Congress can, if they care, do for you. It's actually something my former boss, Rep to Leave, is really recognized for quietly. Not that they'd ever give her any credit publicly, but she genuinely has,

one of the best casework operations on the hill. And effectively, you can, if you really put your mind to it and put the effort and the time and the investment in, you can really advocate for your community in a whole myriad of ways. It can be anything, basically anything that touches a federal agency. So, Social Security, veterans issues. For Rep. Talib, I worked hand in hand. I covered veterans' issues in terms of policy, but then I also worked with her veterans' casework staffer as well, you know, to sort out all sorts of issues at the Detroit VA and with veterans around Michigan. So, you know, you can end up doing all sorts of crazy stuff. It's actually, casework was easily my favorite part of the job. But you can also, for example, when I was

an intern for, this actually happened like two or three times. We got a call, you know, You know, and the call would go like, you know, it was usually like a middle-aged older woman calling up, you know, hi, thank you so much for all you do. Right. Like very, you know, thankful. I know you, you all are really busy, but, you know, my daughter, she's on her own with her two kids and they got three feet of sewage in the basement. Or they, you know, it's December 20th in Detroit and they don't have a furnace. You can very easily use the office to advocate for people in those positions. if you care.

Not all members go that far. But, you know, those were situations where it was really rewarding to work for her office like Rashida's, where, you know, she really will pound the pavement for people like that. And, you know, we were able to, I mean, I think within, you know, two days you can get things like that sorted out or a day or two. You can go really hold some slumlords feet to the fire and get, you know, really help people in your community where they really need it. So casework can look like all sorts of things. You know, we've had an incident once where we, when I was a legislative correspondent, which is another role within the office we can chat about.

Effectively, they manage all of the intake of mail, whether it's email or calls or voicemails, right, that the member gets and help them, A, understand it all and then B, respond. But we, sometimes in there, you'll get, you'll get casework that comes through. we found one where there was an active duty soldier who was from our district who was threatening self-harm. And they were actually at a base in like, you know, I won't say the member, but one of the farthest right Republican districts, you know, in the U.S., and we were able to call them up and get them help immediately, right? So it can look like all sorts of things. It really goes all over the shop, lots of immigration stuff, lots of social security, passports, postal service issues,

you name it interesting definitely stuff that doesn't pop into my mind's eye at least when you think about what members of congress do but nevertheless and interesting and an important and potentially extremely important facet of the work and to bring it back to the structure so i think so far we've covered you've got your member at the top of the pyramid, then you've got kind of management of the office, which is the chief of staff, maybe there's somebody else, deputy chief of staff, something like that. You've got somebody that's running the district office. Yes. And let's pick it up there. What is kind of that next level down in the pyramid? Well, actually, to fill out that management level, we haven't,

we haven't finished. There's always more management in this world, although it's definitely necessary in these offices. You know, and that's something to mention, really, in terms of the House, they probably should have, at minimum, double the number of staff that they do, just in order to do the whole job that is being the representative for a district. And that's a really interesting episode. I'm certainly not the first person to call it out, but there is, this was a Newt Gingrich ploy, you know, under-resource the House, because that's the most representative

institution so they can do less effectively. It's a really insidious a little bit of how they've really undermined our ability, you know, as our reps in theory are our democratic voice, to get things done. And that doesn't mean necessarily passing bills. It can literally be doing that casework, right? Yeah, if it was just passing bills, Jesus, we'd be really in bad shape. Oh, my God, yeah, they don't pass anything. But as I was saying, to fill out that management level, you also have a communications director. I think that's fairly self-explanatory, as well as a legislative director who handles all the legislative activities of the member. And then oftentimes you might have included in there a kind of an operations manager or scheduler kind of thing.

Quite a few members have more than one scheduler because that's how crazy their lives are. Rashida's calendar was a terrifying thing. Let me tell you that. I don't wish that on anyone. So that's really your management level for these offices. Once you get below that, in the districts, under the district director, and whoever's running your casework team, you have caseworkers who, you know, they typically specialize in immigration or veterans issues, social security.

what have you. Really the unsung heroes of congressional offices truly. But, you know, during, right, like the fall of Kabul or even the past few years of this genocide that we've had, right, a lot of the U.S. government doesn't have a plan when things like this happen, right? There is no, you know, I think a lot of Americans think, you know, if I'm abroad in country, why, and I don't know, a civil war pops off. And my country's got a plan to get me out, right? No. My family out. That's not the case. It's totally ad hoc, totally made up. And oftentimes, like in Afghanistan, for example, the way a lot of people were literally getting on the EVAC list was they would somehow get connected through a congressional office who was then routing it into the State Department. But, I mean, literally casework staffers in House and Senate offices and, you know, people who are just trying to.

to help over at State, created this plane while it was flying effectively. And, I mean, it was obviously just a horrifying disaster, the whole mess that was the Kabul, Evac, and the end of the war there. But it's also a really good example of, like, just how important, you know, some of these folks, or I guess the power you can have by having a really good person in some of these places. Yeah. And, I mean, some of them literally say,

hundreds of lives, right? So it's a crazy job for sure. Yeah. So maybe this would be a good time for you to describe your role and kind of what was in your bailiwick during your tenure with Rashida. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a good segue into, right, I was a legislative staffer for Rashida. So I worked under her legislative director. And what legislative staff do is you effectively cover what we would call issue areas. I had 18, which is quite a few, but then like, for example, Palestine is one in and of itself, and then foreign affairs is another. So they all kind of cross over, if that makes sense. So you cover a number of issues for the member. By cover, I mean, If someone reaches out for comment on something about that issue, you know, you're the one who, you know, figures out, A, you know, maybe your member has talked about it before, then it's really easy.

But if it's something new, you've got to research it and help, you know, basically explain to them what's going on, get them up to speed so that they can respond to whatever's going on there. Whenever there are bills coming up on the floor, the week, you know, Monday morning, what you're doing is sitting down, going through the bill. and taking a look at them and giving vote recommendations to the member about how to vote, right? And then if they have questions, you've got to be ready to explain why, right? So that's, you know, a lot of the day-to-day. I also covered her position for a good chunk of my time on the Oversight Committee, which is a really fun one. it's kind of the battle royale committee of the House of Representatives although quite an interesting one too it's not just a

you know a brawl as it would be there's some really good work that does get done and can get done through that committee so covering a member for the committee means you're ensuring they're prepared for their hearings they you know have a memo explaining the whole topic everything going on you know they've on a committee what you're trying to do because you're moving as part of a you know the Democrats are all trying to create generally speaking they're usually on the same page about everything or you know whatever the topic is at hand sometimes there's differences of course but if everybody's on the same page they're trying to make a unified message throughout the hearing

right just like you do with a podcast you want it to have a central theme and not have me just ramble on in random tangents or some elderly member do the exact same thing on the podium. So you want to make sure basically the staff work to make sure members aren't talking about the same

thing and being repetitive or you know everybody's got the right info and that you know the chairman or ranking member whoever your leader is knows what's coming and etc. So yeah you cover them that's you know I covered her for that committee. And then in terms of issues I covered, as I mentioned, foreign affairs, civil rights,

civil liberties, as well as human rights, basically the same thing. Immigration, policing, kind of judicial issues, broadly speaking, democracy issues as well, veterans. I'm forgetting some oversight. I mean, the list goes on. You cover a lot, right? And that really gets into what I mentioned in terms of the house house offices really should have double if not more the number of staffers because of course you're at that point you're just trying to handle everything yeah well let me ask you about that you know i understand that not all offices are funded equally how do the different member offices get funded and what are we talking about in terms of the disparity between a very well-funded office versus an office that's stretched thinner.

Oftentimes, that disparity is really in terms of the members' decision-making. It's less in terms of the funds they receive. They do receive different amounts in what's called their MRA. I can't remember what it stands for. It's a world of a million acronyms. but typically the big difference there is in what's called their travel allowance and so a member from Virginia obviously does not need to spend as much on flights and travel as a member from Hawaii who has to come here every week and back so that's really where

the big difference I think is in terms of the actual funding levels for offices other than that really the only time you see a difference is if a member is in some form of leadership position in which case they get more staff, right? Other than that, effectively, the offices actually receive basically the same allocation, I don't know what it is off the top of my head, to do the job of being a representative. At least that's how it works in the House of Reps. I'm not familiar with the Senate enough to tell you there. But the thing is, they receive it as basically a pot of money, right?

And from that pot, the member has to decide how to spend it. And so you have members who, you know, they're spending it on things like they've got to rent their office space, not the D.C. office, of course, but all their office is in the district. That's all rented. All your staff salaries and benefits are coming out of there. All of your travel is coming out of there. All of your mailers are coming out of there. and events and things like that. And that's where it gets really interesting.

That's the interesting one, right? Because legally speaking, they're not allowed to use those funds for campaigning. They get to define what campaigning is. Hmm. And it's a real questionable line in my mind. Say more about that. Well, I mean, you have a representative

right, like, from the district over from Roshita, Rep Thanadar, who I think spent, I'd have to look up the news story, and I know it's been in like Detroit News, Metro Times, and all of them. But he spent the majority, over 50% of his budget, on billboards and television ads, in theory, advertising his office and its services. But, you know, you go around Detroit, there's billboards with his face on it.

And it just, to me, that really seems far more like campaigning than serving the people. I don't know. It's, you know, so it's a very thin line. Oh, yeah, 100%. No, I think that's a great illustrative. You know, sometimes, and to give an example of what's like a legit use of this, right, say you're as an office might help host a job fair. And you want to make sure people in your community are aware. You might send out a flyer.

Or you want to do a survey to try to collect the opinions of your residents and your constituents, right? That I'm sure there's some rules around how it's done. I'm not, I never worked specifically on sending it. They have a whole committee literally just for the rules about mail. But the, you know, that's another kind of use of these funds that can be very legitimate and things like that. But not every member is honest, and they certainly aren't getting a lot of oversight. Yeah. And just to keep on this theme, right now you can't see me, but I am twirling my handlebar mustache

and positioning my monocle as an evil, wealthy influencer or influence peddler. a corrupt businessman, and I'm thinking, how can I make the Congress work for me? And I guess some of the functions that you've described of a congressional office, if I'm trying to exploit my money corruptly to win influence, I'm trying to take some of the heavy load off of the members' shoulders and bear that load myself with my well-paid minions. So what are some of my options?

It's very nice to meet you, Heritage Foundation. I hope you could well. Effectively, that's literally what they do. And that's really a major problem that the left has, right? Most of the time, a lot of these bills are not being drafted by the same. the members, certainly not drafted by the members of Congress, and are generally not being even drafted by their offices. A lot of the times, I mean, for the right, right, they just go to the Heritage Foundation or one of these groups. And for the Dems and the corporate Dems, they go to

these, you know, they've got all their think tanks and their councils and their what have you, right, that are all funded by the exact same people from behind the scenes and the same companies at the end of the day. And they write the bills for them. And then, the office takes it, says, great, here's an easy, what they do is you try to, if I'm the corrupt businessman, right, I want to give them what it at least appears on the surface for them to be a win on a silver planner, for the American introduce it and be like, I got this great idea. And here are my talking, they'll literally give you the talking points, give you the polling, give you, they'll do everything, right? It's outsourced governing and outsourced

legislating. And so for the right, they can go to all those groups, the corporate Dems, they've got all their crew and just, you know, the Democratic Party. And the left doesn't really have at least an organized addition of that. We have our grassroots and our bases and our communities, right, which are quite frankly a far more valuable and far more powerful source of legislative ideas and knowledge than any of these, you know, idiotic think tanks are. the best idea has always come from the districts, I swear. That's my experience. But, you know, there is no equivalent of that resource and capacity augmenting entity on the left.

Yeah, well, the best for whom, right? The best for whom? The best for the people may come from the districts. Exactly. But the best for the people, and I say people inclusive of corporate persons here. Of course. who are the ones that really matter the most right they're getting their ideas through their shops that's how it works in essence and then i would guess but correct me if i'm wrong that as you said

the member has a budget they have to allocate that budget they have to decide where to spend the money So if somebody else, if Heritage Foundation, if Cato Institute, whatever outfit is taking care of running surveys, of doing the data collection, of crunching the numbers and writing the bills, I would guess that that would free up some of the budget in some of those offices that are taking advantage of those resources. exactly and so you might see that budget go towards more of those rather dubious mailers right or you might simply see it go towards what happens a lot of the time is the higher end staff right the members are all paid on a very specific publicly held like scale but for staff you know there is a limit an upper limit because certain staff positions can be paid by both sides by both sides I mean, the official staff office and the campaign. Or sometimes you might have a staffer who also covers, you know, is on a committee if a member's like the chairman of a committee or chairman of a committee or chairman of a committee, that staffer might also get paid by the committee.

I think the upper limits like 220, 230 with like 160-ish from the official side, but I'm not positive exactly. I certainly none of us were anywhere near that. but really the member has total discretion over what staffers are paid and some of them what they're paying their staffers are is are in my French but fucking sinful it's just wrong right to live in a city like Washington DC on 35,000 dollars a year for someone you're expecting to work 80 hours a week yeah you know that's nuts to me but there's quite a few members that do that to their staff and unfortunately there's people that are I guess not unfortunately right but people do it right it's and it's you see people live and through some real tough economic circumstances just to work on Capitol Hill. You know, you have people on food stamps working for members of Congress, often members of Congress who oppose food stance themselves. All of this, by the way, the salaries of your congressional staffers are all public. All of this is public information and how your member spends their money is public information.

They put it out in a spreadsheet that's, you know, intentionally confusing as hell and difficult to find. They don't want to advertise it, but you can find exactly how your member at least reports how they spend their money and what they pay all their staff. That's all public information. But like I said,

you can have people make a $35,000 a year to work 80 hours a week, and you can have people making $220 to work six hours a week. And then some offices are much more fair and pay good salaries and people work hard and earn them, right? it's all over the map and you know one thing i think you know it's on the on the topic it's worth mentioning there are members who treat their staff really terribly who claim to be progressive who are claiming to be ultra-conservative you know it's all across the aisle right and then

there's members who treat their staff really really well and are known for being really good bosses all the way across the aisle right some people whose politics are just vile and disgusting. But then they treat their staff far better than someone who claims to be, you know, maybe a labor rights champion or something like that. So, you know, you really, you run the gambit in Congress. It's probably America's most toxic work environment on the whole. Regardless of your, the office you're in, right, even if you're in a good office, like the one I was, I mean, your, your neighbors are lunatics. What else can you say? Uh, it's a, it's, sometimes you, you wake up in the morning and you, before you have your first cup of coffee, you're running to Marjorie yelling about something. And that's just Tuesday.

Yeah. This is a time of growth for those that know. And it's a time of hope for those that don't. But if your mind is open, you'll get shown. We've had our sights blinded. All them are like-minded, people need to get up and discover the right time. It's not. Just start opposing the powers that arose. in ancient days and paved the way to this flow that's so controlled it's sitting in most just sit and stare at a television with a distant glare and I'm ashamed to admit it I'm a slave to the shit as much as anybody but I'm not afraid of it this is where the change comes and this is where we make some difference embrace what's within us and escape from this prison

all it takes is a little bit of faith and a little bit of love to get rid of all the hate but the thing about it is we can't just sing about it we can't just sit around and wait until they finish out we figure out where we're going while we live in doubt if you want my truth Listen, now we'll just think about it, think about it is we can't even think about it. Can't afford a minute's down to figure how to bring about a shame. So take a second and shake your head and that. Take a step ahead and think about it. That actually, that's a good point because I think it's interesting.

You know, you do see the spectacle. And I think from the perspective of somebody with a safe distance from the Congress and not any day-to-day involvement. What you really pick up on are the circus-like performers and carnival barkers in the House, in the Senate, whatever. The whole thing's the stage. Yeah. The whole thing.

How does that sort of trickle down? I mean, I have the sense that it's got to be a sort of auditioning process of the underlings kind of vying to best embody their member and position themselves as the alter ego. But what's that like? I mean, are there like a 20 mini Marjorie Taylor Greens in her office or whatever? I mean, I've never stepped foot in there. You know it smell crazy, though. Yeah, I can't imagine it's the most, um, uh, the calmest place on the face of the planet, shall I say.

it's not where I would go to do my yoga not like I'm that flexible but you know it again it depends on the office right some members tend on the on the meritocratic side and they've you know you've got staff who are there because they're competent and incredibly good at their jobs right and you know I will say obviously

you know I think the criticism I'm levying is really well deserved and it's just honest right we need a little little tough love here but that doesn't I don't want that to come off as they're not being some really just incredible people within this system. I met some of the most insanely dedicated and intelligent and compassionate people I've ever met fighting within this system in one way or another, right? So, you know, it's some of them are that, and then some of them are sitting around waiting for Lockheed Martin or Deloitte to hire them. Right.

You know, again, you get the whole bandwidth. And some of them are trying to, you know, just sitting there foaming at the mouth. waiting to run for whatever opportunity they've got, right? The ladder climbers, as I'd call them, right? Like, there's, you just, you just see them. You look for any of the members who used to be a chief of staff in the House of Representatives. You know, that's on their resume. They're probably, you know, this was their goal all along, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. And I think it ties into the entire paradigm of our podcast, which, You know, we use this Fourth Reich metaphor as a framing device to understand the United States as an imperial power as a genocidal entity, right? Not only the original sin genocide against Native Americans, but the successive genocides that the U.S. has either. directly carried out contributed to facilitated what have you and yet you know people like you who go into this machinery with the best of intentions and i mean i it's really hard to criticize somebody who's willing to put in 80 hours of work for a pittance on the hope that they're able to make a difference.

You know, you talked about the casework. You talked about those concrete and immediate takeaways of assisting somebody, of making their life better, of helping them in an hour of need. That's all so laudable and so honorable. And yet, it's being conducted through the same machinery that is signing these blank checks to the military industrial complex that is giving the military aid to the likes of Israel to use on a civilian population and devastate, you know, hundreds of thousands of lives. And so I wonder, like, maybe we could just zoom in in different areas of how this

works as we kind of have been swirling around. Let's... imagine for a minute sort of the most cynical careerism that we can see in the congressional staff level, the guy who is waiting for the call from Lockheed or Deloitte, like how does the influence peddling actually work? And I think, you know, there's sort of two sides of the coin, at least as I envision it. One is at the staff level. sort of out of the sight line of the member themselves between the staff and the outside moneyed interests directly. So maybe first, is there that direct contact and how does that game get played? Oh, God, yes, is the answer.

And it's played every minute of every day in every part of that place, right? And it's played in a thousand different ways that it's really exactly the same tactics you see thrown at the members are thrown at the staff, particularly, you know, and they start, they start young, right? These staffers, lower level staffers are typically, and actually, I think, you know, to back up for a real quick moment, it's important to understand who staffers are. oftentimes recent college graduates I think your average congressional staffers between the ages of 23 and 34 and works there for about two years I think

I might be a bit off on those exact numbers but it's in that general range oftentimes when they start they might start as an intern typically those internships aren't paid so that means either you know daddy's got money and that's a whole way the game is played right in there, right, is all the children of donors and all that, which is certainly a sector of the population.

Or it means you're broke. How big of a sector? Like just a ballpark, you know, because I, too, would guess, just like any other, the whole internship industrial complex, really is a feeder system for privileged people to pad their resumes, and automatically leapfrog to the top of what the right-wingers like to call the ladder of meritocracy when, if you're paying attention, you understand it's very far from it.

It's much more a measure of where you start off on the ladder. Access, access, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so I don't know exactly, to be perfectly honest. It's not a majority, I would say. but a very significant minority 25, 30% maybe I mean, I'm just totally guessing here It'll vary

The Dems are as And can you tell Oh yeah I mean I can tell as somebody I used to work on construction Job sites and in kitchens right So you know As someone who actually has worked in my life

You can automatically Tell when someone has never You know Got dirt under their fingernails I think that's just something all of us who have come from a work and background can. But which isn't to say, actually, that some of, you know, in some cases, these people end up being incredible advocates, but that's often not the case. Yeah, critical support for class traders out there. We support you.

Absolutely. Oftentimes you'll see a cycle, right? They start as an intern. They work for a member for two years. maybe going from staff assistant to legislative assistant, and then they cycle into Deloitte or into, you know, KPMG or whoever, right? Or, you know, the potato farmers of Idaho, right? There's a million different orcs you could work for.

And so you have that kind of level, if that makes sense. But then you really have another level, which is the one taking place generally more in, either your, you know, your upper echelons of the staff of an office, particularly in well-placed offices. And, you know, I mean that in terms of like, say, stock trading, right? Just like there's all this talk about the members who are, you know, buying the dip and all this and insider trading, right? The staff are doing it, too. 100%.

We knew about it. I mean, if you want the best tea in America, it is the congressional. rumor mill as it would be. I mean, we knew the things we heard about who was who was trading on what, right? And I've never, I'm not an E-Cod guy, so I've never bothered with the stock market. And you all can look that up and fact-check me. But like, you know, there were some offices, you know, there's, like, for example, there's plenty of talk about how, you know, if you just do the copy, the Pelosi trades,

it's one of the best auto traders in the U.S. right now, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would imagine the same would be true if you copied a number of her staffers, for example. Amazing. Right, you know, it's, that's just, just based on the rumors I've heard, you know, I don't know. But the whole place is corrupt like that.

And then, of course, there's just kind of the classic thing that I think everybody knows about, you know, oh, come on out, we're having a industry event. Here's some, you know, technically speaking, they're only allowed to give you what are considered appetizers, right? It can't be a full meal is the theoretical limit, but I've never in my life seen that one enforced. And it's low-key how, like, a lot of those younger staffers who are really cash-strapped

are literally eating. I mean, there were times when I was, you know, very much my food budget was factoring in, you know, oh, we've got, you know, in terms of for Rashida and on the left, It's a different ecosystem, you know, nonprofits host things and God knows what, right? But there's always some event. You can just literally, we would as staff, just walk around the office buildings for 35 o'clock, and you can find dinner. You just have to listen to somebody talk to you about something and let your eyes glaze over. A million tiny timeshare presentations.

Exactly. It really is. It genuinely is. And I mean, that's actually, you know, one thing I'll mention, you know, I did go to school for international affairs and all that. But the best experience I ever had was working in a restaurant because all of, all DC is is putting on the customer service face. That's all I did in seven years. And it gets old and that's why I'm like so thankful to be out of there. But if all you're doing is, you know, getting through another work day with anybody who,

worked has worked in a restaurant or worked retail knows exactly what I mean that's that's the exact way to that is lobbying if you've used a customer service voice you officially know how to lobby a member that's how you should talk to a member of congress and their staff that would be that's advice you know right there for you it's a you know it's literally the same thing shit man I'm a lawyer so that's uh not too far not too far a field but You know, you're describing all of this, and it's making me think that when we talk about the way in which the spectacle comes to replace the thing that it's signifying, right? Like all of this paraphernalia, the superficiality of it all, the glad-handing and passing around of hors d'oeuvres. And I bring it back once again to the fact that this is the legislative body that controls the purse strings.

Yep, the people's house. That decides how the money of all of the taxpayers, the trillions, the trillion. of dollars collected from the American people is spent and consistently chooses to direct an excessive amount of that money towards death and destruction in the name of imperial hegemony for the United States. Yeah, I mean, at this point, the U.S. government is six weapons companies in a trench coat, Right. It's really is, it's all about profits. And you mentioned like how you work in this utterly insane system that is doing such horrifying evil around the world. And you're trying to do good within it. And I mean, it's a hell of a lot easier if you're working for someone like Rashida. But there are people in offices with members who are not nearly as good as her who are also doing that. And they're in fact some of our most important allies in this movement, right? We can chat about corruption. I don't know if you want to start down that

very long road on this podcast this evening Don, but the, you know, as your listeners don't know about him and I have chatted for quite a while about this one, but the political corruption has truly just rotted the country from the inside. I mean, just rotted it, right? Yeah, I think one good entry point to that discussion is something we haven't yet touched on. And correct me if any of this is off base, but so far, I think what you've said applies fairly evenly on both sides of the aisle. Yeah. Generally speaking, there are exceptions to that, and then there are different degrees. Not everybody is, you know, accepting gold bars and frankly, low-end Mercedes is from the Egyptians, which is just that, as a aside, ticks me off.

If you're going to sell out the country and effectively commit treason as I view it, do it for a decent Mercedes. Like, what are you? Come on. Like, have some freaking respect. Yeah. Prayers up for Bob Menendez. Oh, Bob. Bob a boy. Is he in Penn?

Is he incarcerated right now? I don't know. If he is, I'd love to see what that prison cell looks like because something tells me it looks a little different than the one in El Salvador. or, you know. I'm sure we could do a whole series of episodes. And in fact, that might be a really interesting deep dive on just the Bob Menendez corruption. One of my favorite facts about, which is that his attorney in his corruption cases, Abby Lowell, was the same guy who represented Gary Condit in connection with the

Chandra Levy disappearance case. case, the intern who was murdered and was probably having an affair with her boss, former representative Gary Condit, that was one of Abby Lowell's big-ticket clients. He also represented Hunter Biden, and he also represented Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Well, he sounds like quite the interesting guy. Oh, yeah, and Bob Menendez, of course. So it's like another microcosm into the bipartisan corruption that kind of operates on a whole other level from where there's any sort of popular influence over the policymakers.

I just wanted to point that little tidbit out. But to bring it back to my earlier question, the institution that we've not yet, yet pointed the flashlight at are the parties themselves. And I think since you are coming out of the Democratic Party in Representative Talib's office, you know, maybe you could speak on what's the role of the party, kind of of the different institutional arms of the party, the two biggest, in my mind at least, are the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, and then for Congress specifically, it's the D-Triple-C, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Commission.

There you go. Ah, the city of acronyms. They love them. And the whole point of the acronyms is to confuse people, because the city's not that complicated, but they like to think they're smarter than everybody. So they want to just, you know, they hide it, right? It's buzzwords. Well, that's the thing.

If you're only making $35,000 a year, you know, part of the non-monetary compensation that you're receiving is a knowledge of an entire rolodex of acronyms. So, you know, that's got to be worth at least $10. Oh, yeah. I mean, right now, you know, as we're recording this, they're, uh, my friends. who are still on the inside, everybody's working on appropriations, the budget writing process. Knowledge of how appropriations works can be very valuable to the right, you know, the right potential employer, right? Absolutely. And there's a million different examples of this, right? Knowledge of the inner workings of the defense acquisition process, for example,

or even the Department of Agriculture acquisition process. What, you know, tractors are they going to, I don't know what they do, but, you know, whatever they're going to buy. But, you know, I know they do tons of food aid, so who are they going to go to for, you know, whatever major shipment of, it can be as dull as, like, where are they buying their broccoli? And you could make millions off of that. If you were to say, invest before the public, you know, announcement of the salesmaid, which is stuff we hear all the time in Congress, right? You just, you can't help but hear it. You hear it in your job. It's the reality.

It's why it should be banned. Stock trading should be banned for all the. members and probably a good chunk of the staff as well. It's just because you just come across that info constant. If Marx would have lived long enough to see this system develop, capital would not just have been three volumes. They would have had to go into like the double digits. Yeah. But the DNC, the DCC, what are they? What do they do? They obviously control a ton of money. And in a system that is as utterly corrupted as ours, where we've legalized corruption and call it campaign finance and all sorts of things like that, money

talked, maybe. I mean, what else can you say? At the end of the day, they have significant influence. It's not just in terms of giving money to campaigns. It's in terms of, oh, we'll let you use these consultants, but we're going to blackball these other ones because they supported a primary challenger to my buddy, right? Or, you know, there's all sorts of games like that that go on beyond the scenes that are intended to ensure that the party remains within the control of one specific political generation in class that are of a very specific ideology. And, you know, the D-TCC is absolutely, you know, an arm of that. And there's, you know, all sorts of different entities, right? Under the D-T-TCC, you have the DSCC, the Democratic

Senate campaign committee and then there's a House edition which I can't even remember their name but you know there's there's more acronyms than an alphabet suit could create very interesting so it's really

more of a power that's exercised at the level of picking and choosing whom to support and that picking and choosing process filters out the likes of Rashida based on

or tries to. Marginalizing her. Yeah, I mean, they want people yeah, they want people who are loyal. They want people who tow their line. They want people who don't rock the boat, right? They would much rather govern easy if that makes sense. You know, democracy is a messy thing and it's a difficult

thing. None of us are asking for it to be easy. We're just asking for it to, you know, exist, which it does not right now because it's been destroyed, right? It's been bought out. but they yeah they control they control a lot of that they also control right like they'll be doing a lot of their own polling and so access to polling data right access to contact sheets these are things that can make and break campaigns and again i'm not a campaign guy but you know that that's a way

they exert a lot of influence and another thing they'll do is they'll send advisors and consultants out. And I mean, it's actually a bit outside of my realm of expertise, I'll be honest, because unlike many offices, working for Rashida and the squad members in general, we all knew we're under a microscope. So you're supposed to have a firewall between your campaign and your official office, and we actually did, right? What a concept. Most offices do not, but the rules don't apply to them, like they apply to a Muslim woman of color who's a socialist, right? that's a good point what is that firewall like what is the line between governing and campaigning and i would imagine that in the house of representatives where you have a two-year term

it's got to be pretty tough to actually draw that line because it's such a short window to you know you can't just wait yeah i mean i can't speak for it you know, in terms of the members, as a staffer, we didn't have much of an issue in our office, at least at all, but it was in part because of the nature of who Rashida is as a rep. We weren't meeting with defense contractors and trying to, you know, get, I don't know, as we saw recently a bunch of F-15s to Michigan or something like that, right? We were literally meeting, what you're doing is you're meeting with community activists and people in the district and you know, experts on issues and tried to figure out things from there.

So, yeah, I mean, effectively, there's no communication or should not be any communication from, say, a staffer like myself, a legislative staffer, to the campaign with very rare exception. You know, of course, if you're friends with people on the campaign, that's perfectly fine. But the only staffers that really are in constant contact with the campaign are the schedulers because they need to figure out the schedules. This makes sense. But even in that instance, there is actually regulation.

They're allowed to have a shared calendar, but, like, they can't, and I never was a scheduler, so I don't know the specifics, but they, like, can't title it in certain. They can't, like, give certain info, if that makes sense. Anything involving fundraising, even if it's for charity, all of it goes to the campaign. So, like, the one thing we would do is tons of time people, you know, everyday people, you know, honest mistake, just reach out to you. with something that should be for the campaign. So you're allowed to give them the contact and send them over there, right?

But, you know, somebody wants to do, hey, we're doing a charitable gala or fundraiser. We would love if she, you know, come in support, right? Say, oh, yeah, that's really nice. But unfortunately, that's got to be handled by the campaign. Here's the email. Go talk to them. And that's the last we ever hear about it. Right.

So for an office like Rashida, where we actually, you know, what a thought, followed the law, we really didn't interact with the campaign much at all. And how easy would it be? How easy is it for the ones that do want to blur that line? I'm sorry, the vast majority are, and it's very easy. There are laws about, like, in theory they're not allowed to do any campaign work within what's called the capital grounds, literally the capital building and its grounds. So you have to go outside the bollards. Just walk around there for a day and listen to the conversations the members have on the phone.

And you'll hear somebody talking about a campaign issue, I guarantee it. I mean, they're all, you know, tons of them all the time are breaking that rule. It's, you know, the reason that the DNC and the RNC are right next to, but just outside of the capital grounds. Oh, interesting. Legally speaking, yeah, they got to, they're like right there. So in theory, the members would be like, yeah, I just popped over there. And some of them do and actually still are like really strict on respecting that rule, which is interesting, you know, the people that are still all about civility and the old ways or whatever.

I don't know. But the, there's some of them that will literally walk over there to take a phone call. But the vast majority of them are just, you know, they got two phones. they're doing email off both of them at the same time. There is really very little line. And then in terms of legislative, I mean, I think where the line becomes even more blurred, I'm sure there are stabs that coordinate with their campaigns.

But, like, I think the line really becomes more blurred with lobbyists, right? With, like, A-PAC or something like that, who is obviously coordinating with the campaign as an outside entity. So sometimes it's not, you know, the line is being blurred, via a group, if that makes sense. So you can have this kind of workaround there going on. Right. If the legal structure is designed to control and police the members,

then the outside influences won't feel constrained in their conduct to push their agenda and make very clear that quid pro quo. I mean, it's not like anybody is so idiotic as to think that the person or the group giving a bunch of money to the campaign is not expecting something in return. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's really where, you know, whether or not there is that firewall comes into play. Like, I never once, you know, and I guess legally I could have, right? I guess there isn't a law against it, but I didn't look up who was donating to Rashida's campaign. I frankly didn't care, right?

You just knew it was Hamas, Chesbola, Iran. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I have my, all my, my accounts are all in Yuan. What are you talking about, you know? Yeah, I always joke with, you know, it's our classic never-ending dead. joke of it was where the hell is you know who the hell is getting all this chinese money or the iranian money or hamas money because like we're all broke uh we haven't seen any of it right like let me know uh but didn't come this way that's all i know um but yeah i mean it's it's ridiculous

how does that how does that hit sit with the people in the staff positions that are getting these just outrageous false accusations leveled at them. And it's especially prominent in the Trump administration, but it's not something that started on January 20th of 2025 by any means where you have right-wingers especially, but corporate Dems equally, you know, you see a lot of, I'm a avid consumer of Medea Benjamin and Code Pink's video content where they're out there confronting all these members on the hill every day

and it's constant that they'll just spout off that you're paid by China, you're paid by Iran, you're paid by, and it's like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's illegal and like there's no way. way that that could possibly be happening under the nose. The file on Medea that the Capitol Police have has got to be able to stop a tank round. I mean, it's got to be about a thousand miles thick, right? If she had accepted a single red communist scent, we would have known about it.

I guarantee you. And, you know, I don't necessarily always agree with Medea, but I will say this, right? Like Medea is one of those people and the Code Pink ladies, they have been out here and were out on the hill every, basically every damn day since the genocide began, right? So, like, they're a great one to watch. But, yeah, I mean, you see like Nancy Mace and all them. I mean, I saw the video Medea put up yesterday. Nancy Mace is like calling her a self-hating Jew. If you ask me, that's anti-Semitic as shit of Nancy Mace to say.

If you ask me, right, like there is, I mean, I know. We've had some conversations, but I'm sure it's a whole other, probably a whole other episode we could get into of the anti-Semitism of the pro-apartheid movement. But it's, I mean, you just, it's craziness, right? Yeah. Yeah, like I said, you think I'm taking money from China. Check my pro-cast bank account. You know, be my guest. Yeah, and it's also anti-Semitic to authorize A-Semitic.

as the official voice of world jury when such a massive contingent of Jewish people reject outright the policy goals of APAC, of Zionism, of colonialism, of apartheid, of genocide. and yet it's become not only the IRA definition of anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism, but now it's so extreme that it's almost as though calling out APAC and calling out the influence of these extremely well-funded lobby groups is itself tarred as anti-Semitic and it's like it's just making the term anti-Semitic lose all legitimate meaning and and that's the real danger right I mean it's it's you're

absolutely bang on right you know I'm not Jewish myself but I have Jewish family get my high school was like 50% Jewish So, like, some of my oldest and dearest friends are Jewish. And most of them, if not all of them, do not, you know, they do not see the actions of the government of the state of Israel as being, I mean, they see it as being the opposite of Jewish values. You know, you certainly have to ask them, you know, more. But it's like a reversed kind of dual loyalty, anti-Semitism, right? It's this, they want to. If you're not duly loyal, then you're anti-Semitism.

Semitic. Exactly. The point being, it is this attempt and this very insidious and hateful attempt to say and claim, you know, this, say this one political ideology, this very far right ideology that runs the government of Israel is the sole representation of Judaism, which is just ludicrous, right? That is insane. And it's, as in, in doing so, they're denying the Jewish of my family and of my friends and of countless Jews who disagree with them specifically because of what they're taught through the Torah and through Jewish teachings. So it's really, I mean, not only they play this, you know, boy who cried wolf thing with anti-Semitism where they cry it for everything like you were saying, that's like a real danger in it of itself, right?

The moral of that story, right? Because there are anti-Semitic lunatics in this country 100%. Yeah, and guess what? Most of them happen to be in one particular party. Yeah, the people that say that all Jews must face the apocalyptic decision of whether to convert to Christianity or be bodily escorted through the gates of hell. I'd say that those are probably the bigger anti-Semites. I would tend to agree with you. And yet.

Long, long life's wicked roll. So selfish are we for silver and gold. You can treasure your wealth, your diamonds and gold. But my friend, it won't save your pure wicked soul. For when God called from his home up on high, To your earthly well, you must say goodbye. Then it's useless to you if you're straight from the boat. Well, my friends, it won't save.

but I guess with Rashida, I mean, her existence as a Palestinian is perceived by the extremists in and of itself to be anti-Semitic, ignoring obviously the fact that Palestinians are Semites, right? Semitic doesn't just refer to a religious identity. And so it's irrational to exclude Palestinians or to somehow put them on the opposite side of the anti-Semitism line. But, I mean, this is something we talked about in our most recent episode about the genocide that for Palestinians, it's their immutable characteristics which are dehumanized. and Rashida in particular has been the object of that dehumanization. I'm thinking especially of a Bill Maher segment. I don't know if you saw that a while ago where he was talking about how, well, how does Hamas have its own representative in the Congress?

how does the like she's not representing a michigan she's representing palestine and it's like well i'd ask him why she got more votes than kamala harris did in her district right you know go to her district and ask her ask the residents of her district if she's representing them uh bill bill marr's a racist old moron what else can i say about him i mean i got nothing nice to say about the guy it's he's part of that a particular political ideology that's insidious and within the Democratic Party that I don't believe is capable of viewing Muslims and Arabs and Palestinians in particular as human beings. And that's just the fact of the matter, right? They just simply cannot, they are not capable of viewing them as, I don't know what it is that's turned

in their brains, but they, through their words and deeds, consistently prove to us their bigotry, right? And Bill Maher's one of those people that just needs to be called out for it. You know, you can disagree with Rashida, you know, till sundown. But actually, you know, there's quite a few Republicans, I'd say, who aren't, you know, bigoted towards her or don't act. I mean, I'm sure they, you know, in policy, their policies are bigoted, of course, but they are not acting, you know, in a bigoted manner like in saying to things like Mr. Barr says, right? You know, they have this hilarious line. They all like to say. They're like, I don't agree with anything you do or say, but we respect that, but I respect that you're like standing on your business, right?

You know, this thing about Rashida, she's got no filter, like literally none. That is literally what you get. And, you know, you've got these, I don't know, we ran into it constantly in the Democratic Party. If you think the Democratic Party doesn't have a racism problem, I got news for you. Well, that's Bill Maher, right? He's a lifelong Democrat. Yeah. He has even been identified as a progressive.

And yet, like you said, and this is a thing, it's not just dehumanizing. It's not just dehumanizing Rashida as a spokesperson. It is frontally attacking the Americanness of her voters, of her district, who are made up of maybe more than the average Arab and Muslim Americans who are legal citizens of the United States. Well, and actually, when he said that, I think her district was, didn't actually even include Deerboard, because the lines changed in the past election. Deerboard is the majority Arab American city that's now within her district. But it was, when she was first elected, it was a majority African American district, southwest Detroit, where she was born and raised, right? And, but you're exactly right, right? like it is i think the the pure unadulterated arrogance of this leadership class in the democratic party

is truly i mean it's it's one of the things that drove me i mean to some extent i would rather hang around the republicans right because the arrogance of like the bill more types in the democratic party or uh you know i can't remember the get the guys named the old dude who was comel's advisor who likes to get on tv and scream um even though He's the one who did all this. I'll remember him. Yeah, which one? I know, right?

Yeah, there's about seven of them. Which old white man am I thinking of that screwed our entire generation? Let's try to find out. But, you know, it's just, it's the most infuriating thing is like, as soon as you meet Rashida and know her, I mean, it takes all five seconds to realize she ain't an anti-Semite, right? her political mentor was Steve Tobachman, the leader of the Senate. He's Jewish. One of her best friends in the House, and still to this day, is former rep Andy Levin, the first one taken out by APEC. We could talk about that.

There's a reason they targeted him first. It's because he was Jewish and actually spoke up for Palestinian lives, right? That's unacceptable. Yeah. And I mean, it's just the list goes on and on and on. It's ridiculous, right? Like she, not that she had to or I ever would expect her to, but she just consistently in the human being she was, in person she was, proved it to me every day.

And, I mean, she didn't just prove it to me. I remember, you know, a lot of the times, you know, they have all sorts of exchange programs for high schoolers, college students coming between Israel and Palestine and the U.S. And there was one, which, you know, was college students and this young man from Jerusalem, a young Israeli man, you know, they were just kind of going around, circle, talking, And got to him and he said, you know, I got to tell you, I was really, I didn't want to come, right? I was afraid to come. You know, heard all the stories about you, thought you were a hateful person and all this.

And I talked to my professor at the university who I guess had met her and who encouraged him to go meet her. He said, no, no, no, it's not what, you know, they say, go meet her. And I mean, the kid was damn near in tears, right? He was like, oh, this is like, it was, he was like, I'm so glad. came, right? And I think she's still got a photo with him in the office, you know, somewhere in there, right? It's, as soon as you should meet her, you just, it's, it's utter BS, right? She is one fierce lady. Her nickname is Mama Bear, like, she doesn't mess around, right? You, you fuck with her residents or her people, and she's going to kick your ass, politically

speaking. But, you know, she's not a hateful person. She just isn't. It's just not true, right? And that's the, at the end of the day, it's the armor that they have. Because, you know, these guys, they say all this, but then, you know, APEC was out offering, what was it, 40 million bucks to try to get someone to run against Rashida. And guess what? Nobody did it. And if she wasn't representing her district and was Hamas's representative, don't you think someone from her district would run against her, right? It's just ridiculous. They don't operate in reality, these guys.

Yeah. I view it really as a front. attack against maybe broadly conceived the human spirit itself. It could be in any member, it doesn't matter what your party affiliation is, it could be in any staffer, it doesn't matter who you work for, whatever, there's a certain authenticity that the machinery of the Congress, particularly in its post-citizens United, captive-to-capital era. Yeah, it's a nice way to put it.

I think we could talk about really how far back before Citizens United that era has its real roots in the ground, But certainly since Citizens United, there's almost a concerted effort to eliminate or minimize or to the extent that people like Rashida who embody a human spirit of representation for the sake of representation, you know, for real representation. Yeah, actual public servants, right? Yeah. Yeah. The tolerance threshold for that is extremely low, and to the extent that people like that are tolerated, it's almost solely to cast them in this scapegoat role and just heap abuse upon them, heap humiliation upon them, and scandal and whatever.

like if they have a human weakness, God forbid, it will be exploited to the utmost. And if they don't, then, you know, the, let's see if we can manufacture one. It's the same tactics of Cointel Pro, modern day era, right? It really hasn't changed. And that's one thing we have to understand. I think, you know, we kind of touched on this briefly, but, you know, I... consider what we were opposing and continue to oppose and what I continue to oppose to be the pro-apartheid movement more broadly, you know, and not just, you know, in Israel specific, because I think one thing we understand pretty well is that they don't just, you know, these folks that are supporting apartheid and to make up the pro-apartheid movement, don't just support apartheid in Israel because, you know, they want it there. A lot of them, you know, want to bring it back here, quite frankly. I've become quite convinced.

of that. Oh yeah. And I mean, I think you see that already being put into action, which is a very scary thing. And we're not that, and I should say, right, like this is, it's an important thing for Americans to understand that you're really convinced to this, that we were in apartheid state, right? And that's what segregation was. Slavery is probably the most intense form of apartheid ever visited on the planet, so intense I'd consider it a form of genocide, right? The reality is that that wasn't that long ago, right? And a lot of the people that did it are still alive, right?

Or, you know, their kids are. And it takes a lot longer than that for that evil to dissipate and for to really root it out. And I mean, it's there. And I think we need to talk about it because it is a real danger. And they, I mean, that's what we're seeing nowadays, I think is, you know, that's, and that's why it's so important for them to support Israel because it is the embodiment of their experiment. You know, if the Israelis can do it and succeed in apartheid, then they can do it here, right? And, you know, that's, it's, it's really the danger in my view.

Yeah. I was just going to say, not for nothing was the image of the limited anti-genocide protest coming out of the deep south. I think it was at Ole Miss. There was a student of color, like a woman of color, a black woman that was participating in some anti-genocide protests and all these white frat bros

that looked like they could have been taken out of central casting to play, like, General Edwin Walker's shock troops like blocking James Meredith from integrating the United, university, making just the most awful gestures at her that combined perfectly this genocidal ethos with the white supremacy that is the lifeblood of American imperialism. Literally.

And it's something that's in continuity with imperialist projects from throughout the white world. and it's something i mean that's really the the target of this whole podcast project that we're doing here that like and and to maybe bring it back full circle and you know i do want to talk about how the institutional democratic party leans uh towards the bill mar side of quote unquote Democrat values and against Yeah I don't even know what those are Well the values that you know Matthew Miller

voiced every day in the State Department briefing room when he smirked at anybody with the gall to ask about the U.S. support for genocide Yeah I want to put this one on record real quick, actually. I'm glad you brought him up. I think one really important thing for us as Americans understand as well is that if we don't hold at least one of these guys accountable for what they've done from the Biden administration, you know, Miller's one, but I'm really thinking Sullivan, MacGerc, Anita Dunn, right? I think she was at the White House, right?

Blinken, yeah, you know, and I don't have too much hope. Joe Biden, with dementia, I don't think he's really going to be around much longer, quite honestly. You know, I don't have much hope of holding him accountable. But what our country has demonstrated is that we'll do it again. I don't know where it is. I don't know when it'll be. I don't know what the circumstances will be. I mean, we're continuing to do it in Gaza, so I shouldn't even say we've stopped. Right. But we've got to understand that unless we impose consequences, just like we didn't impose consequences in 08 with the economic elites, if we don't impose consequences on these, you know, these people that will just continue

murdering children for profit, right? War criminals. Yeah, war criminals, right? Like, Geneseeers, I mean, I was horrified to hear of supposedly progressive organizations considering hiring them, which thankfully they did not. Yet. But, like, all I'll say is if you hire one of these people, I mean, it's over, period. End of story forever, right?

You know, that's, I don't even know what else to say to you. You know, but like these people like are the only way I would ever help him is buying them a one-way ticket to the hang, right? You know, they deserve, they need to face justice. They knew, you know, it came out this week that, and I mean, we could all told you this one, any of us working on the inside. But it came out this week that they never actually asked the Israelis to stop for a ceasefire, right? That Joe never pressed the Israelis in which we knew that, right? We were desperately trying to get him to get off his ass and do anything. you know and he just refused

but if the message is to them is that they can do this and then they can go work at a think tank or they can go work at a university and they can move on with their lives then the United States will do this somewhere else and thousands if not millions more will die and we cannot let that happen right

that is you know it's horrifying that this is we haven't been able to stop this but damn it like that that is a freaking you know that's something we all, I think, can stand on because it's, I mean, that's my fear, right? That's the fear of the question keeps me up in night is where are they doing it next and how can we stop it? In addition to, of course, how can we stop the one they're currently doing right now? Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, you hear Trump's biggest line of defense whenever he's met with any criticism, the first go-to argument that he pulls out is well elections have consequences

I want a majority of the popular vote and all the swing states and blah blah blah and therefore whatever lawless corrupt genocidal murderous thuggish conduct that he is undertaking he is putting the imprimatur of the American people on it by reference just as Joe Biden was before him. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's at every one of the presidents before that, right? I mean, it's yeah. And I mean, we're, I know we'll, well, at some point, I think we've been talking about maybe doing an episode just on Palestine and specific. So not to get too deep into it now, but To certain extent, right, public opinion, the shift that is, that we have already seen and is ongoing and accelerating, I don't think it's reversible, right?

Like, with the genocide, they ripped the mask off, so to speak, and you can't put that mask back on. And that's part of why we see this escalation and, you know, why you're seeing more and more accusations of anti-Semitism for smaller and smaller things that are just ridiculous, right? it's because they're desperate, right? It is a desperation of the apartheid project because they're realized, what they've realized is they're losing the American public and that I don't know how long it's going to take but in my mind it's now a when and not an if

U.S. support for Israel ends. It will happen. But it's, and I mean, the tragic thing is every minute that it takes to get there, you know, countless kids are maimed and, you know, lives are destroyed, right? not just lives in Palestine but lives in Israel too right it's at the end of the day none of this is there is no path to peace through the trump or the Biden visions there was no vision with

Biden but there is no path to peace through either right uh and that's the whole horrifying part of the business yeah I just watched the Louis Thoreau Settlers documentary it's on my list I've seen clips yeah I mean I'm sure it it will only reaffirm and give further expression to things you're already well aware of, but what stands out is that, you know, this utterly genocidal ideology that's on display through the settler movement, that is bought and paid for and sponsored by the, the American taxpayer. Often, often with a tax-exempt status or a nonprofit status, yeah.

A hundred percent. Yeah, non-profit firearms for settlers to shoot children. Often American children, too. I mean, there was another attack intermessiah just this past week that I think killed a young man, right? Actually, that might have been the Israeli military that did that, but at this point, there really isn't a difference between the Israeli state and, frankly, they're state-sponsored agents of terrorism that are the settlers, you know, if we're going to be

using that term, which I don't like that term, we can have a whole conversation about it. But if you're using it, use it equally. And I don't see any other way to, you know, they fit that definition, that's for sure. Oh, I mean, I think I'm okay with the use of the term terrorist if it's describing a terrorist, which certainly applies. I feel like that word is used a lot like the word thug is used for our black and brown brothers and sisters right it's it's used that way but for our arab and muslim friends you know it's a as a dog whistle yeah yeah absolutely we always wrestled with it like how do we confront this issue this the question the work you know right and how do you do that without playing into it while simultaneously like i personally i

personally, I don't draw any distinction between war crime, crime against humanity, and active terrorism. They're all effectively the same thing. It's a little different on terms of how you prosecute it, and it's a little different in terms of who's committing it. But at the end of the day, you're a psychopath, and you're like, there needs to be accountability. So there's like this, you know, trying to create this, it's branding, right? They've just branded their acts of terrorism as war crimes. And, oh, you know, collateral damage, right? The ultimate rebrand of war crimes, you know, it's craziness. It's horrifying. What else can you say? Yeah, that's really why, as an editorial matter on Fourth Reich archaeology, we do not use the term

war to describe the genocide in Palestine. I think it is tremendously misleading when anyone uses war to describe what is an illegal occupation, an illegal blockade on in unoccupied peoples, followed by wave after wave of genocidal violence, whether or not there's resistance to that violence, that doesn't make it a war in the sense of like two armies facing off against each other that calls into the mind the Geneva Conventions when Israel itself has flouted the Geneva conventions with respect to the Palestinians continuously. Yeah, I mean, you ripped them up and used them as toilet paper, yes. I mean, it is just ridiculous.

And you're absolutely right, right? Using the term war in this context, it is deliberately misleading. and what it does is it creates an image of some sort of equity in the violence being committed by both of the sides in terms of and, you know, that's not to say that some of the Palestinian resistance factions may not have committed, you know, they may very well have committed a crime against crimes against humanity, more crimes, right? And there needs to be accountability for that. But if we're talking about this on a factual statistical basis, the Israeli defense forces, so-called defense, because they really aren't defending anything. at this point. This is fully offensive. They are committing, you know, whatever you want to call it, war crime, crime against humanity, acts of terrorism every minute, if not every second that they are engaged in combat, not just combat in Gaza, but they are engaged in their, quote, unquote, security operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are illegally occupied territories, as well as their occupation in Lebanon and in Syria, right? It just, the list goes on and on.

And so, you know, it's the ridiculous delir standard we see in Western media of, you know, do you condemn Hamas? Well, do you condemn the IDF? That would be my question to you. Because you absolutely must, based on the preponderance of evidence, if you claim to give one single shit about human life or believe that our lives are equal to those of Palestinians. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think we need to, and this will be the subject of our future episodes to maybe brainstorm a little bit about what type of political shift and whether that could involve the Democratic Party or whether it needs by necessity to reject the Democratic Party. Party as an institution, but I certainly feel very strongly that there are truths that

cannot be suppressed or ignored as a fundamental baseline for any sort of a humanitarian or progressive or whatever you want to call it, a humanist politics, a politics that recognizes the equal humanity of all people. You simply cannot abide the labeling as a terrorist of people like Mahmoud Khalil or Mosin Madawi who was just, thank God,

freed from captivity in Vermont today, as we record on April 30th, who are, if you listen to what they say, I mean, way better and way more level-headed than I might be in my personal beliefs for their advocacy of peace and recognition of the universality of humanity to all people. These are modern-day Mandela's, and that we have to sit here and abide with a Democratic Party, half of which is pointing the finger and saying

that they should be thrown back behind bars and that they should be in a room with 90 other people sleeping mats on the floor. This is a regime premised on torture and premised on the extinguishment of human. not the advancement of humanity and that's why I think you know and Andrew I'm so glad that our paths of crossed because I think that we've got a lot more to say about you know applying some insights from within the political machine to pursue that politics no I was going to say that we most certainly do and it's probably a teaser for your for your listeners to come But, you know, suffice to say, just as corruption rots the system, the corruption's coming from the parties, and it's rot at the parties as well.

So I would just say, you know, despite all appearances, they're both actually quite weak. And we're living in a very, very interesting moment, which has a lot of potential. Despite the doom around us, I actually will get into it at some point, but there are reasons for hope. We're trying to stay positive, at least in some regards. Yeah, and we've heard a lot from listeners, too, that appreciate that trying to polish the lump of coal that we've been dealt into a diamond. And to sharpen that diamond into the tip of a spear, which we must thrust into the heart of this absolutely unheaval. hinged beast of many heads that faces us down everywhere we turn and um you know to give your you know all you all listen to follow if you give i check out dear white staffers on on on

instagram it's a great account uh set up by some other lefties in in congress right um but you know there is a whole bunch of it's a place where uh people who are like for example worked in the harris campaign could write in and have their experience shared anonymously, you know, and they're telling stories of, and I, of course, can't, it's anonymous, so I don't know how accurate it is, but they're telling stories of how these consultants show up. They totally disregard and ignore local communities, local advocates, people who know the communities and have experience. They, and, you know, just make a mess of it, right? And these are the DC, the consultant industrial complex. And, I mean, that's one of my biggest takeaways. Actually, we said it at the beginning. I should have mentioned, I'm not a Democrat

anymore. I'm an independent. I left after the election. But, you know, it's one of the biggest issues and one of my, you know, what I would say needs to happen in or for any world in which I would rejoin that party would be they got to get rid of the consults that keep, because they just simply don't know what they're doing. And they consistently have the worst political advice on the face of the planet, you know, I don't know if they, you know, could have stopped the conflict campaign from tanking, but they certainly helped it on the way down, right? And, and that's just a story that repeats constantly throughout politics. Yeah, the worst political advice from the, again, from the Democratic small D perspective, the best political advice, perhaps,

from the perspective of keeping the hamster wheel underneath the spectacle of democracy running at full steam, while the straw that is inserted into the spinal fluid of the people is being sucked vampiriously by the owners of capital. now that's a metaphor for you there tonight folks good dreams for everybody on that note but yeah exactly

the illusion though is is like I said the corruption has just it's so obvious from the inside how rotten it is it's so so obvious right it's just it seems these parties both of them seem very powerful because they're all we've ever known, right?

None of us really have ever had anything else or any other option. But, you know, just like corruption has rotted the country, and I think we can all see that that's happened. The corruption is rotted the parties. And so they're actually, I think, fairly weak. And, you know, whether or not that means, you know, we start a movement where we try to co-opt the Democratic Party or take it over or create some sort of coalition for democracy or people's, you know,

whatever it is, it's just, important, the first step towards it is realizing that we don't need them. Uh, you know, maybe they'll be useful to us, but, you know, if they're not, we can leave them behind. And, uh, you know, there's a future beyond both the Democratic and Republican parties, right, in, in which there's a, you know, I'm, I'm all here for democracy. You know, there's a conservative party running, you know, a liberal one, a leftist one, libertarian. I don't care, right? As long as we can actually have our own voices and have a full conversation at the level. out, you know, all the money and the corruption.

It's possible, though, is the point I'm getting to. It really genuine, I'm more convinced than ever it truly is. Well, we will have more to discuss. We do appreciate you giving your time to us here on the pod. It's been great chatting with you, Don, and looking forward to continuing our conversation. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, for Dick, for Andrew Micellick, I am Don, and I'm saying to you the listener,

farewell and keep digging. The teacher said no college. Still kid, got to get a check with a couple comers. People want to bomb us. More people got a scatter and run from us. Blame it on to San Apollo and Adonis. But what you done here is put yourself between a bullet and a target, and it won't be long before you're pulling yourself away.

What you done here is put yourself between a bullet and a target and it won't be long before you're pulling yourself away