It Could Happen Here - Atlanta City Council Approves Cop City Funding

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Gare is joined by Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective to discuss the vote to approve public funding for Cop City, and the recent police raid targeting the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.   https://secure.actblue.com/donate/atlantasolidarity You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzoneSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hello, welcome to It Could Happen Here. This is Garrison. We're going to be doing a little bit of an update on some of the things that have been happening in Atlanta, Georgia,

the past few weeks in relation to the Stop Cop City movement. With me today to help go through the many, many happenings of the past few weeks is Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective. Hello. Hello, my friend. Good to see you. Yes, last time we talked on the show was during our very, very critically acclaimed comedy episode. The comedy episode was great. Highlight. I'm glad you approve as someone who saw the episode. I might have been the target

audience for that, but... Yeah, there was like four jokes that only three people get. But that's alright. So this is going to be a bit of a looser episode because people are preparing for the

week of action. There's a lot of things in play. It's kind's a lot of things in play. It's kind of a lot of stuff still up in the air. So I don't have time to put something super scripted together. But many things have happened that are worth talking about, especially before the week of action. of go over the stuff regarding the extra funding that, that the city seems to be, be giving towards the cop city project, even beyond the $33 million.

That was the, that was the target of the city council vote a few, a few days ago, but there's a whole bunch of extra, extra money floating around as discovered by you guys at the Atlantic community press collective. And then, uh, who had, who had their journalism pretty much stolen by every other outlet. They put our name, they put our name in there and, you know,

you get paid in the spotlight, right? That's how that works. I'm only paying you an exposure for these episodes. Exactly. Which isn't true, FYI, but anyway. So yeah, okay. So going back to 2021, this conversation started a couple months after the lease legislation was signed.

Back then it was a conversation about like a $55 million funding package started a couple months after the lease legislation was signed. Back then, it was a conversation about a $55 million funding package between the Atlanta Police Foundation and Chief Operating Officer at the time, John King. So that conversation has morphed over the last two years. But the key part of it was the extra money was going to come from this leaseback agreement. So originally, it was going to be a 20-year $1 million a year. We found out that that is actually a 30-year $1.2 million a year. So $36 million going to the Atlanta Police Foundation. And part of what they were... What they had talked about using it for in 2021 was to

pay down this $20 million loan, construction loan that the Atlanta Police Foundation was planning on taking out to build the facility. So when they were talking about the $60 million philanthropic donation, they really... They meant... 20 of that was going to come from a loan that the city was going to pay back. So immediately, these numbers were skewed from the get-go and have been misleading for the last year and a half. And I mean, part of the original plans for the Cop City project, people are unaware unaware included what,

like $30 million of public funds being contributed. And the other 60 million for the first phase was supposed to come via like private funds with, with, with the Atlanta police foundation doing like fundraising with via all their big corporate backers. And then what's happened in the past few months of them trying to downscale

some of the more expensive parts of the plan and cutting some of the fat in terms of the stables aren't going to be in the same spot that they wanted there to be stables. And other small kind of money-saving cuts and then all this increase in the amount of the project be stables and other other other small kind of money saving cuts.

And then all this increase in the amount of the project that's just being funded by taxpayers. It seems like the APS been not as successful in being able to fund their project privately as they initially hoped. That's at least my read from what's from what's going on here. So maybe not from what they originally hoped, but from what they originally showed us or told us that they were going to do. According to the chief financial operator of the city of Atlanta, Muhammad Bala,

he said that the Atlanta Police Foundation has raised $33.4 million in philanthropic funds for this which their goal apparently this whole time was only $30 million in actual funds from corporations and philanthropic organizations

including the streamer Destiny who've donated I think $20,000 to the Atlanta Police Foundation which is streamer destiny who've donated i think twenty thousand dollars to the atlanta philly foundation which is a reference to all of you internet cells out there who are also very niche who are also cursed with this knowledge yeah so the other interesting thing is is originally 10 million dollars was supposed to come in new market credits. And we're getting like really into the finances. And I'm sorry.

As soon as you said new market tax credits, part of my brain just like shut off. But continue, continue, continue. Like 30,000 foot overview. That money is supposed to go to like revitalizing impoverished or like underserved communities. It's supposed to go to businesses that want to open grocery stores and food deserts and things like that.

So it's not $10 million anymore. Now it's $5 million. But it's still going to build a police training center in a predominantly black neighborhood that is under the average monthly income. So things got twisted here. This doesn't seem like a revitalization project that is supposed to improve the lives of the neighbors around it. So yeah, it seems like the amount of funding that they actually are going to end up receiving from public funds is ballooned to be much bigger than they initially promised. And the project was initially sold on,

which is just another, another, another thing in the long line of, of, of APF moments. So this entire time, the deputy chief operating officer for the city of Atlanta, LaShonda Burks,

she has been playing quarterback for the City of Atlanta, LaShondra Burks, she has been playing quarterback for the finance conversation and she was part of the finance conversation a way back in 2020. So somebody... She's in the mayor's cabinet and she's privy to these conversations. So the entire time this is happening, Andre Dickens is still out in the press, repeating this $30 million number. I tell it to Rose Scott, who's basically our NPR person here. And he tells it to the AJC, the paper of record, and says that it's going to be $30 million.

And if it goes over, it's going to come out of the Atlanta Police Foundation. it's going to be $30 million. And if it goes over, it's going to come out of the Atlanta police foundation. And then of course, you know, his, his cabinet is having conversations about way more money this entire. Well,

do you know who else cares a lot about money? The products and services, the products and services really, really do want your money. And now also the, the, as Sophie is poking me to tell you the Apple premium subscription option also cares a lot about your money, uh, and Android version, uh, launching shortly. Anyway, here's some ads.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run

and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors

that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Okay, we are back. We're going to talk about another good... Okay, we are back. We're going to talk about another good... Staying on the topic of stealing your money and using it for purposes that is probably not very good. Let's talk about the two Atlanta City Council meetings that happened.

One was during late May, right? That was the first one with public comment that was like people were giving public comment for like seven hours that lasted quite a while it was a pretty pretty long day and then on the then during the meeting on June 5th was even longer

like how how late were you at City Council on June 5th alright well on May 15th the first City Council on June 5th? All right. Well, on May 15th, the first City Council meeting, the one where we kind of were like, hey, this is going to come up for vote. And then organizers got everyone to show up.

So about seven and a half hours of public comment that night. City Council meeting ended, I think, like 11 o'clock. And then there was a meeting, the Finance Executive Committee meeting in between that had about 2 hours of public comment, which for a subcommittee meeting is a lot. And then all of that... Every record was blown out of the water on June 5, on June 5th where we had just just over 14 hours of public comment that includes like breaks for disruption and like a minute break that City Council took and then a lot of arguing between Doug Shipman the City Council president trying to calm people down but you know overall it was 14 and a half hours of just

public comment which is the largest largest in-person public comment session that is in modern history. And it was basically unanimous. There were four speakers who got up pretty early who were in favor of the training center. And then everyone else was anti-cop city. I remember seeing some things

about like APF police departments trying to push people through to give public comment. Yeah, so there was a rumor going around that the Atlanta Police Foundation and the mayor's office were trying to get 50 people. There was like this number. it was like 50 people.

I never saw anything to back that up, but it did seem like the four people who showed up were kind of coordinated. And, you know, like one of them brought their kids, which the Stop Top City side does the same thing. So there did seem to be some like intentional parallels. But what was not paralleled was just the sheer number of people on the different sides.

It was, I don't think anybody who's in favor of the facility is like going to wait 14 hours to talk for two minutes. Yeah. That's just not going to happen. And you know, the Atlanta police foundation hasn't shown up to defend the facility in since 2021 and like they're the most invested yeah it is it is striking the amount of

which their work on it is just so much like backdoor lobbying um and they've really never had to defend the project like publicly and openly um it's and openly. It's all just these backroom meetings between city council members, between people in the mayor's office, between people in the police department. Yeah, the Atlanta Police Foundation lobbyist was actually running around City Hall on June 5th. Yeah, not surprising. on June 5th. Yeah, not surprising. So I feel like most, if people are online, they probably heard the result of the vote

after 14 hours of public comment, which was almost like unanimously against the facility. What was it, four to 11? Yeah, four votes against, 11 in favor. So they passed the funding package allocating at least the $33 million plus the future loans?

The lease-back agreement, yeah. Yes. And it's $31 million plus the lease-back agreement. We're not going to get more deep than that. Okay. But yes, it was like, what time was it?

That was like 4 a.m.? 5.30. Jesus. There was a Young Democrats thing against, there was a press conference with the Young Democrats in Georgia coming out against Top City at 8 a.m. So I was there at 7.30.

I left City Hall at 6.30. That was the wildest day. So after probably the longest city council meeting day in quite a while, they... In history. In history. For sure, in history. They...

Single day. They voted to approve the funding, which which I mean, I don't know. I was not surprised. I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed as a parent would say. I want to point out a couple of things that they did

in preparation. I think city council was prepared for an action or a heckler's veto and they had two moves to kind of neutralize that. The first is they moved the actual vote on this to the very last thing. So the vote on the funding came at the end of the meeting. So if there was an attempt to stop the vote itself, it wouldn't have affected any city business before that. It wouldn't have affected any city business before that.

And then they also prepared a committee room so that if things got rowdy or there was some sort of direct action in the chambers itself, they were just going to take the council and physically move them to a different room and let people continue to demonstrate in city council. So I think they made some wise moves on their end to prepare. Yeah, and they loaded the chamber with the cops before the vote. I know back during the afternoon, they were setting up kind of barricades and staging around City Hall. I mean, it just seemed to be a lot of erratic stuff happening around. I mean, yeah, I was unsure what was going to happen myself. I didn't know how it would play out, what tax people would try to employ. It seemed like people mostly tried to kind of go by the book there and see how far that would get.

And then if the result was what we got, then other things will happen in these next few months, especially with a week of action coming up. So yeah, do you think people, like what did people on the ground think? Like did they think that the vote would go through and did they think that the vote would be stopped? I am kind of, it's been a little over a month since in in atlanta and i think the mood on the ground fluctuates so quickly often yeah and i i think it's you know kind of dependent upon which segment of the movement

um we're talking about there's there's obviously whole sections of the movement that that are opposed to electoralism sure they still showed up. They still came and gave public comment. I feel like they didn't expect that this would go any other way. There's more electorally plugged in groups that there was a slim chance of this thing getting sent back to committee. That was the closest that this had to not going through. City Council, the whip count that we learned was,

if it came to a straight up or down vote, it was always going to go through. It's never the numbers to do anything else. Yeah. So there was some lobbying happening behind the scenes with student organizers and various other organizers who are more prone to having these discussions, especially with elected officials. get sent back to committee where it would be held and hopefully delay the actual funding and mess up APF's funding mechanism. But that didn't happen. So there were people who were hopeful. Even I was... I said that this was the closest electorally that we'd ever come to stopping it. I, you know,

just kind of knowing how the whip count changed over the course of like 48 hours, it got close. And then that it got taken away. Uh, it comes called city council members into his office Monday morning and started peeling them off. Yeah.

Well, I mean, and this was never going to be the end of the movement by any means. There was already plans for things afterwards, like the week of action at the end of June here. And I guess we can talk about how some of the ways the movement might continue going forward after these messages from our lovely sponsors who endorse everything we're saying. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series,

The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise

once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. Thank you, Ronald Reagan. I know you agree with me on this. So we're back. That was a really nice, like, ghost. It was crazy. Yeah, I mean, most people don't so as if you're part of like only on the gold though yeah exactly if you're part of the ghost hunting community there is

there is a few types of ghosts who actually really like um bargaining material possessions if they're able to give away enough of their stuff their soul is able to actually transcend to the next level and go to a more safe like a more restful. So these are people who've been too materially driven on earth. Their soul gets trapped in that. So they have to, they have to make sure that they get rid of their gold in order to them to go to their next place, whether that's like, that's like a safer version of limbo paradise, heaven, hell, whatever.

So yeah. I can't wait for you to move here so I can learn more about this. I was just making all of that up on the fly. So let's talk about what's going to happen next. Obviously, there was a week of action planned for June 24th to July 1st, which is going to be

a very hot week. There's that. To my understanding, Entrenchment Creek Park is still closed, correct? Entrenchwood Creek Park is still closed, correct? So in Trenchwood Creek Park is still closed. There is, um, there is a motion or there, there's some legislation in the DeKalb County

Board of Commissioners that is supposed to come up again on Tuesday. Uh, the CEO's office asked for like 30 days to finish cleaning up the park. So the 30 days will expire I think it's Monday and then there's a board of commissioners meeting on Tuesday where after that hopefully the park is open but we'll see

so it may or may not be open that is still that is still to be determined I've heard there will be another music festival of some sort not many details as of time of recording. So we knew that was going to happen. I talked about this during the Week of Action retrospective episode, which honestly is still pretty applicable here in terms of the amount of destruction that's happened in the forest and how people are thinking about ways to continue resistance in the face of not, again, I I'm against the binary of like victory and defeat. I think that's not a useful way of looking at this situation at this point,

but it you're, you're, they're kind of looking down like the barrel of something now being like a lot of the land's been cleared. A lot of the trees have been cut, pre-construction is ongoing, construction is scheduled for this summer, they just got approved for all the city funding, right?

Like things are in motion. So the ways that people are going to choose to resist now might be different than the ways that they chose to resist like a year or two ago, because it's just a very different situation. There's a different risk level. There's a lot more surveillance around the forest. There's a lot more surveillance outside the forest.

It's just a very different scenario. So I think the retrospective episode still contains a few things about how resistance might take forms during these next few weeks. But there's this other thing that came up after the city council meeting, which is the referendum that some people are planning. Do you want to go over a little bit of those details? Yeah, so a lot of people I've seen kind of on Twitter where a lot of people are like,

oh, the referendum is just coming out and rise to the city council vote. And like, no, this has been in the works for a little while. Okay. To my knowledge it dates i mean i know it dates back to before even the funding question was was in place so it's been in the works for a minute uh and then they they decided to hold off until after the city so we're probably going to do it regardless of the city council. But the referendum... There's a spaceport that was

supposed to be built in South Georgia. And basically, this one woman started a referendum question and got this spaceport canceled. Of course, we're talking very different municipalities. That was a much smaller one. She only had to collect 1400 signatures or something like that. But there's a referendum question that is in front of the municipal clerk to sign off on it and make sure that it is properly worded and all these things, like just an administrative issue at this point. Once the clerk signs off on it, then these organizers have 60 days to collect 75,000 signatures. The number they actually need is just over 70,000, but they're collecting a little extra because the signatures will be challenged,

things like that, with a vote. If they're successful in doing so, it goes to city council, who again, as an administrative position, has to pull the signatures, make sure everything is official. And then once that passes, then it goes automatically on the November 7. And then it will be a straight up or down question of do we cancel this 2021 lease to the Atlanta Police? But there are a couple. Where this comes in, I think most interestingly, is the organizers of this believe that they can get an injunction to stop construction. they can get an injunction to stop construction. So now, once the referendum campaign kicks off, and then if they collect the 70,000 signatures again, until November 7. So this could significantly delay the Atlanta Police

Foundation's ability to continue destruction on the land. And like right now, we're in the mass grading phase of the project, which is the most environmentally damaging part of it. Now we're, we're screwing with the contours of the land. So, you know, they're going to have to prove that they're serious about the referendum and

the judge is going to have to believe that the referendum is at least likely to succeed in order to get this injunction. But it does look like they should be able to prove at least that they are serious and there is a good chance of this succeeding. How soon do people have to start doing stuff for that? So the referendum, once the clerk signs off on the paperwork, the clerk has seven days to validate. And then once that happens, you have the 60 days. So we're in this interim period where they can't start collecting signatures. But as soon as the clerk signs off on it, they will start collecting signatures. So they anticipate

the clerk to try to hold off as long as possible. So they're looking at Wednesday, which I'm going to look at my calendar because I know exactly what to expect. So they're looking at Wednesday, the 14th as the kickoff for the signature collecting campaign. So for more information about the referendum campaign or to you know find ways to volunteer or if you are an atlanta resident who was registered to vote in the last election you can sign the referendum so copcityvote.com that's copcityvote.com cool um let's see there's one other thing that happened of note the past few weeks uh one thing one little thing there's one other thing that happened of note the past few weeks

and that's when uh police raided the home of three people um and this this this home kind of serves as like a legal defense hub in at and arrested three people associated with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and are charging them with a variety of quote-unquote charity fraud and other quite nonsensical financial crimes, as the bail hearing judge admitted himself. So do you want to go over some of those details? Because this is something that was honestly, people have been expecting this to happen. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund themselves has said, hey, we will probably be the target of something like this in the future.

something like this in the future. During other hearings, the prosecutors have talked about how they're investigating the Solidarity Fund as a part of this conspiracy they're trying to weave. So it's definitely something that's been on people's minds of this type of state repression targeting all of the bail funds and legal support structures that have

been set up. This happened late May, I believe? May 31st. Yeah, last day of May. May 31st, they were still asleep in their beds. They got arrested. SWAT broke down their door.

I'm sure everyone's seen the video. They broke down their door, armored vehicle, and pulled them all out of their beds in their pajamas and took them to jail in their pajamas. Just utterly insane for a bail fund or a nonprofit to have this go down. But yeah, they had been prepared for this for quite some time. Marlon, one of the organizers,

had sent ACPP a statement in preparation for this. And you saw how quickly they transitioned the actual running of the bail from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund to the National Bail Network. It happened seamlessly that day. So they were prepared. And then someone who was talking to Marlon while he was in jail said Marlon was pretty chill about the whole thing, which if you've ever interacted

or seen Marlon, that's pretty apt to describe him. But the actual charges are insane. The charity fraud part of it. They're saying things like buying a cell phone for the bail fund is charity fraud, or reimbursing yourself for gas is charity fraud or buying uh covid tests is charity fraud like all these things that that are just like overhead yeah very very very standard like overhead costs for running an organization of this scale um yeah and as is this was all on

the website when people doted anyway to talk to the various uses that these funds were going to have. The charges are extremely flimsy. There was a bail hearing a few days later, which I watched the whole thing, and the judge there did not think the charges had much merit,

which is the first time really during any kind of bail hearing associated with Stop Cops Day stuff where the judge was like, OK, so this just seems very clearly fake. And I told the prosecution that they'll have to put put a much, much stronger, stronger case together if they want this to go forward at any further stage. So all three got out on bail. It's pretty scary, though.

I mean, like, it fucking sucks. During the bail hearing, I believe it was the assistant attorney general who was there, Fowler, I believe. John Fowler. He was talking about how police were going through the trash of Solidarity Fund, how they're monitoring phone phone calls uh other other

communications so just another another good reason to have a have a paper shredder and to have uh to have a burn pile in your backyard um because yeah they're they're they're gonna go through your your trash if they want to find things out about you. They stole a journal from somebody. Someone's personal journal was taken. A lot of very standard

of this type of shady investigation police stuff. It's always good to have a reminder for people about what the police are willing to do. But still, even with all that, it seems like they were not able to get much at all because the most they could put together is, oh, you use these funds in a way that you explicitly said

that it could be used on your website, which is probably not going to be a crime. Um, so not compelling long-term, but certainly a pretty large inconvenience in the short term and still a very like chilling, like display of police repression saying that we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll make your life incredibly difficult. Um, if, We'll make your life incredibly difficult if we don't like you. But, you know, and as has happened every time there's been like this massive display of police repression, it utterly backfired. Right. Like we national media is now just harping on the fact that these charges are overblown and they're attacking bail funds, which is inconceivable to, let's say, the liberal or the liberal left wing of things. And so you've blown this issue into another sphere of awareness. You've got Chris Hayes now on MSNBC

doing an entire segment on top speed, which is not something we had before, even the domestic terrorism charges. And I think this was just tactically a terrible decision by the attorney general's office to go through with this because the PR side of it is a nightmare. And rightfully so, like This is an insane escalation. Is the bail funds still being operated by the National Bail Organization at this point? Yes. So the bail funds is still being run out of the national network at this point in time. So secure.actblue.com slash donate slash Atlanta Solidarity will get you a

donate page. Continue to support bail in Atlanta, which again, we've got a week of action coming up. Bail funds are highly probable in terms of being used. Yeah, I mean, as they were used to bail out

the three people who are part of the bail fund organizers, because I think they all got a $15,000 bail, which is a relatively low amount in terms of what we've seen in relation to this movement. And I was looking through the December warrants and bail hearings a minute ago for another story, and then there were like $10,000. The cost has ballooned dramatically in the last few months.

So to go back down to $15,000, this fail is terrible and awful, but that seems way more in line with expectations. Yeah. Well, so that is just a small glimpse at the many things that have been happening the past month. Things do not seem to be slowing down. Things

just seem to be changing in ways that makes, uh, makes everything is certainly, certainly, uh, tricky and not very, not very clear, but that's kind of the way that these things go. Um, people are still going to be showing up. There's the week of action happening starting on the 24th. That's going to be this month. It's going to be an interesting lead up to July 1st. The movement continues. Where can people

find your work, Matt? You can follow ACPC at Atlanta underscore press on Twitter. You can follow, at Atlanta underscore press on Twitter. You can follow me at Matt ACPC on Twitter and our website is ATL press collective. Dot com. I assume. Yeah. Oh, did I cut out?

You did cut out. I could not hear it at all. I said, I heard, I heard ATL press collective. Yeah. Just, you know, ATL Press Collective. Dot com. Dot com. Fantastic. Yeah, you can, I'll put a link for the new Solidarity Fund, secure.acblue.com slash donate slash Atlanta Solidarity, because that is a long thing to type out.

So I'll put a link for that in the description for the new bail fund link. And yeah, you can, if you want to keep updated on plans for the new, for the new bail fund link. Um, and, uh, yeah, you can, you can, uh, if you want to keep updated on plans for the week of action, um, I suppose you can look at, uh, stop cop city on Instagram and, uh, the defend the Atlanta forest account on Twitter, um, along with the many, many websites that, that exist at this point. Uh, but yeah, so that's going to be happening later. I don't know what will happen because I don't know.

We're going to have another fun week. Because I really have no idea what's going to happen because what happened in the last one was also quite surprising. So who knows? Who knows what will go down? But thank you, Matt, for joining me to give me and the listeners a bit of an update on again many things that have been

happening in Atlanta I'll see you all on the other side It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media visit our website podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow.

Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.