It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: Escalation in Iran, Trade War with Canada, Arcade.gov

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhain. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft.

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Starting point is 00:00:41 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. There should not be a single law enforcement agency. It does not have body cameras. It's real. Black farmers have been under attack. This is just the latest example of this.

Starting point is 00:00:58 them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw. And I'm sitting here going, they are playing y'all for fools. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. College football will hijack your weekend, ruin your sleep, and break your heart. And that's why we make the Solid Verbal College Football Show.

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Starting point is 00:01:52 Patra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died. by suicide. Dear honeys, this is goodbye. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Why did they do it?

Starting point is 00:02:09 And what did it do to the people they left behind? Listen to Death of an Artist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AllZone Media. This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder. Our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.

Starting point is 00:02:36 Today I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Sophie Lichtenman. Yeah. This episode we're covering the week of September 2nd to September 9th. Welcome. Before we start, I have a tiny correction, massive correction, depending on who you are. Many people have reached out, at least half of the people who live in Florida and listen to this podcast, to let me know that there are, in fact, crocodiles in Florida. Many of them live near some kind of large power plant.

Starting point is 00:03:03 Yes. I didn't know about this. That is because in my life I have avoided Florida. You know, apart from when I was eight and went to see the animals that they keep in a little prison there. But yeah, thank you for letting me know. I'm excited to learn more about your crocodiles. Maybe I'll come visit them one day. I actually showed this chomp the oligarchy poster to a friend who's from Florida after we recorded.

Starting point is 00:03:29 And they confirmed it is indeed a crocodile, even though alligators. are much more common. They're like, it probably should have been an alligator. But I spent like five minutes looking at like comparisons of crocodile photos and alligator photos. I think it's maybe a crocodile, but I don't know for sure. Because it's kind of like a crunchy, kind of low-poly image. But crocodile confirmed.

Starting point is 00:03:52 People in Florida, it turns out, really fucking love that crocodile. They're pretty cool. They're pretty scary. Yeah, congratulations on having a crocodile. I went bass fishing in Florida once. Don't do that. Incredibly dull. Let's talk about the news. Let's talk about the news. I hope everyone had a good fake Labor Day. I worked also worked. Well, there you go. I went camping. Well, on Monday, Labor Day,

Starting point is 00:04:20 Mayor Mamdani signed an executive order creating the Office of Worker Power, which will be led by labor organizer Tony Perlstein, who recently served as the organizing director of the UAW. It's the United Auto Workers. This quote-unquote First in the Nation office aims to use city resources to help workers organize themselves, connect them with contacts, unionize, and build power. And this is inspired by the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, which is a joint initiative by DSA and the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers. Hi, EWalk. Conceptually really interested to see how this turns out. Yes. And you can go to the website to NYC.gov slash worker power to learn more. Similar to the rental rip-off hearings earlier this year to address the concerns

Starting point is 00:05:09 of tenants, the Office of Worker Power will be holding public hearings on worker issues, which will then drive policy going forward. But there's way more than just these hearings as a part of this office. Yeah. And I'm excited to see how this develops in the next few months. Sounds good. Let's see if it can be executed in a very helpful way. In other news, according to a new legal opinion by the DOJ, states must report any undocumented immigrants that they know of to DHS in order to receive federal welfare funds to assist low-income families. To quote from this opinion, quote, when a state chooses to participate in the temporary assistance for needy families and the

Starting point is 00:05:47 supplemental security income programs, all agencies within that state, not only those that administer benefits, must report individuals known to be not lawfully present in the United States to the Department of Homeland Security, unquote. It's a new interpretation of law revising an earlier opinion from 1998. Yeah, I haven't alluded to this. I was going to look into this. I thought about doing a whole episode on like where we're at with public charge and like generally was, so I think I might kind of hold off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say that like generally the states wouldn't have they have consciously not kept lists

Starting point is 00:06:29 of undocumented people as sanctuary states, right? Which is largely who this will be targeting. Yeah. So like it's not as if the absence from one list does not necessarily mean you're undocumented and creating a list of undocumented people

Starting point is 00:06:43 would be a very unwise move. So like I don't know what this means practically, right? Like if it's saying you have, if you have a list of undocumented people, you have to turn it over to get 10th and they can just be like we don't have it. Cool, but I do need to spend a bit more time reading up on this

Starting point is 00:07:00 in combination with the public charge stuff I spoke about a couple weeks ago. It just occurred to me the States would probably know who were dreamers, right? So they would have that available to them. It is expected that this will face some challenges, that this new opinion from the DOJ will face challenges in court. But this did come out last week. Finally, for me, one of the staffers who was fired after posting that Ron DeSantis Faschwave video in 2023, which we did a whole thing on.

Starting point is 00:07:33 It had a son and rat. It had all the stuff. All the things. That staffer now works at the State Department as Mark Rubio's chief speechwriter and deputy director of the agency's policy planning office, according to your reporting, from the New York Times. Oh, my. Yes.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Yeah. That's cool and bad. Yeah. I'm recalling this sort of like language of like of like the left as this like, you know, gross diseased like anti-civilizational force that was used in like Mark Rubio's like left wing terrorism address at that conference a few weeks ago. And thinking about who his chief speechwriter is, it does help contextualize some of the words that Mark Rubio and others were saying. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, moving on, starting out a Russian drone transited Romanian airspace on Tuesday. They've been, like, I don't really know how to drive this other than, like, drone trolling. There were two Spanish jets that were stationed there that scrambled to, like, intercept the drone. But their continuation of drone trolling states, like, within the EU and NATO, like, this is a serious thing, right?

Starting point is 00:08:48 Like, these are serious and ongoing provocations. Yeah. Secondly, the Barmo Flotilla, so the Barma Flotilla, if you remember, was reduced to six ships on its way to resupply the embattled Hunter Garrison in Myanmar. It lost five of those six ships on the way back. Now the Flotilla is just a boat. Incredible. Yeah, I think it illustrates how unconventional warfare or guerrilla warfare has changed in the last 10 years, right, that like the Upper Arawaddy River now is dominating. by the resistance with FPV drones.

Starting point is 00:09:25 That is what's taking. There are also just straight up standing on the bank and shooting them with Karl Gustavs, but it's the FPV drones that have changed the way that this state can move. In this case, move. Rivers are very important in Myanmar, and this is just an illustration of how much harder it is

Starting point is 00:09:43 for the state to use those rivers. Next, a DC circuit court has ruled that the IRS's choice to share the information thousands of taxpayers with DHS violates the law. It also said that arguments to the contrary were, quote, weak source. And the court also suggested there could be civil and criminal consequences for IRS staff who keep doing this. The United Kingdom, France and Canada this week announced sanctions on some of the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This is part of a new approach that we spoke about some time ago on ED, right?

Starting point is 00:10:21 where they are claiming that there will be consequences for some of Israel's more flagrant violations of international law, obviously not all of them. And like this alone is not going to be the thing that stops Israel just doing what the fuck it wants, including, yeah. Would have been nice like 50 years ago. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like some point in early,

Starting point is 00:10:43 the middle of the last century would have been a great time to start doing shit. This is an interesting one that I thought kind of initially, I thought maybe this fitted into the state-sponsored attacks on European countries, but a number of rocket attacks on German infrastructure have occurred in the last 10 days. And infrastructure for these rocket attacks have been found by German police who arrested a man yesterday. So they're claiming the actions are like a single person, perhaps someone from like the ecological movement, as opposed to like a state incursion.

Starting point is 00:11:14 This is still very new. So I'm going to keep an eye on this, especially given some of the attacks on like energy infrastructure that were mentioned by the State Department when they were most recently designated organizations to SDGTOs. There has been a degree of militant environmentalist action in Germany, specifically the past few years. It's like the only left-wing movement that's like kind of alive there. That's a little unfair, but yeah. Finally, the White House has posted a picture of New Mexico or a map of

Starting point is 00:11:47 New Mexico, a part of it, but Mexico is crossed out and America is written instead. This is very silly. I'm going to come back to this a little bit in my section because it's weirdly Canada-related. It's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I don't quite know what they're going for here. I guess it is all of New Mexico. Hey, our Supreme Ruler is a toddler. I've just noticed this map of New Mexico.

Starting point is 00:12:13 It has the bordering United States. states, but it does not appear to acknowledge that Mexico exists. Great. Great. Yeah. Great. Sensational. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:26 In related news, television show, South Park has changed their name to South America. What? Really? In a, yes, their newest season will be called South America. Jesus Christ. Because it's just as I'm sure it's a whole thing with mocking Trump. They've always been a satirical show, but they've gone very hard into Trumpist satire the past few years. I don't know. A lot of it's really funny personally. But, you know.

Starting point is 00:12:58 Finally, we've deployed South Park against the enemy. They're doomed now. Yeah, yeah. Some of the most ideological committed libertarians out there. Yeah, yeah. So speaking of surging fascism in very bleak ways, there were recent German state elections in the state of Saxony on halt. Now, on the one hand, this is not a very well-populated state. However, comma, the neo-Nazi party, the alternative for Germany, has come in first in this election with technically sub a majority of 45% of the vote, but this is the first time that a fairly

Starting point is 00:13:39 overtly neo-Nazi party has been the largest party in a German election since the Nazis were in power. This is extremely alarming. The AFD is the most far right of the European far right parties that are anywhere close to power. They are further right even than something like Marie Le Pen's party in France. They are fairly openly talking about kinds of mass deportations that on the one hand are happening right now in the United States, but journalists repeatedly infiltrating their meetings, The stuff we're talking about publicly is the kind of stuff that ICE is doing in the United States. The stuff we're talking about in private, and not even that in private, is removing all immigrants and Jews from the country. So this is extremely alarming. It's unclear exactly if AFD can form a government.

Starting point is 00:14:32 It kind of doesn't look like it. However, there is a small chance that the breakaway, I don't even want to call them left. Germany has a another kind of like what I would call like a quote unquote left wing like fascist party called BSW

Starting point is 00:14:50 that was a breakaway from their left party that is a like what if we went fascist on social issues but also did a welfare state party and if those guys tolerate an AFD government

Starting point is 00:15:00 they could put them in power the problem is in order to form a non-AFD government you need every single other party to work together so it's a catastrophe and the ruling CDU, a Christian Democratic Union, which is also like an increasingly right-wing party,

Starting point is 00:15:16 lost an enormous amount of support and is unable to form a government. So, AFD is just three seats away from forming a majority on their own in the state parliament. Yeah, and BSW could put them over the line. So not great results in the regional election in Germany if you're terrifying. Yeah. Care about people. Yeah. Also, like, notable, I think, because we had seen this tendency towards like a Trump

Starting point is 00:15:42 endorsement is like the death now of electoral success. This has obviously not been the case here. Trump trothed about AFDA, calling them a populist party today. And I think it's also worth mentioning that part of the dangers here is the almost unique dysfunction of the German left, which has had its Green Party basically discredited by pedophile scandals that we talked about, or that Robert talked about behind the bastards. Dyerlinka, their left party is a complete disaster and has been basically since its inception as a weird merger of East German communists and Western social movements.

Starting point is 00:16:21 Even their autonomous theme is a wreck because there's a bunch of like ultra-Zionists who will do things like push people in front of train tracks for like not supporting Israel. So, yeah, the like one of the things that is a contributor to the rise of... AFD and their continued rise is the almost unique like catastrophe that is the German left. There are obviously good people there fighting the good fight, but it's a bleak situation. Also bleak is the amount of sports betting and other life betting apps,

Starting point is 00:17:00 adds increased a sponsorship fuckery that's been happening. and in our faces, particularly in the last week, I just want to talk about a few of them, like former Los Angeles Laker and now active Philadelphia 76er, and man, I used to admire, I told the team this, but I used to have what I call my La Barbie,

Starting point is 00:17:22 which was a LeBron James Kendall. I had to put in the basement. I couldn't look at him. Wait, is this the guy from Space Jam 2? That's the guy from Space Jam 2. But not Space Jam 1. That's very important. Oh, God. Okay, now I understand.

Starting point is 00:17:35 Very different. No, no, no. The guy from Space Jam won made gambling his own problem. He didn't make it anybody else's problem. Very different. All the goats are involved with gambling in some way or another. But LeBron James is now one of the new faces of the prediction market platform, holly market. He teased on X the Everything app and a ad that was about 14 seconds with him like, walking into Polymarket HQ and then put out a further ad that, like, showed him with a bunch of other very famous athletes and celebrities. Like, thinking back, it was like Derek Jeter, director Spike Lee. Spike Lee, brother, come on. You've got to do better than this. Yeah, that sucks.

Starting point is 00:18:28 A number of, like, current and both former athletes, Eli Manning across the board. And per sportsbusinessdural.com, quote, the terms of his deal with polymarket have not been discussed, but NBA rules restrict players, financial insurance and companies that offer league related wagering or similar products, including limits on ownership stakes. However, back in February, also very famous NBA player, Janice Ante Coupo, who is now on the Miami Heat, wild off season in the NBA, hosted. we all on Kalshi now. And he posted this like this black and white image. Everyone is online. The internet is full of opinions. I decided it was time to make some of my own.

Starting point is 00:19:13 Today I'm joining Kaushi as a shareholder. We all on Kauci now. Yana Sant'Kupa. I think that it is really bad to have active athletes as the face of sports betting. Even if LeBron is talking not about basketball, You still, when you think LeBron James, you think basketball. So it's still having an impact there. I wish this out was the only part of the story that I was going to talk about.

Starting point is 00:19:43 But as someone with a uniquely knowledgeable mind when it comes to bad people, ads and podcasting, I have to talk about someone who, you know, has, if you could guess by the name of her podcast, not great takes all the time. Amanda Hirsch, the host of the popular, and it is very popular. I mean, very, very, very popular. Probably not with our audience, but very popular podcast. Not skinny, but not fat. That's what the podcast called.

Starting point is 00:20:13 Apologized on Sunday, and this is per the cut, and I went and tracked down some of the things that they mentioned this. Apologized on Sunday after facing backlash for posting a polymarket ag pegged to the Lindsay Clancy trial. Her shared a statement calling the ad insensitive wrong and out of character. for her. But the original ad was posted shortly after the judge presiding of the Kancy case declared a mistrial. And in this video, she shared that 36% of traders thought that Clancy, who was on trial for strangling her three children, would be convicted of murder. Hersh all added that she had been so glued to this case and it was on the edge of her seat

Starting point is 00:20:53 waiting for the verdict. According to a screenshot, the ad was captioned, quote, the judge declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Cancer trial. On at Polymarket, it was predicted that the verdict would be not guilty. Are you supplied? Hashtag Polymarket partner. What the fuck? Yeah. She since deleted it and apologized.

Starting point is 00:21:14 But what in the actual fuck? Are we cooked? That was my first thought. I read this article from the cut and I kind of sat in silence for a good amount of time. Yeah. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. What are we doing?

Starting point is 00:21:29 What are we doing here? Like, she did an ad about betting on a trial where multiple children were killed. Like, how despicable are we as humans that that's even an option? Like, why are we betting on that? Why is that something people can bet on? That should not be okay. And then if that wasn't, you know, bad enough, I got the whiplash of waking up this morning after staying up far too late watching the U.S. Open

Starting point is 00:21:59 to see that actor Sidney Sweeney, who's dating a horrible ex-manager and famous Zionist Scooter Braun. I just wanted to add that context. Quote, this is from variety. Sidney Sweeney stripped down for a steamy new ad for Novig. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it,

Starting point is 00:22:15 but that's how I'm going to pronounce it. The latest sports trading app and prediction market for fans of football, baseball, soccer, tennis, and more. The Euphoria Star goes nude in the ad. That's not the. problem, be as naked as you want, and poses with a variety of sports equipment like footballs, basketballs, a hockey net, and other athletic gear. She also joins Novig, bad name, as a strategic

Starting point is 00:22:38 partner and equity holder. Quote, the campaign was all about embracing a fun idea, said Sweeney, in a statement, the concept is simple, cut through the noise, and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor, and playful edge. Um, it ruined my morning. It's out of control. Something must be done. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of hoping, and I posted this on blue sky. I'm like, I'm kind of hoping it's like that one time in the Super Bowl where a bunch of really famous people got in trouble for doing like crypto scam ads. And I'm kind of hoping that's what happens here. But I don't have a lot of faith, especially under this administration, that that will be the case. Yeah. The last thing I want to say in this, this is, I guess, anecdotal and I don't know if it's

Starting point is 00:23:22 statistically significant, but I think it is interesting. I have been seeing. move from kind of like mid-sized, like independent people who do sports stuff away from and sort of getting pissed off at sports betting and pushing away from it. And this has been people who had taken money from these companies before and have looked at what this has done and it just been like, oh my God. So I'm hoping that maybe in the long run we're seeing sports where this was born become a place where people like lower down all. the totem pole start to push against it in a way that can eventually do something.

Starting point is 00:23:59 But right now it's, it's so bleak. It's bleak and it's just in our faces. And speaking of things that are bleak and are in our faces, it's time for our capitalism. Here's some ads. Nice. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in?

Starting point is 00:24:24 Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHart Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll. on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas, and Las Culturistas. Now with full video. I'll just leave that there. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen.

Starting point is 00:24:44 Open the free IHard Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Hey, everyone. It's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas Podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Boubley, Seth Myers, Nile Horan, Jake Shane, and making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Ashton and Earl. She likes to control everyone and tell everyone what to do.

Starting point is 00:25:03 Okay, well, control is a harsh word. I would say that's a harsh word. I am more outspoken. Growing up a lot of the times because she was so quiet. I would speak for like the both of us. Now I'm working on like thinking a moment, really not controlling it. Not controlling. I mean.

Starting point is 00:25:20 And Joey King. You know if your like mom is yelling at your sibling and even if you're annoyed with your sibling, you just like won't let that slide. It's like only you can yell at your sibling. I'm like, you can't do that here. That is, you do not talk about her like that. Oh, I talk about her like that. Plus, we've been taking your calls,

Starting point is 00:25:37 listening to your voicemails and giving you advice. Or at least trying to. So if you've got catching up to do, now's the perfect time. Listen to Hey, Jonas, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angela Geratana. Jeremy Colhane. Patrick McDonald.

Starting point is 00:25:53 And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcasts where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore.

Starting point is 00:26:15 Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14th.

Starting point is 00:26:31 That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland bookstore yesterday, and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. We'll have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes.

Starting point is 00:26:48 Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet. it as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeard radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:27:09 Self Care September is here, which means it's time to rethink what self-care actually means. Yes, self-care can be a long walk. It can be in everything shower. It can be putting your phone on Do Not Disturb. But sometimes it's actually about sitting with the uncomfortable stuff. And understanding your patterns, your boundaries, finally figuring out while you keep doing things that you swore you would never do again. I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and each week we unpack

Starting point is 00:27:34 the psychology behind the experiences that shape your 20s, from relationships and friendships to money, anxiety, confidence, attachment, just becoming more comfortable with who you are. Unlike the quarter life crisis, which is depicted as the collapse, the quarter life reinvention is the expansion and growth of something. When we develop the ability to be happy by ourselves, nobody else can take that from you. So this self-care September, don't just take care of yourself. Get to know yourself as well. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:28:14 All right, we are back. And we are now going to discuss two of America's longest standing foes. Of course, I'm talking about Iran and Canada. No particular order, but we're going to start with Iran because it's not the alphabetical one, I guess. So the U.S.-Iran conflict has really been significantly escalated. again just last week. The United States has sunk a tanker. The Houthis have been launching in as much as the conflict. Obviously, the Houthis are neither the United States nor Iran, but conflict in the region. The Houthis launched a drone barrage on Saudi cities, and Iran has

Starting point is 00:28:51 responded by threatening boats all over the region. So if we start with that Houthi drone attack, 73 civilians were injured as infrastructure, including oil refineries, other civilian targets were hit by these Houthi long-range drones. In response, of course, Saudis have attacked the Houthis. And it appears that, like, we're likely to see a return of full-scale maneuver warfare in Yemen, right? With Saudi support. Just to clarify, the Houthi drone trucks are against positions in Saudi Arabia. Yes, correct.

Starting point is 00:29:22 Yeah, yeah. So they're not against positions of the, like, the Yemeni state. They're there against positions of the Saudi state. Yeah. That's, like, a low blow to the Saudis. I don't know how to say it. You know, like, if you go after Saudi's oil refineries, they're going to be pissed. Like, that's a way to trigger a response.

Starting point is 00:29:37 Yeah, yeah. Now, the United States has also been going after oil infrastructure and transport this week. Notably, they sunk motor tanker Kylo this weekend, along with striking two other tankers over the weekend. Audio from one of the attacks, which CNN, I couldn't find the actual audio anywhere, but CNN has a transcript of it. So I'm just going to read out that transcript from – this is from U.S. Airquart. on an emergency frequency to mariners on those vessels. Motor tanker stark one. This is the United States military aircraft.

Starting point is 00:30:10 I am preparing to fire at your stern. You have 10 minutes to clear the crew from the stern of your ship. Over. In a later exchange, the ship is warned. This is your final warning. Get into your lifeboats and abandon the ship immediately. So I do like this vessel that Mototanker, kind of that went down.

Starting point is 00:30:26 It does appear that people had got into their lifeboats and evacuated that boat. Right. I think there was some misunderstanding there on the part of some, like I saw people, like I think just assuming that they'd kind of struck it out the blue. But the way they'd generally do this is they warn the people on emergency frequency, which they did again on Tuesday when they hit five boats in a single day. So Centcom published footage of this. Generally, it's like black and white thermal footage. We see a couple of different like methodologies here. We see. We see,

Starting point is 00:31:01 strikes in the sterns of the vessels in some cases, and in other cases, absolutely massive explosions and multiple munitions slamming into ships. One of these was near Kagg Island. Now, the United States says it is doing this in retaliation for Iran firing ballistic missiles at a US ship. Interestingly, not all of the missiles Iran has used recently have been anti-ship missiles. They've been using some of those Castle Breaker missiles that we spoke about last week as well. I don't know if that's because they're trying with that maneuverable warhead, just like a different way of trying to get past defenses, or what they're going for there,

Starting point is 00:31:38 or maybe it does suggest that Iran is running into supply issues of its own. But either way, it does rather undermine the claims of the United States to destroy Iran's ability to fire ballistic missiles because they are firing a shit ton of ballistic missiles right now. Iran today has, once again, we're recording on Wednesday for those listening on Friday, it's fired at missiles, United States destroyers, facilities, and at commercial vessels, including one in Iraqi waters.

Starting point is 00:32:08 Over the weekend, we learned that Amman had to rescue 16 mariners after one of the strikes last week. And Iran has also attacked Jordan again. What we've seen this time is interesting. They're using cluster munition equipped medium-range ballistic missiles. And they are burning through this supply of Patriot intercept. right? We've seen so much reporting on the US running low on missiles and specifically interceptors, right? And so some of this appears to just be forcing the United States to burn up more and more interceptors over Jordan. Iran also this week captured a large displacement and drill underwater drone. So these had not been confirmed by the US military to be operating in their region. And so the capture is kind of significant. I don't think this is likely a weaponized drone.

Starting point is 00:33:04 I'm guessing it is used for, like, reconnaissance work, right? Andril lists a bunch of functions on its website, things like ISR, also like anti-mine operations. After Iran published photos of this clearly showed the Andril drone, CENTCOM made a comment saying, quote, An underwater drone operated by US forces malfunctioned more than a day ago. It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radio equipment. US operations in area waters continue.

Starting point is 00:33:40 You could collect sensitive data with a notebook and a pen. The age of the drone doesn't matter. I'm not an underwater drone guy. I do know underwater drone people. This to me looks very similar to the model that is currently listed on Andrew's website. And it is significant, right, that Iran has been able to capture this. Like, if nothing else, it will give them sort of a propaganda victory. And Iran loves a propaganda victory.

Starting point is 00:34:06 Yeah. I'm returning. After recording this to let everyone know that Palmer Lucky has tweeted, Zetid, a touching memorial to the drone. It reads as follows. Everyone watching Iran's state-run TV news program probably noticed they picked up an Andrill Drive LD. A mass produced a treatable submarine. This particular vehicle has been swimming in Centcom for months,

Starting point is 00:34:31 successfully operating in support of American forces for thousands of hours. It was explicitly designed to operate an environment too dangerous for humans, where capture is an expected possibility. I can't get into the details, but it provided significant value for months before capture. Rest in peace, little buddy. And then he has included a picture of the drone and a picture of an IRGC post of the drone, where they know that they have captured it.

Starting point is 00:34:58 Finally, the United States military has begun turning off, has advised senators that is turning off, advertising trackers on a range of devices. Reuters is claiming an exclusive on this. I don't know if they're suggesting that, like, I would hope they're suggesting that the turning off, that they have confirmed that these are being turned off is an exclusive because we and others reported months ago

Starting point is 00:35:21 that Iran was using ad tech to target U.S. military personnel. right? And this is the nature of modern warfare, right? Like the surveillance done on us by capitalism is even more pervasive than the surveillance done on us by the state. It makes sense, therefore, that states are going to these companies and purchasing that data. Why would you not? Yeah. It's so much cheaper for them to do that than to run their own intelligence operations or like recruit someone in the US military or whatever. So this use of ad tech is not particularly new, We are finding out about it because Ron Wyden, who's an Oregon senator, has been pushing for months

Starting point is 00:36:00 to get the military to say they've done something about this. And they've finally disclosed in a letter that they are turning off some of their advertising, tracking stuff on their devices. But I think it's a really good illustration of how pervasive surveillance of capitalism is so much more powerful than even... Iran is a state that does love to be spying on people

Starting point is 00:36:21 and they still are nowhere near as effective at this as we are at giving away our own data on our Instagram clicks. Oil has hit $100 American dollars a barrel as a result of all this fuckery, which is a perfect time for us to talk about our other enemy, which also has its own strategic oil reserve, Canada. So speaking of our other war are just absolutely baffling trade war with Canada for no reason whatsoever other than someone showed Trump a graph of the countries that the U.S. trades with the most, and Mexico and Canada, we're at the top because they are right next to us

Starting point is 00:37:18 and we've integrated our economies with them since we're both British colonies. Is continuing. Now, as we have talked about on this show extensively, Trump illegally invoked the almost certainly defunct Smoot-Hawley TerraFact to impose a 50% sanction rate on a swath of Canadian exports, though again, this does not include key sectors of the auto industry or energy imports. Canada threatened retaliatory tariffs on $20 million of U.S. goods. Now, on Tuesday, as we were recording this, those tariffs went into effect. These are a range of tariffs.

Starting point is 00:37:56 I'm going to do one kind of important one and one extremely silly one. As we talked about this before, so as we mentioned last time we talked about this, part of the reason these negotiations collapsed was the U.S. wanting to be able to set Canada's steel tariff rates to put them in line with other countries' tariff rates. Canada has responded to this by increasing its tariff rate on American steel from 25% to 50%. There's also tariffs on cheese in what seems to be a very specific measure to piss off Wisconsin. They do this sometimes, right? Like when they do these tariffs, they do them on symbolic goods. Like I think the EU tariffed bourbon for a while. Yeah. Well, what's interesting is that

Starting point is 00:38:34 the reporting on this has said that, oh, there aren't symbolic tariff items that Canada did in 2018. And no, if he's reaching the tariffs, why else are you opposing a tariff on cheese? Now, as we mentioned earlier, in the middle of the negotiations collapsing and now as these tariffs went into effect, Trump has tried to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, a thing which Google and other sort of bootlicking companies have. bowed to, I guess. And also, again, as we mentioned earlier, Trump is posting memes about changing New Mexico to New America. A fun aside on that map thing, I found out after we recorded last week that the company that I used to work for that owned how stuff works, now owns MapQuest.

Starting point is 00:39:30 Oh, wow. Great. Incredible. The based map service. Because like I don't know if everybody knows this entire thing, but they're the ones that said that they would refuse to change the map, which like great. But like some personal Sophie history is like before Cool Zone, it was like IHart, before IHart, I worked at How Stuff Works. And before How Stuff Works, the company was owned by a company called System 1, and then System 1 sold How Stuff Works to IHeart, and then we started Cool Zone. So there's like this weird thing.

Starting point is 00:40:04 Where and then all of a sudden I'm reading it and I was like, and I still talk to a couple people that work there because they're lovely. And I was like, why the fuck does this company own math class? And so that's just a fun aside. Anyways, continue. Well, I mean, there is something real here in that in these kind of just weird symbolic power moves, you're getting to see which companies are sort of purely just falling in line with the administration because it's profitable on which companies are not because they're trying to cash in on the other side. There's probably, there's probably, there's probably some genuine principle there too, because this is absolutely ridiculous. The reason I bring up Ontario is that Trump has also been specifically feuding with Ontario, because Ontario's premier, Doug Ford has been very, very vocal in resistance to American tariffs. Doug Ford, welcome to the resistance. God, Doug. Jesus Christ, one of the worst guys in Canadian politics. I hate all of this.

Starting point is 00:41:01 So in response to what Trump claims is discrimination against American trade, which, like, again, I can't emphasize enough like this is happening because you impose 50% tariff on it. It's all nonsense. Trump is now threatening to put a ban on using U.S. government purchasing power to buy planes from Canadian airplane manufacturer Bombadier unless those planes are built in the U.S. Now, Bombadier already has a bunch of plants in the U.S., and this is pissing. passing off so Trump's congressional allies who have the company's plants in their state. It is not clear to me that Trump understands exactly what rate he's stepping on here by having the U.S. fuck with a specifically a Canadian aircraft manufacturer where this is the site of one of the most humiliating chapters of the history of Canada as a branch plant economy. And the destruction

Starting point is 00:41:51 of the Arvo Arrow, which was a really quite good late 50s Canadian jet fighter that was created by this Canadian manufacturer named Arvo, which was supposed to be produced in this effort to have Canada become its own kind of like semi-independent military power in the ability to have a Canadian fighter jet that would be used by the Canadian Air Force and then sold to the rest of the world.

Starting point is 00:42:14 And then the Canadian government, under pressure from the United States, scrapped the entire project, destroyed all the planes, and physically destroyed all of the manufacturing capacity. And this is one of sort of the peak moments of the U.S. just going absolutely not. You are not allowed to sell.

Starting point is 00:42:28 You know, you're not allowed to develop, be on fighter technology, like you are a, like a pseudo colony of the U.S. And this is the kind of, you know, pressure that can and has always been leveraged by the United States against Canada. But obviously, I personally want to talk about this because we're getting a peek into the imperialist nature of both of these settler colonies in that we are talking about sort of Canadian independence from the United States in the context of a fight over who gets to sell jet fighters to the rest of the world. Yeah. And like you are Canada. What the fuck do you need an Air Force for? Like, why are you like manufacturing fighter jets? And the answer is to bomb Iraq. But, you know, this is, I just wanted to have this as a reminder that A, Trump is stepping on very old rakes in Canadian politics. It doesn't even seem to understand exist. And then B, also like, as, as much as it is like obviously trivially true that the U.S. is acting as aggressors here and that the U.S. is, you know, run by an unbeliefably hideous right-wing imperialist government. Like, Canada is also a slightly less brutal settler state. So, you know, we're not dealing with great nationalisms here.

Starting point is 00:43:42 Now, technically speaking, and this is something that if you get to, like, page nine of the reporting on this, you will get to the part where, like, the news mentions that these tariffs on both sides are on something like 5 and 6% of Canadian and American imports. they are to some extent more symbolic than anything else, although it is worth noting that Trump's threat to stop the import and also stop U.S. government from purchasing things with Canadian companies is a fairly significant escalation.

Starting point is 00:44:14 There's two things that are important here. One, Trump is once again wielding the hideously illegal powers of the defunct smooth holly terror fact, which she could also use at any other country at any point if you want to. And the other thing is that negotiations have broken down completely and are unlikely to reach a deal, especially as Trump pivots to China in a weird mirror of the Obama administration's pivot to Asia in the run-up to his upcoming September bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping. Now, I want to close. I'm mentioning the U.S. Justice Department is attempting to prosecute Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei. I assume this is just a way of trying to put pressure on the U.S. government.

Starting point is 00:44:58 Nominally, this is about Chinese sanctions violation and also technology theft, things that Huawei is, like, doing, but hasn't really been cared about until now. It's sort of unclear what's going to happen with these investigations. It's also weird that this is an investigation purely against a corporation and none of its employees, which is odd and baffling and why the announcement of this seems. like a sort of negotiating play, so we can also expect there'll be some kind of weird sanction stuff with China over the next couple of weeks as we go into this meeting with Xi Jinping.

Starting point is 00:45:32 And that's our trade war that we're fighting for some reason as we fight another actual war. Yeah, it's six bucks. Six bucks for a gallon of gas here now. Oh, boy. Yeah. Love to live in the consequences of our ruler's actions. Yeah, it's great.

Starting point is 00:45:50 Do you know what else? the consequences of our rulers' actions. Yeah. It's the products and services that support this podcast. Port to you, but big oil. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart.

Starting point is 00:46:14 And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas Podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Bublay, Seth Myers, Nile Horan, Jake Shane, and making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Asgen-N-Rle.

Starting point is 00:46:46 She likes to control everyone and tell everyone. Okay, well, control is a harsh word. I would say that's a harsh word. I am more outspoken. Growing up a lot of the times because she was so quiet, I would speak for, like, the both of us. Now I'm working on, like, thinking a moment, reeling it. Not controlling the minute. And Joey King.

Starting point is 00:47:06 You know if your, like, mom is yelling at your sibling, and even if you're annoyed with your sibling, you just, like, won't let that slide. It's like, only you can yell at your sibling. I'm like, you can't do that here. That is, you want to talk about her like that. Only I talk about her like that. Plus, we've been taking.

Starting point is 00:47:22 your calls, listening to your voicemails and giving advice. Or at least trying to. So if you've got catching up to do, now's the perfect time. Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhane. Patrick

Starting point is 00:47:38 McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal.

Starting point is 00:47:54 I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class?

Starting point is 00:48:05 No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako in the thousand paper cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday

Starting point is 00:48:18 and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up?

Starting point is 00:48:34 He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Self Care September is here, which means it's time to rethink what self-care actually means. Yes, self-care can be a long walk.

Starting point is 00:49:00 It can be in everything shower. It can be putting your phone on, do not disturb. But sometimes it's actually about sitting with the uncomfortable stuff. And understanding your patterns, your boundaries, finally figuring out while you keep doing things that you swore you would never do again. I'm Gemma Spag, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast. And each week we unpack the psychology behind the. experiences that shape your 20s, from relationships and friendships to money, anxiety, confidence,

Starting point is 00:49:27 attachment, just becoming more comfortable with who you are. Unlike the quarter life crisis, which is depicted as the collapse, the quarter life reinvention is the expansion and growth of something. When we develop the ability to be happy by ourselves, nobody else can take that from you. So this self-care September, don't just take care of yourself, get to know yourself as well. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Garrison, what do you got? So, although we are dealing with, you know, $6 gas, a pointless war, a pointless trade war, there is one thing the Trump government can still do without a problem. And that's post.

Starting point is 00:50:15 Oh, yeah, they'd be posting. They can keep on posting. In terms of symbolic actions, the actions that's administration have in the real world, have not diminished their ability to take symbolic action online. Since Trump took office in 2025, the White House social media accounts have been used for some pretty heinous stuff. I often think of the ASMR-style edits of people being deported from 2025. The one I'm haunted by, I want to mention briefly, is the one where they synced up a bunch of hits from football players, and at the point of the hit, they synced it up to various drone and missile strikes killing people.

Starting point is 00:50:53 Yeah. Haunted by that. The social media strategy of the second Trump administration has nearly fully embraced this kind of like internet brainwrought fascism with, you know, edits. So I previously mentioned the DeSantis staffer who was fired after posting that fashion wave edit is now, now works for the state department. And this sort of like edit culture is one of the main ways the White House accounts have been posting online.

Starting point is 00:51:19 But as we've mentioned earlier this episode, the White House accounts also. get used for a lot of just really stupid stuff. New Mexico turning into New America, right? Attempts at trolling that kind of just portray just how hollow their politics really are. As Trump has just completely failed to economically deliver, has murdered children in a pointless war, the public has loudly rejected his inhumane and deadly nativist immigration policies, and he's fractured his own right-wing base but continuing to unequivocally support Israel, start a neocon-style war, waste billions of dollars and kill 18 U.S. service members. With this total level of failure, the politics of Trump administration are forced to fall back

Starting point is 00:52:02 on punishing their enemies, just pure cruelty to satisfy some of their most bloodthirsty supporters, and trolling the lips. And in particular, I want to focus on the latter here, how this politics as trolling reveals how empty their political project really. is. A few days ago, the White House posted a short AI video of Donald Trump using the Green Lantern Power Ring to construct the border wall to manifest American manufacturing to summon military jets, helicopters, and naval vessels. I got to watch this. This is time to the release of the HBO Green Lantern TV show. Yeah, that's the link right there. Okay. I refuse to watch this. They can't make me. I've seen it. You don't need to.

Starting point is 00:52:52 Jesus wept. Just yesterday they also released this Legend of Zelda video to match the Ocarina of Time announcement from Nintendo. That's just a side point. And there's actually a bunch of this kind of cringy Reddit stuff that's tied to the release

Starting point is 00:53:09 of various pop culture shows and games. Earlier this summer, the White House posted what is almost certainly an AI-generated version of the Rick and Morty opening theme with Trump and J.D. Vance in place of Rick and Morty. A CBP agent arrests like a literal alien

Starting point is 00:53:25 And Chuck Schumer's a robot Whatever They're so boring and just like Middle school humor Like grow up Mr. President Like ew Every Wednesday before we do this I very briefly scroll

Starting point is 00:53:42 The President of the United States True Social Feed It's fucking It's just right now There's like a bunch of super cuts of AI stuff about Iran where he does not look like himself and a video of him saying communism

Starting point is 00:53:59 will never come to America or with music that he probably didn't pay for the rights for. That's wild. You should instead not do that and be on my feed which is just Nathan Fielder Elizabeth Holmes memes from his upcoming documentary. Every meme is good.

Starting point is 00:54:17 I got to be honest, every single meme hits. Garrison, continue. you, sorry. Anyway, a month after the White House shared this Rick and Morty video, I also posted an X-Men 97-style video featuring the Presidential Cabinet, captioned, to me, my mega-patriots. For like a week in July, the White House just kept posting AI hydraulic press videos. What is an AI-generated video of a hydraulic press crushing various MAGA slogans, like no tax on tips. Why would you, that seems like...

Starting point is 00:54:52 Good question, Jay. That's, you know... Okay. Fascinating shit. Yeah, okay. During the World Cup, they tried to make one of those like AI Lego videos. But maybe the worst one of these that I've seen was posted on July 4th, titled, P-O-V. America entered its 2000s era, which is like a 25-second...

Starting point is 00:55:14 Oh, wow. ...two thousand's nostalgia edit. They've used Mr. Brightside here. They were Mr. Brightside. It features clips of like music videos, video games, and children's cartoons from this era. We've got Shrek, Simon Cowell, Britney Spears. It's like a remember when you were a kid and everything was awesome type stuff? Like that's what they're trying to.

Starting point is 00:55:40 And everyone was white. It's just exclusively white people, I think. There's a lot of content on the White House account. That's just trying to like pander to Gen Z by tapping into this early 2000s. nostalgia and launder Trump and his policies as like epic based awesome sauce by hey look here's the clone wars 2008 show here's a clip of whatever bullshit children's cartoon at the time that's popular in gen z memes right now that that guy fucking sucked it was it was fucking 9-11 the war on terror katrina and the 2008 economic collapse like what are we doing well i think most of the kids that

Starting point is 00:56:14 they're trying to appeal to don't really remember much of the 2000s but they have this sort of displace nostalgia about things from their childhood, right? For being a child, yeah. Like, you know, when the war in Iran started back in March, the White House posted a video of an Operation Epic Fury video game on the Nintendo Wii, which was actually just cutting between Wii sports clips and real footage of people being blown up. Yeah. Both the White House and ICE have previously used Pokemon imagery and music and social media posts,

Starting point is 00:56:45 leading the Pokemon Company International to rebuke the use of the use of their brand. Though, besides the occasional musical artists, companies like Pokemon have seemingly avoided or failed to take legal action to protect their trademark property and brand, which leads us to why I'm talking about all of this today. On September 3rd, the White House launched arcade.gov. Five pixel art arcade games where you can build the wall, deport immigrants fill a Trump bank account and remove pre-packaged food from kids' school lunches. After this site went online, the White House posted a series of videos riffing on the GameCube, Xbox 360, and PS3 startup animations. This is some of the most Reddit occupied government

Starting point is 00:57:35 stuff we've ever seen. These games are really just bad copies, like bad, bad copies of other games like Flaffy Bird, Snake, and Tetris with a fascist coat of low-quality pixel art. Yeah, wow. In the Tetris rip-off, you have to build the wall to, quote, protect the border from the coming horde as an endless, quote, zombie border siege

Starting point is 00:58:01 sends green aliens and zombies advancing toward the wall. Now, mechanically, this game makes no sense. The point of Tetris is to clear rows of blocks, not build a wall. And also upon release, this game was just completely broken. The blocks didn't clear after you completed a row.

Starting point is 00:58:21 Inevitably, the screen just fills up with blocks to the top and it forces you into game over. It looks like they've removed that one from the... Once I... This is... This will come up later. Now, even more confusingly,

Starting point is 00:58:34 the game over screen is labeled border breached. So, once you build the wall to the top, you lose the game and the border is breached. That's right. From your lips to God's ears. Yeah, I will say maybe there's a metaphor in here somewhere.

Starting point is 00:58:53 So while this failed Tetris clode displays the kind of garbage quality of their incompetent troll the libs provocation, the rip-off of the arcade game Snake openly demonstrates their racist cruelty, even more so than the Tetris one, frankly.

Starting point is 00:59:09 In Rio Run, you play as a pixelized version of Tom Homan, patrolling along the Rio Grande, rounding up immigrants who have crossed the river, immigrants who are almost exclusively a darker pixel shade than Tom Homan, who will then follow Homan in a line wearing matching orange jumpsuits.

Starting point is 00:59:29 At the end of the game, your score is labeled as the number of immigrants deported. This is obviously gross, empty posturing, troll the lips, etc. In another game, you sort through a conveyor belt of food for school lunches, removing unhealthy items, and sending healthy food like beef tallow to children. As a reminder, we are in the midst of a food safety crisis with a record high number of food recalls last month following massive staffing cuts to the Department

Starting point is 00:59:58 of Health and Human Services, the FDA and the Department of Agriculture just last year. And as a result of those cuts, the FDA was forced to suspend some food safety quality checks. For more on that, checkout, James Stout. episode on Cyclospora on his weekly podcast, Natural Causes. That's right. Great interviews. Great journalism. Bad government.

Starting point is 01:00:21 Yay. Yeah. That is one of our themes over there. Hell yeah. Based on all the different brands or properties or references I mentioned, to date only one company has come out strongly against the Trump administration for stealing their stuff, in this case, stealing their game. Pretty soon, after RK.gov went live, the Tetris Company publicly announced it was, quote, not involved in the creation of Build the Wall and said, quote, at Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them.

Starting point is 01:00:54 We take copier infringement very seriously, unquote, and a few days later, the Build the Wall Tetris clone was taken down from the White House website. Victory for communist Tetris. But, you know, it's, we've talked a lot about this stuff, this episode, you know, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, lakes, who knows, maybe renaming a state in honor of America. These little arcade games, these annoying social media posts. These are all lazily constructed symbolic representations of Trump's political goals created or AI generated in hopes of pissing off liberals and satisfying the sickos by letting them, in the case these games, literally act out the desires of mega. in the midst of their political failure. It's sort out school lunches in the midst of a food safety crisis,

Starting point is 01:01:46 in the midst of total economic failure on the part of the Trump administration. And to me, the most interesting example of this tendency to substitute real politics, like delivering real politics, actually improving people's lives with this sort of punishing your enemies

Starting point is 01:02:06 and pissing off liberals comes also from this last week. On Sunday, Trump posted an agenary design for a United States Space Force Service dress uniform. Oh, God. I will trough this one into the chat here. Let me see. Unfortunately, I've seen this.

Starting point is 01:02:26 You've seen it? All right, all right, all right. Send it to me. I want to see the... Let's drop this right here. It's a long, gray tunic-style jacket with a black belt sitting high on the waist and knee-high black shiny boots. It looks like something made for an evil space fascist sci-fi military.

Starting point is 01:02:43 Yeah, it's giving low-budget bad guy. Right, yeah, exactly. And well, well, well, some very small text near the top of the AI image reads, quote, inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper Uniform, modernized for the Guardians of the Space Domain, unquote. Between this Starship Trooper uniform and the Marines playing Helmut. Divers to music during their 250th anniversary celebration, Baudriard is rolling over in a one-to-one map of his grave.

Starting point is 01:03:17 They've got the eag on everything here. It's pretty astonishing. Yeah, because you think an American's going to be a gray uniform, they're going to be doing Confederacy shit. But no, this is just like, yeah, like 90s low budget. Like, I'm pretty sure I've seen like a puppet, like animation, a bad guy. He looks like fucking Joe Tracy is what he looks like. And the book Starship Troopers is a largely pro-war exploration of militarism using a science fiction setting,

Starting point is 01:03:44 in contrast to the film adaptation by Paul Verenhoven, which criticizes and satirizes what the book was exploring in earnest. In Verenhoven's film, the officer uniforms are inspired by real military uniforms of the 20th century. This AI image posted by Trump seems to be more based on the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, whose design was pulling from both the Imperial British and German Nazi uniforms. Someone more annoying than me could do a whole simulacra and simulation essay

Starting point is 01:04:12 about this fucking space force uniform. But this is a good example of how the Trump administration is obsessed with creating these little simulacrums. In the case of arcade.gov, propagating signs and symbols to create this illusion of actuality. And as Trump often does,

Starting point is 01:04:32 scribbling on a map And voila, the territory is now Lake America. Should probably note the Space Force already has addressed uniform and it doesn't look like this. Yes. No, this is the new version that may or may not ever actually exist. But the image is what's important. Right, exactly, yeah, that's the point.

Starting point is 01:04:54 The point is not the change. It's the appearance of change. Who knows? Huh. Well, this has all been fun. And let's close by talking about 9-11, because 9-11 is this Friday, which means the center-right media is being super-duper normal, as usual. Late last month, Barry Weiss personally intervened to create the CBS headline. Michigan Democrat Abdul al-Said's deleted tweets on September 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks, unquote.

Starting point is 01:05:29 And one of the deleted tweets in question reads, Quote, today I mourn the 3,000 lives, 6,000 injuries, and infrastructural devastation in New York City perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow I'll mourn the 1 million lives, millions of injuries, and infrastructural devastation in three countries perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country. A somewhat brave but completely defensible statement. Yeah. The post from CBS promoting this little article of theirs read, quote,

Starting point is 01:06:03 As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since September 11, 2001, Abdul al-Said, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack. And now today, September 9th, the day of recording, an attack ad against Abdul al-Assid has been released with like a minute of 9-11 footage, and I will play a little bit of the ending here. 25 years ago, America was attacked,

Starting point is 01:06:32 not for something we did, but for who we are. The attackers tried to divide us with hatred. It had the opposite effect. We united with courage and with resolve. But the hatred behind 9-11 did not disappear. America deserved 9-11, dude. I hate America so much. Abdul-Eyad gives comfort to that hatred.

Starting point is 01:06:57 I don't know if that's a Chiron or a subtitle, hurt people, hurt people. It's a quote from Abdul. Okay. They're getting really, really weird about Hassan. Yeah. Yes. So this ad has about 30 seconds of 9-11 footage,

Starting point is 01:07:12 and then also has some footage of Hassan Piker. Last month, mentions of Hassan Piker were very close in total, depending on the count, around like 400 mentions on Fox News last month. It's nearly matching the number of mentions of trans or transgender. So Hassan and transgender, about equal levels of focus on Fox News now. Yeah, I think that tells you all the things. Well, all right, Hassan, get that up to 100%.

Starting point is 01:07:42 I believe in you. You can do it. Be useful. Take one for the team. I was about to say, come on step up, my guy. This ad is pretty, pretty wild. We saw ads like this when Mom Dani was running in New York, last. year. There's also been articles focused on clips from Elbdo All Seeds podcast from years ago. I'll play a clip here. 9-11 scarred our country in profound ways. But what we did after 9-11

Starting point is 01:08:11 scarred millions of other people. When we talk about 9-11, we often fail to center them. Again, completely defensible, completely accurate and true statement that is being turned into political controversy. Yeah, these are completely normal. By those on the right, who certainly have no other reason to specifically attack Abdul al-Said. Fascinating choice to appear at an event with someone that much taller than you. Like, the high disparity is profound. James is referencing photos of Hassan Piker and Abdul standing next to each other. Yes, there is a considerable height difference.

Starting point is 01:08:47 It looks like they're on a podium, but I don't think they are. Speaking of New York City, following months of propaganda from The New York Post, Earlier this week, ABC ran the headline, quote, Mayor Mumdani says he'll attend 9-11 ceremony despite growing criticism. Unquote. Like, insane. An insane headline to run, like, completely absurd. Journalist Peter Stern in New York has talked about how there's about, at most, like, 5% of, like, 9-11 survivor victim families who have been spreading this petition to ban mom,

Starting point is 01:09:25 and vastly more 9-11 families have released a counter petition in support of the mayor. This is a controversy that The New York Post and others have been stoking for quite a while in the lead-up to 9-11. But this ABC headline talking about the story is completely absurd. There's another story that came out today in Variety, which they've edited since publishing because the first version just did not address the blatant Islamophobic motivation. in a lot of the attacks against Mamdani. And the Vanity Fair piece also has this crazy quote

Starting point is 01:10:01 from Bruce Blakeman, the Republican running for governor of New York, talking of Mamdani, quote, he's not welcome there because he has yet to say anything in opposition to the global antifada, unquote. The whole Vanity Fair piece is similar to this ABC article, just completely gross.

Starting point is 01:10:22 There's no reason to cover it in the way that they are. imagine the actual media crisis, the frenzy that would happen if the mayor of New York City, if the Muslim mayor of New York City chose to not attend the 9-11 service? Like, that would be crazy. They would light up, right? This is a perfectly concocted political controversy. Like, they could win either way. Now, Mom, Donnie would, of course, never not attend that.

Starting point is 01:10:49 That makes no sense. But the right and the center media gets to kind of position themselves. and, you know, talk about the controversy about him attending, even though it's like, what is he, what's he going to do, not attend? Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Mayor Mbondani released about 170,000 pages of records city officials have kept from the public regarding air quality at ground zero following the 9-11 attack. These reports show that city officials at the time knew that the air was toxic and hazardous and get lied to the public by saying it was safe.

Starting point is 01:11:22 The mayor said, quote, close to 25 years later, more people have died from 9-11 related illness than were killed on the day itself. These documents are now searchable on a new portal, and they include the recently discovered, quote-unquote, Harding memo, which was sent to the then-depity Mayor Robert Harding. This memo was titled, quote, legislative alternatives to limit the city's liability relating to September 11, 2001, unquote. Mumdani said these records, quote, show what this. The city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero when they knew it and how they acted to limit liability. John Stewart was also at this press conference announcing the release of these documents, and he

Starting point is 01:12:08 has been a longtime advocate of transparency for 9-11-related illnesses and supporting the first responders and their families who have died or gotten sick in relation to 9-11 health complications. I'll play a short clip from him before we close this episode. The city began covering their ass three weeks in in a memo. The memo is entitled, legislative alternatives to the fiscal responsibility for 9-11. And what we all knew who live in downtown Manhattan is that there was poison in the air and on the ground and in the windowsills and in your air conditioners and covering your pets and your clean. close and it stayed there for months. Everyone knew. And now it's very clear that the city knew as well. And rather than take the steps to ameliorate the damage that that would cause to its citizens

Starting point is 01:13:11 and to the people that were down there, they instead covered it up to get back to business as usual. But unfortunately, after 9-11, business will never be used. again. If you'd like to email us, you can do so. It's cool zone tips at proton.com. If you want it to be encrypted, send it from a proton address. Put a transcript on your couch. We reported the news.

Starting point is 01:13:37 We reported the news. It could happen here is a production of Coolzone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed to directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman, Angel Jaritana, Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists

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