It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: Oil Crisis, New Mail-In-Voting Rules Blocked, Macklemore Based??

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

The gang discuss Ed Sheeran dropping Macklemore from his tour over pro Palestine comments, courts blocking new mail-in-ballot requirements, Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, a report detailing tiny metal cages at Alligator Alcatraz, a general strike in Eastern Kurdistan, debate on AI regulation, and the Republican midterm convention.    Sources: https://rudaw.net/english/categories/middleeast/1079247  https://www.rudaw.net/english/categories/iraq/1079243 https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/2099321216683425864?s=20  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28621690-paheivdhsord091426/ https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053.192.0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305_4g15.pdf https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2097872390076141726?s=20 https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/2100014172738122001?s=20 https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2098209805215080868?s=20 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117147749847925768 https://www.foxnews.com/media/homan-confirms-criminal-investigation-involving-ilhan-omar-says-knows-things-going https://x.com/atrupar/status/2099925671795474759?s=20https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026#conventional-weapons-sep-26  https://x.com/Ibrahym22Nagi/status/2099482678479188145 https://x.com/Bafeltalabani/status/2099810675484668045  https://x.com/vvanwilgenburg/status/2099869946423431232  https://media.defense.gov/2026/Sep/09/2003993626/-1/-1/1/OEF_Q3_JUN2026_FINAL_508%20SECURE.PDF https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2026-09/OIG-26-22-Sep26.pdf https://x.com/cspan/status/2099878657174941991?s=20 https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-casar-introduce-legislation-to-ban-artificial-superintelligence-and-temporarily-pause-advanced-ai-development/ https://geesemag.com/articles/stop-the-ai-arms-race https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117269745153543631 https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2099597928142688610?s=20 https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2099648450069512426?s=20 https://x.com/linamkhan/status/2099204390548639960?s=20 https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460?s=20 https://x.com/Jason/status/2098817101628600383?s=20 https://x.com/daniel_koss/status/2099751931400847840?s=20 https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/12/anthropics-amodei-proposes-plan-to-slow-the-pace-of-advancing-ai-capabilities.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/14/anthropic-walks-tightrope-to-nasdaq-pushing-slowdown-and-pursuing-ipo.html https://bsky.app/profile/bishonentype.bsky.social/post/3mvg527c3k22n https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/why-saudi-arabias-plan-b-for-oil-exports-is-now-under-fire/4335414/ https://www.newarab.com/news/saudi-running-out-oil-export-options-routes-choked https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/07/global-food-prices-three-year-high-heatwaves-wars-crop-costs https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/did-the-houthis-shoot-down-saudi-arabian-f-15-what-we-know-19991908.htm https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/saudi-arabia-calls-mecca-red-175848059.html https://www.instagram.com/p/DdXFZLNARm4/ https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2026/09/15/irish-acts-aaron-rowe-and-beoga-quit-ed-sheerans-us-tour-in-protest-over-palestine/ https://apnews.com/article/ed-sheeran-responds-macklemore-tour-3fd73815563039bea9b88f5efe745d62 https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49943754/patriots-kraft-says-macklemore-performance-cross-line https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/where-patriots-owner-robert-kraft-150614158.html https://www.instagram.com/p/DdXFZLNARm4/?stkn=MThsbzc2OWh3d2s5OQ== See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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 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. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 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. Today I am joined by James Stout, Robert Evans, and special correspondent Kim Kelly. Hello. That's right. For me. Oh, wait, no, sorry, you're Kim Kelly. I forgot for a second. Yeah, that's not, no, you're not Kim Kelly.

Kelly, Robert. This episode, we are covering the week of September 9th to September 16th. Big Newsweek. Oh, dear, where do we even begin? Where, indeed. Let's start with a quick update on mail-in voting because we've been covering this story the past few weeks. And on Sunday night, a second federal judge blocked the Postal Services newly appointed.

It wasn't actually on 9-11. I'm sorry. I thought you were going to do a 9-11 joke. It happened like two days after 9-11, so that wouldn't be cool. Damn it. The Justice Department never gives us what we deserve. That's certainly true. But this second federal judge blocked the newly adopted final rule designed to be in compliance

with Trump's executive order to restrict mail-in voting. This rule laid out new requirements for mail-in voting, including standardized envelopes and voter verification through a newly created online federal ballot mail portal. And if these new requirements, which were announced just a few months before the midterms, were not met, the Postal Service said that they would not accept or mail out ballots. But on Sunday, Trump appointee Judge Carl Nichols found USPS lacked the authority to require states to submit a list of eligible voters to this online portal and only transport ballots to voters verified via this portal. Nichols wrote that if the rules implemented, there would be a, quote,

risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections. And this was kind of a double whammy for the Trump administration because then the next day on Monday, the Supreme Court issued a shadow docket ruling, which usually means bad news, but in this case, they denied the Trump administration's request to lift the first injunction blocking the implementation of the Postal Service's final rule, finding that the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge. And this appears to be a 7-2 ruling with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting, though Justice Kavanaugh wrote a one paragraph concurring opinion, which states,

quote, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority. But applying the rule in the 26 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections, unquote. So that kind of goes against what Trump appointee Judge Carl Nichols found in his other separate injunction. But this rule will not be implemented, at least for the upcoming midterm elections. Okay, do we want to move on to some of the small things? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Let's do all the small things. Yep. We found out this week that some of the drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline,

I had come from inside Iraq, as opposed to coming from Yemen, right? Which is where many of the other attacks on Saudi Arabia that we're going to come or later have come from. Today I heard that these weren't coming from like the large militia groups that you would expect, but from allegedly smaller IRGC aligned groups. And a regional operations chief in Iraq has been fired as a result of this, right? as a result of the, I guess, a failure to address this. Secondly, the Yebyshe, that's Yekeneh, Mestradana Shengali, the Sinja resistance units, have agreed to hand over their weapons to the Baghdad government and be integrated into the security forces.

We'll find out if it's kind of a similar thing to when the SDF, as the SDF are now integrating into the Syrian military. If you're not familiar with the Yerbe Shea, they are a Yazidi armed group with close time. to Yeppegé-Yepu-Shea, so the SDF in Syria or the Kurdish elements of the SDF specifically, I guess. The Yevishu grew significantly during the battle against the Islamic State and, of course, the Islamic State's genocide of the Zili people. Since then, it's been a pretty complicated security situation in the part of Iraq where they reside in their homeland. Yeah, especially since as a result of what happened in the early stages of the Sinjar campaign, they have been. no reason to trust, either the Peshmerga in Kurdistan or the government in Baghdad. Yeah, because both of them left them more or less on their own, right?

Yeah, to die. Yeah. Left to die is what people told me when I was in the camps. They fled to. Yeah, left to die. It's what they told me as well. And of course, this is one of the moments when the SDF kind of, I guess, really entered the global. They weren't SDF then, right?

They were the epigone. No. Everyone called them just the PKK, right? Like, that's what all these I talk to said. Well, some of the people who. who were those initial guerrillas who entered onto the mountain there probably had come from the HPG and the PKK, right? We can argue that at length, but it doesn't matter. It was not the Iraqi government nor the KRG, the Baghdad government or the KRG. This is something that I'm going to keep following.

Moving to Iran, the DOD this week declassified footage of the rescue of the weapon safety officer from Iran. This is the backseater in the plane that got shot down, right? the guy who was in Iran for a couple of days there where they did this crazy search and rescue mission. Interestingly, they didn't blur out, like, the people rescue, well, the people rescuing him were just visible as human shapes on like a thermal. They did blur out the helicopter. We know they have several secret helicopters, but I found that kind of interesting. He didn't interview where he claimed he claimed he hit the ground, or they claimed he hit

the ground between 70 and 100 miles an hour. He's looking pretty good for hitting the ground that hard. He had a parachute malfunction, apparently. I don't know how we could ever confirm of any of that's true. A FPV drone from NatalGPDFs, they have a gender-integrated drone unit, right? People have been saying it's an all-women's drone unit. That's not true, but there are certainly women in the drone unit. There's many gender integrated drone units across various militaries.

Drones love gender. You've heard it here, folks. Yes. Yeah, the drone doesn't know gender. It struck a Burmese military yacht aircraft on the ground this week. This is a significant turning point for the Spring Revolution. They have been trying to do this for years. Following the Barmo Flatilla's demise and the captures the positions the Hunter has held since in 1990s by Korean forces this week,

the fighting season has really begun in Myanmar, and it's not starting that well for the Hunter, right? They're also having pretty mixed success in attempting an offensive and Rakhine state against the Arakhan army there. In Syria, protests have begun all over the country as fuel and bread prices have risen this week. So previously, certainly in the parts of Syria where Robert and I have been, these were subsidized. The government has hyped prices because fuel prices are more expensive everywhere, right, because of the war in Iran. But nonetheless, this is making things very hard for people. The price of petrol went up about 29%. Cooking gas went up at 9%.

diesel went up more like 40% I think and people have been leading with like 40% fuel hike but we should be honest and like talk about the fuel that most people are using right nonetheless this is making things very difficult for people which is why they're in the streets and this is one of the first big protest movements at this new protest movements I should say in places it considers to be part of its constituency that this new government has had to deal with obviously it's dealt with protests and has had to have armed conflict with other people within Syria since the transitional government came to power. Finally, in the US, a Massachusetts district court judge has blocked the Trump's administration's

attempt to reduce student visas to four years. Previously, they were trying to, it seemed that they were trying to restrict F1 visas period to four years from what I read in this judgment. And then you'd have to apply for an extension, like if you're doing a PhD or if you're undergraduate, it just takes more than four years, right? The court went on a great length, about how this was a bad idea and then we can't actually rule on whether it's a bad idea or not, but we can say it violates the Minister of Procedure Act, which it does. So that was the grounds on which it blocked it. All right.

And now it's time for undeniably our biggest story of the week. Kim Kelly, please, what do you have for us? So in pop culture news, everyone's talking about the Ed Shearren-McClemore controversy. Early this week, Sheeran, who comedian Zach Woods, accurately described on Instagram as an internationally tolerated acoustic artist. Wow. I wouldn't put it quite that far. What a precision hit.

I love Zach Wood so much. He, man, if I was single, Daddy Call Me. That's what I'm going to say. But, okay, also British. So first problem there, honestly. Okay. Rude. Okay.

Same with Ed Shearin. No, not Zach Wood. Ed Shearin is British. I would never lust after an Englishman. Wow. Geez, out, James. Taking strays left and right. My God.

Brutal. Kim entering the chat hard. Look, brutal. My first husband was from Wigan, so I know a lot about what y'all get up to. I want you to understand that you have not picked a representative sample. Macked the bomb. I know what y'all get up to. That accent does not fool me.

But anyway, hard-hitting political news, James. this Jim Human made headlines early this week when he announced that Seattle rapper Macomor was out as the supporting act on Shearant's current Loop World Tour. And the reason, apparently, McElmore's vocal support for Palestine and refusal to stay silent about a genocide was just a bridge too far for the self-identified non-political pop star. as well as the consortium of wealthy venue owners who are backing his tour. So here's what happened. During the tour's first two shows, which took place at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium on September 4th and 5th, Macklemore said the words,

Free Palestine on stage. First problem, and performed his pro-Palestine song, Heinz Hall, which he released in 2024 in memory of Hein Rejab, and in support of the Gaza Solidarity in Camman, that was then active at Columbia University. As you'll remember, Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was brutally killed by the Israeli military, along with six of her family members in January of that year, has become one of the many symbols of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, about which McElmore has been extremely vocal. Not a big secret there. And at the second MetLife show, he used his platform to directly address his Jewish brothers and sisters, as he said in the audience, saying, I quote, criticism of Israel, criticism of aparthe, being against genocide is in no way a criticism of you. This message is for peace, love, for all human

beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. So the Israeli-American Council did not agree. We were like, no, absolutely not. And publicly called on Shearin to drop McElmore from the tour. And then Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots, boo, go birds. as well as Gillette Stadium, a venue at which the tour was scheduled to stop later this week, informed Sharon that McElmore had to go. The rapper noted in his public Instagram statement about the matter that Sherin had told him that Kraft called on his other stadium owner Pals to increase the pressure to get Maca Moore out of there. And it worked.

According to Rolling Stone, the tour promoter, Messina Touring Group, was informed by the owners of these venues that, quote, they will not allow a concert to take place with McHmore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. So Macomore got dropped, and he released a very good statement about it in which he was really generous to his old buddy, Shearing. Like, this was not just a real appearing. Like, they're homies. Yeah. As hard as that is to imagine.

Although I guess I can imagine McElhorn at Sheeran getting along. I just don't like to. Yeah. There's some overlap there. The Seattle vibes are very strong Yeah Like just having a shitty tattoo off

Like it makes sense Yeah Get Ben Affleck in there Kim has shared a picture of Ed Shearn's tattoos It has rendered me Speechless for the entire time I had not seen these

Oh dude They're real Unreal man Like I'm gonna put them in the Zoom chat Like Is there a fucking Garner flag on this guy There's so many things

He's got Irish stuff It's a big lion He has a catch- bottle. Lads on tour, fuck off. As a tattoo American, I am just so mad when I see this stuff. It's like, this man has more money than God. A pokey ball. Also, he is so bad at finding people to do

good line work. That poker ball looks like shitty. Pizza, the proportions are fucked. Everything's like bled, like fucking blown out on those, uh, those weird picture frame pieces on the back. Like, it's just bad ink. Look, like, there's a difference between a dumb tattoo and a shitty tattoo. and this man because I had dumb tattoos but like

the lines work I've gotten tattooed in war zones but like at least they're competent I've watched you with a guy with a car battery yeah yeah like the lip tattoo I got in a West Philly kitchen when I was 19

looks better than this man that's higher situation the stick and poke my buddy gave me some of these are watercolor guys as well so like they're not likely to get better It's baffling. Is that a lion on his heart?

Oh, yeah. Dude, I feel little back, because I found his tattoo artist on Instagram because I'm a nosy bitch. And the guy's like, he just knows his career's kind of over. I feel like Ed Shearin is just paying his rent with his bad tattoos because you can't come back from that. Yeah, wow, man. God. Yeah, these are, I could do a whole, you could do a dissertation on this shit. Someone should.

Someone should, yeah, hit us up if you already have. I mean, I will do an entire episode. about celebrity tattoos. I'm wondering if maybe my grandparents were right about tattoos. I could do a solid hour on Ben Affleck's back tattoo, but that's a respectable, that's a respectable shitty tattoo. That's a whole back piece that's just a Phoenix and like nothing else on his body. Like that's a beautiful choice that says only good things about Ben Affleck, in my opinion.

That's an honest man's tattoo. That's for him. That's an honest man's got a whole tattoo. You know that's for him. Yeah, yeah. No one else ever got a moment of enjoyment out of that piece. Oh, my God. Poor Jail-Lo.

So Eddie Sheeran, very bad tattoos, but also a worm person. Like, all this is happening. And Ed Shearin takes to Instagram because everyone's extremely mad at him for doing something really just not cool. wimpy and unfortunate and embarrassing. So his response, he sold out his boy. He blamed the concert promoters

for dropping Macmore saying, it wasn't me. It was these big, mean people that I pay lots of money to book my shows. Yeah. And then I have leverage over it because they want to make money.

Yeah. He wrote in one section, I am not complicit, which is absolutely what someone who is complicit would say. My I am not complicit shirt has a lot of people. Yeah.

questions. Yeah, man, I don't know. Remember the SNL skit was Scarjo that was making fun of Ivanka Trump being like, complicit? Oh, God, yeah. Right, yeah, deep cut. Like, if you have to say, I am not complicit, like, dog. Yeah, you already fucked up. Yeah. But absolutely, like, complicit in trying to silence pro-Palestinian sentiment just because he's a coward and also in bowing the pressure from billionaires like his buddy Robert Kraft, who casually a former Epstein associate and also an old

pal of Shirin's. He performed at Kraft's wedding in 2022 to a very much younger woman. So, you know, I guess that's being non-political, hanging out with those type of people. And, you know, Sheeran, he can't pretend to have been blindsided, right? Like, Nakamore's pro-Palestinian stance is kind of like all he's known for is like the thing that he's doing right now, which is cool. We don't need another store shop. One was enough. He's had a successful career. He's He had his big 2010 hits. Like, as McElmore said in his statement, like, he can afford to take this kind of hit. He can afford to use his platform to speak out for a Palestinian people, for people who are being murdered and just destroyed.

While some people would rather keep politics out of everything. And his relationship dates back to that era. The two have collaborated on songs. Like Ed Sheeran was on a song that McElmore released for his daughter when his first kid was born in like 2015. So Ed Shearine knows Maclemore pretty well. He's definitely aware that the rappers become one of the loudest pro-Palestine voices in mainstream pop. And Shearin is worth like $400 million. My God.

How did we let that happen? Internationally tolerated pop star. Oh, my God. All I knew is he did it. He had that song in that Hobbit movie, which is how I heard of him. And then suddenly he's got almost half a billion dollars. What the fuck did you people do in between? Dude, the radio.

How did this happen? There's wild stuff happening on the radio, dude. It's like a whole other world. He is very much like America Beasts pop star. Yeah, okay. It's dicey, right? But one of the reasons he reached for to explain why he kicked his old buddy off of this tour for saying the forbidden words was that he had to keep touring because his crew depends on him.

Ed Shearren employs a lot of people to bring his nonsense on the road. And it is good to acknowledge that workers need to be paid no matter what kind of nonsense is happening. But like Eddie, like you could just pay him. You could just give money. You got $400 million. I mean,

that is quite a lot of money. You got a smog pile of cash at your house. Yeah. I'm not casual about like the creators, oh, just pay for it yourself thing, but like $400 million. You could pay everyone's salary for that show

and still have basically $400 million. Right? Send them to Bali. Yeah. You could also just score a huge dub. Like I don't think I've ever I've honestly heard an Ed Shearren song. But if he'd have done that, I'd have been like, okay, cool.

Here's the thing, I don't like McLemore, but I have been forced to be like, oh, wow, that's a respectable person with moral courage. And I'd have to say that about Ed Shearan if he hadn't fucked up his response to this. You could make me, I could be miserable right now, Ed. I could be acknowledging you have worth as a human being, but I don't have to. Thank God. Well, no. The ways in which he has fumbled this are just, it's becoming not just like a blip.

It's becoming a generational fumble because he's, His entire tour is just in the toilet. Like hours after the news broke that Macamore got got, four of Ed Sheeran's other supporting acts dropped off the tour in solidarity with Macomore. Including his backing band. His own band quay his tour. This is the funniest part. Like, it's so good.

And they also were all like, you also free Palestine, you fucking idiot. He came out looking so bad. He lost Aaron Rowe, who was Irish. Lucas Graham, Danish, guy named Phineas, who is American, but, you know. He's Billy Elish's brother. Yeah, I learned this against my will yesterday as well. There you go. Well, okay.

I'm clearly up on the pop men. Yeah. And Billy Eilish has spoken out against the genocide in Gaza and is pro-Balestine. So it makes sense. Sick. You got to wonder, like, he hired a bunch of Irish musicians, first of all, and I was like, surely they'll be quiet. Yeah.

about politics. Yeah. If the Irish have a reputation is for being quiet about stuff like this. Yeah, famously, especially Palestine, there isn't any kind of,

you know, overlap, any current solidarity efforts. No. One of the, his backing band, I found out through their statement, as that they're founding members

of the Irish artist for Palestine movement. Like, what did you think? Probably could have Googled that, Ed. Like, I love he didn't,

he literally didn't Google, like, anyone, but well, before making his cowardly little thing. Like, where does everyone else stand on this? And you got to wonder, like, this has never come up when you're at the bar. Like, literally no one you've ever spoken to is like, oh, yeah, so, ooh, the news.

You're going to Robert Kraft Stadium, right? The guy who rents his plane to ice to deport people. Like, the fucking rapt patriot jets takes people to be fucking deported. It tears families apart. Like, you think your buddies aren't going to have a problem with this? like wild. It's that like so many of the statements all set like we know he's giving us this huge opportunity like these are it's a stadium tour like there's going to be all these hundreds thousands of fans and they all it's really it's really impressive that all these bands were just

like look this is kind of going to fuck us but some things are more important and it also just makes age sharing look like even more of a bitch because he has so much money and like you can't even you can't be cool for one minute. Like all of your friends just bailed on you. Everyone can see you being the worst. And McElmore, just today, I think it was today, he posted that he's donating all the money that he got paid for those two shows to six organizations that are working to help Palestinian people. So he's, Maclemore is like Mackling even harder and better.

He's Macklemore. God damn it. How did the, how do they? He had Mackling the correct amount, man. Like, we were all wrong. Yeah, we were all wrong. We were all not familiar with his game. But thankfully, we were all pretty much right about Ed Shearhan.

At least there's that. I guess, like, maybe I'll do a full episode about this at some point, but I have found some people on the internet left's response to this to be frustrating, which is shocking, right? People who are never wrong. Culture is important. Anyone who is arguing with you seriously the culture is not important is not a serious person. Like, if we look at the movement,

against apartheid, right? And the role that culture and music and sport played in that. And so, like almost every other liberation movement in the 20th century had a cultural element to it. If you're going to really be like a fucking crass materialist in 2026, just, like, don't engage with those people. I know I'm engaging with them here. But like, it's a deeply unsyria's response. Like, there's, not everyone lives on Twitter or Discord, like seeing, this news is on ESPN. This news has broken containment from the lefty internet. And like any normal person who reads, oh, this guy just said some nice stuff and said free Palestine and he got kicked off this big tour. Like, that's kind of weird. Like, why is that?

Why can't you just say that? Yeah. Like, I think they're even discussing it on Fox News. And Jesse Waters, that, you know, sentient douchebag was like, well, he just said free Palestine. I mean, that's allowed freedom of speech. Taka Carlson's going to endorse Michael Moore next. Oh, fuck. This is the trouble. all stuff to say, you know. So what have we learned? It's always free Palestine. Ed Shearren is a worm person, again, to quote our internet daddy, Zach Woods.

And McElmore, you know, just keep on Macklin, babe. You're doing amazing. You know what? There's a non-zero chance. We will have an advert that includes the music of Ed Shearin after this. If that happens to you, it's your own fault for the cookies in your browser. Yeah. You've heard the chaos

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and tap watch. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interest, and they complain about the very thing to receive.

It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin Unfiltered. I went off, I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. 12 seats, those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now.

And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast. wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Let's start with Saudi Arabia. On September 8th, Saudi oil structure in the Jazean region was targeted and struck by Houthi missiles. At least 73 people were wounded, and oil assets in the Abha and Najran regions were hit as well. NASA satellites show significant damage to the Jhzan refinery and other infrastructure. This is significant because Jhzan is located on the Saudi side of the Red Sea,

which provides an alternate route for them to transfer. at their fuel and avoid the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the Trump administration's claims and some reports that, you know, traffic has been trending up as the U.S. Navy escort ships through. Traffic at the Strait is still disastrously unreliable. In 2025, about 21 million barrels a day we're moving through the Strait at this point that year. And right now, we're barely breaking 5 million barrels most days, right?

So that's a significant drop still. any infrastructure that has allowed Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz has thus assumed extra importance in the last couple of months. So these strikes have at least temporarily forced Saudi Arabia to shut down their east-west pipeline. And this is one of the largest pieces of oil infrastructure on the planet. It goes across some very high mountains. And it's effectively impossible to defend in its entirety. Right. It is too big to be adequately defended either from small infiltration teams, which hasn't happened. yet, but very well might at some point in the future. You know, they've got some options for that,

but right now they're doing quite well, striking them with ballistics and drones. Per an article in the new Arab, quote, The Kingdom is still able to export part of its oil, which is piped to Yanboe and then exported either via the Suez Canal or Egypt's Ainsokna, where it is carried by another pipeline to the eastern Mediterranean. The other option for Saudi Arabia is embarking on a dangerous journey through the Hormuz Strait, where Iran has repeatedly attacked commercial shipping. And, you know, how long is the East-West pipeline going to be shut down? I think you'll probably hear fairly soon, maybe even by the time you hear this, that they've got it going again.

The problem is we're not likely to see it returning to anything like full capacity, and it's going to be going off again. They're going to keep hitting it, right, is my contention. So this is not, and it's like the straight, right? This doesn't mean that the pipeline shut down for good. And likewise, when you hear there's shipping stuff through it again, that doesn't mean the problem is over, right? It means this is yet another piece of world critical oil infrastructure that is kind of flickering on off like your router when the Internet's fucked up, right? Like that's the problem the world is dealing with right now. So this adds fuel to what has already been a long building calamity.

And I don't need to inform anyone of like how critical oil and gas is to the basic infrastructure that makes civilization possible. The thing I am focusing on a lot right now because it really concerns me is what we're seeing happen with fertilizer costs. fertilizer costs have skyrocketed as a result of the shedding off of the strait already. Earlier this year, there were serious worries that this would cause a massive food crisis in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa, which relied heavily on nitrogen shipped through the Strait of Hormuz to make fertilizer. And the good news is that the worst of this immediate crisis may have been averted, or at least has been averted for the present time, although not without cost, as this piece in the Financial Times explains. Quote, Egypt and Nigeria increased their urea exports by 98 and 81 percent,

respectively over that period, according to the International Trade Center, a joint agency of the UN and the WTO. The U.S. and Russia grew their sharing key markets, the data shows, while China also increased its exports. Analyst warned that fertilizer prices were rising to unsustainable levels for some of the world's poorest countries. New suppliers emerged and supply change adjusted to a certain degree, but there has been a cost. For many developing countries, the challenge is shifted from finding supplies to being able to afford them. Pamela Koch-Hamilton, executive director of the ITC, told the Financial Times. And so what you're seeing here is basically a number of countries, including, you know, Nigeria, the United States, China, have kind of responded to this crisis by massively increasing the exports of like things that are ingredients to fertilizer that have been cut off by the straight.

And that's allowed farms to keep going and the immediate beers to be sort of allayed. But it's come with a tremendous cost, right? And as a result, you are seeing import prices rise for urea alone amongst about 70% in Q2 of 2020. And in some parts of the world like Brazil, the cost of importing sulfur has risen by almost 200%. What we're looking at here is basically we can keep food production at the levels that are necessary to sustain the population, which was something people were worried about, but cost of food is going to rise and keep rising massively. And this is not just tied to fertilizer. One of the other issues for in terms of ag prices right now is that diesel has jumped up by an absolutely insane amount. right? Like diesel fuel has gotten way more expensive than other kinds of fuel. And diesel fuel is what big ag in the United States uses to fuel combines and tractors and everything else that you need to grow and harvest two of the largest commodities that our country produces, soybeans and corn. For an article by the AP, American diesel prices are now 60% higher than they were before the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran in late February when the national average was about 376 per gallon, according to AAA.

Prices quickly climbed is the cost of crude oil, the main ingredient in diesel, as well as gasoline. skyrocketed amid disruptions to tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Farms that are cash-strapped. They're the ones that are having to figure out what to cut to make this work. Paul Mitchell and Agriculture Professor at the University of Wisconsin said. There are a lot of farms facing that. And this is, again, there's not going to be food in the immediate future problem, but this is a food is going to continue getting more expensive.

And you're also, this is going to contribute to a number of problems that, like, agriculture has been having for a while. Like when fuel costs increase, you start seeing maintenance deferred, When fertilizer gets more expensive, you start seeing, like, farms use less of particularly phosphates. And that kind of builds up, like, a level of debt that, you know, you can do that for a few seasons, but eventually it's going to start affecting yields, right? And that's all kind of colliding with the fact that as a result of climate change, particularly

in Europe, you have, like, massive amounts of crops like wheat, barley, maize, and oats, not just Europe, the United States, too. You've seen huge crop losses that are kind of unprecedented in recent times almost. as a result of climate change. So all these kind of things are forming together into a perfect storm for what I think is going to be both increasing for the foreseeable future,

food costs in the United States, not really shortages in the United States, but there are going to be shortages increasingly and other parts of the world. This is not a gets better soon problem or collapses right away problem. This is a things are going to keep trickling worse and worse than you're going to see sudden food shocks kind of thing.

So I have my eyes on this situation. quite a lot. It does worry me. And it is all rooted back fundamentally, not just to our war of choice in Iran, but to climate change as well, although those are both very tied. I don't know, in less depressing and existentially frightening news, the Houthi shot down a Saudi F-15 today. There's a photo of the wreckage. And I don't think there's a lot of doubt that it's legitimate. In a statement, a Houthi military spokesman, Yaya-Sari, said that the group shot down a Saudi 15 fighter that was carrying out hostile operations in the airspace of Marib province. and that the jet had been targeted by a locally made air-to-air missile.

It doesn't look like, and I certainly haven't seen any convincing evidence, that this had anything to do with the anthropic story, James mentioned earlier. There's other kinds of locally made air-to-air missiles, right? Yeah, we're not talking about that. We're probably talking about something that was rebuilt or repurposed, right? Yeah, they have a history of doing that. Yeah, they've been doing that for a while. This is not, it's not all AI.

Don't, like, just conflate these two stories in your head didn't think that they're evidence of the same thing, right? Yeah, agreed. It's also worth noting that the same day that the Houthi shot down that F-15, Saudi Arabia accused the Houthis of attempting a drone-based attack on Mecca, which they say was shot down by Saudi air defenses. Colonel Turkey al-Malke, spokesperson for the Saudi coalition in Yemen, called attacks on Mecca a red line.

The Houthis were previously accused of having tried to strike the Holy City back in July of 2017, but claimed to have been aiming for King Fod airbase, and they deny these new allegations as well. saying there is no threat from Yemen to the holy sites, our operations target, its oil facilities and military facilities, and are far from holy sites. I don't know that I think the Houthis really try. I can certainly believe something like hitting Mecca

because it fucked up or something, but like I don't really think they would go after just like random shit in Mecca. That doesn't seem like the Houthi move. I don't think it would really help them in their cause, but I guess anything's possible. Yeah, it does seem like a weird one. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the United States War of Choice on Iran

and generally what's happening in Iran, I guess. I want to begin with, on the day that we're recording, which is Wednesday, the 16th of September, I guess I'll just add a little note here. If you see things that are auto-translated, especially on eggs.com, the everything website to say the 25th of September, that is because GROC has not grasped

that a different calendar is used in Iran. And so the months won't line up. But what we're looking at here is a general strike that was called today on the 16th of September. by an alliance of Kurdish political groups. They started talking about this a few days ago. It's a coalition that includes the KDPI, the PAK, PGAK, Habat and two of the Khamala parties.

The strikes, which are happening today, right, and there are pictures of like closed markets, closed stores, chiefly in eastern Kurdistan, right, the Kurdish region of Iran. The strikes are in part a memorial to Juna Amini. Jinna Amini is sometimes referred to by her Persian name, which is Masha, but her family called her Jinna. She was Kurdish, and that is important. Today, the 16th is the anniversary of her murder by Iranian security forces.

On the day before the anniversary of her murder, Iranian security forces began flooding her hometown. I mean that in both a literal and metaphorical sense. They released water from a nearby dam to block access to the cemetery where she is buried and then blocked access themselves with security forces to the main entrance. Previously, her own family have not been able to visit her grave on the anniversary of her murder. Meanwhile, in Iran's prisons, some women prisoners have gone on hunger strike to mark this anniversary. If you're not familiar with Jinnah Amini, she was 22 years old when she was killed by Iranian morality police after having been detained for improperly wearing her hijab on a trip to Tehran.

she was Kurdish and we can see from other photos that she only wore hijab when it was something like she fell as she had to do right like we can see her sometimes at like family weddings and things and traditional Kurdish dress her murder of course sparked a massive protest cycle which took up the junjan azali slogan which is used by the Kurdish freedom movement it means woman life freedom the words woman and life are like etymologically connected in Kurdish Unfortunately, the slogan has kind of been divorced from the revolutionary context. Yep. And kind of commodified by a lot of people who I think it came from Iran or are ignorant of the women's revolution in Kurdistan, perhaps.

Also, I mean, there was that like Hillary Clinton thing, right? Hillary Clinton, yeah. Hillary Clinton has bought the film rights to the book Daughters of Kobani, which is about the YPJ. Luckily, we have not seen a Hillary Clinton take on that yet. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's still time. It'd be real good if you could do something useful for people in Kobani. Finally, another perfect role for Chris Pratt.

God. What's that lady, Gina Caruso? Hopefully not. The protest cycle resulted in a massive outbreak of state violence, right? I have met several people who lost friends, family members, loved ones, who were tortured or threatened with tortured themselves, both at the border here. and in the derringing gap. This call for protests is brave because the Iranian state hasn't lost its capacity for violence against its own people, right? It has continued to execute people. It is continued to rule through fear throughout the United States bombing campaign.

The United States, if that was even a goal, has not been successful in doing that. This call for strikes comes at the same time as Baffle Talibani, ahead of the P.U.K., one of the most influential parties in southern Kurdistan. met with Iran's foreign affairs minister in Tehran. This will likely signal an even harder time to come for anti-regime Iranian Kurdish groups. So the Rajalati groups, groups from Eastern Kurdistan that we've spoken about, have camps in southern Kurdistan, in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Autonomous region, right? Last time Talibani had a meeting with Iran, they moved into their camps. Since then, Iran has bombed those camps, including this week. It seems like this time,

They might have to move entirely out of Kurdistan. I heard there's a plan to send them to Albania, but I haven't been able to confirm that. The PUK is in a very difficult position here, right? It got absolutely battered by Iranian drone strikes. And the United States did very little to help it, right? Trump has this whole animus against Kurdish people that we've discussed at length before here. And so it's really in a very difficult position. We also found out this week that the United States consulate in Abil's sustained damage

during one of the Iranian drone attacks. This is part of a more broad realization of the damage done to US bases and assets as the DOD's Inspector General report was released this week. We also learned that, quote, the Department of War estimating the cost of Operation, fuck, what do they call it? Epic, it's not Epic fail, but that's what it is in my head. Epic Freedom, no, it's not.

Fury, Epic Fury, that's the one. Operation Epic Fury. Video game ass war. Yeah. Operation Epic Fury to be 33.4 billion as of June 29th. And that from February 28th to June 30th, US service members were killed in action and seven were killed in non-hostile events during OEF combat operations. During that same period, 417 service members were wounded in action.

As we commented, things have not been going great for the Saudi back government of Yemen. They lost the port city of Mohe and Mayun, an island in the Babel-Mendab Strait. This is obviously an issue, as Robert spoke about right, because it will continue to see shipping harassed and will further lock down global trade. According to the United Nations, 80,000 people have already been displaced by the sort of resumption of full-scale hostilities in Yemen. Talking of Yemen, this week we found out via Anthropics' Threat Intelligent Report that the The Ahuthies had been talking to Claude. Specifically, they'd been talking to Claude about the

development of ballistic missiles. Their report identifies them as a group in northern Yemen. They tried to develop, quote, a guided rocket that used a commodity phone class flight computer with final phase homing guidance, as well as a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated goal range above 2,000 kilometers and a multivariant missile referred to as the R-2000 that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant. Anthropics said our safeguard blocked many of their requests but not all of them. The actors used a variety of tactics to evade our safeguards, including hiding their goals and the products of software was meant for. And they split their work across multiple sessions, so no single session revealed their full intent. This is fairly funny, right? They were

like on there being like, what if I wanted to build a hypersonic glide food delivery vehicle for better door dashing? And off Claude went. They know that the group test fireed a rocket and they know that it failed because a few hours after the test fire, they log back into Claude to ask why it had failed. Oh dear. That's fun. That is very funny. It also doesn't point to surface to our missiles. This report is bonkers. I think we will do a whole episode on it. We see Chinese weapons companies pretending to be U.S. firms trying to develop a whole pitch deck for an anti-torpedo system, like including asking for like a slide, a pitch deck slide and technical documents. We also see Russia trying to use it to build software from autonomous drone storm, that they trained

on combat footage to avoid Russian systems and to geolocate and attack Ukrainian drone operators. This is the future that we live in now. that's super concerning yeah Robert and I will do an episode on this because like Robert and I have both spoken to people in Myanmar at great lengths who are like attempting to develop weapons systems outside of the world of

military industrial complex right? Yeah yeah yeah but yeah this is this is pretty scary shit there's been a lot of AI kind of news and a frenzy around AI in the news this past week especially in the wake of a high profile employee resignation at Anthropic citing safety alignment concerns, which also follows the widely publicized hugging face incident hack

by Open AI agents. Just this past week, multiple tech CEOs, including Dario Amadeh, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk have joined in calling for a regulatory, quote-unquote, slowdown of AI development. But not all tech CEOs agree on this. Others, like Palantiers Alex Karp and META CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as well as, the Navidia CEO have called for the opposite. Zuckerberg has said to accelerate rather than slow down AI development as his own AI model muse has struggled to catch up to where Anthropic and OpenAI are at. Earlier this week, Alex Karp told CNBC, we can't pause AI development because of the threat of

China and because AI will be a quote unquote bonanza for the U.S. economy. But you see this China thing a lot is one of the main reasons why we cannot enforce a quote-unquote slowdown or a pause on development is because then China could get ahead. This is one of the justifications that people in the Trump administration have been saying to oppose efforts for a regulatory slowdown. Trump has very loudly been against this the past few days. True thing that the only, quote, controls or guardrails, AI needs is a strong and smart high IQ president and has compared this quote-unquote AI hoax to the global warming hoax. And House Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly shut down calls this week for Congress to take action and regulate AI.

They can self-police. They can self-regulate. They don't need the government to tell them to slow it down. If they want to slow it down, they should. But we cannot have a moratorium on the development of AI, okay, because then we will lose our edge to China. And that has serious national security implications for every American family. A few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to ban the development and deployment of quote-unquote super-intelligent AI, with penalties similar to those for the unlawful development of nuclear weapons. But this legislation also would temporarily pause advanced AI development until a federal regulatory body can establish safety guidelines. Now, the tech CEOs are against this idea for multiple reasons. One, it would hurt their bottom line.

They don't actually want a pause. They want this quote-unquote slowdown. Also, they don't want to face 20 years in jail for developing this extremely dangerous technology, which they are, you know, already doing. In an episode next week, I'll go into some more detail about what this proposed, quote, unquote, slowdown actually amounts to. It's basically self-regulating while also trying to get the government to weaken antitrust laws to strengthen Open AI and Anthropics monopoly over this whole industry, right?

Because obviously they have their own incentives when they're calling for regulation. This regulation that they're calling for is going to be. friendly to them as the big titans in the industry. People on both the right and the left have accused OpenAI an anthropic of trying to employ a form of regulatory capture. Something that Linda Khan has addressed, the former FTC chair, who posted a statement on Sunday, explaining that even without new regulation, the government already has the authority to charge companies and their CEOs for, quote, creating and releasing dangerous,

unvetted or defective products. we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws. Unquote. So like I said, I'll go into more detail about this later next week in its own episode, but this is something that I'm sure you're going to hear a lot about these next few weeks leading into the midterms as the White House and Congress will start meeting with these tech CEOs about regulation and other, even local municipalities, are planning to do the same, including here in New York City.

Let's go in an ad break and then have two more little news stories before we close. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare Radio app. Get the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video.

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And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complain about the very thing to receive. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men.

Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off, I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. 12 seats, those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going a heart in the South now.

And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. So last week, the Republicans held their first ever midterm convention. And unfortunately, none of us could attend. Or rather fortunately, none of us could attend. We saved a little bit of our sanity. Senator John Federman sent in a video message to the midterm RNC.

They showed Hassan Piker's thirst trap on the Jumbotron. Oh, yeah. And during Trump's speech, the president promised to give every U.S. citizen adult $5,000 if the Republicans win the midterms. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything like what's happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. I'm definitely filing this on, how is this legal?

Is this not just bribing the population? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, Trump knows that it's literally impossible for the Republicans to hold on to the House or the Senate, so this will never actually happen. But still, it's crazy. And a few days later, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, quote, if you want more money in your pockets, you got to keep Republicans in charge. It would be really funny if the Democrats won both houses and then pushed through a $5,000

bribe to the American people. Biden bucks, maybe. Just nuke the economy, fucking a trillion and a half dollars in added spending. Crazy bullshit. Just see what happens. Another really interesting tidbit about this is that according to an episode's poll from September 14th, the public seems largely negatively polarized against a free $5,000. Because we know it's a scam.

Because it's obvious, because he's a liar. It is a remarkable place to have got when the economy is really shit when people are struggling, to be polling badly of giving people free money. Because he's our lying-ass president. It's just like loan shard vibes. Yeah. 63% of respondents said they oppose the $5,000 dividend check from Trump. Only 17% said they support it.

My God. Pretty wild. You got to be so bad at your job to get Americans to hate money. Oh, damn. $10 gasoline, price of eggs. They try to give away free puppies and people being like, no. They have, like, there's something wrong with them. Now, there is one other thing that happened.

at the midterm convention, which is something I've been keeping an eye on because this has been a kind of pet issue of like the gross racist online right for years. They're pushing it more right now. At the midterm convention, DHS secretary Mark Wayne Mullen told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson that Alon Omar married her brother, echoing the years old conspiracy theory, which Omar has called absurd and offensive. Markway Mullen added, quote, something is going to happen. We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.

There may be more to this, the whole family migration, and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with. But all of this were investigating, unquote. She's been a citizen for Mad Long, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what could you eat?

The conspiracy theory goes that she married someone to help bring them into the country, before splitting. Like fraud. I'm fairly sure the form that you fill out for that has a question about that. I'm not absolutely certain. Also, like, you can sponsor family members on a form I-130.

If you're a U.S. citizen, you don't have to marry them. A few weeks ago, Trump did hint towards this by posting an article on truth social with a headline claiming that Omar was the subject of ICE, quote-unquote, enforcement proceedings with this article detailing that ICE denied a FOIA request for documents related to the immigration fraud allegations against Omar citing an ongoing investigation. Earlier this week, after the convention, both Tom H.E. Todd Blanche have also referenced this quote-unquote ongoing criminal investigation. So I guess to wrap up, I want to talk about a couple more DHSOIG reports that dropped this

week. One was the Chrome immigration facility in Georgia. What we saw was what we've seen there before, right? Overcrowding, disgusting conditions, absolutely atrocious food safety precautions. Like literally just like ambient temperature stacked boxes of frozen chicken. Just vibing, which parallels would I have heard from many, many, many people who have been in immigration detention, which is that food is dangerously bad, not just like not taste good, like dangerous for human consumption. The one I want to focus on is the OIG report. It's called, quote, unannounced inspection of ISIS, Florida, soft-sided facility, brackets, quote, alligator Alcatraz, unquote. They dropped this report on Friday, September the 11th, as one does when one wants to get loads of attention and

coverage. The report found that employees had no idea what the standards for detainees were, let alone obeying them. Every housing unit was overcrowded, sometimes three times more than it should be in order to achieve the 75 feet per square person standard. Detainees were deprived of any stimulating leisure time and not given access to legal materials. Perhaps the most disgusting find is the use of these tiny cages.

Quote, between July 17, 2025 and January 18th, 2016, FSFF, that's soft-sided facility, Florida, Ray, can find 79 detainees in sorts. small metal enclosures, each operating about 18 square feet of floor space for periods ranging from several minutes to nearly two hours. A practice unlike any OIG team has observed in ice facilities. The use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment. That's one way of saying it. These are cages that are four feet three inches by four feet three inches by seven feet nine inches and the staff called them calming areas. You have to

see the pictures of these. Like, you should put it on yourself to look up, if you haven't already, like, look up pictures of these tiny cages. They're reminiscent of shit I saw in Saxonhausen outside of Berlin. Like, that's not an exaggeration. They sell bigger dog crates for training your dog than these, these plumbing areas. Yeah, like, you couldn't lie down. And it's a metal crate in a Florida.

It's a cage, yeah. Some of them are outside. Yeah, exposed to the sun. Yeah, I think that the one I saw that was outside was under a little roof. area, but they'll still be unbearably hot, right? They also state that detainees told us they did not have access to clean drinking water and could not clean their plastic cups. Drinking, potentially contaminated drinking water from unclean cups could negatively impact detainee health, something I have also heard myself from detainees. They were allowed to shower three times a week.

They were only allowed toothpaste when staff members applied it to their issued toothbrush. This is a facility designed to dehumanize people, right? Like, yeah, I have. have been to prison camps all over the world than a longer prison camps from like brutal dictatorial regimes. That is what this is. This facility won't last long because it's already closed, but one day this shit will be a museum where we send our children to understand the fucked up shit that we did to people and they will feel a sense of shame.

But Florida does not. Indeed, it is not something that seems to concern DHS because, quote, DHS stated it did not have a contract with Florida to manage the detention space at FSSF. DHS indicated Florida detained illegal aliens at FSSF, pursuant to its delegated authority under Section 287G of the Immigration Nationality Act, and therefore the state maintains authority of day-to-day operations at the facility, and that, quote, DHS stated, a Section 287G agreement does not give the federal government authority over the physical operation to any facility, or over the state employees

except to the extent which they are performing the function of the immigration officer. This is a crazy argument, right? Like there are ICE logos all over this facility. These people are in immigration detention for a federal misdemeanor in some case

for other cases just for not compliance with immigration regulations, right? Maybe some have committed crimes or misdemeanors in Florida, but they are not being detained by a court in Florida for an offense in Florida. Florida is a contractor here, just like Geo Group is a contractor. How are they not performing the function of an immigration officer? They're performing the function of a prison guard.

Right. So like someone like a geo group, yeah, prison guard, right? But like, but there are ICE immigration officers there. They absolutely are, right? What's worrying about this is, yeah, this facility is closed. But the Baker facility, for example, is run under 287G. There are other people detained under 287G. and the line that DHS is taking is that there is no minimum

other than that which the state decides to enforce in terms of the quality of these people's food, the way they can be mistreated, the way they can be tortured. This is really alarming, and that is what I want people to take home from this. The conditions were bad, and DHS is asserting that there's nothing they can do about it. It's one of these pie-in-the-sky legal arguments that the Trump administration has increasingly been making and sometimes sticks a landing on.

And this one is wild. There is no minimum. It's such a chilling phrase. Yeah, like, I don't think it's possible to overstate how fuck this is. Immigration detention under Biden was fucking inhumane. Like, I spoke to hundreds.

I interviewed someone on this show who had just left immigration detention. And it was horrific then, right? They'd call it the ice box because they keep that place super cold. And it is something that I didn't, Well, I mean, I'm constantly, I've underestimated how terrible shit could be in this country, but it has got worse. And that should be a national shame.

Well, that is all of our stories for this edition of Executive Disorder. Yes. Kim Kelly, where could people find more of your work anywhere online or maybe in flesh space? I don't know. At a bookstore, perhaps. Oh, yeah. I have some books. Flesh space.

They're at flesh. Give me a break, okay? Yeah, absolutely not. I don't know. Like, we're all internet people. I've been reading these anthropic reports all day. It's the only way I can think now. It's the Matrix.

Oh, my God. But if you do like old school analog books, I have created some of those. You can find, fight like hell, and fight to win the kids' version of my radical labor history. It is out there. The paperback is so much cheaper. Buy it for some kids, radicalism. I'm freelance. So I am a labor journalism mercenary.

You can find me all over the place. And as of fairly recently, sometimes I pop up here in the cool zone. So, yeah, you can Google me and we can argue about tattoos on Blue Sky or Instagram. And also, I just wanted to say there was a little update from Robert Kraft and Gillette and all that. How cool.

After McElmore had posted that he was going to donate a million dollars to these Palestinian organizations, Robert Kraft posted. Actually, before that happened, I talked to Ed, and we decided we're both going to donate $2 million. Also, I've been really cool to Palestinians. So, meh. So internet bullying works is my final sort of takeaway for you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to email us about Ed Sherence tattoos, don't. Send her to me. Yeah, you can find Kim at I Write OK on social media platform. everywhere. Goddeme it. Oh, no. But if you would like to email us about a story tip, you can do so.

It is Coolzone Tips at Proton.me. We reported the news. I think the newsroom guy got like divorced or he's like broke up with his like girlfriend. He did. He and Amanda Cipher and are getting divorced. And the rumor is it's because she's actually into women. So good for her. So poor one out.

Honey. Good for her. Godspeed. We reported the news. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, poolzonemedia.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 directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. People wake up and go, Oh, damn, wait a moment, hold up.

They changed all of that. Yes. It's real. This is a wholesale attack. It is targeting black people in every federal agency. It's raw. White folks have never allowed that reckoning to last more than a decade. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network.

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