It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: US Strikes Wedding in Iran, Mail-In Voting Whistleblower, Tupac Killer Convicted 

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

The gang discuss the dissolution of the SDF, Lake America, MAGA influencers secretly working for the Pentagon, Trump’s oil deal in Venezuela, new US strikes in Iran, a USPS whistleblower warning about voting restrictions, and the Tupac murder case.  Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/29/trump-dhs-1509-summons-records-journalists-nonprofits?CMP=share_btn_url https://x.com/the_amargi/status/2094779953925456352?s=20  https://x.com/JohnSevenTwo/status/2095117948650172862?s=20  https://x.com/jalalisarah/status/2095092338892705851?s=20  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/establishing-the-united-states-space-academy/  https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/2093060290371870948?s=20 https://x.com/Acyn/status/2093087605785292936?s=20 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/honoring-the-american-history-of-the-great-lakes-and-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america-3a36/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/27/mike-collinss-former-staffer-posted-kkk-nazi-imagery/ https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/28/business/states-prediction-markets-gambling-federal-appeals-court https://x.com/StephenM/status/2093865962730651942?s=20 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/29/rubio-immigration-first-fifth-amendments-01056086?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2094436092422340978?s=20 https://apnews.com/article/trump-venezuela-oil-reserves-eb0ed5a1e99602c21a7f690c3368020e https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/us/politics/how-marco-rubio-runs-venezuela.html https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/2094143793951838328?s=20  https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/iran-news-trump-war-israel-hormuz-august-30  https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2094186148151046199?s=20  https://x.com/UK_MTO/status/2094558750254256319?s=20  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117196950497702512  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/117190855202153056  https://x.com/RT_com/status/1492966810202693633?s=20  https://x.com/trbrtc/status/2094949680777994338?s=20   https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2094826294466810366?s=20  https://x.com/jalalisarah/status/2095092338892705851?s=20 https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/2094285318170018166?s=20 https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/2093246779068137472?s=20 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/30/pentagon-secretly-installs-military-influencers-civilian-roles/ https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/maga-influencer-outed-as-a-pentagon-employee-in-bizarre-turn-after-botching-scoop-state-dept-spox-gave-her/ https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2090922149234028711?s=20 https://x.com/AFpost/status/2090993722955567308 https://x.com/JimLaPorta/status/2091970654316700056?s=20 https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10092 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. People wake up and go, oh, damn, wait a hold up. They change 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. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on a lot. the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, everybody. Amy Roboc and T.J. Holmes here from the Amy and T.J.

podcast. We are your one-stop shop for the biggest newsmaking headlines of the day. We've got you covered. Yeah, there's a lot of news happening these days and some of it's breaking. We are on top of it every single day. There's a bunch of true crime going on out there as well, and so much of it dominating on social media. We have our eye on it all. Listen to the Amy and T.J. podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author, 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 honies, 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?

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. Whether you're a seasoned NFL fan or new to the game, there's one place to keep up with all of it, the league's newest podcast, the NFL report, hosted by me, Andrew Siciliano, it is your home for everything football, breaking news, expert analysis, game picks,

and hear from your favorite players too. Join me at an all-star cast of experts for everything you need to know from around the league. Get new episodes of the NFL report Monday through Friday all season long. Listen to the NFL Report podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also 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.

This episode, we are covering the week of August 26th to September 2nd. Today I'm joined by James Stout, Robert Evans, and Stubble. Special correspondent, Prop from our show Hood Politics. Welcome. Hey, long-time listener, first time caller, you know. Glad to be here. First time on ED. You've been on it could happen here a few times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Your favorite cousin, you know. James, do want to start with your little short news items? This is a barrage of bad news. Prop if you're not familiar with this. Last week, I guess, barrage with an unfortunate choice of words. Right when we were releasing this, a flat. in Nepal caused catastrophic damage.

Yeah. Like, if you're on the internet, you've seen the videos, right? Yeah. 1,000 people have been reported dead so far, with nearly 4,000 missing. The current hypothesis is that a glacial collapse so large and fast that it caused a seismic event, caused a detached portion of the glacier to melt due to friction as it fell. So there was like a seismic event, and there was some question of the timeline, right?

Did the seismic event precipitate the collapse? So did the collapse? Yeah. From what I've seen, the current I bought this is that so much of the glacier fell that it created the seismic event. Yeah, yeah, that's what I remember hearing. Me too. Yeah. And the most logical.

Yeah, yeah, it does seem like it wasn't a tectonic situation here. No, it was purely as a result of the glacier degrading. Yeah. I've seen a glass of a carve before. It's an incredible thing, but this is on a scale that is almost infathomable. There are early warning systems for flooding on that river, but the flooding moves so fast that it swamped and destroyed those facilities

before they could trigger them. Yeah. We're talking seconds here. Yeah. Secondly, I'm going to talk about the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which was officially dissolved on August 25th, had its forces absorbed into the new Syrian army.

Masloum-Ebdi. The SDF being, of course, the armed forces of Rojava, the self-administration, the AANES, you know, in northeast Syria. James and I both reported from there. Yeah, and I know it's been really an important place, an important thing for both of us. We will, like, break this down in more detail in another episode,

but I wanted to say really briefly, Maslum Abdi made the announcement, and he said that approximately 10,000 SDF fighters have been integrated into a new Syrian army. The integration that matters is the women's protection forces, the YPJ. And some of the ethnic minority militias. Sure, yeah, yeah. The non-Kurdish ethnic minorities.

Yeah, the Armenians and the Assyrians and the like. The Assyrians, yeah, yeah. As it seems right now, the offer is for the YPJ to integrate. great as individuals into the Ministry of the Interior, so doing stuff like tourism, police, border police. And it does not seem that the new Syrian government is interested in having women in its armed forces, right, despite these particular women being some of the most capable fighters in the world who have been trained by the US and by other militaries and have been fighting for more than a decade in some cases. Right now, what they want is to remain as a distinct

entity with their own structures and not to be broken up as a group of like desperate individuals. In related news, I guess there have been protest in Camiselo this week after the government failed to follow through on its promise in the constitution to have Kurdish be a language of instruction. Instead, lessons are optional and three hours a week. This would be a disaster for people where there are generations who have grown up in Rojava where Kurdish was the language they spoke at home, Kurdish was the language they spoke at school. of course, Kamaghi Kurdish has different alphabet to Arabic. There are older generations who were educated in Arabic, right?

And they're very aware of this difference. But the right to education in your mother tongue, when we look at like autonomous movements across the world, I write about this from a PhD dissertation actually. This is one of the things that is considered sufficient autonomy for these sub-state national groups. And taking it away, it's a very serious thing. No, especially since, I mean, a lot of these people,

people. In Turkey, it's been criminalized, and there have been degrees of this in Syria under different regimes, but in Turkey it's been criminalized for a long time to speak the Kurdish language. Yeah. And school textbooks have explicitly in Turkey, like, I mean, they've written Kurds out of history, right? Let's move to Myanmar, where a Burmese hunter resupply convoy to Barmo has been targeted by numerous FPV drones and attacks on its way up the Arawaddy River to resupply the town. The KIA Kachina Independent Army is attacking government forces there. It seems like this morning two boats seem to have surrendered and there are videos of what looked like hundreds of what are probably

conscript soldiers being captured by the KIA and associated PDFs. They're relying incredibly heavily on conscripts right now. Someone sent me some documents from a hunter officer who they captured showing that something like a single digit percentage of the troops under his command had been in the military before the conscription began. So they're like taking people with very little training and sent into the front line very quickly, which relates to my next point,

which is that Malaysia is planning to forcibly return Myanmar nationals on Myanmar Navy ships at the end of this month. We can pretty safely assume that these will be Rohingya or other Muslim peoples from Myanmar, right? Malaysia has been one of the places where people have tended to go, especially with conditions being what they are in Colosses Bazaar.

this would lead to those people most likely immediately being conscripted if they were sent back. That's all I've got. Garoner, you have some stuff too. Yes, I do have some stuff because it was a big newsweek for White House extended universe-related news.

Okay. On August 28th, Trump signed an executive order to create the country's first U.S. Space Academy. The order starts by saying, quote, space is a critical domain for American national security, economic growth, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. More details on this will come out in the next 120 days.

I'm really excited to see how they're going to work in the Confederate flag into that, because you know they're going to. It's that. Mid-Miditary academies love that shit. Trump starts evil Star Trek. Amid trade disputes with Canada, on August 27th, President Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. And as of recording, both Google and Apple Maps have complied with Trump's order. This move has not received universal praise, even among Trump's followers on the right.

Matt Walsh came out against this, saying, quote, this will be an unpopular opinion on the right. But I think this is kind of dumb, even as a troll. Lake Ontario was given that name on maps by European explorers long before the Canadian province of Ontario was named. There are several cities in America called Ontario, at least one of them, predating the Canadian province by like 100 years. Because the word originates with native tribes in North America. Yeah. It is not a Canadian invention. Canadians never uniquely owned the lake or the name, so in effect, all you're doing here is actually giving them credit for a thing that wasn't theirs to begin with.

Yeah, it's funny when Canadians are upset, I guess, or whatever. But Lake Ontario name itself is American history dating back many centuries. not sure how you own Canada by deleting your own history, unquote. So that's Matt Walsh's long, long take on this if you are interested. Man, of all the things I would think he'd break with the administration on. Right. Yeah, okay. All right, Matt.

All right. Well, because European explorers have they did that. I know, I know. It's just also stupid. Yeah. And also, okay, it's stupid. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

But America's the name of the continent. It shouldn't bother me as much as it does. But like Canada's a part of America. Like you understand it. The Americas. Yeah. Even if it is a troll, it's not even a, I shouldn't care that your troll sucks. It's deeply frustrating.

It's, yes. It's so stupid. That's the, it's, and even calling the Gulf of Mexico, calling the Gulf of America. You know Mexico. a part of America. It's just not a... It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. It's one of the most annoying things that he has done and continues to do as president. And the fact that Apple and Google Maps is like the key towing to this is just completely embarrassing. A pundant on Fox News is The Five also did not like this. But because he was concerned that the new acronym

that would be given to kids to memorize the Great Lakes, right? Because the acronym used to be homes. It's to go over all of the great lakes. That's the first letter of each said lake. Yeah. Yeah. Her on Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Work well for you.

This Fox News prundit is concerned that now the acronym will be too close to Hamas. Because you have to trade the O.F the A. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right. If we could get a Merigo Vespucci in there, if Lake Erie, we'd be there. Right. I think we could make it to Homo. We could probably get to Homo.

We could get to Homo. If we're close to Hamos, we've got to be close to Homo. The next liberal president has to replace the name of Lake Erie with another O word and have homoes. Lake Obama. There we go. Like Obama. Yeah, that's good. Trump has also since renaming, quote unquote, renaming the lake.

He has also suggested changing the name of either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. to the American Ocean. The American Ocean, absolutely. Has also talked repeatedly about changing the name with the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of America. Oh my gosh. So we'll see how that works out for him. How's up going for him?

We'll check in later. How's that going? How about to go to your backyard and change the name of it? This is just for clout, right? Like, this is just a fucking, like, he's found out that he gets a lot of attention and owns the libs and he creates like a, a news cycle whenever he does this bullshit. That's the reason this is happening, right?

Yeah, that's why I don't want to speak any more about it, but it's worth a little mention there. Oh, for sure. Holmes to Hamas is undeniably funny. Homes for Hamas is an amazing, like a fictional NGO that would come out of like a Matt Walsh tweet. That is true. And then maybe the new Daily Wire Plus film. The next film, yeah. It's Habitat for Humanity.

but it's a habitat for Hamas instead. Speaking of something that could come out of a Daily Wire exclusive film, a former staffer for Mike Collins, a Republican congressman from Georgia, who's currently running for Senate against John Ossoff, has been linked to a Nazi account on X the Everything app.

This ex-staffer is a 24-year-old who interned for Collins in 2024 and then the next year worked as a contractor at a pro-Collins pack. On X, this staffer described himself as a quote-unquote twink fascist. Okay. Yeah.

And in one post from July of this year, he used the word twink to type out the shape of a swastika. Okay. All right. I have it in the dock here. If you guys would see. Yeah, I see what is happening? How does he think that's going to end for him?

I don't think he cares. Oh, yeah. I think there's a chunk of people for whom all it matters is the lulls. Right? So it would seem. Yeah. Wow. He also posted thirst traps of himself, captioned racist.

That's not desperate. And also shared a grok-generated photo of himself in a clan robe. Fascinating. I never thought I'd see the day of like bored Nazis. With too much time on their hands online. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, y'all just bored now.

I mean, that's where these Nazis started. Okay, yeah. It began in boredom, and I guess to some extent, you know, it should end there. Yeah. Tushay. Yeah, it's downstream of being on the internet too much. Yeah.

On Monday, Secretary of Transportation and Sean Duffy announced an emergency shutdown of 110 commercial driver's license schools, which according to the White House accounted for, quote, more than 5,000 of the drivers who have failed English proficiency tests, unquote. So this will make it harder for people to work as commercial drivers.

Yeah, we've got too many of those as it is, so that's good. Yeah. Things are going great. A federal appeals court ruled three to one, and that's Trump appointees on that court, that states can regulate prediction market platforms like Kaushi as gambling. This case originated from regulators in Nevada with support from their Republican governor. Obviously, the state of Nevada has an interest in keeping these platforms regulated as gambling or kicking the platforms out of their state entirely

because it's Nevada, it's Las Vegas. The judges in this case wrote, quote, The substance of the sports event contracts offered on Kalshi's exchange is sports gambling, regardless of whether Kalshi calls them swaps. Kalshys attempts to distinguish its sports event contracts from sports books betting are unpersuasive, unquote.

The judge has also highlighted how in court, Kalshi argued that its platform wasn't actually sports betting, but Kalshi had previously used that term to market its platform to users. I didn't go too deep into this, but yesterday that the first person to get a lifetime ban from Kalshi, did you see this? No. No. Is it Trump's teleprompter guy?

No. It's even funnier. It's George Santos. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's back. No way. Pour one out for Santos. For insider trading.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he bowed on himself getting booed that in Congress? I can only imagine him being like, oh, me, right? Oh, fuck me, right? Fuck me. That's good. Yeah. Yeah.

This case here will most likely escalate to the Supreme Court. another case which might end up going to the Supreme Court relates to this next short story. A district court judge in California ruled that Rubio's use of the NIA to deport non-citizens based on their political speech violates the first and fifth amendments. Stephen Miller reacted to this ruling by writing, quote, A district court judge says America must admit and keep foreigners who hate America and hate Americans. Court ordered civilizational suicide. It will not stand unquote. Yeah.

Very much in line with Stephen Miller's stance on restricting free speech in order to save our civilization. Second to last here, I'm going to talk about a story in The Guardian, which everyone should just read the full story. It'll be at the top of our show notes, so you can check it out. Usually, I keep the small things show notes at the top. And this one will be at the top of the top because you should just read the story. Last Saturday, the Guardian reported that the Trump admin has been using a, quote, obscure legal maneuver to try to obtain private information on journalists, nonprofits, and unions, unquote, all without judicial oversight. How the Guardian learned about this is that feds tried to get a search warrant for digital information from a Minneapolis journalist named Georgia Fort and Don Lemon. The judge denied this request, citing a lack of probable cause.

and the government then withdrew its request. But weeks later, DHS requested the information from Google anyway. They went straight to Google. And per the Guardian, they used a, quote, administrative summons, citing an arcane provision of federal law, 19 U.S.C. 1509, dealing with customs imports, unquote. All that was needed to send the summons was a sign-off from a DHS official. There was no judge involved.

Google didn't. denied the requests for information on Fort, but DHS did secretly obtain her phone records from T-Mobile with no opportunity for her to challenge the summons. For more information, people should read this full article on The Guardian. It has other instances of DHS using this little piece of customs law. Basically, DHS is arguing that because this involves people interfering with ICE agents, it is subject to this like customs, like duties and taxes import law, which is in cases where this has been actually argued in court, has not succeeded, but they have been able to successfully

get information on a number of people and have also requested information on outlets like democracy now, independent journalists, and nonprofits. And this follows, you know, a few weeks ago, we reported DHS obtaining information, financial information on unions in Minneapolis as well. This is all kind of part of this same time zone in terms of the response to Operation Metro Surge. Lastly, for small things, and this will be a future episode, probably next week. Far-right provocateur Milo Yonopoulos was deported last week.

Yeah, he sure was. Yeah, buddy. After promoting ICE and deportations pretty gloriously for years and years. Yeah. Talking about wanting to masturbate while ICE tore people away from their... families. He specifically and directly stated, like, that, that, yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I got no sympathy for the man. Certainly not. Like, fuck eyes, but, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is Milo suffering the consequences of the world that he helped bring into existence and has cheered on for years and years and years. This, you know, this should not be a thing that we have in our country. This process should not be something that exists, but it's one that Milo wants to exist and he still wants it to exist and his interview with Pierce Morgan And after his deportation, he said that the problem is not deportations, but that they're just deporting the wrong people.

Yeah, after saying no one deserves this kind of treatment, he then went on to say like, but obviously some people do. Yes. But even that, like, this man's treatment, he still got the like white glove treatment. He's fine. He's fine. Yeah. Did you miss a meal, bro?

Like, was they handing you stuff? Yeah, maggots in it? No. He spent less than a day in detention. Yeah. And now he is free to go back in Britain with all of the money and resources that he has. He is not suffering the way thousands and thousands of other people have suffered. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, DHS claims that he overstayed a visa. Meanwhile, Milo himself claims that his green card was quote unquote canceled without him knowing. And that summons to immigration court were sent to an address that he no longer lives at. He never learned about the summons. That's what he's claiming. We will go over all of these. in much more detail

next week. Unless anyone has anything to add on that. I think we can... Yeah, whatever. Yeah, whatever. It's funny. I think last time

me and prop talked at length, it was about Kanye West, who Milo was working for at the time. He was working for... Yep. And his...

is actually working for Kanye again. Yes. He started working with him again earlier this year. Oh, good. I think that's what he was in Louisiana for, it looked like.

Quite possibly. Yeah. Okay, obviously there's exceptions to everything, right? But within sort of like black American culture, it's we're done talking about you, we're done dragging, we won't even check for you. I'm like, Kanye dropped an album. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, I don't know anyone who heard this record.

Just like dropped it into a void. I was just like, this is how you know how thoroughly you burnt your brand. Like, honestly, as a person who bleeds hip-hop is arguably a generational talent when it comes to production, soundscaping, like creating music. But it's so completely insufferable and just so, we're just so done with you. And your boy Milo going, as he should be. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's what happens when you hire the man who perfected the art of the fall-off. Yeah.

To work for your company. To help you in your fall off, sir. And you can argue. He's like he sold out five days at crypto. Okay, but that's not five days in every city in a. America, which is what he was doing. Yeah. Anyway.

Yeah, I'll talk a little bit more about what Miles has been up to and other issues regarding his ongoing separation from his husband and questions about his legal status next week in a special episode. But for now, let's go to a quick ad break and then return for some more news. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts everyone's talking about. All in one place, and it's free.

I heart radio. Whatever you want to hear. Listen anytime, anywhere. Music, radio, podcasts, unlimited audio. It's on the free IHurt Radio app. Let's go! One app, no subscription. Always free.

Grab the free app. I heart radio. Everywhere you go. Always free. Download the free IHard Radio app today. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was something. someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 as you. 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 Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tish Sussman, and this season, On She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots like Paraly-Olympian Alley Trouet. I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack.

There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference, so I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef, Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career? after just two years? No. I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke

and in a dead end job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend, Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivotts on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay. So 27 years ago, one of the greatest rappers of all time was murdered in front of everybody. This is Tupac. And the killer just now got sentenced. One would wonder, first of all, why this is so important to put it on executive order. And I have a theory as to why. But also, why did it take 27 years to solve this? And everybody involved except for one dude has been dead.

So what is we talking about? So to understand this is important to this, I think we have to understand really just how singular Tupac was as a person. And I think anybody born post his birth, it's like you weren't a part of the monoculture that we had all existed in in the sense that at some point in our lives, we used to all sit down at 8 o'clock Thursday night to watch the same television show, like across the world.

You know, like that just doesn't exist. So to be a star in that era, means the planet is watching you. And I think Pock was such an enigma. We're talking about a guy's life who's like, his life would be a bad script. Like if somebody was writing

what he actually lived in a script, you'd be like, come on, guys. Yeah, his last words is he was bleeding out and the police asked him who did it were something along the lines of fuck you pig, right? Like, it was something like that. Yeah, fuck you, pig. Like, you're talking about a guy

whose godfather was Geronimo Pratt, the legendary Black Panther. His mama and auntie of Fannie and Asada Shakur defended themselves in federal court while she was pregnant with him. The man was clearly Jada Pinkett's first love, which means that Will Smith is the consolation prize to Tupac. Like, that's what I'm trying to say.

Like, the man dated Madonna. He dated Quincy Jones' daughter. Like, there was just genre-defining films. The guy lived four lives, like he literally lived four lives inside of the five years that he was a public figure. Rapper, gangster, sex symbol, revolutionary, all before he was 26. So, backstory before we get this court case. So in 1996, honestly, the biggest star in the world, him and Notorious BIG, two biggest rappers that rap has ever seen. right. Pock and his friends, part of Defro Records, Shug Knight, who was the leader of Defro, went to Vegas to a Mike Tyson fight. At the Mike Tyson fight, they see a man named Orlando. Now, Orlando was a crib, important to the story, Shug being a notorious Compton Pairoo blood in charge of Defro records at this fight for Mike Tyson, which only lasted 15 seconds, which was why they were so bored because the fight was done immediately.

So while they were out trying to party, still kind of bored because the fight they came to see didn't happen. They run into this guy named Orlando. Now Orlando's important because, again, he's a Crip. And a few months earlier, he snatched a chain, a death row records like gold chain, from another person at the Lakewood Mall, no less. Which is very funny because Lakewood is a suburb of Long Beach. It's not even like a city. It's just literally just a mall. So these murderous crips steal this chain from this guy, they see him, and they're like,

hey, that's the dude that snatched the homies chain. So him and Shug go stomp the guy out. It's all, you could see it all. It's all on surveillance footage, camera footage. They see him stomp them out. They're still on a high. They're about to go party. They want to go do their thing.

The problem is the guy that they stomped out, his uncle is his man named Keefei D. Keep Keefe D's name in mind because Keefei D's name in mind because Keefei is, because Kee-D. had a friend named Zip, I know. But Zip worked for P. Diddy, as in Sean Puffy Combs, as in the worst human we've ever met. You know what I'm saying? So he works for him. Puffy is the leader of Bad Boy Records, who's got Biggie. They're in this amazing, like, struggle for power to be the king of hip-hop. It was pretty well-known, worst-kept secret. Puffy wanted Shug and Pock Dead. right so zip works for diddy kifie d gets a gun from zip and says you fin to let that man you know stomp you out like that in front of the homies we got to go get your get back they get in the

car find out where he's going to be at the club he's not there they were going to give up and then some girls on the side of the road at the gas station realize that that's tupac in the car because again he's the biggest star on the planet at the time they're screaming oh my god oh my god it's him He's there. Flip a U-turn, roll the window down, shoot through the car, kill Tupac. Right. Now, all kinds of conspiracy theories as to how this happened because the case went unsolved, but of course it was solved. He's the biggest artist on the planet. They absolutely knew who killed this guy. It's just you didn't have enough to convict him, right? Because it's still all hearsay, it's still all this, the word of a bunch of cribs who all tell war stories all the time. You can't prove it, right?

Anyway, they're waiting for a chance to actually solve this. Six months later, Biggie gets killed, right? So now you got two of the biggest stars in the world in hip hop murdered. Biggie's mom sues NYPD for not solving the case, right? Which means that, damn, we better solve this shit. Well, we kind of know who did it, but we can't prove it yet. 2008, KFEDD gets picked up on a drug charge, right? It's a federal case because he's doing a whole lot of drugs, right?

So now the man's been to get put up under the jail. The cops say to him, hey, listen, we know you got all them drugs, but can you tell us about what happened in 96? He was like, what are you talking about? They was like, we don't play dumb. You know that we know it was you, right? And let me tell y'all something about this code that the gangsters have. You throw enough time at somebody. They're going to start singing, boy.

And Keefey sang, right? He told him the whole story, exactly what happened, all the names. Let me tell you, look, this is where we were sitting in the car. this the homie, this the one who actually shot. I got the gun from this person and the gun I got from Diddy's homie told the whole thing in exchange for immunity. They was like, all right, we got you, good,

shut your mouth, everything's fine. They would go to trial except they can't go to trial because again, it's the word of just Keefi by himself because everybody else in the car is dead. And are you going to press charges against Puffy, against Diddy? It's absolutely you can't do it. Anyway, it had been fine right after the sunset.

We wouldn't have known until this fool got on YouTube. And then, guys, and listen, it can happen here, podcast team. My friends, my friends, he wrote a book. He wrote a book confessing all of this. Right? He wrote a book. Perfect. He got on every podcast he could get on telling this story.

Two years ago, Las Vegas PD say, hey, homie, we got to charge you for murder. He was like, what are you talking about? I got a deal. They was like, first of all, your deal was with the feds, not with the Las Vegas, PD, number one. And number two, the deal was for your testimony to us. You just told the planet what you did. you got on the internet and you told the planet, sir, you confessed to a murder.

So he like, okay, well, I guess what we got to do. The trial started last month. The man's defense was, I need you to look me in my eyes. The man's defense was, I was making that up for clout. I was lying the whole time. We're seeing a lot of that in court these days. Yeah, I made it up. This is not real.

I made it up. They was like, sir, we're going to put you up under the jail. So he just got convicted for murder. He was not the one that pulled the trigger. The one that pulled the trigger is dead. But he was the one that attained the gun to make sure this happened. He had the last one left. Okay.

Right. 63 years old, about to go to jail for the rest of his life. Now, the reason why I bring this up for executive disorder is I really think this is the destiny of the Epstein case. They're going to wait until everybody. I did except for one dude and then put him in jail. That's my theory. Thomas Massey was unwarning Congress again today reading off a bunch of the Epstein co-conspirators. I'm not sure if you saw that bit.

Yes, I did. Oh, yeah. And so what I'm trying to say is the case was solved within a week. Yeah. Like everyone knows who's guilty. Now, I'm not a gangster, okay? I'm from here, but I do not at all report to be a member of an active gang. I don't think there's a single gang member in Los Angeles who did not know who killed Tupac.

Yeah. I'm like, everyone knew who did it. But you don't talk to the cops. It's day job to figure it out. Right, that's your job. I'm not my job. That's your job. That's day job to figure it out.

But either way, now officially case closed, Tupac was murdered by Kee Fee D's friend who shot through the thing, and now he's going to jail for a murder that happened 27 years ago. But yeah, you know, keep fun in the police, right? Yeah. They're good at their job. They'll solve murders. I mean, not like they can't solve like a kidnapping of an incredibly famous person's mom. Right.

But, you know, eventually they solve the really obvious crimes if they're, Forced to. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why we should be funding millions of dollars to big podcast so we can continue to have people confess to murders on podcasts. Honestly, that's what we replace the police with. It's just podcast where people confess to crimes.

Yeah. It's just promise them $500 in a Vlad TV interview. They will tell you every crime they did. That's a new take on through crime. Someone just comes on and talks about their crimes. Right. Yeah. I think being forced to talk on the Joe Rogan experience would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.

So I don't know about that. Constitutionally prohibited. Yeah, I don't know. It's one of the amendments. Like, okay, guys, just give me the time. Yeah. Yeah. So, moral of the story, guys, yeah.

Like, hey, listen, if you were about to get away with murder, just like shut the fuck up. I can't stress this enough. He was going to get away with it. If you're going to write a book, at least title it something like If I did it. Don't say I did it. Right. If I did. That worked great for OJ.

You got to put the if in front first. OJ got away with murder. Like, can we just? Yes, because he was like, well, if I was going to do it. All right. Back to actual death. Okay. So talking of two groups of people who keep shooting each other,

let's go to Venice Waylor first. The United States. States yesterday, when we're calling this on Wednesday, September 2nd, so that would be Tuesday, September 1st, announced an oil deal with Venezuela. And when I say Venezuela, I mean specifically with Delci Rodriguez. The way we found out was that the President Truth, quote, breaking news that parts in block capitals. The United States of America has just entered into an agreement with the country of Venezuela, countries capitalized, I'll just do the block caps. On the biggest oil deal in world history, that one's in block caps. At my direction, Secretary of State Marker Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegsess working closely with highly respected interim president of Venezuela, Delci Rodriguez, and through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela at no cost to the American taxpayer. This historic transaction more than doubles, that's in block caps.

American oil reserves greatly increases our oil supply and will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans long into the future while helping this not a full-stop. I'm struggling, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward tremendous success and great prosperity. This transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States. Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter, make America great again, President Donald J. Trump. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the claims he's making here. We know that the United States is planning to partner with some kind of private business entity to develop oil fields. It seems like from reporting

they will take 55% of the effective output and have a right to buy oil at cost. If you remember when they first kidnapped Maduro, Trump summoned oil executives to the White House, and none of them were exactly chomping at the bit to go drill, baby drill in Venezuela, right? That's because the infrastructure is damaged, and the crude oil is among the heaviest and dirtiest on the planet.

They would just rather go almost anywhere else, right? They have to do more work to get this oil in worse conditions. I want to recap it a bit well. The United States is effectively running Venezuela as a vassal state now. It literally receives revenue from Venezuela exports and then sends it back via private banks. There was a really good MIT article on Delsey and Rubio's relationship that made the analogy that this is like a parent giving a child,

what do you call it, an allowance, right? We call it pocket money. The United States deployed hundreds of troops to Venezuela, after devastating earthquake. Allegedly, according to this NYT report, Rubio has an effective veto on government appointments. He decides who gets sanctions waivers to work there. He and Delsey send each other birthday messages and selfies.

Venezuela, in the meantime, has quietly wound down its cooperation with Russia, and it coordinated, Venezuelan intelligence coordinated with the US military when they struck Tren der Agua personnel. They have forced Venezuelan ministers to delete tweets condemning the US attack on Iran. Just for reference people,

Iran has been a long-time ally of the regime in Venezuela in so much as we can see. There is continuity, obviously, from Delsey, from Maduro to Delsey, but things are very much changing. Delcy has run drafts of tweets past Marco Rubio before posting them.

Okay. Oh, boy. Sheesh. All right. When there were reports that DOJ was building a case against her, she approached him for assurance, and it seems like that direct

resulted in Trump frothing. Do you remember a few months ago now Trump trothed how great she was and how yeah. It seems like that was the assurance that she was asking for. So it came in the form of the president posting, as he did again yesterday about how great she is. The Posters Republic. Yes. What incentive does the United States have to move towards democracy in Venezuela when it is getting everything at once and it doesn't have to deal with the possibility of the president changing of the legislature changing, right? The U.S. is effectively running Venezuela as an informal colony, as it has done in all of its colonies, it is not inclined to give those people more rights. I would focus less on this deal and more on the fact that Trump is very clearly

trying to lean on gas prices. And the reason he's doing that is what we're going to talk about next, his ongoing disastrous war with Iran. So the US this week has once again on a path to escalation in Iran. On the 30th of August, a new round of strikes inside Iran began. This followed the kind of reduced bombing activity that we spoke about last week, right? The United States says it struck launches for rockets which were preparing to deploy mines into the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump has claimed is not mined. In response, Iran launched ballistic missiles at U.S. bases and allies in the region, and a U.S. source told Fox News that, quote, nearly all of them were intercepted. Yeah, all right. Great. Well, that's good. You want to know that most of the missiles didn't make it?

Nearly all is all the missiles you need to stop. That's what I want out of a missile defense system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What it means, of course, is that United States has used more of its interceptors, right, which it is already dwinded. its supply of. The Iranians, meanwhile, struck four vessels in the Strait of Hormuz this week, perhaps soon to be renamed the Strait of America. It does not seem that America has much say on what goes on there. In one incident on Monday, which I saw a UK MTO, so it's a Maritime Trade Office, right? That's kind of the entity which puts out these like safety briefings to mariners. A tanker was hit with three projectiles,

which is the first time I can recall in this conflict that happening, right? Like, there's a difference between, like, we will strike your vessel to show you that we can strike your vessel and hopefully cause people to stop coming through here out of fear and hitting it three times, which seems to me like maybe an attempt to sink a vessel, right? Like, that's an escalation. In response, on Tuesday, 1st September, the US began another series of bombings with the president truiting. The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian targets in the Strait of Pormuz. The strikes are large and powerful in their retaliation for the Iranians' failed attempt to adding sea mines to the strait, which currently has no mines. They have been completely removed or detonated. And the Iran shooting eight missiles all successfully knocked down at our military base in Jordan.

If the failed nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they'll be hit again at a much harder and at higher level. But it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings. and when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And then he signs it. He also did another one where he said, it's a failed nation, they have no eight navy, they have no Air Force for inflation to 300%. Their leadership is disarray.

And then he's blaming fake news for giving you other impressions. He also tweeted a shit-tier AI slop video of missiles hitting Khaarg Island, where the observer was in a helicopter with the missiles flying over. their head. It was very bad. What? Yeah. Prop, have you, have you not seen this? I will drop this in the chat for you to watch.

Yeah, let's get a live react. Okay. The video is its own thing. The caption he used for this, or whoever is running his account used for this, is also, I think it's kind of incredible. Smithereens. Carg Island being blown to smithereens. President DJT.

Yeah. It is interesting that that one was not signed. Thank you for your attention. on this matter. That's a good point. It looks like a cutscene from like a command and conquer game. Yes, that is exactly what I thought of.

Why is this person lowering themselves into the explosions? Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't understand why you would do this. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be there. Who is shooting these missiles? What is happening?

Yeah, there's like infinite secondaries. Every like, everything that explodes, lands and then explodes again. the way the AI understands explosions is it's fascinating shit. Just on a very basic level, like this is like an interesting thing for a president to do.

I know this is Trump, you know, he posts shit from his account all the time. But the idea of a president posting of semi-photorealistic, obviously we can tell, but a semi-photo-reliistic video, another location being hit by

ostensibly our own military, is interesting. I just, oh, man. Like, a more advanced version of this could be an actual video that's indistinguishable from real footage, at least from a service level glance. That's like, you know, the president saying that X location has been hit. Yeah. And like, no, it hasn't.

Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of sloppy and bad. It's not clear. He's actually trying to convince people that this actually happened. Yeah. But the very basic components of this are interesting and troubling. Yeah.

from the commander-in-chief, it's not great stuff. Yeah. Clearly, like, he's enjoying watching little AI videos. He posted another one today of... Lake America. Well, yeah, he's kicking the sign for Lake Ontario. He walks up. He's carrying, you know,

it's a wooden sign on a couple of four-by-fours. He kicks the sign over. At that point, one of the legs on the sign suddenly becomes shorter when it's on the ground. Yeah. And then YMCA starts playing. And he dances in his carous. mysterious fashion.

Yeah. It's just so embarrassing, man. He's having a great time with the AI machine that someone gave him. Yeah. So let's talk about what these mean, right? He's clearly losing patience with this war and he's worrying about how it's going to impact the midterms. So much of what we're seeing now is, like, we've got to talk about other stuff with voting

rights later, right? DHS is clearly winding up for the midterms in blue states. Yeah, I'll be commenting on that a bit. Yeah. we can see the work requirements for federal benefits not hitting until January 27. They are still worried about these midterms, right? Yeah. Meanwhile, they are still fucking up in Iran.

I saw a video last night of an Iranian missile hitting some thinking, Jordan. Like, this was one of the ones that wasn't most of them, I guess, because it clearly impacted the ground. Iran claims a shot down a reaper. Last night, United States missiles, not for the first time in American history, hit a wedding. Yeah, we've done a bit of that. Yeah. Yeah. This was like a defining moment of for Obama's air war, right, for his drone campaign.

Like, yeah. When people talk about Obama and how he was a disappointment in foreign policy terms, this is what they talk about, right? Like, this is the moment. Yeah. And he bombed a wedding, yeah. Yeah. We did that again.

This time, a weapon fragment at the scene show, I think sort of slam ER or slammer. please email me Navy people tell me how you refer to the missile Boeing has touted it as the quote most accurate missile on the Navy's Arsenal punched straight through the roof for this building

Baluch weddings are really big there were hundreds of people there there were at least 50 people injured at least five of them dead including a child I've seen videos where like you can see children's shoes little tiny toddler's wedding shoes among the rubble right like

damn yeah it's pretty fucked up and the images that will come out of it will not look good. Yeah. Funny talking of Iranian missile strikes, I want to speak about this. This course about this missile. This missile is generally referred to as a castle breaker.

The Persian name is Kaibar Shakan, I believe. Castle is referring to a specific castle from like Quranic history. And that's relevant only because this missile is designed to hit Israel, right? Like that is what this is for. It's a medium range ballistic missile, something like a 900-mile range. recently though there's been a lot of reporting that this is some kind of new and groundbreaking thing that Iran's been dropping in the last few weeks and they have had them for years

we know this because they unveiled it on live TV like they literally like whipped a like a tablecloth off it and we're like there it is which Iran does this a lot with its weapon systems right but I'll include a link to a Russia today post about it they do seem to be likely the missiles that killed several U.S. service people in Jordan in July. But in part the reason that they were the missiles that snuck through because they're the missiles that Iran uses a lot. Iranian state propaganda is making a big deal of talking about these missiles. They do this occasionally with their weapon systems, right?

They portray it as like, oh, the American Patriot has nothing on this missile system that we have. But they are effective, right? They're smallish, they're maneuverable. And in the terminal phase of their trajectory, they maneuver, makes them harder to intercept, right? Like, if it's just doing like a ballistic arc, then it's a math problem to intercept it, right? But if it's maneuvering, from what I understand it,

that makes the intercept more complicated. They use these in Syria soon after I left, actually. This isn't some secret secret brand new technology, but it is a technology that is effective. And like, the reason it's continuing to be effective is that despite it's more than six months of war, the United States has failed to destroy their launches and failed to destroy their missile supplies, right?

And that is why they're still able to strike United States bases all around the region, which they have been doing last night, and they will do again. Tonight, I imagine, and as the US supply of munitions continues to dwindle, this is going to become a bigger and bigger problem for the United States.

What an L. Talking of big problems, we haven't done an ad break in a while. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations Everywhere you go The podcasts everyone's talking about All in one place

And it's free Whatever you want to hear Listen anytime, anywhere Music, radio, podcasts Unlimited Audio It's on the free IHurt Radio app One app, no subscription Always free

Grab the free app IHart Radio Everywhere you go Always free Download the free IHard Radio app today When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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 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. Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tish Sussman, and this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots like Paraly Olympian Alley Truitt.

I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference, so I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef, Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No. I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke and in a dead end job that I didn't enjoy.

And feminist legend, Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivotts on the IHeart Radio. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So at the end of March 26, which is I think like 37 years ago today, at least it feels like that,

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a national list of verified eligible voters. Mail in voting would be restricted to the people on this list, which would be essentially an arbitrary list of whoever the administration thought should be on it, right? it was going to be compiled with help from DHS based on like citizenship roles. Voting law experts immediately complained that this violated the Constitution for a variety of reasons, and some people have said essentially this is an attempt at a coup. Under the order, DHS was supposed to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists for each state. Ballots would be given new envelopes with special barcodes for tracking

and federal funds would be withheld from states that refuse to comply with this illegal order. As with many Trump executive orders, this one was immediately met by a federal judge. who issued a temporary restraining order that blocked it from going into effect. Trump appealed and the whole situation remains legally unsettled to this day. Despite the fact that the order has been halted, earlier this week, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, announced that a U.S.PS whistleblower had come forth to assert that the Postal Service was still moving forward to comply with the halted order anyway.

According to an article by the AP, quote, The disclosure from the unidentified whistleblower contends that the Postal Service has been scrambling to try and build a complex system that would normally take a year or more in only three months, sometimes in defiance of the judge's orders halting work. The goal is to have it ready for use in the midterm elections. The disclosure contends that, due to the new procedures, a single scanning error in a batch of tens of thousands of ballot envelopes could prevent any from reaching voters. It details a system that election officials have already warned could not be implemented before the first mail ballots begin going out Friday in North Carolina. The Postal Service has designed a system

to disenfranchise millions of Americans, Blumenthal told reporters in advance of releasing the whistleblower information. This administration seems hell-bent on changing the framework on casting ballots in this country clearly for political reasons. Now, for its part, the U.S. Postal Service contends that the judge's restraining order still gave them explicitly the right to develop online tools for states who wanted to voluntarily abide by the order. Even if this is true, it's a massive issue because the changes mandated by the EO

are hideously unconstitutional, and no state should be allowed to carry them out. And to make that point, here's a quote from the actual whistleblower complaint to Blumenthal. When ballots are submitted to USPS in large volume batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the portal, all ballots in that batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS, and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the portal, because, for example, someone had recently changed their name after. marriage or they've moved, then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,99 ballots as well.

That's what the whistleblower is contending about the new USPS rules regarding. Yes. Yeah. The barcodes and the portal system. Yeah. Like, this is how he's describing the system as working, right? Yeah. He continues, USPS expects the state to take back the entire batch to cure the issue with

the single ballot. Should the slapdash portal mistakenly mark a ballot as unverified, There is no clear process by which state election officials or voters themselves can challenge the rejection. The rule simply vaguely states that they will be informed of the escalation procedures should they decide to challenge a rejection. Voters intending to cast ballots by mail may not even be aware that their ballots have been rejected or were part of a rejected batch until it is too late to secure an alternative ballot or vote in person. Now, I would call this a clear attempt to steal an election, or not necessarily to steal, but at least you create doubt around the middle. term elections, right? This is something of a desperate hail Mary by Trump and his cronies as the numbers of them have gotten much, much worse nationwide. And if individual states are allowed to do this,

even if the TROs remain in place, and this is halted from going forward nationwide before the election, if individual states are allowed to use this system, then we could see countless Democrat votes tossed out in red states where many dims are doing well for the first time in several election cycles. And I think a large part of the goal here, beyond just blunt disenfranchisement, is creating chaos, right? Because chaos is almost as good as outright tossing out votes. It creates doubt and it provides opportunity, a period of time in which the administration can set narratives

about how the election went in an uncertain election night, right? That's a big part of, I think, why they're doing this is to provide opportunities to where they can throw doubt on the system. Here's another relevant quote from the complaint. According to the whistleblower, USPS's effort to develop and deploy the portal has been rushed, risky, and haphazard, because leadership has demanded an impossible time frame. And an effort to meet impossible deadlines,

USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating a substantial risk of a catastrophic failure of the system that could derail the midterm elections. Quote, the teams building the new portal and accompanying IT were siloed such that when elements were brought together, the teams were unaware of various developments, creating more work. There were also no clear written requirements, leaving workers to glean requirements from opaque comments at meetings.

As late as August 21st, 2026, workers were still receiving new requirements for the project. Without clear guidance, different team members continue to have different understandings of how the system is supposed to work. Now, it's good that this whistleblower came forward. And courage like this is one of, if not the only ways, that we're going to have a chance to catch and stop schemes like this from coming to fruition. It is too early to know what the fallout from this revelation is going to be. That is still very much ongoing. This all just came out in the last couple of days. So we'll update you on this in the future as this evolves.

But I wanted to talk a little bit more about some other midterm fuckery related news, some stuff that's a little bit less dark, right? General Dan Kane, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a letter to Senator Alyssa Slotkin, a Democrat early this week, promising her, quote, The Joint Force has no plans to send federal military personnel or federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2020 elections.

Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to see ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material. Now, this was in response to a request Slotkin's office sent Kane and Pete Hegseth, asking for confirmation that the Pentagon would not interfere with the election by having soldiers at polling places or seizing ballots. I'd call this a partial positive story, right? It's good that he's saying that. It's not great that elected Democrats are so worried about this that they felt the need to

ask. It's not just the military we have to contend with here, because back in February, DHS Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity, Heather Hunt, Honey, told elected dimms any suggestion that ICE will be present at polling locations is simply not true. And that sounded great, but on September 1st of 2026, just a couple of days ago, Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen made some concerning statements to reporters in New York City. Per Politico, quote, The Homeland Security Secretary said that ICE isn't there to patrol the polling areas.

We're there to enforce specific threats. He added, however, that reports of specific undocumented immigrants at a location could be a reason for ICE to deploy. The only reason why we would be at polling places is that there is a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down, he said. ICE's job is immigration, customs enforcement. That's their job.

If we're serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be. And that does leave the door open to some degree of intimidation in Fakhore at polls because we've all seen over the last two years that ICE regularly take being brown as a sign that someone might be an illegal alien in need of tasing an arrest. And when the agency was asked for more clarification

on Mullen's statement, ICE responded, ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. Ice conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement. And if an active public safety threat endangered a public location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action. So again, what's going to happen? It's hard to say. So far, DHS and the military are saying the right things.

But certainly with ICE, there remains open the possibility of some targeted ice fuckery at polling locations around the country. So something to keep an eye on as well. Yeah. Yeah, no parts of me trust them in any way that their word means anything. And it sounds like exactly what you said. This is some sort of word judo. We're like, we're not planning to be there for the purpose of...

Keeping the door open. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Well, we told you we wasn't coming for the purpose it is. We're here for that. And again, you know, I don't expect some national roll out of ice, but there's some really close state elections and maybe, you know. Yeah.

There were people who were attempting to do this six years ago in 2020 in swing states, right? Yeah. And like that very narrowly avoided happening through the intervention. I think of a couple of members of Congress. But like this is something that has clearly been like a, I guess a strategy, right? It's not a hard one to come up with,

but it's a thing that we should be really fucking worried about. Yeah. Yep. To clarify one thing regarding my reporting last week on the plans for this UPS implementation of the executive order, there was two injunctions that were dropped. Yes, last week.

And then after the USPS published the rule change, a new lawsuit was initiated by like over half a dozen states, and then a judge granted a TRO in regards to that new lawsuit, and there will be a hearing tomorrow, which for us is September 3rd, that will determine if there's going to be a permanent injunction. Yeah. And then based on whatever happens at that hearing, the Trump administration will also likely appeal to the Supreme Court.

And it's really just a matter of, like, days in terms of ballots being sent out. Yeah. It's cutting it super close. And like they're trying to, you know, make this be very close. Right. Yeah, yeah. Usually I can at least follow the logic of the Supreme Court, but this one I just kind of, whether I agree with them or not,

I was like, at least I understand how you got there. But they're just like, I don't know, this ain't illegal yet, but let them cook. No, this seems like one of the more partisan or subservient to Trump kind of type orders that they've had. Yeah. Like, okay, a little bit of our like personal information, but basically we've been waiting for the insurance to, it happened already, but my wife needed a particular medical procedure. This is to like prevent a stroke.

You know what I'm saying? And so essentially they was like, well, we can't approve this preventative procedure unless you already have a stroke. Let me get this straight, fam. Perfect. Okay, just say it to yourself again. Yeah.

Like, so they got to break a law before, you could say what they doing is illegal. I just, yeah. That is a fair interpretation of the Supreme Court's logic. Yeah. That's what the Supreme Court just said. They got to break a law before we can tell you what they did is illegal. Okay, okay.

Yeah, that does seem to be where we're at. It's great. Yeah. For our final story, let's talk about Data Republican. Data Republican is a relatively popular conservative influencer or propagandist on X the Everything app. But this isn't just a story about Twitter drama, trust me. Data Republican has almost a million followers on X. Her account started to gain traction in the early days of Musk's doge by her posts that are kind of like data journalism. I use that term very loosely.

Using manipulated data to justify Doge in a very questionable way. And now she produces content, which is essentially like open source, like OSINT style data journalism. four mega or a far right audience. Her bio reads, I'm just a tool builder and has a quote from Musk saying that she's worth following, as well as a quote from Charlie Kirk saying, you're a must follow.

Last week, Data Republican published a web tool, mapping out thousands of Antifa, anarchist, and left-wing websites from across the globe hosted through no blogs. And as we discussed last week, collective that runs the infrastructure behind NoBlogs was designated as a specially designated global terrorist. Data Republican basically scraped every NoBlog's site that was online as of last week and created an index of posts. If they host doxing information, calls to violence, and if they

have any financial information or donation links, as well as, quote unquote, institutional affiliations to other organizations such as the SPLC and any connections to other no blog's sites. She described a tool like this, quote, introducing an interactive map of 7,000-plus blogs across many countries and languages, anti-fascist, anarchist, ecological, prisoner solidarity, migrant border,

revolutionary, every one classified, geolocated, and searchable down to the verbatim quote. Verified quotes, every claim is a receipt, their words, not mine. 4,000-plus blogs pinned to a live world map, zoom in to your own city.

Many blogs classified quote-unquote operational. Click any blog, author, or sell, and walk the network one tie at a time. No grant funded this. No client asked for it. I do this for free on my own time because someone should, unquote. I have a little picture of the tool here below,

which was titled Trump Blogs. That's what she calls her tool to search all these different sites. She has little nodes on this map that are labeled mainstream authority for groups like the SPLC or the ADL. She has another node for Antifa slash watchdog research, what she calls naming shops, basically, like, you know, info sites where anti-fascist researchers will name fascists in their area. Yeah.

She's another nodes for movement legal defense, for like official political parties, mostly like international-based parties, and for movement infrastructures. Now, a few days prior, she posted a similar network work map for the DSA, inspired largely by Marco Rubio's Cuba conspiracy document. This quote-unquote DSA explorer allows you to navigate an alleged web of connections between DSA members, journalists, politicians, and other left-wing organizations, other quote-unquote

anti-imperialist organizations, foreign political parties, and Islamic terror groups. Data Republican has a few projects like this on her website. Other projects include the National Endowment for Democracy Explorer. Quote, AI generated summaries of NED's Journal of Democracy Articles, authors, and NGOs, unquote. Perfect.

She also has another database of nonprofit NGOs, their employees, and their volunteers, and whether they receive government funding. For instance, she has pages on 92 nonprofits focused on combating hunger. Truly, the

worst of the worst being documented here. Yeah. She also has a database of of grant funding, a 2024 voter turnout analysis, and a link to her book on NGOs and USAID, published under her real name, Janica Pounds, with a forward by Doge's own Big Balls.

Oh, my God. Is he credited using his legal name there or Big Bulls? No, he is credited as Big Balls. Like I read it, he is credited as Big Falls. At the bottom of the Data Republican website, is that link to a nearly 5,000-word essay. say from her pastor, titled the historical case for Christianity. Last April, Jennifer Pounce, dated a Republican, became a credential member of Hague Seth's

revamped Pentagon Press Corps. Remember when he kicked out all his news outlets out of the Pentagon last March and replaced them with right-wing cheerleaders? Yeah. Pound's admission into the press corps was part of this effort. And then last month, something odd happened in the Pentagon Press Corps. Jenica Pounds, Data Republican, accused someone from the State Department of trying to entrap her into leaking old Biden-era documents about Cuba by presenting the documents as an exclusive scoop. I'm going to read a quick text exchange that Data Republican posted on Twitter. This is her, quote, just to be clear, you want me to leak the material you gave to me,

unredacted, question mark, happy to help your efforts. the person that she was texting to responded, quote, it already contains all necessary redactions. If you'd rather report on already open source stuff, that's fine too. But I wanted to give you the option of, quote, unquote, breaking the story as a sort of gift, unquote. Okay. So as Data Republican, Jenica Pounce posted a now deleted tweet reading, It's not okay when the deep state sets you up to commit a crime.

I have never been more angry in my life. Meanwhile, the Undersecretary of State, Sarah Rogers, who oversees Voice of America, basically government-funded media, replied to Pound's thread about this alleged entrapment and tried to explain that this wasn't a deep state plot trying to trick Pounds into committing treason, but rather a sincere offer from her, Sarah Rogers, to just publish some exclusive documents.

quote, LOL, these are my text messages and documents. The quote unquote markings are FOIA redactions required for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn't a quote unquote trap, I will happily disclose the documents myself. Here they are. And then Sarah Rogers posted a thread of those documents.

Also, it's funny that she calls just redactions FOIA redactions, because these were not FOIA documents, but she just refers to those as FOIA redactions. Just an interesting note here. Yeah. So essentially, Data Republican just botched a scoop because of her weird paranoia and because she doesn't really know how to do journalism, even like administration propaganda journalism.

And in the midst of this shit show, like this caused a lot of drama, like on like, you know, MAGA Twitter. But in the midst of this shit show, the far right news aggregator account, America First News, claimed that Pounds wasn't just a Pentagon, Press Court journalist, but was actually a, quote, Department of War employee, unquote. A big claim. And then a few days later, the Pentagon confirmed that Pounds was indeed an employee of the Department of War, the so-called. This is a statement from the DoD or the DOW, quote,

Ms. Jenica Pounds serves at the Department of War as a special government employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist at the Pentagon. Her press credentials expired in June 26, and she did not seek a renewal. She began working for the department in July 26, unquote. So that's pretty wild, and I will invite you to return back to this map of like Antifa Anarchist No Blogs website

that Pounds created while she was a special government employee of the Department of War. You know, same thing with this DHS list, same thing with this, you know, voter analysis, although the voter analysis, I think was an older piece, but it's still hosted on her website. But both this no blogs list

and this network map of, like, DSA, were created and published as public tools while she worked and is still working for the Department of War. And then a few days after this was revealed, the Washington Post published an article revealing that Pounds was not the only

right-wing influencer secretly working for Pete Hague Seth. This is a quote from the post. Quote, The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large eyeline following in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth's viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, unquote.

So according to the Washington Post, at least three retired colonels who now boast hundreds of thousands of followers each on XE Everything app, have been assigned to civilian roles in the office of Anthony Tata. the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. And this office has been focusing on how to make the military less woke specifically. Man. These influencers are listed as either special government employees or, quote, highly qualified experts, which can work on a longer term basis than special government employees who can only work for a few months.

And like these are influencers who are actively working on policy, on military policy, on how to make the military less woke, while also posting on the military less woke, while also posting on They're big accounts and in major news publications, you know, like the Daily Caller and as well as Washington Post itself. One of these influencers had a letter to the editor published in the post, like recently. And so they're doing all this and posting about how awesome Pete Hague Seth is while never disclosing that they also work for Pete Hegssef. They work for T.EXF. Right. And like, again, Twitter sucks.

But unfortunately, Twitter is still very consequential to national politics. Yeah. It's one of the primary ways the administration communicates with the people and the public, like, digitally. And as a platform, it's important, not just to this administration, but especially for the so-called Department of War. We've seen pictures from, like, live military operations

that show that Hengseth has Twitter feeds pulled up on screen while special operations are underway. Demand is watching Twitter. Yeah, like in the situation room. Yeah, they're checking hashtags. And now they're recruiting. staff from Twitter, including staff who are building publicly accessible tools mapping out the left from the DSA and Palestinian solidarity organizations to Antifa, you know, Info blogs

and anarchist reportbacks. She's building those databases while covertly working for the Pentagon. And I want to close with this one reply she made to her posts regarding the no blogs tool. Quote, in the course of building this website, a number of anti-fascists. were identified. I disclosed them, but not on the website directly to the USA government, unquote. The government that she works for, that she is working

for. Yeah, yeah. How would you have that direct channel? Like, when I let myself think too long about like, follow me, what frustrates me about climate change is the fact that we saw it coming a hundred years ago and just watch this slow

moving death. And we're like, guys, it's on its way. This is where here's evidence, here's what's happening. It's coming. If we get above two degrees Celsius up, or we're above two degrees Celsius. Like this, what we're trying to, it's right there. It's right there.

I feel like that when Pete Hackseth said, I'm going to fire everybody from the press corps. You're not allowed to come. You're going, he's going to hire his own press people. Guys, they're going to put him on the, he's going to, they're, she works for him. Like, it's just, I, it's just so, this is the slowest moving

cool. Like, it's just, it's the slowest moving coup that you all see. Hey, hey, hey, excuse me. Excuse me. They're going to hire their own press and put,

they're going to send all of our names to the government. Oh, there it is. I just, yeah. One of the things that gets me the most about this is how literally days ago she was, you know,

ranting about the deep state, you know? Of which she is, While she is a secret, like, covert, undisclosed special government employee. That's you. She is you and you are it. People will often talk about like sci-ops or sci-war, right? And they be like an individual person is a sci-op.

And generally that's not how psychological warfare works, right? But like, now they're doing it. That is what they're doing now. You're the thing. You're the thing. Yeah. It's great stuff. Oh, and one other thing that I do want to briefly mention, and this could just be a curious coincidence,

but late last week, No Blogs suffered a hack. A few days after the group that runs No Blogs, the IA Collective, was declared a specially designated global terrorist. The collective published a statement saying that the hack lasted about two hours, during which the title of No Blogs was changed to Trump blogs, and the attacker, quote, may have had access to the user's database. Now, Trump blogs is also what Data Republican calls her no-blogs tracking tool. Now, I'm not saying that Data Republican scraped NoBlog's data by hacking the website, but these two events did happen around the same time, which could just be a curious coincidence. There is no direct evidence that Data Republican is the one who hacked no blogs, and the use of

Trump blogs as a term isn't very original for one, and could just be a sort of inside joke, troll, or reference. But considering the fact that Data Republican secretly works for the Pentagon, I thought this is something worth mentioning coincidence or not. You can draw your own conclusions. That should do it for us here at a... It could happen here. If you want to email us, you can do it.

CoolZone Tips at Proton.me. Prop, do you have any other podcasts that you'd like us to listen to? Hey, it'd be great, actually. We have a cousin podcast called The Politics with Prop, where we dive into not the breadth of topics that were covered here, but a couple topics that may make you scratch your head a little bit. Like, I feel like what they're saying is A, B, and C, and I get to go, yes, you're right.

That's exactly what they're saying. So, yeah, tap in with me. I hope politics would prop every Wednesday and Friday. Yep. We reported the news. 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, coolzonemedia.

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 hold up. They change 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. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey there, everybody. Amy Robock and T.J. Holmes here from the Amy and T.J. podcast. We are your one-stop shop for the biggest newsmaking headlines of the day. We've got you covered. Yeah, there's a lot of news happening these days and some of it's breaking. We are on top of it every single day. There's a bunch of true crime going on out there as well and so much of it dominating on social media. We have our eye on it all. Listen to the Amy and T. T.J. podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author 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 honies, 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?

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. Hey, what's up? I'm Tony Gonzalez. And I'm October Gonzalez. But you can call me Toby. We want you to join us on our new podcast,

No Safe Words with October and Tony Gonzalez. We get real about marriage, parenthood, sex, divorce, and all the nitty-gritty stuff we all think about, but just don't say out loud. You're probably just going to be some rich guy and he's going to whisk you away. And, wow.

This is awkward. Listen to No Safe Words with October and Tony Gonzalez on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.