It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #14

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

The gang discuss the arrests of two judges, a flurry of executive orders further weaponizing police and the justice system, plus an update on tariffs and immigration. Sources: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-equality-of-opportunity-and-meritocracy/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-department-reassigns-about-dozen-civil-rights-attorneys-amid-shakeup-2025-04-22/  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/strengthening-and-unleashing-americas-law-enforcement-to-pursue-criminals-and-protect-innocent-citizens/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/protecting-american-communities-from-criminal-aliens/  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/enforcing-commonsense-rules-of-the-road-for-americas-truck-drivers/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/advancing-artificial-intelligence-education-for-american-youth/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/investigation-into-unlawful-straw-donor-and-foreign-contributions-in-american-elections/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/10/politics/political-fundraising-elderly-election-invs-dg/  https://bsky.app/profile/jameeljaffer.bsky.social/post/3lnxyq7teck2e https://knightcolumbia.org/content/federal-court-says-first-amendment-bars-government-from-deporting-students-and-faculty-on-basis-of-political-viewpoint-says-challenge-to-trump-policy-can-go-forward https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/29/trump-border-militar-zone-migrants-charges/ https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lnxqhgvlzs2a https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/04/border-patrol-injunction/ https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/UFW%20v%20Noem%20PI%20CLASS%20CERT%20RULING_04.29.pdf https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=35bc713ede854401a475cb9957dd2765  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-eases-tariffs-on-select-us-goods-as-trump-says-beijing-will-eat-the-costs-191201015.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-china-tariffs-are-shutting-the-big-loophole-that-make-shein-and-temu-so-cheap-234229735.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I want you to ask yourself right now, how am I actually doing? Because it's a question that we rarely ask ourselves. All of May is actually Mental Health Awareness Month. And on the psychology of your 20s, we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is so hard to talk about. Prepare for our conversations to go deep. I spent majority of my teenagers and my 20s just feeling absolutely terrified. I had a panic attack on a conference call.

Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer pretending that this was my best friend. So this Mental Health Awareness Month, take that extra bit of care of your wellbeing. Listen to the psychology of your twenties on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm ready to fight.

Oh, this is fighting words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know? We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You Feeling This Too is a horror anthology podcast. It brings different creators to tell 10 vile,

grotesque, horrific stories on what scares them the most. You're feeling this too. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist

and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Callzone Media This is- Welcome! It! Sorry! Garrison! Wow. This is it sorry garrison Wow I Interrupted you it's we have a whole thing that we've been doing happen. We have been this is the first episode that started differently in like

12 you're right. You're right. Why don't you why don't you introduce erectile dysfunction or whatever we call this? That's not what it's called. This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, the weekly newscast where we cover, you know, everything happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by. Uh, federal no, no New Mexico state. Mexico, Mexico, municipal judge. Municipal judge Robert Evans.

That's right. Neil Wong and James Stout. We're covering the week of April 24th to April 30th. Yes. And we're sponsored by hims. Not yet, but hopefully. When they release thems, we will accept that contract money. One day.

Robert, what's going on with your fellow judges? I want to get to that garrison. Some very important news just dropped from the real raw news Twitter account. Oh boy. She's sharing what you don't want shared, 107,000 followers. Special forces that accompanied President Trump

to the Pope's funeral arrested Biden for treason afterward, but it turned out to be a body double. So. Breaking news. Turns out Sleepy Joe still has a trick or two up his sleeve. Patriots not in control. What a beautiful world people must live in. I desperately want to live in the world where like,

Joe Biden is a Saw Gerrera type rebel figure, like tricking special forces with body doubles hiding in the mountains. They call him Joe the Jackal for a reason. They have him locked up in a Vatican vault where he's scheming his return. He just stole a nuke from Fort Leonard Wood. Oh boy. He's in a tiny submarine making his way to Cuba right now.

I guess, you know, speaking of the Pope, Trump himself has announced his running for the Pope ship. Why not? Let him have it. Let him have it. We will keep a close eye on that. Let him have it, but make Stanley Tucci do whatever job Stanley Tucci had him conclave. Make him the Lib-Cuck cardinal.

Why not? That's right. That's right. Speaking of Lib-Cuck, no, speaking of judges who actually exercised a great deal of personal courage, there have been two cases in the last week or so of judges being arrested and charged by the Trump administration with crimes that are all related to aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants. I'm going to start with the case of Hannah Dugan. Hannah Dugan is a Wisconsin, she's a Milwaukee County circuit judge.

She was sworn in in 2016. So she's, I want to say, I wanted to say she hasn't been doing this very long, but no, that's literally like nine years, eight or nine years. So she's been doing this a spell. Um, she's 65 years old and on March 12th, there was a fellow, Flores Ruiz is his last name, he's 30 years old, who was arrested after basically there was a confrontation between him and his roommates for him playing loud music. He was confronted for this on March 12th and he allegedly fought with

a male roommate in the kitchen. A woman, I'm not sure if she was a roommate or just there, tried to break them up. Two women eventually did. One of them got elbowed in the arm allegedly by Flores Ruiz. Uh, one of them was struck while trying to break them up. It is unclear to the degree to which I'm hearing a lot of people like I went to the centrist subreddit to see something like, well, a serial abuser of woman women. That's not really what he's being accused of. There was like a fight between him and another guy and it got chaotic.

One person elbowed in the arm. I'm sorry. I don't consider that serious domestic abuse unless it's part of a pattern. There was like a fight between him and another guy and it got chaotic. One person elbowed in the arm. I'm sorry, I don't consider that serious domestic abuse unless it's part of a pattern. If it's literally he was fighting a guy and other people swarmed in and some of them, one of them got elbowed. I don't know about this woman that he's alleged of striking like to what degree did he haul off and punch her or was it again? There was this chaotic struggle and several people got struck in the middle of it, right?

This isn't like great, but this is certainly not. The evidence that has been provided by the state here in this case is not that this is a serial domestic abuser of women. It's a guy who was involved in a chaotic fight with a roommate and a couple of other people, right? So he's being charged with misdemeanor domestic battery as a result of this. He faces up to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count if convicted. He has not been convicted and is innocent until proven guilty.

He went up in front of Judge Dugan literally a few days ago when we record this. While she was in the midst of having this court meeting, basically, I think this was a pretrial deal, right? Where they're kind of setting the ground rules of things. She finds out that ICE is in the courthouse and that they are looking for Flores Ruiz. And so she gets really angry because based on what Wisconsin has stated,

like the actual law in the state, they are not supposed to be interfering in actual court proceedings. And part of the reason why is that the courts don't want people to be dissuaded from dealing with their state level court issues by the fact that ICE might pick them up. It will stop people, it will make people go on the run. It makes it very difficult to enforce law and order. And also like victims, right?

Like I've heard at least of some- Makes it difficult for victims to get any sort of justice. Yes. Yeah. The FBI affidavit describes her as getting visibly angry when immigration shows up and she leaves the bench, right? And she retreats to her chambers and I think confers with another judge and she and that judge then approach the arrest team inside the courthouse.

The affidavit describes her as having a confrontational angry demeanor. She basically keeps saying, show me your fucking warrant, right? And they don't have a quote unquote real warrant, right? They do not have a criminal arrest warrant. They have an administrative warrant, which based on the actual law, they do not, she does not have to let them in, right?

That is not the way these things fucking work, right? Into the courtroom to like interrupt the proceedings on the strength of this warrant. She tells them to speak with the chief judge and she leads them away from the courtroom. Once she sends him to the chief judge's office, this is where the thing that may in fact be criminal behavior comes in. Dugan goes back into the courtroom and says something along the lines of, wait, come with me and then takes Flores Ruiz and his lawyer through the jury door into a non-public area of the courthouse.

Right. This is not normal behavior. And ICE is alleging that this is interfering with the duties of federal agents, right, that she's basically hiding an undocumented immigrant who is being actively tracked by ICE, right. And that that is a federal crime. And so that is the situation, right? When it was found out that this was happening, the FBI and ICE arrested her.

She has since bailed out. She is facing several federal charges and it's, you know, kind of unclear where this case is going to go. In terms of her initial behavior, she was absolutely legally in the right. That administrative warrant did not give ICE the right to interrupt the court proceedings. She led them to the chief judge. That was all entirely within the law. We're going to learn how the law adjudicates what she did afterwards.

Taking these people to... Because it's not illegal to lead people through a back door. It's not a crime to tell people to leave this way. But what may be adjudicated as a crime is that by doing this, she was helping to aid and abet the escape of a fugitive. And that is the argument that the federal government is making here. They didn't leave the building at that point, right? Because in the charging documents,

then an ICE agent gets in the elevator with them and decides not to detain them at that point for some reason. Yeah, yeah. I believe that's what happened. And that part of it is why I think they picked this case because they thought it was close enough on the edge enough that they could charge a judge. And I think that is the purpose of this more than going after this. And that's why they've been going to these courts is they have been looking, they've

been shopping for a situation like this, right? In part because one of the first things that happened is the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Judge Dugan, right? Because she's been charged with two federal counts. And this is a normal thing. If a judge gets accused of federal crimes, you would in normal terms, want them to be suspended because those crimes are probably something like

they were selling children to a child prison, which is a thing that happened to Trump, pardon the judges responsible, right? You would want those people not trying cases while this was going on. But what's going to be done here and what's already being done here is that judges that are friendly to and sympathetic to undocumented people and who are not gigantic pieces of shit and Judge Dugan comes out of a public defense background. This is somebody who defended people like the defendant in this case in her previous life as a lawyer.

And I think acted with tremendous courage in this situation to try to protect somebody. They are going after her because number one, they want to chill other judges from doing this and number two, they can keep her off the bench, right? And assume she will be replaced with somebody worse or that they will just clog up the system, either way of which works in their favor. It will be unclear how things are going to work out in this case. I can't tell you legally what's going to happen. That could go either way. I can tell you, and I think this is a very important point, it's a point Jared Yates Sexton, who's a scholar on fascism made online

about this particular case is, we shouldn't give a shit if she broke the law. She did the right thing. These people are doing the wrong thing and they need to be stopped, right? And that is my overall stance. What she did was heroic and we should support her and fuck these people. I don't know.

Yep. Yep. I don't have a complicated take on this. Solidarity with the Wisconsin judiciary, or at least one of them. At least one of them. Yeah, I have a friend who knows her and says she's a very nice person, and her actions in this case certainly would seem to suggest that she's a very nice, good, courageous person. Yeah, and like just to, there's conceivably like a person listening who thinks that, they know these deportation things are okay. I don't know if you are. Fuck you. Why? This isn't for you. Go away.

Yeah. We're not making it for you. You know what? Put rocks in your pockets and... There's bodies of whatever. There's bodies of whatever. Even if you fucking like the deportation for whatever reason, you should be able to understand that doing this in courthouses is bad. Let's just take an example, right? Like if a woman who is undocumented is subject to domestic violence, going to testify in court could lead to her being deported.

This is fucking bad. It could subject her to even more violence from the state, from wherever she's trying to flee from. Yeah, to be entertained with people. Yeah. Yes. If you believe in the judicial system, right. This stops it functioning. Also, I want to say this, too.

If you're purely coming at this from a perspective of like, well, I'm still a law and order guy, this also vastly endangers Wisconsin police because if every undocumented person who gets accused of a crime knows that, well, the instant I'm accused I'm going to be sent to a fucking concentration camp, might as well start shooting. Right. Yeah. That's why you don't see very many of these things happening in states where people regularly carry firearms. Yes. So again, you know, that's all I'm saying. That's not my primary concern, but I'm going to make that point. Yeah. What about the other

like weirder case of the New Mexico case? The judge in New Mexico. Yes. So now back to my fellow New Mexico municipal judge. Actually, I think he was in a municipal. Judge, magistrate, yeah. Yeah, county magistrate. Yeah, so he and I, basically the same. So there's this guy, Nancy Cano, who's a former police officer. His wife was a cop. And Joel Cano, who was the Dona Ana county magistrate judge.

These two are really, you wouldn't have expected what happened from this group. These two are a cop and a judge couple Radical lefty lunatics who are wealthy landlords who own at least eight properties and they hire three men to do like, you know Contracting work and those men included a guy Christian Ortega Lopez 23 years old right who is a Venezuelan migrant. And first off, because these are cops, or a cop and a judge, they like check his papers, which say do not deport, right? Like he is in the system. Not subject to removal.

This person is not subject to removal, right? Those are on his papers, they check his papers. They work, these three guys work for them for a while and develop a close relationship with the Kano's to the point that they refer to them as the boys. And when they get kicked out of their apartment, they let them live with them, I think for free, or at least for a nominal fee. And as they describe it, they came to consider them part of the family. And there's like photo evidence of that, including photo evidence of them like going to the gun

range together as like a family going to the gun range together as like a family day at the gun range and shooting. And like this guy, Ortega Lopez, like posts pictures of these people and these like family outings on his Facebook. Like they really do seem to have all been very close. Yeah. Earlier this year, ICE comes for these guys, the boys, these three, these three dudes who are living on their property in a small guest house on the Kano's property.

And they allege Ortega Ortiz to have been a member of Trin de Agua. And it's based on, and I hate most of the reporting on this because it's all just like the alleged gang member, alleged Trin de Agua member. And you look at it, well, he has tattoos and there's pictures of him with guns pictures him with guns That are legally owned by Americans at a gun range Yeah, he's a 23 year old guy coming to America like there's a high correlation with those people and people going to a gun range Yeah, nothing illegal with that, but they're like a gang member photos of guns on his Facebook. Oh my god So these guys get arrested right and it's initially and this is like a month or so ago, big scandal, Cano resigns from his position as a magistrate, right?

And gets permanently barred from serving as a judge in New Mexico because these guys had been on his property, even though again, there's not any evidence that I have seen anywhere that he actually did anything illegal at this point. Now, here's where things get problematic. At this point, the government is treating them as people who are here illegally and they are trying to kick them out and they are accusing them, these three guys, of being

involved in Trinidad. At this point, Nancy Kano provides them with legal assistance in complying with the procedures of their pending immigration cases, right? Which shouldn't be illegal. She's literally helping them abide by the law, right? Yeah, but there's some other things so Joel Kano. This is where this guy turns from like fucking married a cop He's a landlord. He smashes or take a Lopez's phone. He admits he's admitted that he's done this This is not an allegation with a hammer to stop ICE from getting it. So first off, based.

Like, illegal, super illegal, super illegal, but not a, like a good person act, I would argue. Secondly, they, Nancy tries to help, and this is, I think, a grayer area, tries to help Ortega Lopez delete his Facebook account. And I don't actually think there's any evidence of him doing anything illegal on there. I think it's just they knew the photos he posted of him not breaking any laws would be used as an argument that he had.

I think that that's defensible in court, although they will allege that it's destruction of the evidence they may have went on that. Breaking the phone is, you know, that's gonna be a tough one for them. That's just gonna be a tough one for them. Now, the Kano's are currently being charged and they have been released. They can't leave the county.

There was, the prosecutors were attempting to have them separated so that they couldn't talk about the case, but thank God the judge ruling was like, they're married. They have a constitutional right to be together Yeah, you don't get to do that But obviously they have to like hand in their passports any guns they'd had which they seem to have already done The good news is that these are rich people right like the judge even makes a comment that like these are the wealthiest people

I've ever had in my courtroom. So they have the resources to fight this and Again fucking politics making strange bedfellows. Yeah. Yeah. Critical support to the landlord, judge, cop couple who tried to protect these immigrants. I don't know, like whatever. They did the right thing, you know, in my opinion. Again, not the legal thing. And I'm not urging you to follow them in breaking the law. I'm making it very clear it is illegal to break the phone of somebody that you know

the police are looking for because they've been charged with crimes. That is a crime. Yeah. I'm just saying I think what they did was out of love and brave. Anyway, that's what I gotta say. Speaking of love, I love these ads. Mm-hmm. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship.

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All right, we are back. I am now going to discuss a, I believe the word is a flurry of executive orders that happened the past week. Because there was a ton. This was a huge week for actions through executive order. We've tried to summarize a few of these that have like, or a few orders that have come in the past few months. This was a huge week for actions through executive order. We've tried to summarize a few of these that have like, or a few orders that have come in the past few months, but yeah, definitely the ones that happened last week are much more notable, and I will go through them one by one, starting off with an attempt to possibly repeal large sections of the Civil Rights Act.

Mm-hmm. Trump signed an order to, quote, eliminate the use of disparate impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible. Disparate impact is a legal theory that seeks to address discriminatory policies that on their face may appear neutral, but actually continue decades-old discrimination and segregation. This order from Trump revokes presidential approval for Title VI anti-discrimination regulations from the 60s and 70s, and orders all agencies to quote, "...deprioritize enforcement of all statutes and regulations to the extent that they include disparate impact liability."

The order calls for the Attorney General to quote, "...initiate appropriate action to repeal or amend the implementing regulations for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cabinet members were also instructed to review all pending investigations, civil suits, consent judgments, permanent injunctions, and government positions that rely on spirit impact theory. That includes Titles VII and VIII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects equal employment and fair housing. This is kind of part of a larger attack on civil rights in general.

Obviously, the past few months we've seen this with DEI stuff. But last week, the DOJ essentially closed its existing civil rights office, resigned a dozen senior career attorneys, curbed investigations into police misconduct and violations of voting and disability rights. Plus, the Education and Discrimination Division is now being directed to protect women's sports, and the Immigrant and Employee Rights Division was told to investigate companies that quote, unlawfully discriminate against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa workers, unquote. So that's how they think they're going to be defending civil rights is by keeping trans girls out of sports and going after foreign visa workers. Basically, they're trying

to turn federal civil rights infrastructure against those whom they were meant to protect in the first place. The next order kind of outlies something I'm calling cop nation. It's called, quote, strengthening and unleashing America's law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent civilians. This is kind of like a proto-martial law order. It's what you would do beforehand to strengthen police but not actually declare martial law. It's setting kind of the path towards that or at the very, like strengthening law enforcement to the degree to which it like butts up against what martial law would be. The order calls to quote, unleash high impact local police forces protect and defend law

enforcement officers wrongly accused and abused by state or local officials and surge resources to officers in need unquote. It directs the attorney general to create a mechanism to have private sector law firms provide pro bono legal defense to police officers who quote, "...unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law." This tries to make it harder for police to be held accountable for civil and criminal misconduct, basically extending qualified immunity to the criminal realm.

According to Business Insider, quote, following previous executive orders targeting a number of elite firms, nine law firms have agreed to deals with the president and collectively agreed to provide $940 million in pro bono legal services to support the president's policies, unquote. pro bono legal services to support the president's policies." This order also calls to use federal resources to increase pay, expand training, and strengthen legal protections for police officers, as well as to, quote, seek enhanced sentences for crimes against law enforcement officers, promote investment in the security and capacity of prisons, and increase the investment in and collection, distribution, and uniformity

of crime data across jurisdictions." The Attorney General is directed to review and remove any previous accountability restrictions placed on to local or state law enforcement agencies that might unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions. And then finally, quote, Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense Defense in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions

to assist state and local law enforcement and shall determine how military and national security assets training, non-lethal capabilities and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime unquote. So moving more military and national security resources over to state and local law enforcement and directs the AG to go after state and local officials that obstruct criminal law by, quote, prohibiting law enforcement officers from carrying out duties necessary for public safety or unlawfully engage in discrimination or civil rights violations under the guise of DEI

Do you want to discuss anything with this? You know anti a cab executive order here and what it might actually like do in reality besides You know expanding like legal protections for cops I mean, I think the worrying one to me is that they're very explicitly talking about using military national security assets Like in the US against Americans. The thing right now we're doing is like to prevent crime, but like I think very obviously everyone is like, this is immediately gone. Like part of this obviously is about like trying to defeat any attempt to even moderately reform the police.

But a lot of it is also like, yeah, they're expecting giant, they're expecting giant protests this summer. Yeah. And they want to be able to use military assets here. And what they're doing with this, the secretary of defense is developing be able to use military assets here. And what they're doing with this, the Secretary of Defense is developing a plan to use military assets, presumably against protesters, either that or, you know what I mean, like specific thing here

is like used to prevent crime, which is just like the deployment of the US military against like us, right? That's I think a pretty cut and dry. They are developing the apparatus through which they are going to attempt to deploy the army against the US citizens in the US. Well, and it also specifically like empowers like individual peace officers against any like perceived restrictions that like local or state officials might be putting on them.

Yeah. And like I think that's what makes it more super worrying for me. It's like it's like enabling like the police state aspect of the police state aspect of the executive branch saying, hey, individual cops, we support you more so than whatever local jurisdiction you are under. And if the local jurisdiction's trying to restrict your ability to... Do violence.

Restrict your ability to do your job, we are going to help you to make sure that you have the legal and physical capacity to continue your job as you see fit. We will throw the high dollar lawyers that we have threatened into working for us at these states and municipalities. Yeah, both to defend your individual actions and then also go after the people in charge of you. Like both of them.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's more like CPD black site shit like Yeah, Nazi gang shit like, you know, they're just like shooting people Yeah, like that's the kind of shit. Yeah, just torture the data sharing I think is something people should be aware of the like that that clears that seems to be Where would imagine would be funding for more federal fusion centers and then equipping them with like Homeland Security assets intelligence assets that are already used outside the US like that is more federal fusion centers and then equipping them with like Homeland Security assets, intelligence assets that are already used outside the US like that is concerning, especially in a climate

of like migration crackdown, right? Like this data sharing will help them further target migrants. Well, and this relates to another executive order for protecting American communities from criminal aliens. Basically it targets sanctuary cities. The attorney general and the DHS secretary will publish a list of sanctuary jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law

and federal funds to those districts will be suspended or terminated. And if those districts remain sanctuary districts after officials have been notified of their status, then necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures shall be pursued to quote, end these violations. Section one of this order lists several federal criminal laws that they say are being violated by these sanctuary districts, including quote, obstruction of justice, unlawfully harboring or hiring illegal aliens, conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to impede

federal law enforcement. Assisting aliens in violating federal immigration law could also violate the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act." So, they're even wrapping in RICO here for state and local officials who are trying to protect immigrants in their communities. There's a few other executive orders I want to mention, including one that requires professional truck drivers speak English. I think this is actually just to mask the consequences

of the tariffs with the fact that a lot of truck drivers are losing their jobs. Yes, so this is to hide those layoffs or try to force people to get laid off if they don't speak good enough English or to create pretext to have these layoffs be justified as we see the shipping industry slowly collapse because of the tariffs. Another order that's just more frustrating, I guess, to me and like worrying long term about the future is, quote, advancing artificial intelligence

education for American youth. And I'm actually going to play a video here of Trump signing this order. This next executive order relates to artificial intelligence education, sir. You've obviously done a lot in the artificial intelligence space already. The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans are adequately trained in AI tools so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal.

That's a big deal. Here's AI is where it seems to be at. We have literally trillions of dollars being invested in AI. And there are somebody today, a very smart person, said that AI is the way to the future. I don't know if that's right or not, but certainly very smart people are investing in it heavily. This clip is super interesting to me because it demonstrates just how little Trump knows what's really going on. Like this is the first time he's seen this order.

He has to get explained what it is before he signs his name on it. They're just handing him these things and he's just signing papers. He is not like dictating which things he actually wants to happen. He just gets handed stuff and there's cameras on. He's like, hey, this is to help AI with kids and you're so smart about AI, Mr. President. He's like, yes, I am as he signs his name. The actual text disorder is really freaky. Quote, by fostering AI competency, we will equip our students with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to adapt and thrive in an increasing digital society. Early learning and exposure to AI concepts not only demystifies this powerful

technology, but also sparks curiosity and creativity, preparing students to become active and responsible participants in the workforce of the future. To achieve this vision, we must also invest in our educators and equip them with the tools and knowledge to not only train students about AI, but also to utilize AI in their classrooms to improve educational outcomes." James, how do you feel about that as an educator yourself? Probably 50% of my time in the classroom right now is trying to explain to people where they shouldn't copy paste the assignment into chat GPD. And like every year for the past three or four years, we have dealt with like bots, like students in my class who are not real people.

Yeah, I've dealt with more and more and more use of AI. It's from people who I think, like the folks who are coming through my classroom now like many of their like high school years when they should have been getting good, solid like writing tuition, work during COVID lockdowns, right? And so like I'm not entirely blaming like the folks coming through my class here, but it is. It's a fucked situation that's only getting worse. It's fucked. It's the like I've been educating people for nearly two decades. Like I've never come across anything this bad.

It is fundamentally damaging people's engagement with education and their ability to learn. It's giving them permanent brain damage. It is life altering their ability to think in a way that may never be recoverable for a lot of people. Yeah, like I don't want to be a boomer, like a bit of a... It's not. There's data on this. The AI companies have, Microsoft has data on this.

It damages people. It needs to be banned. Finding good solutions for that, writing assignments that AI can't write. It's not that hard, before people come into my mentions, right, saying like, oh, you can use this to detect AI. I can detect it because the assignments it submits are shit. The problem is that people keep using it. Because, as Robert said, they're running out of other options.

And they're really committing to this. The end of the order directs the Secretary of Education to provide grant funding to, quote, improve educational outcomes using AI, including but not limited to AI based high quality instructional resources, high impact tutoring, and college and career pathway exploration, advising and navigation, unquote. Yeah, I mean, sadly, like these federal and to an extent state level to like dictates, I guess do impact what you're supposed to put on your syllabus, right? Like especially for like high school students, these can genuinely impact what high school teachers are supposed to teach.

It changes a little bit. Like once you get to the university level, and I guess we'll see how this goes, but like this is genuinely could have a very damaging impact on, and it already has had a damaging impact on the US education system. Yeah. I have one more thing I want to read here. This is actually a presidential memorandum, not executive order, but this calls to investigate Democrat and grassroots funding platform ActBlue, alleging, quote, schemes to launder excessive

and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees, unquote. ActBlue has been the target of conspiracy theories for years, starting with James O'Keefe and Elon Musk has recently targeted ActBlue with bizarre conspiracy theories on how ActBlue functions and is used to funnel money to like Antifa and George Soros money getting moved over to all of these Tesla vandals, crazy stuff. But specifically, Trump is calling the Attorney General and Treasury Secretary to quote, investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make straw or dummy contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees and

to take appropriate action to enforce the law. I think this whole thing beyond trying to, you know, harm the Democrats' ability to win elections in the future as a form of election meddling, is also just like a big smoke screen away from a CNN investigation last year into deceptive practices used by political fundraising platforms WinRed and ActBlue, which found that the Republican platform had more than seven times the fraud complaints sent to the FCC than ActBlue during the period of 2022 to 2024. With the fundraising platform targeting aging seniors who thought they were personal friends of the Trump family, with propaganda and emails that tricked them into signing up for recurring donations in what they thought was a personal correspondence to President Trump. It's a really worrying investigation. It'll be linked below. And like, you know,

meanwhile you have Elon Musk literally offering people millions of dollars to like get people to sign up to vote and sign petitions and yet they're going to try to try to investigate, you know, fraud in in Democrat and grassroots fundraising, which I'm sure there is a little bit of. But according to this investigation by CNN, so much more fraud on the Republican fundraising platform. There is actually one Democrat who we can verifiably claim did a bunch of weird fundraising shit and did straw donations from foreign donors,

and it is Eric Adams, who is Trump's favorite Democrat. Yeah. It's the one guy that actually did it. Yeah, it is true. Yeah. who is Trump's favorite Democrat. It's the one guy that actually did it. Oh, Trump is personally keeping out of prison. Oh, God. Fantastic. Anyway, that is the that's the flurry. We're going to go on one more break and then come back to close out on some

immigration and tariff updates. Hell yeah. And the dream season is now complete. The Golden State Warriors are the 2015 NBA champions. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship. We examine the controversial move that made it possible. It's never a great conversation as a player when you hear that you're being benched. For the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run,

listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On November 5th, 2018 at 6.33 a.m., a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! grotesque... Oh my God, oh my God... horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public until now.

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It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at tearthepapersealing.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. The email, man. I'm La Gata, the culture's favorite reggaeton historian, music colleague, public scholar, and recording artist. Yes, that means I've done the work. On my show, the Reggaeton con la Gata podcast, I'm not only talking to Flor Menon, who has the number one reggaeton track in the world right now. I'm also going to be on Perreo to speak with music We're back and wait, what's that? Do you hear the dulcet tones of an angel? We're gonna get to the rest of the Clash Catalog.

We got four years. Yes, yes. I'm really looking for... Desecrating the temple. We're working on a cover of Lost in the Supermarket, where there's just nothing in the supermarket because of the tariffs. That's tough, that's tough. It's actually very easy to find my way around in the supermarket now, because there's nothing

on sale All right, what's what's actually happening with with the turf tariffs I'm gonna I'm just gonna start by reading Trump's Incredible cope about why everything's going to shit. This is Trump. This is a truth from true social This is Biden stock market not Trump's I didn't take over until January 20th. Terrorists will start kicking in. We're soon start kicking in and companies are starting to move to the US in record numbers. Our country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden quote overhang. This will take a while. Has nothing to do with the tariffs.

All caps. Only that he left us with bad numbers. But when the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be patient. This is Biden's stock market. Yeah. So the reason he's saying this is that so today we got a report that the US for the first quarter suffered the first actual economic contraption

of the economy since like 2022. And that basically there was like one quarter in 2022 were contracted and then it like basically since like the lockdowns, it's been expanding. We are probably already in the recession. And the other thing that's very important to note here, right, is you're seeing a lot of reporting about this being a contraction and a lot of the reporting will talk about how like, yeah, this is because people are like rushing to do their all their imports right now before the tariffs hit. The thing is, right, this economic contraction is like before the actual substantive impact of the tariffs hit. So this is just the beginning of like the rolling economic collapse that all of these turf tariffs are going to generate.

There's been a little bit of movement in the sense that like, okay, so when I last talked about sort of the declines in like shipping from China or just shipping in general, it was mostly like sort of, I don't know what you'd call them, shipping industry trade press. This has hit like the mainstream press now that, you know, some of these indicators are showing 60% import drops from China. And it looks like China is maybe kind of starting the preliminary things to figure out how to figure out negotiations and that they've been, the Chinese government has been going behind the scenes and talking to a bunch of like

high profile American companies and has been like quietly repealing some of their 125 percent retaliatory tariffs on the US on like very specific goods. We'll see what happens there. There hasn't been more movement than that. What is also very interesting is that so okay so like obviously like a bunch of the prices are just increasing already in places like like Temu and like Shien and Amazon was going to have like a counter that showed how much additional money you were spending because of the tariffs.

And they announced that they were going to do this. And then President Trump like got on the phone with Jeff Bezos and yelled at him. And then Jeff Bezos said he wasn't going to do it. But this is also an interesting thing because we're actually starting to see cracks between Trump and like people like Bezos, like the tech people who really have been his like closest base of support, right? For like the entire project in terms of like large scale sectors of capital. It's been these people who have been backing him.

And I think as the stuff continues, we're going to continue to see rifts between them and the Trump administration over shit like this, because, you know, like people get really, really, we talked something we've talked about a lot in episodes we've done on pricing and inflation is that people get really pissed off and prices go up. And that's a way to like, you know, this is a problem for these companies, because this is a way you lose sort of brand loyalty. And that's like, how everything goes to shit. And Trump has to is doing all these deflections to be like, it's not actually the terrorists that are doing this because people are gonna be really pissed about this. And Trump has to, is doing all these deflections to be like, it's not actually the tariffs that are doing this because people are going to be really

pissed about this and yeah, I don't know. Welcome, welcome to quarter one of the recession. This is going to be the best quarter of the economy for a long time. Yay. Tariff talk. Okay. Uh, so let's close out with immigration update. I'm just going to run a few of speed run a few of these and we'll get a little deeper into some of

them. The New York Times is reporting that once again the Trump administration has separated a child from their parents. Jesus fucking Christ. A federal court denied the government's motion to dismiss a First Amendment challenge to its policy of deporting pro-Palestine anti-genocide activists. So that allows the case to go ahead, right? So it allows a First Amendment challenge to be mounted, which is a good thing, right?

Given that this is like their policy right now is a frontal assault on the First Amendment for people who are not citizens. In the Abrego Garcia case, both sides agreed to a seven-day pause in the discovery process after the passing of sealed motions. Then on Tuesday this week, the DOJ filed another sealed motion. We can speculate, and you will see people speculating if you go onto the Blue Sky or Twitter or whatever. I don't think it's beneficial to do that in this case, right? What we should be focusing on is that a man is in a prison camp who did nothing

wrong. It doesn't matter the justice system is continuing to fail him because he is still there and so are hundreds of other people. The experimental quote national defense area in New Mexico, so we spoke last week about the Roosevelt reservation, right? And they are starting this militarization with the Roosevelt reservation with an area in New Mexico. And we've seen the first charges that are filed against migrants. According to Washington Post, at least 28 people have been charged or added to their

charges a penalty for violation of security regulations. In addition to them being charged with entry without inspection, right? Hegseth visited the area this week and he talked about how they were going to post signage in English and Spanish to indicating that crossing the area would be trespassing on US military property. Increasing numbers of migrants over the last few years have not spoken either of those languages. It doesn't seem to be something they've accounted for here. The US attorney for New Mexico allegedly, according to the post, quote, can't wait to begin charging people who cross. So that's great.

And so it does seem that they are using this, as we talked about a week or so ago, as a way to quickly charge and then deport people who are entering the United States between ports of entry. In other court news, a judge in Colorado placed a tentative restraining order on the use of the Alien Enemies Act there without 21 days of notice in a language the person understands, advising them of their right to bring a habeas challenge. So that means if someone is going to be removed under the AEA, they have to get three weeks of notice and that notice has to advise them that

they have the right to bring a challenge. And then as opposed to what they're doing right now, which is deporting people extremely quickly. And this was upheld by the 10th circuit, so that's in place there. It'll be interesting to see how many of them are able to bring, still bringing a habeas challenge is complicated, it can be expensive and requires a lot of legal time. And I know most lawyers who work in immigration are overwhelmed currently. Yes. In California, a judge has ruled that CBP can't carry out warrantless stops and arrests after the ACLU filed a suit in response to the CBP sector's operation return to sender,

which happened in late 2024. So people, this is one of the things that people may have already forgotten about, but CBP sectors operation return to sender, which happened in late 2024. So people, this is one of the things that people may have already forgotten about, but in December of 2024, CBP started detaining residents, migrants, laborers outside a home depot, a grocery store and at road checkpoints up into California Central Valley, right? People are thinking the Central Valley is a very long way from El Centro. What are they doing up there? I've included a map of border patrol sectors in the sources today so people can see, but

although the El Centro sector only spans 71 miles of linear border, it goes a lot further north. So that's what they were doing out there. The judge in this case, who is US District Court Judge Jennifer Thurston, said, quote, you just can't walk up to people with brown skin and say, give me your papers. There's some very good reporting on this in CalMatters, which I've also linked in the sources today. Notably, I looked through the order today, the court order, and one of the things we get is kind of a vision into how Border Patrol is expediting these deportations. So I'm going to quote from that

order here, quote, once Border Patrol agents transported the people they arrested to the El Centro station, they would, quote, extract voluntary departure agreements from as many people as possible without explaining the consequences. This is the plaintiff's contention, which is ACLU. We've seen this a lot. We saw it in the case when they detained a citizen in Tucson not so long ago that they're trying to get people to sign these documents. Sometimes, in most cases, I believe, you're not actually signing a physical document, you're signing one of those little pressure pad screens and you might be given an iPad to read the document on, but you don't get a chance to look and flick through the document and then sign it, sign a physical copy of the document. The injunction that happened here only applies in the Eastern District of California. The judge also ordered Border Patrol to record all arrests and stops and report them within

40 days. The government argued this would be too burdensome, which is odd because they're already required to do paperwork when they arrest or stop someone, but that was a rule by the judge. Despite this, the El Centro sector has still been carrying out operations way north of Land Border, including recently outside a Home Depot in Pomona. So this is CBP, not ICE, right? For people who are familiar with that distinction, but at least in the Eastern District, they can't be stopping people now without warrants.

So that's a good thing from the courts, I guess. Those are, I know we've got a long episode today, those are the most important immigration things that I've come up with this week. I'm sure something will happen between us recording this coming out. But yeah, that's what I've got for you. The last thing that we'll mention is that Mohsen Maroui, the US green card holder who was arrested by ICE at his citizenship interview, has been released from ICE custody as of April 30th by order of a Vermont judge.

This is really the first piece of good news we've had in relation to Trump's crackdown on Palestinian protesters and student protests. So yeah, Maroui's case will still continue, but he will not be in ICE custody for the duration of this case. And I think we saw in the Mahmood Khalil case, the judge has ordered that New Jersey is a correct jurisdiction for that case to proceed. So that offers a possibility of some of the same, it's essentially the same charge that both of them have, right, or the same reasoning for trying to remove them. So hopefully we will see a similar result there. We'll be following up on both these stories as they progress, but that does it for us today here at It Could Happen Here.

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, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I want you to ask yourself right now, how am I actually doing? Because it's a question that we rarely ask ourselves. All of May is actually Mental Health Awareness Month and on the psychology of your 20s, we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is

so hard to talk about. Prepare for our conversations to go deep. I spent the majority of my teenage years, my twenties, just feeling absolutely terrified. I had a panic attack on a conference call. Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer pretending that this was my best friend. So this Mental Health Awareness Month, take that extra bit of care of your wellbeing. Listen to the psychology of your twenties on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Listen to fighting words on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast You feeling this too is a horror anthology Podcast it brings different creators to tell 10 vile, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, noartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting.

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