It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 244

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Starting point is 00:02:25 If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you. But you can make your own decisions. Welcome to It Could Happen here, a podcast about things falling apart and putting them back together again and occasionally discovering that there is in fact a second union. I am your host, Emil Wong. Now, a little while back, I did an interview with a group of electrolysis workers who were working for a company called Rio U electrolysis. And we talked about, you know, their unionization efforts and the kind of horror show that was going on there. Now, what I didn't mention at the time was that in the process of talking to. those workers and that union, I learned that there was in fact a second union that had been

Starting point is 00:03:13 organized, kind of unrelated to the first union, at the other location. And that is who we are talking to today, to get an update on what has been going on in general with the entire situation and also talk about their union and a thing that you will kind of commonly experience randomly unionizing places, which is that sometimes there is another organizing effort at another one of the locations at the same place that you were organizing and you don't know about it because everyone's keeping it secret. So, yeah, to talk about this, I'm joined by Lake and Andy from Gender Affirming Care Workers Alliance. Yeah, both of you two, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having us. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very excited to talk to you both. And I guess

Starting point is 00:04:02 Before we get into the initial organizing, what was it like finding out that the other shop was also unionizing? Oh my God. It was terrifying. So, like, our number one priority during our Lakewood campaign

Starting point is 00:04:18 was secrecy. We absolutely knew how hostile management was towards any kind of improvement of workplace conditions. So going from almost five or a spy level of offset to figuring out that Vancouver was also unionizing and was doing a walkout.

Starting point is 00:04:40 Like I think that was when we learned. Oh, God. Was when the day that they kind of imploded. And we were terrified. Like, we did not think there would be any way out of that for Lakewood. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:55 That's a rough way to find out when, yeah, the other union is like, oh, God, okay, we have to do a walk. out and we have to go on strike because they're firing us. Yeah, I mean, it was certainly understandable. I wouldn't say we knew why the walkout was happening. When we found out that the walkout happened and that a strike was starting, our campaign kind of came to a halt. Like, realizing there was another campaign happening made us had to, like, reconsider what we were doing.

Starting point is 00:05:31 Like, we had our own grievances. and we were really just in the process of getting people on board. We had maybe a core group of five, but we had 13 or up to 13 in the end, but we had like 10 to 12 electrolysis because that number was constantly changing. We had to stop and reassess. Yeah, that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:05:51 And obviously we wanted solidarity with Vancouver. We wanted to do whatever we could to support them, but we also didn't want to lose our jobs. One of the first things we decided at Lakewood, is that we weren't going to ask anyone to lose their job in order to unionize. We weren't going to put anyone in a position where they would then become unstable. Almost every single worker at Lakewood desperately needed this job. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Without it, we would risk homelessness or other things. Yeah. So we kind of got stuck. I mean, it was a tough situation to be in knowing that we would have been on their side. And with more information and more planning, we would have probably joined them. but we weren't there yet. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:36 And this is I guess partially also like, you know, one of the things is difficult about doing campaigns is that sometimes, like sometimes campaigns move at the speed that the workers are organizing at. And then sometimes they move at the speed of like, oh my God, the boss is firing everyone. We just have to go now. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's always one of the issues is like,

Starting point is 00:06:58 as much as you want to be setting the tempo, sometimes you're responding to like what management is doing and that can get very rough, very quickly. Absolutely. I think Vancouver did great with their circumstances. Like you said it, management set the pace and they had to respond. At Lakewood, we were really trying to do the opposite. We wanted to put ourselves in a position where we were taking an action and management was responding. And in the end, we did.

Starting point is 00:07:28 We paused when Vancouver. went on strike. We tried to assess how best we could help them without just also imploding Lakewood. Part of what we realized is that management had not realized any campaign was happening at Lakewood because they were going to use us as no votes in the election. They wanted us to be considered one bargaining unit because they thought that we would say no and that union would lose the election. Yeah. So our spy versus spy shit was successful. Yeah. We were doing well. Management deceived.

Starting point is 00:08:02 Yeah, perfectly. Yeah. So do you want to rewind the clock a bit and talk about sort of how organizing efforts started? It was not connected to the other campaign at all. It wasn't, but I think we were dealing with a lot of similar issues. Yeah. In our first, like, year,

Starting point is 00:08:20 as we got onboarded and saw how things were versus the position that was promised to us and sold to us. Everyone kind of started catching on to things and started building a list of grievances. There were concerns about the lack of training and patient safety. There were concerns about the lack of time to do our job, you know, working during breaks, working during our lunches. There was really unclear and inconsistent disciplinary actions being taken left

Starting point is 00:08:54 and right. Yeah. Like one person would be told they could do something, another person would do that and get written up for it. Yeah. It felt targeted. At some point, Lake would realize that there was no position you could be in where your job was safe. Yeah. You could be management.

Starting point is 00:09:12 You could be the owner's absolute favorite electrolysis. You could be the best at your job. You could keep your head down and do absolutely nothing. And one day you would be disappeared for whatever reason. If you got one. Yeah. It was like a span of like two or three months where we lost maybe five employees. And everyone heard a different reason if one was given.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Hmm. Which is a pretty clear sign that something is going wrong. Exactly. Yeah. And I think I was the second employee to be disappeared at the location. Jesus Christ. Yeah. There were two employees where we were told they resigned.

Starting point is 00:09:54 And everyone very, very much knew that these are employees that wouldn't have resigned. These were employees that were ready to start careers and build their life around Real You. We all believed in Real You's mission. But yeah, eventually we just realized it didn't matter. Yeah. There was no job stability for anyone. And that was a really big issue because that's what all of us came to this job for. We were hoping for long-term careers that paid us livable wages.

Starting point is 00:10:22 Yeah. And also were safe for us to be our same. in. There's not a lot of jobs where trans women get to be trans women. Yep. Yep. And like this was a job that almost celebrated it. And I know for me personally, I was really excited for the opportunity to be able to help the community. Yeah. I come from Florida. I'm born and raised, unfortunately. Where transitioning for a long time was kind of a pipe dream. Like it was not a realistic goal of mine until moving to Washington. And then, now I get to take, or I used to get to take part in people's transition every day for my job.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Yeah, yeah. I don't know. And that's, I think, like, one of the kind of cruelest parts of all of this and, like, what management has done. It's just, like, ripping that away from both you and from the community. Absolutely. And it didn't have to be that way. No, it really didn't. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:16 And I guess, speaking of the cruelty of management. Yeah. Andy, I guess, do you want to talk about when you said getting. disappeared. What was going on with that? So I had brought a lot of the grievances that I was seeing and had towards the owners of the company, Anna and Leah, alongside the manager of the clinic at the time. And anytime anything anything wrong with the business was brought up. Hostilities just grew.

Starting point is 00:11:57 And they kept growing the more and more that we said, hey, there's issues with the training, there's issues with the amount of time that people have to do your jobs. And it was honestly a really hostile environment created by Anna. And before I had gotten disappeared, I was in my educational program for electrolysis. I was in the process of completing that before my termination. And I had brought up some of my concerns because as I was learning more and more about electrolysis, I realized that so many of the things we had been taught were just wrong.

Starting point is 00:12:55 Yeah. And because Anna and Leah didn't want to address it and didn't want that information being out there, I was put in the position where I either had to sign a, non-disclosure to forgive my student loan debt or I could choose to just be fired and then assume the debt. Jesus. I mean, they just literally forced you out of the company. Correct. It was an involuntary resignation.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Yeah, that is only voluntary and like the strict Hobbsian sense where like Hobbs considers that if someone has a gun at your head and tells you to do something and you do it, you still voluntarily made the decision. And, uh, I don't know about you. I don't hold to the Strait Thompson interpretation of voluntary. I don't think I agree with that. I think that if you were coerced into a decision, it's not voluntary.

Starting point is 00:13:55 I don't know. Oh, God. Obviously, I think the other part of this that's just really grotesque is what you were talking about in terms of just the education being wrong, because this is something that's really common in trans health care. We're like, there should, yeah, there is just a bunch of stuff, the medical profession, are being taught that was developed from something someone figured out kind of in the 80s and has never been updated in the course of like the last 25 years of the development of science and then just also the development of there being more and more trans people who have been, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:32 just like experiencing treatment. And it's frustrating, I think, because you really rarely ever get a scenario where there are trans people who actually are in a position sufficient in enough in any kind of medical institution to even like get to talk about it. And the fact that their response was to just like disappear you and like force you out of the company is really bleak. Yeah. And on that note, I would say most of the employees received about two weeks training before working on patients.

Starting point is 00:15:14 Oh boy. that. And the educational program that I went through was four months. So if you kind of compare the timelines there of how we were trained in the job versus the education that I got, it just wasn't enough. Yeah. Not only was it not enough, but anyone who voiced that it wasn't enough put their job at risk. I mean, there's more than one lakewood worker that went to management saying, hey, I don't feel well trained enough.

Starting point is 00:15:49 I don't feel informed enough. And they were met with, well, more than one situation in which they were directly asked, like, do you feel comfortable working on patients? Do you think you're capable of this job with the implication or the direct verbal statement being, if you don't,

Starting point is 00:16:07 maybe you should find somewhere else to work. Yeah. But all of us signed up for this job with the agreement. Like we signed these loan agreements with the idea that we'd be going to this in-depth training. Like the owners themselves during my interview process at least talked up SAT Masters constantly. Like this is the place to go to learn about how to provide electrolysis for transgender clients specifically. Yeah. And then I worked there for 16 months and never saw any training after my first few weeks.

Starting point is 00:16:38 Like, I think the entire 16 months there, after my first month, my sessions were only observed three times. Jesus. Yeah. Only three times. And I have not, I was not an electrolysis provider before this. This was my entry into it. Their training was the only training I got. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:59 And the only reason my sessions started being shadowed at all is because providers themselves started asking for, like, auditing sessions. there is an instance that I would like to bring up. I was overseeing the training of New Hire, and during this training period, I had a patient on my books who had requested to never be on my books again, which, you know, totally fine, totally valid. But the fact that they were put on my books, after requesting not to see me again was an issue.

Starting point is 00:17:37 It's not totally fine or totally valid. Yeah. That's not fine on management's part. And so as I am training this new hire and we're going into this session, the patient wasn't comfortable with me being there in the room to provide training to the new hire. So I had to leave the new hire alone with that patient. Jesus. Because they weren't comfortable with me being.

Starting point is 00:18:07 there. Yeah, that is just absolutely unacceptable way for any of this to be running, especially with a delicate healthcare thing that can cause injury to people. Exactly. If we can back up for a second, can you explain a little bit for people who didn't listen to the first episode or people who don't remember about the absolutely wild, I guess, nominally student loan, like indenture program thing? That's the key component of this whole, of this whole story. So just about every worker until like some of the most recent workers got a job at Real You Electrolysis with the understanding that we would be hired and trained and receive pay while being trained by Real You. But that at some point they would send us to Zat Masters in Centralia for an Electrolysis training program and to get us license. via Oregon State. Washington doesn't have electrolysis licensure requirements. You could buy a machine and start providing. You shouldn't, but you could.

Starting point is 00:19:16 Yeah. So the idea was that they would pay for our Zappmasters training. They would pay for our machine. They would pay us while we were learning this job and starting with them. And they total all of that at around $19,500 plus interest. So 19 to 21,000 is the number that gets thrown around. Yeah. They would pay for that and forgive it if we agreed to work for them for four years after they license us.

Starting point is 00:19:45 So this four-year timer doesn't even start until we're finished with school and get our license in Oregon. Yeah. It included a clause where not only do we have to work for them for four years, but we can't work for other electrolysis clinics. Which these kinds of employment agreements are literally called trap. agreements. Yeah. If that kind of clues you in to anything. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's an indentured servitude agreements.

Starting point is 00:20:16 Like that's like, oh God. Listen, hindsight is 2020. Jesus Christ. Yeah. A lot of us had the foresight to know it wasn't a good situation, but we were coming from worse situation. Yeah. I think a way to think about this also is just that like, you know, there's two parts of us that are predatory. One is the recruitment that is designed

Starting point is 00:20:39 based on, I mean, just lying to people about how this is going to go. And then there's the secondary part. That's the exploitativeness of the agreement itself. And I don't know, I think we have this very, very annoying tendency to look at

Starting point is 00:20:55 being an inherently exploitive situation to something as, you know, something that like through a neoliberal personal choice, you could just avoid being in these situations entirely. And that's just like not true. No, unfortunately, if you have a regular job, you are being exploited. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the fact that, like, going back to the sort of like Hobbsy and consent thing, it's like, well, okay, like, is anyone actually, like, you know, operating freely in a set of conditions where,

Starting point is 00:21:22 yeah, like, if you don't take the job, your alternative is that you don't have food and you, you know, you can't pay your rent and you don't have a home anymore. Exactly. I mean, when I came to Real You, I was homeless. Yeah. before being employed with them. You're not the only one. I think many of us were. Yeah. And that's something that I think is also really bleak about the way that this was structured,

Starting point is 00:21:48 which was like one of the things that we talked about in the last episode was that Anna Landry, like very specifically said that she was targeting trans people because you could just like treat them a little bit nicely and they would do anything for you. And yeah, it's like, you know, this is a deliberate targeting of a population. that has an unemployment rate that is, what, like, four and a half times the general unemployment rate in the U.S. that is at all times and at all places operating in, like, Great Depression levels of unemployment.

Starting point is 00:22:18 And that, yeah, you know, whose, like, homelessness rates and, like, rate of having been homeless, like, orders of magnitude higher from the general population. And, I don't know, it's extremely bleak that, you know, the opportunity to both, like, help your community,

Starting point is 00:22:34 and also make a just absolutely seismic, like, class increase from, like, being homeless and struggling to feed yourself to, like, having stable employment is ultimately kind of this, like, debt peon ship trap. Yeah. I mean, you put it pretty clearly. Capitalism sucks. Like, Jesus Christ, bad economic system. Good Lord. Oh. Agreed.

Starting point is 00:23:03 God. So speaking of capitalism, we should probably throw to ads. And then when we come back, we could talk more about resisting capitalism, which is to say how the organizing got going and what's been happening since. Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good. And we are back. Yeah, so let's get into a little bit more of like how the organizing process started and how it sort of went.

Starting point is 00:23:41 I think Andy might be a good one to start with this because unbeknownst to everyone, there were three different starts to our union efforts. Andy, before you got got. Yeah, I was looking into the possibility of trying to start a union at the shop. I was reaching out to different union organizations, and I was also looking at what government agencies that I could be reaching out to about some of the things that we were experiencing at our workplace. Yeah. So that would have been around November of last year. Yeah, that was around November.

Starting point is 00:24:22 And then Andy disappeared. There was a string of firings. And I would say our efforts started again around January of this year. Kind of just started with one of our workers chatting with their patients. The trans community is also pretty involved in organizing. mutual aid unions. So like when you're shooting this shit with your patient and they hear like a workplace ripe for organizing,

Starting point is 00:24:54 they tell you. Wait, that is maybe the sweetest thing I've ever heard. Like, it was pretty good. Trans people are so good. This wouldn't have happened. Oh, trans people truly, truly amazing. Oh, really. So yeah, we had a patient who was an IWW member who told us,

Starting point is 00:25:18 look, you got to start. You got to get in contact with the GAB and start learning how to organize. So we did. That's amazing. Okay, it's not quite salting because he was someone who was a patient and not like an employee, but it's like, it's kind of like an accidental salting. Oh my God. None of this would have happened without our patients.

Starting point is 00:25:47 They've been supportive the entire way. When things in Vancouver started happening, we all started having patients ask or tell us that, look, I don't want to put you in an awkward position, but if y'all started unionizing, that'd be dope. Yeah. It was really nice getting their support. It sucked that we couldn't talk to them about it.

Starting point is 00:26:08 Because like we said, we were kind of doing spy versus spy. level of offset. We didn't want management to know. So our patients didn't know until kind of the last month. Yeah. Which sucked. I mean, these people that we've been seeing weekly or more often for months, weeks, up to a year. It sucked not getting to tell them what was going on, knowing that they cared. Yeah. And it's this really stark example of like what community actually is versus what it's sold to us as we're like, yeah, you have this thing where, you know, you have genuine community with the patients that you're treating in a way that's staggeringly, unbelievably rare in any kind of trans-health care field. And, you know, and from that community, you get, hey, you get, hey,

Starting point is 00:26:58 you should organize and, like, you know, people trying to help do the organizing. And then, you know, you have the sort of, like, the corporate version of community, which is the boss is running a terror campaign and like disappearing your trans co-workers. Yeah. It's a pretty stark contrast. Yeah. Honestly, part of why it went on for so long is every red flag that management had, there were at least one, if not two green flags between your coworkers and your clientele

Starting point is 00:27:26 that made up for it. Yeah. But going back to organizing. January, we got in contact with the Tacoma Gmb for the IWW. GMB is general membership branch. So it's essentially just the local IWW to us. And we had a organizing rep who would do kind of like monthly calls with us at first, just telling us how to organize what conversations to have and how to get people interested.

Starting point is 00:27:54 The AEIOU conversation, agitate, educate, inoculate, organize push. One of those. Yeah, yeah. You got it. Because none of us had any organizing experience. So we had all of this energy to write our conditions, but we didn't know how to do it. So we started having conversations with the IWW and just slowly started building up our group of trustworthy workers that we knew wanted this.

Starting point is 00:28:22 It wasn't hard. Most of us lean left, if not radical. So finding union sympathies was not difficult. finding the grievances was even easier. I mean, these things are pretty clear in the workplace. Yeah. Boss is once again the best organizer. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:28:45 What really did it for us is when paychecks started bouncing. Yeah, I just still, so I just want to hold on this for a second of like, what do you mean the paychecks are bouncing? What the fuck? Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's about how we felt. Like at the end of March, they swapped us from direct deposit over to paper paychecks. Our first one was in April, and there was at Lakewood only one person who had it bounce.

Starting point is 00:29:11 I think Vancouver also had some issues, but like we said, there was no communication between the branches, so we didn't know what they were dealing with. Yeah. And management kind of did their best to keep the locations separate. Mm-hmm. Like Lakewood was told things about Vancouver to kind of view them negatively. and the same with Vancouver. Yeah. Which again is this real sort of image of like

Starting point is 00:29:35 what the world's ruled by bosses is, which is like, yeah, they're deliberately trying to isolate people from their community and deliberately trying to separate people and instill sort of like fear and hatred against each other. And then you get put in this position where it's like, it becomes difficult to actually like do the kind of like community building and the kind of like solidarity and organizing that you want to

Starting point is 00:30:00 because everyone also has to, like, hide from this boss surveillance state. I feel pretty bad, like, all the way up until we heard about Vancouver's walkout. I kind of referenced Vancouver as, like, the Vancouver cult, because it sounded like everyone was really happy and fine with how things were going. And Anna and Leah were just doing what they want in Vancouver, and everyone was fine with it, and everyone was happy with it. And it was okay over there. So, I mean, that was part of why we didn't contact them initially.

Starting point is 00:30:33 We didn't know who it was safe to. Yeah. Lakewood had our own experiences of, like, talking to a worker we thought was on our side, and they immediately turned around and go talk to management. Oof. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Communication just wasn't there between us and Vancouver. So when checks started bouncing, the total number was always unclear.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Yeah. The first paycheck, it was just one. that second paycheck in April, it was already a few more people. Jesus Christ. So when they told the first worker, they had no idea why that check bounced. And then the next paycheck, more checks bounced. It was like immediately obvious they were being. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:16 Untruthable. Dishonest. Like, like, one paycheck bouncing is already unacceptable. Like the correct number of paycheck second bounce is zero. But it's like the moment there's more than one. Suddenly it's like that it becomes a lot less likely that it's like they fucked up and more likely that like something deliberately like malicious and messed up is happening here. Exactly. Each paycheck, the frequency kind of just went up.

Starting point is 00:31:43 Like how many people have their paychecks bounce. And the way that it was handled was just rewriting them. Like it was your responsibility to figure out it had bounced. Go to management and ask them to fix it. them fixing it was either reissuing you a check or asking you to try cashing it again. Oh, my God. There was one paycheck where after it had bounced for me and my partner, they did just tell us to try every day because they couldn't tell us when they would have the funds to pay us

Starting point is 00:32:16 because some money comes in and out every single day. It was a pretty wild situation to be put in. Yeah, like, Jesus Christ. just like absolute nightmare. Oh my God. So when checks started bouncing, it kind of clarified what we could organize around first. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:35 I mean, if you're not getting paid, you don't have a job to unionize. Yeah, that's like the most like nothing to lose in a world to win situation you could possibly aback you. Yeah, exactly. Like we're getting paid. We're doing real work for fake money. Like, come on.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Right. So we kind of settled on that as like our first grievance and demand to organize around is we're demanding guaranteed pay. Which isn't even like it shouldn't be a demand. It's their legal responsibility. It's like, yes, you must form a union in order to have the right to be paid, which I've been saying this kind of joke about what it's like being trans for a while where it's like, to be a trans person in America

Starting point is 00:33:24 is to, like, aspire to the status of a mere proletarian where you only get regular exploitation instead of, like, the even worse shit you get here. It's like, yeah, we had to form a union so they would, like, pay us. And it's like, God, like, oh. We just wanted real job. Yeah, like, oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:33:47 Oh. Going back to when we started talking to the IW. in those first initial union-ish meetings, it was still just very few of us and we hadn't put words to it yet. But we kind of realized that we weren't super interested in going the route of the NLRB with a election for a union and then collective bargaining for a contract. We had contracts. We know how Real You writes its contracts. We weren't interested in another one. We wanted the ability to react to changes in the workplace with flexibility, which is what the IWW was offering.

Starting point is 00:34:28 They focus on like solidarity unionism that doesn't use the NLRB, but instead uses worker power via direct action to get management to the table and to meet your demands. Because a lot of this was rushed, we didn't get a chance to really get the terminology and our options. Yeah. But one of the terms they used was involuntary recognition. That's fun. We were running underground until we were ready to go public. But we were fine with being a public union.

Starting point is 00:34:59 We just didn't need the NLRB's backing. Yeah. We had the worker power in the workplace, and we were going to do direct action to get what we wanted. So yeah, I think the word we were using was involuntary recognition. Yeah, like, I love that. That's great. Right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:15 So going back to. March and April, knowing that we weren't interested in contracts and that we were going to go the route of direct action, we just had to choose a demand to start with. The bouncing paychecks was a pretty easy one. So we started having meetings and talking about what kind of direct action we could do and what kind of escalations we could have if we were organizing around the demand for guaranteed pay. And that demand, essentially we were asking them to resume direct deposit or deliver our next check in the form of guaranteed funds, like cash, money orders, cashier's check,

Starting point is 00:35:50 something that won't bounce. Yeah. We wanted our money on the day it was due. Oh. Like, I want to say this, too, that, like, there's like a theory version of this in capital where Marx talks about how, like, labor is the only commodity that you pay for at the end

Starting point is 00:36:06 and not at the beginning when you purchase it, where, like, every other commodity, you have to, like, pay for it before, you get it, whereas with labor, you pay for it after. But like, if you tried this with any other commodity other than labor, this is a crime. Right. I mean, it's a crime for labor, too. Yeah, it is a crime for labor, but it's like, but it's also like, like, if you, if you do this at a grocery store, like, you will be arrested.

Starting point is 00:36:32 Yes. And when a corporation does it, it's like, okay, if you want the law to help you for doing, again, the same thing that will get men with guns to take you away at a grocery store. right, you have to form a fucking union and organize. I don't know. I hate this fucking system. It's so unbelievably exploitative and it's so clear in these sort of moments. Like who is designed to protect and who it's not designed to protect? Where like the punishment for the same, literally the same crime is like one of you gets you arrested and the other one gets you like a union campaign?

Starting point is 00:37:10 Yeah. there's also something that I'd like to mention. Yeah. For those who managed to go through this Atmaster program, one of the things that was supposed to happen was that those employees during their education were supposed to receive stipends to cover their living expenses. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:35 During their schooling, many of whom, which were either not working at time or working at reduced hours. And some of them saw stipends or partial stipends, and some of them from what I understand, received nothing at all. Jesus. But we're still working at those reduced hours trying to support themselves while also going to school. Yeah, which is, again, also, A, I guess, like, it's a form of wage theft, and also, B, it's a thing

Starting point is 00:38:09 were like, the difference between the bosses making slightly less money that year and a bunch of workers who are like mostly trans and in really horrifying like economic conditions, not having that money is a difference between someone like maybe buying, I don't even want to say buying a slightly less like fancy car because it's not even that much money for them. It's like, I don't know, like they have one day where they don't go to like an unbelievably expensive restaurant versus like, can I feed myself at night? Yeah, they get one less personal massage. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:46 We might end up homeless. Yeah. Yeah, that was part of the situation that was starting to really weigh on me near the end. It's because part of what I had signed up for was agreeing to work part time and do schooling part time. And it was supposed to be like anywhere from five to six days a week with the two, which was going to be a bit much for me. but at some point they decided they wanted all their workers doing school full time

Starting point is 00:39:12 so that they could get through it quicker. But they didn't adjust the stipend they were offering. So you were expected to stretch the same amount of money over time where you weren't getting any income at all. Yeah. And that money was $4,500, which is not enough for the like three months of rent and food and gas. No. Gas because it's in Centralia. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:36 So, yeah, like, I had had multiple conversations with them about it, and they would not give me a clear answer on whether we would be able to continue working or if we wouldn't get to work or what we would do about our income situation. And that's the situation that I ended up in was for the last two months of my schooling, I had to float myself on very little income because I had only received enough. to really cover the first two months of the school. And schooling took like six to nine months if you were part time. If you were part time, it took six to nine months. Yeah. Yeah. And four months if you were full time, which I was going full time.

Starting point is 00:40:22 Yeah. And then also like the second thing with that too is it's like, it's not only are you like spending time doing training for this job unpaid. Like that's also taking in time where you can't work another job to get more income. Well, if you wanted to work another job, you had to get their approval. Jesus Christ, yeah. They made it pretty clear they wanted you committed

Starting point is 00:40:41 to reel you and nothing else. Yeah, it's cult tactics. And then also the classic, like, wonderful capitalist double freedom where you have freedom from the ability to eat and then the freedom to sell yourself. Yeah. I mean, I could always choose to go homeless and hungry.

Starting point is 00:41:00 Yeah, so the law and this makes the efficient equality bans both the rich and the poor from sleeping under a bridge. Yeah. So we chose our demand and we came up with our plan. We had our actions settled and we had a plan for if management responded, if they didn't, if they escalated. We had our options and we felt secure going in. At that point, like when we first started our actions, we only actually had five workers

Starting point is 00:41:31 participating, more that were sympathetic, but all that felt that they weren't in a position to do direct action and lose their job. We saw Vancouver lose their jobs when they took action. We knew it was a very real possibility. Yeah. But we started, I believe on June 29, we delivered our demand for guaranteed pay to our manager.

Starting point is 00:41:55 The IWW calls it a march on the boss. Yeah. It was like less than five minutes total. The five workers presented our demand, we gave two testimonials for like how it's been impacting us directly. And then we left. Yeah. We sent a follow-up email to the owners of the company because we had handed it to the manager. And we're waiting for their response. We put it out there and we just had to wait. Yeah. The next day, the manager caught one of our workers on her own to respond, essentially telling us

Starting point is 00:42:31 they could not afford to pay us any other way that they were paying us. They could cut us paper checks on each payday and that was it. That wasn't one of the options we gave them. Yeah. I just can't get over the like, yeah, sorry, the only way I could afford to keep running my business is if I'm allowed to not pay you and that that's the thing you have to accept. If I'm allowed to hand out checks that can't be cashed.

Starting point is 00:42:57 Yeah. So when they told us no, we looked at our plan and we took our next action. We submitted a bunch of L&I claims for our checks that had been NSF or insufficient funds. An L&I claim, labor and industries is kind of like the protective body for workers in Washington. For each check that we had received that bounced, we had a right to file a worker's rights complaint. The problem with those complaints is that they're not. anonymous. Your employer gets told when one is filed, who filled it, and why they filed it.

Starting point is 00:43:37 Unfortunately, that wasn't an option until we were all doing it together, unless we wanted to lose our jobs one by one. Yeah. So when they told us no, we started by submitting our L&I claims. It all happened so quick, and it was one action after another, that it kind of blurs together. So I think we submitted our L&I claims. When we gave them our demand on the 29th, we gave them a deadline for our next payday. So July 3rd is when we were due to get paid again. And we said, by then, you have to agree that you're going to give us guaranteed pay or deliver guaranteed funds.

Starting point is 00:44:11 Yeah. The next day they had told us no. And on Friday, they delivered paychecks like any other payday. Yeah. They didn't really acknowledge what we had asked. They didn't acknowledge that they weren't meeting our demand. They did not tell us there were any issues with these checks or that they might bounce or that there weren't the funds.

Starting point is 00:44:29 They at no point asked anyone to delay cashing their checks because they didn't have the funds. That was part of the issue is like sometimes businesses run into financial issues and you have to deal with it. The way to deal with it is not by giving out bad checks and not telling your workers. For people who haven't thought of this before, there are like actual consequences for attempting to cash a check that doesn't cash?

Starting point is 00:45:08 Absolutely. Like, that gets taken out on you, the person who's attempting to cash the check, like, as well as the people upstream who are doing the bad checks. We actually managed to avoid that at Lakewood for the most part, because once checks started bouncing, we were scared of that happening. Yeah. So we started cashing them at Chase, which is who reel you banks with. You don't have to have an account with Chase to go get your check cash with them.

Starting point is 00:45:34 You just have to pay a $10 fee and have forms of identification. So the people who went to Chase and had their checks bounce there, it never hit their account. Yeah, that's good. There were never any fees or any negative marks on our accounts. For the people who couldn't do that, there were. Yeah. There were NSF fees. At least one Lakewood employee now has had their account completely shut down for 90 days while it's investigated for fraud.

Starting point is 00:46:05 Yeah, which is horrific because it's like, Okay, the people who are committing the fraud are the bosses, but now you don't have a fucking bank account for 90 days. Which is just a nightmare. Part of our hope had been that by cashing them at Chase, Chase would flag the account because their account was with Chase and they were consistently issuing these checks that they couldn't afford to cash. And we were consistently cashing them at Chase

Starting point is 00:46:31 who had to acknowledge the rent the funds there. Unfortunately, they told us, a couple of times that there was just nothing they could do on their end. Love capitalist class solidarity. Great stuff. So we did our demand. We did our L&I claims. And then they delivered our paychecks as if nothing had happened.

Starting point is 00:46:55 Yeah. So over that weekend, we finalized our plan to stage walkouts. Mm-hmm. Starting on Monday from 12 to 1. workers would leave RaleU to go to the local chase and attempt to cash their checks. And we did that until each worker got paid.

Starting point is 00:47:16 It normally took like 15, 20 minutes, and then we spent the rest of the hour, you know, doing our direct action, not returning to work. Yeah. But when it was 1 o'clock, we returned to work. We were ready to see our patients. We all messaged our clients the night before if they were affected. And if we had the time, we offered them replacement sessions.

Starting point is 00:47:35 Yeah. We did our best to follow the rules as much as we could while breaking them. We were trying to send a message management. We weren't trying to disrupt patient care. Every step of the way, we were doing our best to disrupt actual patient care to the least amount possible. So that went on for three days. On Monday, none of the checks cleared. On Tuesday, we got six of them.

Starting point is 00:48:04 And on Wednesday, we got the last one. I did forget to say that was when we picked up two more workers. There were a couple workers who weren't comfortable prior to then taking part in direct action that were ready and did join the walkout with us. Management ignored the walkouts. We got absolutely no response. Oh, boy. We sent email updates each day.

Starting point is 00:48:28 You know, like this many checks cleared. This many didn't. We're going to keep going. At any point, if they had just told us, yes, we'll, give you guaranteed pay next payday, we would have stopped. Yeah. They didn't. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:44 So we got paid on Wednesday. A few days went by when we still weren't hearing from them. So we escalated again. I think after that we did a sick out. So there was a day where everyone called in sick. And most of the workers weren't in the office. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:01 Which is pretty noticeable, especially when management doesn't come into the office. office and all that's left is your newbies. Yep, yep, yep, yep. We did that. Again, still no response. We sent another follow-up email being like, you continue to not meet our demands.

Starting point is 00:49:20 We're going to continue to take action. At any point, we will call a ceasefire if you come to the table and either meet our demand or tell us why you can't. Tell us what your plan is to do to meet it in the future. And they still didn't. So we moved on to what's called the Good Work Strike. Every provider that was taking part, we showed up, we did our jobs, we treated our patients, we cleaned our rooms. We just didn't sign our notes because that meant that management wasn't able to bill for them.

Starting point is 00:49:53 Because if we weren't getting paid, neither should they. Yeah, it's a version of the bus strikes where like you just run the buses but then don't charge anyone. Yeah, exactly. That was exactly the line of thinking. There was another group of nurses in a hospital that stopped charting. Yeah. So that patients would be billed, but they kept performing the work. That rocks.

Starting point is 00:50:14 And that's exactly where I got the idea from. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. We had patients that we wanted to take care of. Yeah. But we didn't want to give real you money when they weren't meeting their obligations. Yeah. That rocks.

Starting point is 00:50:28 That went on for a few days. And then on our day off, we got a bunch of information. On that Thursday, it was revealed that management had been told Real You was going bankrupt and would be closing probably the 24th. Oh, boy. So they learned that Thursday. And we didn't know what they would tell us, if anything. Yeah. And payday was Friday.

Starting point is 00:50:54 So they were either going to meet or demand or not meet it again. Yeah. And so that plus the information we got on Thursday, we decided to do another. stick out so that we could reassess. We wanted to see what they were actually going to do. We wanted to see if the business was going to be open. Yeah. Because there's just red flag after red flag.

Starting point is 00:51:16 Some of us are expecting them to close up and run away at any point. Yeah. I mean, they opened on Friday. Checks were delivered. Two of us received fake ones. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's talk about the fake checks for a second. What the fuck?

Starting point is 00:51:31 I can't get over this. What? Listen. We like to joke that whatever you think the worst option is, real you will choose a worse one. Yeah. So at least two employees, we're certain more. We're just not sure who exactly and how many.

Starting point is 00:51:53 But we were given checks that were kind of handwritten. Like, the only things printed on them were like the color that check paper is. and one of the lines on the back where you endorse it, everything else was hand-drawn from who it was made out to, how much it was, the lines those were written on. Yeah, like, it sent alarm bells ringing pretty quickly. Like, that's not even monopoly money because monopoly money is printed. This is like, yeah, no.

Starting point is 00:52:29 It was like a crafts project. Yeah, it's like they've invented a form of payment, like fakers and company store money. Like, it's unbelievable. Yeah, we got those and we were pretty suspicious, but we took them to chase anyways. And the teller was like, look, I can't even cash this to tell you that it's bounced because there's no way for me to verify it's real. The security markings that are supposed to be on the back are not there. It's like, sorry, poor fake telling us just like, yeah, sorry, I like can't cash. like, just like child's drawings of money.

Starting point is 00:53:08 This is not an acceptable form of payment. Yeah. Jesus. Right. Oh, no. They unfortunately couldn't really tell us what to do about it. Yeah. So we had to reach out to our management and ownership to be like, hey, we could not cash our

Starting point is 00:53:28 checks. We need real ones issued. Uh-huh. Let us know how you're doing that. Uh-huh. Also, on Friday, we were out of work. We were waiting for news. And I think that's when they sent out the email about the business closing.

Starting point is 00:53:46 At like 156, workers got an email to their company email, which meant most of us could not access it because we don't access work emails from home. That's when they sent it out. And like 30 minutes later, they sent out a patient announcement. Jesus, trust. And that's how most of us learned. Yeah. We learned as patients first that really was closing in one week.

Starting point is 00:54:08 Yeah. Which is just horrifying stuff. That was when it really hit me. Yeah. When I opened my patient portal and read the announcement, I felt like I was seeing it, like all my patients were reading it. Yeah. And like I was losing access to needed care out of nowhere. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:28 It was heartbreaking. It was devastating. stating. Like, there's no words to describe how I felt for all of my patients. Yeah. Some of them knew it was coming. Most of them didn't. A lot of them didn't get last sessions. I mean, when we got the notice, we as a union realized that if we worked that last week, whether or not we'd get paid was up in the air. Yeah. I mean, if they chose not to pay us, we would have to go through bankruptcy court and get in line to get paid. Yeah. So instead, we decided to strike. We spent the last week that Real You was open on the picket line,

Starting point is 00:55:07 telling patients what was actually happening. We weren't boycotting. We weren't asking anyone not to go in and have their last sessions. We were encouraging that. Any of the providers that were left, anyone who had sessions, we wanted them to get them before they couldn't. Yeah. But we also didn't want to provide free labor. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't an easy decision. I mean, it's one that the group had to talk about and go back and forth on. I mean, none of us thought that our last sessions were going to be our last sessions. We all wanted to see our patients one more time. We didn't want our patients last session to be their last session. Yeah. But we also didn't want to be exploited even further. Yeah. I mean, we made it clear what we were willing to do and we

Starting point is 00:55:49 followed through. I mean, I think it's really like the most pure example of just the dilemma that healthcare work and also like non-profit work. And anything where you're taking care of people, it's you're put in this dilemma where like the way that exploitation by the bosses works is like they're going to exploit you and pay you less because of your care for the work that you're doing and the people that you're helping. And this is like the most pure like, yeah, the choice you've been given by your bosses is to probably work for free

Starting point is 00:56:21 to help your community and make these people a little bit more money before they fuck off or go on strike and have to deal with, you know, like have to try to get your patient's treatment somehow. Exactly. It's horrifying. It's an impossible choice. Yeah. It sucked.

Starting point is 00:56:39 None of us wanted it to go that way. It didn't have to be that way. It didn't. And I think it's really unfortunate because multiple steps along the way, they could have scaled back operations to focus on. fixing the internal issues with the business. Yeah. It's not like they didn't have people telling them what was happening.

Starting point is 00:57:02 Mm-hmm. It's just they chose to stick their head in the sand like an ostrich and keep going. Yeah. And, you know, and ultimately, like, you're the people who are paying the price for their mistakes and, you know, their greed and arrogance and malice. Yeah. But, um, we survived. and I know that a lot of my fellow workers agree with me that this was an experience we would

Starting point is 00:57:33 rather have than not have. We found a lot of solidarity and community. And I mean, we've built relationships that are going to last past this. We're hoping to move on and work together again and something better. Yeah. Yeah. And my understanding is that the long-term goal, is to try to set up a co-op to be able to do this without sort of the exploitation of the bosses.

Starting point is 00:58:01 I mean, yeah, that is the ideal. I think every union member's dream would be a worker cooperative or somewhere where they have some form of either ownership or say in the process. Yeah. We would love to create something where our patients and our workers are working in tandem together to create the care that they deserve. Yeah. Like you mentioned earlier, there's just such a lack of like standards of care for trans, like gender affirming care. We don't talk to each other enough. We don't value the patient experience enough. We figured out a lot of things in the 80s and didn't bother doing more research. We want to do that. We want to fill that hole. And we have a lot of workers that are very committed to that, that are very excited by that opportunity. It's a long-term goal in the short term. We're hoping to get more people educated like we were promised and back to providing. We're hoping to find new placements for our patients that have like urgent care needs, like people who have surgeries that are coming up. Yeah. We're working on a database of like local electrolysis clinics

Starting point is 00:59:13 who has availability, who treats what areas and who takes what insurance is. So if we have patients that are looking for new places, they can reach out and we can point them somewhere, but we're always looking for more resources too. We're in our information gathering phase. We're trying to resource compile, just get everything we can for our workers so that we can take those next steps. Yeah, absolutely. And what's devastating about this all is really you was one of the few places that

Starting point is 00:59:48 actually took insurances. Not many electrolysis clinics do, so it can be very difficult for people to find and afford care. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I don't know, like, yeah, that's like another one of the heart-wrenching things about this is like all of the patients whose medical care was ripped away by this. And the fact that it's y'all trying to figure out how to help them and not the bosses is like such an indication of which side people are fundamentally on. I mean, how they handled the closure is a pretty clear sign of that, too. Yeah. If you cared about your patients finding new places before their services were disrupted,

Starting point is 01:00:28 you would have given them more than one week notice. Yeah. I mean, you require two weeks notice from workers before they leave. Yeah. I think our patients deserve better. Yeah, they absolutely do. And you also deserve better. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:42 Yeah. We have better. We've made better. We're going to create better. But it would have been. nice to have what we thought we were getting. Yeah. Speaking of that, are there ways for

Starting point is 01:00:54 listeners to reach out and help? So, right now, we have a link tree. It's a little bit bare bones, because this happens so much sooner than it was supposed to. Yeah. There is a GoFundMe that is for worker stability.

Starting point is 01:01:10 Not all of us are going to qualify for unemployment, and it's going to be a while before we can find new jobs, because electrolysis clinics, and And being transgender, just, it's a tough combination. Mm-hmm. Yep. But we also have an email for anyone to reach out to if they have questions for, like,

Starting point is 01:01:31 if our patients are trying to contact us or if they need somewhere new to go. Yeah. If we have any electrolysis in the community that have openings, we would love to know so we can send people to you. Yeah, absolutely. If anyone who has knowledge starting cooperatives, that's also a resource we are really interested in. We want to do this right. Yeah. And we want to talk to the people that have experience doing it. Yeah. Do you have anything else that you want to make sure people know?

Starting point is 01:01:59 So there are a couple different electrology associations that clinics can align themselves with. One of the ones that I'm thinking of is called the American Electrology Association or Electrolysis. and they have a code of ethics and standards that they require the businesses that are partnered with them to adhere to. It's an association that you have to pay a subscription fee to, but in turn you get resources for your business and are able to have somewhere to reach out to when you have questions about the ethics in your business or how things are being run. I think something really important to note is that Real You was not partnered with any of them. And there are electrology conventions that will happen that a whole bunch of different

Starting point is 01:03:04 electrologists, surgeons from different places will get together to discuss the health care that they're providing. and it's from my understanding that Real You did not have the best reputation in these circles. Yeah. I mean, the truth is near the end, Real You was having to form their own education program. They were forming their own school because their connection with Zatmaster and with the rest of the electrolysis community was just so poor. Like, they couldn't maintain it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:47 But for the patients, finding a clinic that is associated with one of those associations provides them an extra level of protection, especially since Washington State is not licensed for electrolysis. That is a really, really good point. If you are a patient and you've heard what was going on behind the scenes, it real you and you're concerned about continuing your care. One of the ways to protect yourself against the practices that you want to avoid is by finding a clinic that's associated with one of these professional institutions. Correct.

Starting point is 01:04:29 Somewhere that has standards you have to meet. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a good place to end with, you know, the twin promises of workers being able to do their jobs and care for the community. and communities being able to get the care of it they need, how, yeah, this system simply delivers neither of them. The only way out of it is to fight for a better one. We're swinging.

Starting point is 01:04:55 I can say that. Yeah. I mean, our group is full of fighters. I'm hopeful. I am too. And every step of the way, every action I have taken has been from a love for my patience and the work that I have. do and intend to continue doing. Hell yeah.

Starting point is 01:05:18 I'm pretty excited to close this chapter and start the new one where we can only go up. Yeah. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Thank you to both so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having us. Hopefully this was exciting as part one. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much.

Starting point is 01:05:39 Yeah, I'm happy to. And hopefully we get to talk to you all again when like the co-op starts. Should be lovely. Absolutely. Part three will be about our successful co-op beginnings. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Looking forward to it.

Starting point is 01:05:53 Hell yeah. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.

Starting point is 01:06:32 Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. in the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Starting point is 01:07:00 Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports.

Starting point is 01:07:14 Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,

Starting point is 01:07:34 but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea?

Starting point is 01:07:57 We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Man, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song.

Starting point is 01:08:19 I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

Starting point is 01:08:41 The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Mouthins.

Starting point is 01:09:03 Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky.

Starting point is 01:09:20 Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. I haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game?

Starting point is 01:09:37 I just really. I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. And welcome to it could happen here. My name is Anna El-Kurd. And I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics.

Starting point is 01:09:57 Today I want to talk about Western Sahara and the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. I'm taking this opportunity because Morocco is in the news, specifically for the World Cup, but it's always a good opportunity when Morocco is in the news to bring up this issue and to talk about the ongoing occupation of this territory. Now, Western Sahara, for those who are unfamiliar, is often called Africa's last colony. It's been contested between the Sahrawi, indigenous people and the Moroccan government since Spain withdrew from the territory in 1975. Now, Morocco took over most of the territory and fought a war with the Palisaria Front,

Starting point is 01:10:30 which is a liberation movement that represents the Sahrawi people, backed by other neighbors of Morocco, including Algeria, and it fought a 16-year war for independence before there was a 1991 ceasefire. Now, this ceasefire collapsed in 2020, and there was a UN-promised referendum on self-determination that never happened. So today, Morocco controls roughly 80% of the territory, and there's still hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi refugees that remain in refugee camps in Algeria. The United States accepted and recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco signing a peace agreement with Israel. So that happened with the Abraham Accords. Now recently, through U.S.-led diplomacy, there was a 2025 U.N. Security Council resolution that pushed for Moroccan autonomy

Starting point is 01:11:17 rather than Sahrawi independence as the basis for resolving this conflict. So to talk more about this issue, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get the perspective of a Sahrawi person and someone who is very embedded in the issue and has lived experience. So I spoke today with Mohammed Salam Urad, who is the co-founder of Sahrawi Voice. This is a collective of citizen journalists and filmmakers based in the Western Sahara refugee camps in southwest Algeria. And this collective basically is a way to provide a platform for Sahrawis to share their challenges, experiences, and hopes with an international audience.

Starting point is 01:11:54 while equipping Sahrawi youth with the knowledge and tools to advocate effectively for their cause. So I spoke to Muhammad Salam today to get a Sahrawi perspective on things. Now, there might be some listeners that don't agree with everything that was mentioned. And that's fine. The point of this kind of interview is a type of data. How do people see this issue from this perspective? So without further ado, here is my interview with Muhammad Salam. Muhammad Salim, thank you so much for joining us.

Starting point is 01:12:26 Thank you for the invitation. So I'm going to ask a few questions about recent Sahrawi politics and events. Starting with the UN resolution that happened in October, resolution 2797, which basically for the first time made Morocco's autonomy the explicit basis for negotiations while kind of ignoring self-determination for the Sahrawi people. A lot of our listeners have never heard of them. this resolution, but people have called it the biggest shift in the conflict in decades. So can you tell us from a Sahrawi perspective what it means that the UN and international

Starting point is 01:13:02 body that once promised Sahrawi self-determination and a referendum starts treating the occupier's plan as the starting point? So the resolution itself is after they exhausted all the other pressure means, the U.S., the European Union and through their own individual country pressure and inconditional support to the Morocco, the UN was the last resort and they want to have a stamp of legality on it. And that's why the instruments use the UN to and the reality in the talk now, because we don't have a negotiation yet, we have talks that have been sponsored and actually. administrated by the US. The UN

Starting point is 01:13:56 now is sidelined. And the reason is because the international law is clear and the repeated resolution before death, all of them they have called and demanded that the final statutes of the territory should be decided through a referendum and sometimes the referendum was muted but always there is, it has to provide for the self-determination for the Sahara people. And even like playing with self-determination for listeners and the referendum itself,

Starting point is 01:14:33 it's a huge concessions from the Sahrawi side. What in a just world, in ideal world, Morocco would be called to withdraw from Western Sahara, paying a reparation for the Sahrawi. and those are the steps for a just solution for the Sahrawi past. But the Sahrawi were willing to go to the extra mile and they made their concessions. They accepted the referendum, which is, by the way, will entail a huge number of the settlers

Starting point is 01:15:08 will be taken apart in that referendum and would not be just the Sahrawi. But even with that, Marocque is still not sure that they will even win the support of their own settlers that they brought with them. So they had to ask the U.S. for the help. And of course, the U.S. is doing this as a reward for Morocco, for being a sub-servant state, and the watchingdog of the European Union,

Starting point is 01:15:39 for being willing also to go public with their relationship with the Zion State of Israel. Because for us, we have been saying this for a long time. always had those relationships. It was the price of recognized the Moroccanity of Western Sahara was the price to go public with those relationships. And that's what they did. Eventually, Morocco is selling themselves to the doubles to get support and recognition for their occupation of Western Sahara.

Starting point is 01:16:09 They are accepting the Jerusalem's capital of Israel. They are sending their money to finance the peaceful. board a committee that Trump made. They are sending their troops. They are willing to send them even to fight resistance in Gaza. And they are doing everything. They are building chemicas, drone chemicas factories, Israeli chemicals factories in Morocco. Everything people couldn't even imagine. Now it's a reality. And the price is to win APAC and Israel's support and their backing, turning the occupation into a fatal company. And not just that, but to even use the UN and the international law and also international body

Starting point is 01:16:59 to impose the occupation of the Sahara. But for us, we know that slavery and many other stuff were legal. So even if they were to outlaw the self-determination, outlaw our demand for free and independent state still will not make any difference to us. We are determined to fight for what's ours. And as a Sahraway, ex-Sahraway leader who passed away told Bush because this is not the first time. Maybe this is public, but this is not the first time the U.S. tried to do this. During George W. Bush first term when the Twin Tower were hit,

Starting point is 01:17:46 hit and the US wanted to just like a rush to solve or to just finish all other conflicts everywhere. They wanted to resolve the occupation of Western Sahara and asking the Sahraw to accept the autonomy plan of Morocco and people. And he said like when the Sahrawi leader was pressed to accept that, he said we will not accept it, you know. You are so powerful that you can dictate to people how to live, but you are not powerful enough to dictate to people how to die. So it's the same for us. Nothing changed.

Starting point is 01:18:22 Morocco has enjoyed the support for a long time from the majority of the country and especially those called the First World country and few world all that BS. They have always enjoyed the support, but

Starting point is 01:18:37 on the ground nothing changed. Of course, made our independence difficult, but we'll never make it impossible. Yeah, the rights of indigenous people are not determined by international law. Yeah, yeah. And Morocco is asking for support and want to legalize their occupation, first of all from Western Saharan, they are asking the wrong people and they are awaiting the support

Starting point is 01:19:03 from that wrong people. And, yeah, their teacher and their biggest sponsor are friends with all its colonialism, atrocity in all Africa and other places and the U.S. who was a country that was built on a genocide of indigenous people. So they are in the right company. Yes, exactly. That's what we, yeah. Sahra always say like if someone gives you advice,

Starting point is 01:19:32 you have to look at their house. If they are abiding by that advice, they are giving you or not. So, yeah. The Morocco chose the right mass source and the right sponsors to continue its occupation. And, yeah, graduate from the occupation university. So for our listeners, I want to also kind of specify that this February, after the UN resolution, the U.S. can be in secret talks in Madrid between Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polario,

Starting point is 01:20:15 overseen by Trump's Africa advisor. Yeah. Now, it's being negotiated behind. closed doors. How are ordinary Sahrawis, especially in the camps? What is their relationship right now to these negotiations and to the Polisario leadership? Yeah. So that's the talk I refer to, because a negotiation has to start after you establish a framework for what to negotiate. And until now, that hasn't happened. So they are more accurately should be described as talk, you know, early stages of talk and meetings instead of negotiation.

Starting point is 01:20:50 Because negotiation, then, when you have a framework for the things that you want to achieve and the demand of two parties. And in this case, we haven't even seen one photo of the two negotiating parties. And that's very obvious because it shows just how different and how far from each other. And the U.S. came with the misconception that they think they just like can rush this into solution and be done with it. And when they saw resistance from the Sahraway negotiation team and also for the record also Algeria hesitants to accept the imposing of all those solutions in the Sahrawi, they started to reconsider and we have many statements from Musaad Bhulis. the advisor for North Africa and the Middle East or North Africa, where he's saying this seems to be

Starting point is 01:21:52 more difficult than what we early imagined and, you know, starts to reconsider his position. As to your question, the Sahrai in general, the vast majority of the Sahrawi, consider the police area to be a liberation movement and their representatives. And even if they don't have opposed or work in a certain, they consider themselves to be a police. member. That doesn't mean we agree with all Polisario or we don't have a different opinion about how things should be managed and how the Sahara Khos should be administrated and how to deal with many things. There is a huge and age gap between the first generation of Polisario that the vast majority of those are the members now and who are the top of the leadership are people who started the police area. So I was talking about people who have been in the leadership position for 50 years. So of course, there is an obvious need for

Starting point is 01:22:55 them to step down and be replaced by younger generations, by people who have their ability, both the physical and the mental and right judgment of the time and of the means that should be employed to accelerate the liberation of Western Sahara. We see them, but the negotiation, as you said, it's happening behind the closed door. There are no press conferences. We are dependent on a statement from there and there to try to build a bigger picture of what's happening. But the biggest takeaway and the conclusion from the three rounds that took place so far, two in Washington and one in Madrid, it's nothing major happening except the fact that the U.S. is starting to think that it's more difficult

Starting point is 01:23:47 and it's going to take more time than what they initially imagine. So that's the biggest time. I think that. And the Morocco, the autonomy plan, they had it in three pages paper. That was their proposal for a solution. And France and the U.S. asked them for a more extended version. where they have to outline details and they haven't showed

Starting point is 01:24:13 or produced anything yet. So that's, I think, their closest ally and supporter and formal colonizer as France is working closely with them to develop that proposal. I see. For the Sahravi, that doesn't

Starting point is 01:24:29 change a lot because, you know, if we wanted autonomy, we would have been better off with Spain and why would we like say no to to Spain only to accept it 50 years later to a craft monarch, you know, and a servant and a papa to the Zionist and France. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:51 Our occupier is enjoying their support, so nothing new under the same. I mean, it's funny that you mentioned that the United States and the Africa advisor is starting to recognize it's not as easy. I mean, you know, very surprising that the Trump administration on visors thought it was going to be easier than it is, but obviously not. I wanted to ask a question also about kind of daily life right now for Sahrawis. It's been 50 years after the Madrid Accords. You still have Sahrawis under Moroccan control in the territory.

Starting point is 01:25:33 And then there's, of course, the refugee camps in Algeria. Now that the diplomatic horizon seems to be narrowing, what's life like for people who are fighting for Sahrawi independence? So, like, human rights defenders, the women, the students, you know, I know they face a lot of repression in Moroccan territory. But maybe you can describe to the listeners, yeah, what the conditions are like. Yeah. I know it's probably not something we intended to do, but it's not Moroccan territory. It's Western Sahara territory, occupied by Morocco.

Starting point is 01:26:05 My mistake. Yes, yes, of course. Yeah, so the situation there is difficult. The territory, there is a media blockade that's imposed on the territory. so no international observer or a journalist allowed to access the territory and to see the situation on the ground. The people there are, Morocco is using both the stick and the carrots.

Starting point is 01:26:29 So trying to buy their illusions to the occupation, try to reward those who are willing to give up their political rights and so giving them ousting, putting them on social welfare projects, And those kinds, it's not a lot, but enough to survive on. And on the other hand, has jail and repression and the job cutting people from their job and making their life as miserable as possible to the point either they renounce their activism or leave the territory. And in some cases, they are sentenced to life in prison, which has happened to many Sahravi activists

Starting point is 01:27:14 We have a group called the Good Day Music group, have been in jail since 2010. And, yeah, some of them are serving 30 years, some of them 20, some of them live sentence, and a few of them were released recently. So the situation is very difficult and very deplorable. And what makes it even difficult, that the Sahrao is there in the occupied territory are outnumbered.

Starting point is 01:27:44 So there are three Moroccan settlers to each Saharao. Those are very conservative estimates. It could be more. So anything that's civil disobedience, strategy, or tactics, will be dimity on. It's successful and would not produce any results. So it's a very difficult situation, but nonetheless there are still Saharao,

Starting point is 01:28:07 who are standing bare ground, or still despite all the repression and all the consequences, of the economic warfare that Morocco is waging against them. And even social ostracization, that try to even threaten people around you. So if you are an activist, even your father, your people around you, they will be laid from their job just as repercussions for your activism.

Starting point is 01:28:34 So they can punish you if you don't care about their own self, like they punish you through the people, your own circle and your own. to close to you. So it's very difficult. And on the other hand, also the infrastructure there are not as fancy as Morocco try to claim there aren't a single university. And Morocco is building more of jails. And even the prison of Sahara, they sentence them.

Starting point is 01:29:05 And when they're serving their sentence, they put them far away to punish their family to make them pay a lot of money and travel inside Maruari. to be able to visit their loved ones instead of having them close by artists in the occupied Western Sahara. So the situation is very difficult, but those who are choosing to stand their ground

Starting point is 01:29:27 are a reader of history and they are aware of the price that has to be paid in order to obtain our freedom and our independence. And the darker it gets, we know that closer that there will be another morning that's coming behind that. So we have been here way longer before Trump administration and his advisor,

Starting point is 01:29:52 and we will be here. So it's the Morocco, I think that they think this is their golden opportunities and that they can use everything, including the international law and international institution and body like the UN to impose their occupation and Western Sahara, but again, they are misguided. At the end of the day, they would have to put up the table and try to fight. I think from a Palestinian perspective, like the genocide in Gaza has clarified that the international system is not functioning.

Starting point is 01:30:27 So, you know, they're trying to use the international system. Countries like Morocco are trying to use the international system for legitimizing control, but the international system itself needs to be restructured. And I do also want to apologize. I meant Moroccan control of the territory. So I sincerely apologize for that. Yes, yes, but I know, I know. I also wanted to ask because we, I mean, we have listeners everywhere,

Starting point is 01:30:51 but especially for listeners in the United States, you know, our government here is driving this process. What would you want listeners in the United States to take away from this conversation or to do? To be honest, I have been to the States one time And I have met many Americans, and I am a reader of their media, and I follow their famous podcast and TV channels and Twitter discussion. And it's very obvious that the American, they don't care about what's going on outside American. They care about the prices of oil, of house prices, and their rents and their college fees.

Starting point is 01:31:35 And it's okay. I think it's okay to a degree when your country is not involved in maintaining and supporting and that your own taxes are used to maintain and support and finance genocide and other military occupation, other worse. Then you have the luxury of ignoring what's outside. But when it's not, you can just like put your head in the ground and imagine. and I'm just going to care about what's happening here domestically and foreign policy. What's happening there is far away there, but I don't care. So I would like them to inform themselves about Western Sahara,

Starting point is 01:32:18 understand that they have to push their government. And fortunately to the Western Sahara, at least we don't have a politician in the United States who thinks that the occupation of Western Sahara will accelerate the arrival of the Messiah and that it's far away. It has nothing to do with ideology, with religion, belief, with anything like that. And it would be easier, supposedly, and it would be less hesitant politician to take the right stand and the right position. If enough people know their and they have a responsibility to learn and to understand

Starting point is 01:33:00 and that their money and their politician and their foreign policy are taking tools on people past, present, and the future in a very practical way. And they don't have the luxury to be ignorant or to have the apathy they have to just not care about what's going on. They should care because their money, their political support, and their country resources are used against many. other people. And then anything happened, we have the Americans acting like, we don't know what's

Starting point is 01:33:37 happened, why the rest of the world hates you. People hate you for the million of the things that your government and your silence has done and has caused everywhere else. So they have to learn. They have a responsibility. They have to speak to their local politician and their representative in Congress and Senate and ask them to just to. do the basic thing, to follow the international law and stop supporting Morocco militarily and politically and emboldening them to continue their occupation and prolonging the suffering of the Sahrawi people. That's the very bare minimum. Well, thank you so much on that note. I will link Sahrawi voice in the show notes.

Starting point is 01:34:24 Yeah, I think that people can learn more about the work that your collective does. And thank you for making the time. Thank you for the invitation as an honor. Thank you. Take care. Take care. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus. From $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

Starting point is 01:34:55 Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast. from Together and I heart women's sports.

Starting point is 01:35:10 Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Starting point is 01:35:38 Osaka, showing out. She beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports.

Starting point is 01:35:52 Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us or rather you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken.

Starting point is 01:36:10 a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

Starting point is 01:36:48 Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

Starting point is 01:37:19 The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves over. Oh, that's fantastic.

Starting point is 01:37:41 And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky.

Starting point is 01:37:57 Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried.

Starting point is 01:38:07 I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me? that you think I don't understand your little play game. I just really, I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Picture going to the grocery store a few years from now. You push your cart, grab your staples, scan, and head out the door.

Starting point is 01:38:34 Not much to it. But unlocking your car, you hear a faint buzzing sound. Looking around, you don't see anything, yet it gets louder. Then you look up. A drone shoots out. toward the street where you spot a man running down the sidewalk with a full backpack. They both slip out of view behind some overgrown hedges, then come the sirens. As you drive away, you see multiple cops on top of a man, one pulling objects out of his

Starting point is 01:38:57 backpack, tag still dangling off, a shoplifter. Welcome to It Could Happen here. I'm Kevin Foster, an independent journalist, and your host for this two-part series on retail crime, ICE, and some deeply concerning policy making its way through Congress. And this image of a shoplifter, it isn't really from the future. In late June of this year, police in Redmond, Washington, used the drone to track down an alleged shoplifter who had left a store. If you live in a major city, you've probably already witnessed the bolstering of security in retail stores, the ungodly number of items locked up behind glass, security guards,

Starting point is 01:39:31 flock cameras in the parking lot. This is an industry in its own right, commonly referred to as loss prevention, and it surged after the pandemic. The National Retail Federation, or NRF for short, who I'll be talking a lot about today, puts on a yearly conference known as NRF Protect, where they bring together all the loss prevention slash asset protection bigwigs to show off new tech and security strategies. Here's a clip of a senior product manager for Amazon at the 2026 event, part in the awful corporate background music. I gotta say, the most unique thing that I saw in the Expo Hall was the robot.

Starting point is 01:40:07 Seen it on TV, and this was the first time I saw it in person. Whoa, these things are actually real. To paint you a picture, the video features retail lobbyists, tech giants, and police investigators. They show off drones, cameras, people aiming guns, others shooting some type of paintballs at hanging targets, and of course, multiple robots, including one that looks like a mini tank called Romeo, but spelled like roaming around. Don't worry, though, this quote, physical AI on patrol can only go 10 miles per hour, and it has a big LED smile across the front.

Starting point is 01:40:40 If you haven't got the drift, NRF Protect is like a National Rifle Association Convention but for people obsessed with supply chains and storefront scanners. While our Little Tank Romeo likely invokes the strongest image of a sci-fi dystopia, it's probably the least of our worries. An October 2024 article in Loss Prevention magazine states that multiple top 10 retailers rely on facial recognition for loss prevention. Many working with face-first, a company that provides AI facial recognition tech with the goal of preventing retail crime.

Starting point is 01:41:11 In July of this year, Mission Local reported on grocery outlets in the Bay Area using facial recognition tech from the AI company Safer. Worryed about your privacy, well, Safer's president says that your photo is immediately deleted if it doesn't match a watch list of shoplifters. However, stores can manually create their own watch list and pool data with other retailers. Surely nothing could go wrong there. Even excluding AI, retail stores have become a massive store. surveillance black box. Your photo is taken as you go in and out. Video cameras are at checkout. They know the time you come in. They know what days you shop, what you're buying. They know who you are.

Starting point is 01:41:50 Retailers will justify this invasion of our privacy through AI, robots, and large-scale data collection as necessary for marketing and to protect their capital and employees. Still, I wouldn't blame you for worrying about where that data is going. After all, if police investigators are already attending NRF conventions and the retailers are happy to work with them, why not other law enforcement? Why not ICE? As it turns out, Congress is having similar thoughts. The House of Representatives just pushed a bill forward that could give ICE access to this massive surveillance dragnet. And there's a bipartisan effort in the Senate to include it in the National Defense Authorization Act. Why would they do this? To answer that question, we need to look at a recently hyped phenomenon

Starting point is 01:42:32 known as Organized Retail Crime. You may have heard the term organized retail crime in the past few years, probably on the news or from a politician hinting at a hidden crisis in our stores. A basic Google Trends report shows use of the term is up 200% in the past five years versus the five years before. Organized retail crime, sometimes referred to as just ORC, is defined by the FBI as the large-scale theft of retail merchandise with the intent to resell the stolen items for financial gain. If you've seen the movie I Love Boosters, that's a good satirical example, although the

Starting point is 01:43:07 definition is actually quite vague, which can cause a lot of problems. The outlet retail dyesis the definition is, quote, neither legal nor precise, contributing to uneven reporting on the part of store workers, loss prevention staff, and police, which results in it often being lumped in with more banal forms of theft, such as shoplifting. And this begs the question, is organized retail crime actually a thing. It is, but the threat to businesses, prices, and even national security have largely been blown out of proportion. To get a sense of those proportions, here's Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley at a Senate hearing on organized retail theft. He's the chief sponsor of the bill I mentioned earlier, known as the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, or Corka for short.

Starting point is 01:43:52 The reality is some of the worst criminal organizations, including cartels, take Harris, and human traffickers, use this type of crime funding their misdeeds or launder ill-gotten proceeds. Side note, after hearing how this guy talks, I had to look up how old he is. He's 92 fucking years old. This old bat that was born in the Great Depression is probably being lobbied till his heart fails. And we're going to get into the issues with painting this all as a national security crisis

Starting point is 01:44:28 later, but speaking of lobbying, the notoriety of organized retail crime is due in no small part to the National Retail Federation, the host of the aforementioned loss prevention conference, and the largest retail lobbying group in the nation. The NRF has spent about $50 million on lobbying since just 2020, according to Open Secrets, and they've been the driving force behind the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which passed the House of Representatives on May 12th, with bipartisan support, including 144 Democrats, and it may well get lumped in with our defense spending this year. Corka has a slew of problems, but the general picture is a prosecution and police crackdown around this idea of organized crime in the retail theft world. Despite what the

Starting point is 01:45:14 NRF would like you to believe, there doesn't appear to be an organized retail theft crisis in the U.S. or really even a shoplifting crisis in general. With the exception of some large cities, particularly New York City, shoplifting in 23 was actually lower than pre-pandemic levels, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. In 2022, the Council found retail shrink, the term for lost merchandise from theft or operational errors, was about 1.6%. The same as in 2019, according to the NRF's own data. Before we get too deep, I think it's worth noting measures of shrink are also somewhat imprecise, and a lot of the accessible data surrounding all of this comes directly from the retail lobby who have an incentive to make problems look worse to justify security, policing, price increases,

Starting point is 01:46:03 and cutting corners in inventory management. As you'll see, they have some credibility issues as well. You know who else may or may not have credibility issues, the products and services that support this podcast? And we're back. In October of 2023, the NRF claimed to Congress that organized retail crime accounted for nearly half of the $94.5 billion in shrink in 2021. In reality, retail dive found that organized theft accounted for about 5% of shrink, meaning the NRF was off by a literal

Starting point is 01:46:46 order of magnitude. How did they arrive at such a conclusion? Well, they essentially just took some guy's word for it, specifically Ben Dugan, the former president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement in Retail, a nonprofit whose website currently features... features a giant low-resolution banner saying, Vegas baby, the nation's largest ORC investigative conference. An NRF spokesperson specifically said their 50% claim was an inference made by an analyst based on Dugan's congressional testimony, not actual statistics or data. The NRF retracted the claim about two months later, but the damage was already done.

Starting point is 01:47:25 According to the Vera Institute, a non-profit advocacy group and think tank focused on criminal justice reform, the NRF leveraged its inaccurate data point in a press release, testified to it in congressional hearings, and even spoke about it at a press conference with Senator Grassley. The figure, of course, stirred panic across the country, fueled by viral social media videos showing high-profile thefts and retail companies pushing the narrative that they are under attack. In some cases, retailers either closed or threatened to close stores, for example in San Francisco in 2021, Walgreens blamed organized retail crime for the anticipated closure of five locations. The closures made it into the national spotlight, but in reality, the locations faced less than

Starting point is 01:48:10 two reported shoplifting incidents per month, on average over the previous five years. Target had a similar story in New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, blaming retail theft for store closures when nearby locations actually had higher incidences of shoplifting. What actually happened to these stores? My best guess is the shift to online shopping during the pandemic drove down the sales of many brick-and-mortar locations, but rather than project something that could lower their stock valuation, retailers blamed it on organized theft. Many took up controversial practices such as locking up merchandise, which decreased sales

Starting point is 01:48:46 and customer's satisfaction. Even Walgreens' chief financial officer James Cahoe would later say they, quote, cried too much, unquote, about shoplifting when they, the issue was really overblown. But even with a lack of evidence, the NRAF and Senator Grassley refused to back down from their messaging and legislation, and in a lot of ways, it worked. Let me play you a clip of Gavin Newsom at a press conference in 2024, signing legislation intended to combat organized retail crime. Here, he's surrounded by a number of elected officials, law enforcement leaders, and representatives of retail associations.

Starting point is 01:49:23 The issue of organized retail theft. The issue of serial theft, the issue that is front and center in the consciousness of so many Californians. You see it online, social media, you see it on the nightly news. This is the real deal. Grocers and the retailers understand that. After the NRF retracted its inflated claim nearly a year prior, organized retail crime was still making headlines and considered a very serious issue. Serious enough that Newsom included $374 million in his 2024 budget proposal to combat retail theft. And that bill, which he happened to sign atop a table covered in Orange Home Depot buckets, it stiffened both enforcement and penalties for

Starting point is 01:50:08 retail crime. It allowed for the aggregation of theft value from different shoplifting incidents, meaning the value of items can be added up to turn what would be minor charges into grand theft. It also allows police to arrest shoplifters solely based on a witness's sworn statement or video footage of a crime. Again, surely nothing could go wrong with that. But the crackdown didn't stop there. In the 2024 general election, California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 36, which made key changes to how thefts are prosecuted. To Newsom's credit, he did not support the proposition. Prior to Prop 36, thefts of items worth less than $950 were considered misting.

Starting point is 01:50:49 demeanors. But now, if the individual has two or more past convictions for certain theft crimes, such as shoplifting, it could be considered a felony with a sentence of up to three years in jail or prison. San Diego's district attorney, Summer Steffen, really hyped up Prop 36 as an advancement in fighting organized retail crime. She actually went on the NRF's podcast, talk about this. Yes, they have a podcast. It's called Retail Gets Real. It's bad. Don't check it out. But here she is with the host having a little laugh about locking people up. So we used to have people with like 24 theft cases. They're all misdemeanors.

Starting point is 01:51:28 Some thieves bring a calculator and they're just under $950. Literally, it's madness, right? Is that a gun or a calculator? I'm not sure. Yeah, let's joke about mistaking someone for being armed in a store. It's not like that's ever gone poorly before. Anyways, what's missing from the analysis here is, how these laws harm people who aren't necessarily the intended target. A particularly striking example of how this could really fuck someone's life up comes from

Starting point is 01:51:58 Pennsylvania. In 2021, Joseph Sobuluski reportedly misunderstood a discount at an Exxon Gas Station and accidentally underpaid 43 cents for a bottle of Mountain Dew. Sobuluski had two theft charges in the past 10 years, one for a tank of gas and another for a pair of shoes. After the Mountain Dew incident, state police arrested him on a felony charge because of a three-strikes law in Pennsylvania, similar to what could happen with Prop 36. A judge ordered Sobuluski be held on a $50,000 cash-only bond, and he faced up to seven years in prison. Fortunately, his public defender successfully argued for his release after seven days, and prosecutors ultimately dismissed the charge. But it's easy to see how this could go wrong for another individual,

Starting point is 01:52:46 particularly minorities who face disproportionate punishment in our legal system. This style of legislation intended to target retail crimes spread like wildfire across the country. According to the text of the 2025 Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, more than 30 state laws have been enacted since 2022 to address organized theft. Common theme, stricter penalties, and policing. Here's how New York Governor Kathy Hochel put it in her 2024 state-of-the-state address. Let's back our businesses, back our businesses and the workers with the full force of the law, and punish those who think they can break the rules with impunity.

Starting point is 01:53:27 After all, policing and aggressive enforcement are the American way to deal with crime, rather than, I don't know, addressing the root causes, notably poverty and inequality. The pervasive tough-on-crime mentality doesn't have much evidence backing it up, but of course there is a wealth of research indicating flaws. For one, enforcement is heavily racialized, with black and brown people facing retail theft charges at significantly higher rates than whites. The very institute also highlights how increasing sentences as a deterrent doesn't actually work. A 2018 article from Pew Research says states can safely raise their value threshold for what counts as a felony theft without risking more crime. The 30 states that did so between 2000 and 2012 saw no meaningful increase in property crime or larceny rates.

Starting point is 01:54:14 In South Carolina, Pew found that when they doubled the felony threshold from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2010, property crime continued to fall by 15% in the next three years. Pew also found that the value of stolen goods remained steady, and when adjusted for inflation, the median value actually decreased. In essence, the state-level push for these three-strikes shoplifting laws and the aggregation of theft value won't meaningfully decrease crime. Rather, it will result in more people, particularly minorities, being locked up for longer sentences than being saddled with felony convictions that hurt their ability to get a job and obtain housing,

Starting point is 01:54:54 ultimately increasing the likelihood of committing crimes in the future. The nonprofit think tank prison policy initiative estimates $27.7 billion in annual direct costs of incarceration on individuals and families across the U.S. families pay in on bail, legal fees, civil asset forfeiture, commissary for loved ones, and more, often going straight to private prison operators. This also doesn't begin to factor in the impacts on children and local communities. The cost of incarceration on the state also needs to be factored in. The California Legislative Analyst Office estimates the annual cost of incarcerating one person in state prison

Starting point is 01:55:34 at $127,78, with massive spending to bolster. retail theft enforcement, this could create a compounding problem costing hundreds of millions. In July of 2025, D.A. Stephan wrote in congressional testimony supporting Corka that her office had prosecuted over 218 cases of organized retail crime in just two years. She says these cases involved theft losses of more than $2.6 million. Putting this into perspective, if even half of those prosecutions resulted in one-year sentences in California state prisons, you're looking at an estimate of nearly $14 million in incarceration costs, over five times the reported theft value. But these thoughts don't really seem to cross the mind of people like D.A. Stefan or our pals at the

Starting point is 01:56:24 N.R.F. This is an argument that drives me crazy, you know, the idea that they're stealing because they can't afford the food to put on the table, to feed their children. This is their sole job is to rip off your business. That's their love. That's how they wake up in the morning. And so we didn't want them to wake up as comfortably as they did before. With their calculator. They paint this image of people almost getting off on doing crime, rather than any number of more charitable explanations. At face value, it may just sound like typical high-minded BS from an aggressive DA and lobbyist, but obviously when you think about the position of power someone like Stefan is in, it's pretty sickening. In another section of the NRF podcast episode, they discuss people switching from drug dealing to selling stolen

Starting point is 01:57:11 merchandise because of lower penalties, generally glossing over the circumstances that might lead an individual into crime. Stefan even mentions the need to go after, quote, frontline boosters, the people who are being hired to go into stores and steal, who she admits are often homeless or poor. It's honestly maddening to listening to this, so that's the last quote I'm going to bring from that. Anyways, Here's some ads. So in the next episode, we're going to dive into the specifics of the Corka bill and how ICE has become a key player. But for now, I want to end on a note that ties together some of the broader consequences

Starting point is 01:57:55 of all this retail theft propaganda. Lobbyists for the bill have a common refrain, quote, organized retail crime is not a victimless crime, unquote. I think the same goes for their lobbying. Corka hasn't even passed the Senate, yet there may already be some downstream tragedies because of the intensified rhetoric around retail crime. In recent years and months, there have been a number of high-profile killings of individuals

Starting point is 01:58:19 accused of shoplifting by both shop owners and police. In June of this year, police shot and killed Cohen-Wiley, a one-year-old boy while responding to a shoplifting call in Senatobia, Mississippi, over allegedly stolen diapers. Police also shot his mother while her friend was driving their car. Authorities claim they tried to stop the vehicle

Starting point is 01:58:41 but the driver nearly hit an officer, a story we've unfortunately become far too familiar with at this point. Wiley's mother disputes that the diapers were even stolen in the first place and denies that her friend drove towards the officers. Obviously, it didn't matter to the trigger-happy cops on the scene who never should have pointed firearms at the vehicle in the first place. Other similar cases include the killing of Banco Brown, a black 24-year-old trans organizer in San Francisco

Starting point is 01:59:10 by a Walgreens security guard, and the killing of black 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack Belton by a shop owner in South Carolina. In Brown's case, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins, who ran on a tough-on-crime agenda, did not pursue charges against security guard Michael Earl Wayne Anthony, saying he acted in self-defense based on video footage. The video shows Brown and Anthony fighting,

Starting point is 01:59:35 as Brown apparently tried to leave the Walgreens without paying. They grapple on the ground for a minute, Then Anthony releases Brown, but follows him to the door. Brown stops just outside the store, possibly talking back to the guard. Then the guard pulls his gun and shoots Brown as he turns to run. Brown was unarmed, and in interviews following the shooting, Anthony repeatedly misgendered him. For Carmack Belton, his killer shop owner Cheekhe Rick Chow faced trial for murder, but was found not guilty. The thing is, Carmack Belton never actually stole anything, not even the water bottles Chow wrongly accused him of.

Starting point is 02:00:13 Prosecutors say Chow chased the teenager 130 yards outside the store before shooting him in the back. Prosecutors acknowledged that Carmack Belton had a pistol, but said that it fell on the ground in the chase. It seems based on the reporting that the only person who claims to have seen the pistol or had it pointed at him was Chow's son. I think all this just goes to show where we place property, even just a few water bottles, snacks, or diapers, relative to human life, especially those in black communities. There's a very clear irony that may reflect the types of enforcement we could see from Corka, tough on crime for the marginalized, not for those pulling the trigger. There's no easy way to determine whether political statements about retail crime have an effect on police or shop owners,

Starting point is 02:01:00 but it's not hard to imagine how a constant bombardment of propaganda could embolden someone to take matters into their own hands. The retail companies are complicit in this. Somehow they've managed to turn a manufacturer's story into a national security crisis where states grant hundreds of millions of dollars to protect corporations. Retailers blame consumers when they fail to hit desired profits, then they raise prices.

Starting point is 02:01:26 When that fails, they demonize the poor and rattle on about crime. Then they pilfer, our general funds and team up with the police to crack down. It's never enough. Now they've sucked in the federal government, and we could be on the verge of the next upgrade to ICE Terror, but that'll have to wait for the next episode. We'll see you tomorrow.

Starting point is 02:01:55 Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.

Starting point is 02:02:19 Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roer to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. in the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Starting point is 02:02:46 Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports.

Starting point is 02:03:01 Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,

Starting point is 02:03:21 but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea?

Starting point is 02:03:44 We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chryssel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Man, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song.

Starting point is 02:04:05 I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

Starting point is 02:04:34 We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves open. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own.

Starting point is 02:04:52 That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:05:07 I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. I haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. I'm worried.

Starting point is 02:05:16 Did you understand the movie? So down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game. I just really, I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen here. And our retail Thunderdome, I'm Kevin Foster. And today we're continuing our dive in.

Starting point is 02:05:43 to organized retail crime. In the last episode, I went over the multi-year propaganda campaign waged by the retail lobby to make organized retail crime into a national crisis, requiring stricter policing and penalties, and investment from all levels of government. I recommend listening to that episode before this one, but in short, huge swaths of politicians bought right in, spending hundreds of millions at the behest of retail giants,

Starting point is 02:06:09 despite a serious lack of evidence. I also touched on the advancements in surveillance at retail stores. Whether we see a rollout of AI-powered robots in the coming years may not matter so much, as many industry leaders are already implementing facial recognition technology and creating watch lists under the guise of loss prevention. And this surveillance dragnet is a key element in the rising concern around the combating organized retail crime act, or Corka, which passed the House of Representatives in May with resounding bipartisan support. In all likelihood, Corka will be signed into law, and today's

Starting point is 02:06:46 episode is about why that is very bad and how it's going to impact the American public, notably immigrants. Let's get right into it. The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act has remained in circulation for years, but to get it over the finish line, the retail lobby and supporters of the legislation ultimately found a new bogeyman, cargo theft. And this is how they've managed to turn a manufactured retail theft story into a national security problem that demands intervention by the Department of Homeland Security. In a nutshell, the cargo theft narrative has striking similarities to organized retail crime. The American Transportation Research Institute says there's between $1.8 billion and $6.5 billion in yearly losses because of cargo theft, but this includes

Starting point is 02:07:34 indirect costs, a measure of cost across the entire supply chain. In terms of the action, actual value of goods, CargoNet, a nationally coordinated database, placed total cargo theft losses at 725 million across the U.S. and Canada in 2025. Despite total physical losses being under a billion dollars, there have been more attempts to dramatically inflate the numbers. Phil Brink, the quote, head of fraud media and education, unquote, at Freight Waves, a trucking logistics and news company, estimated the total losses could actually be closer to 60 billion dollars because of underreporting of theft. No clear evidence is provided to back up this

Starting point is 02:08:16 assertion other than unnamed experts. If this sounds familiar, it's almost the exact same story as the National Retail Federation's fraudulent organized retail crime numbers, where they inflated their stats by an order of magnitude, mostly based on vibes. And while Cargo Theft did spike in 23, a funny little side note is that AI integration into logistics might be a big part of the problem. Reporting in the news outlet, the lever indicates that instead of modern-day highway robberies, cargo theft is beginning to look more like people simply impersonating trucking companies than fooling faulty new AI logistics systems, and once they're cleared by the AI, they can essentially just pick up the cargo and roll off. So between retail crime and cargo theft, we're essentially operating under two

Starting point is 02:09:02 manufactured crises, and yet here's the language in the combating organized retail crime act. Quote, organized theft groups impact the national security of the United States through financing transnational criminal activity and providing profit and proceeds supporting larger criminal goals of the criminal organizations, unquote. In other words, retail crime is now a national security threat, and it demands the influence of homeland security and ICE. Specifically, Corka calls for the establishment of a coordination center to combat organized retail and supply chain crime. The DHS secretary will establish the center, and it will be run by an individual chosen by the

Starting point is 02:09:43 director of ICE. Fantastic. In essence, this coordination center will be the hub for federal law enforcement activity and connections between the national and local level and the public and private sector. Obviously, ice deepening its involvement in our day-to-day lives is something to be concerned about, but here's where it's where it's. gets really crazy. The bill states, quote, in general, subject to the approval of the director of the center, information that would otherwise be subject to the limitation on the disclosure of confidential

Starting point is 02:10:14 information set forth in section 1905 of Title 18 United States Code may be shared if such disclosure is operationally necessary. Unquote. Putting the legalese aside, what this means in practice is that ICE can access confidential and proprietary data from retailers, and because operationally necessary is an extremely broad, undefined term, ICE is essentially given full discretion over what data they can collect. If anyone questions them, they'll likely just say we need to play it safe because organized retail crime is a matter of national security that could finance drug and weapons trafficking harming Americans. So that retail surveillance Dragnet I mentioned in part one, the AI facial recognition, the robots, the customer profiles,

Starting point is 02:11:02 they say can be leveraged to boost customer loyalty. Ice could potentially leverage that data in its immigration crackdown. Imagine a world where ICE knows who is going to which stores and when. No need for scanning license plates on the streets anymore. Now they can just look up your customer profile and head over to Walmart when you're doing your biweekly grocery run. Given what we've seen in the past year and a half, ICE will likely try to leverage this heavily. They already have facial recognition technology like the Mobile Fortify app, which, according to Vanderbilt University School of Law, is connected to a database of over 200 million images. The ACLU of Wisconsin states that you may already be in this database, as it's connected to

Starting point is 02:11:45 other databases containing federal biometric systems, passport and visa records, and state driver's license photos. A depressing little side note, some of this may have been preventable. For example, in Oregon, the state police are being sued for sharing data with ICE, even though they and our governor were warned by Congress members to close certain loopholes that gave ICE access to DMV records. Now, obviously, grocery stores present a significant vulnerability to maintaining our privacy due to basic human needs. Nothing is clearly stopping ICE from running face scans out of retail stores and creating a new front for their anti-immigrant crackdown. And there's already a blueprint for this. The ACLU published an article in January this year

Starting point is 02:12:30 about Wegmans using facial recognition and sharing data on, quote, persons of interest with law enforcement on a, quote, case-by-case basis. It's unclear how or if retail stores will challenge ICE's access in any way. As of now, many have been fully on board with the organized retail theft hype train. On the other hand, on May 11th of this year, a coalition of 40 civil rights organizations, including the Immigrant Defenders Law Center and the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys sent a letter to Congress, urging the House not to pass Corka, highlighting how it would massively expand DHS's role in authority in domestic law enforcement. And the issues don't end there. They also pointed out how Corka gives DHS influence over local and state law enforcement through the

Starting point is 02:13:19 ability to expand certain grant requirements. In effect, this coalition sees a pathway for DHS to push jurisdictions toward more intrusive data collection and surveillance, especially if that jurisdiction is receiving federal grants. Additionally, the coalition noted how the sunset provision for the Corka Coordination Center, quote, includes no requirement to dismantle data sharing systems, delete collected information, or reverse any entrenched surveillance practices, unquote. So these practices could very well be here to stay without some sort of intervention down the line. Good luck to us trying to get that. I think, as James put it in a conversation we had, it's like trying to convince a bunch of the HOA

Starting point is 02:14:01 moms that we need to be softer on retail crime. It just doesn't really seem like it's going to happen. And unfortunately, this coalition letter largely fell on deaf ears with only 59 Democrats and one Republican voting against Corka in the House. I've spoken with many people about this, and there's often this question of, like, do they know? And I'd argue it's their job to know. And this pill is pretty cut and dried power expansion for ice. It's kind of hard to tell how they wouldn't have seen this coming, especially with progressive groups warning them about it.

Starting point is 02:14:35 And by now, this coalition has grown to over 120 organizations urging the Senate not to pass Corka. In spite of this, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin have teamed up to add Corka as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 27. This would essentially just mean entrenching this into our defense policy, and if that happens, which seems somewhat likely, I suspect it's curtains and Corka is going through. I highly doubt that the Democrats are going to hold the line on the NDAA for something they clearly either don't care about or don't seem to understand. But what they might care about are the products and services that support this podcast. And we're back, and I'm imagining this is starting

Starting point is 02:15:31 to sound pretty frightening, and it is. To cool the temperature a bit, it's important to consider ICE's capacity for enforcement. They've had ways of accessing various surveillance tools for quite some time now. To some extent, they likely could have done some of this stuff with flock cameras or other automated license plate readers. But I think the threat in retail comes more from the pre-existing infrastructure and the fact that this bill seems to give ice sweeping access to confidential and proprietary information. Still, there are strategies for resisting this. I won't lie, many of them are time-intensive and require consistent community effort, but that's the world we're in. For example, in Hillsborough, Oregon, just west of Portland, local mutual aid groups began

Starting point is 02:16:15 delivering groceries to immigrant families who were afraid to go outside in the middle of Operation Black Groves, which was the massive ice surge last fall in winter. In Los Angeles last summer, similar groups set up community defense corners outside Home Depot parking lots in an attempt to protect day laborers from ice raids. These usually manifested as just pop-up tents with community members, water, and snacks. Certainly didn't stop everything, but I know one group in Pasadena that was allegedly the last Home Depot in L.A. to be raided, and they had a consistent community effort for months. In terms of shopping, avoiding loyalty programs may end up being necessary as this is one of the ways that we hand over a lot of our data to stores,

Starting point is 02:16:58 but shopping locally or at stores that collect less data will probably be the best bet. So Corka clearly has a number of ways that it could be abused by ICE, but to get the full extent of what we're dealing with, I got in contact with Laura Conover, who is the district attorney in Pima County, Arizona, which contains Tucson and borders the Mexican state of Sonora. contrary to DA Stefan featured in the first episode, Conover has actually been an outspoken opponent of Corka. In particular, she has tied Corka to the Lake and Riley Act, saying Congress is just compounding mistakes it already made. The Lake and Riley Act became law on January 29, 2025,

Starting point is 02:17:37 passing Congress again with a substantial amount of bipartisan support, greater than 60% in both chambers. It's a particularly abhorrent piece of legislation, as it, quote, requires DHS to detain certain non-U.S. nationals who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person, unquote. Notice how it says arrested, not charged, not convicted, but simply detained for one of the crimes listed, even if the individual didn't actually do anything wrong. The law also allows state.

Starting point is 02:18:17 to sue the federal government for alleged failures in immigration enforcement, meaning the federal government can effectively be held liable for a number of things, such as if an undocumented immigrant causes harm to state residents, including financial harm greater than $100. It's tough to say the extent to which this could be applied, but the throughline between this and Corka is pretty clear. ICE could monitor retail locations for thefts and shoplifting through Corka, then they're essentially liable if they don't seek to detain someone who has stolen more than a hundred dollars of worth of merchandise.

Starting point is 02:18:54 Conover has specific examples of the ways in which the Lake and Riley Act is burdening local jurisdictions, destroying due process protections, and ultimately how Corka will very likely make this worse. For example, it was Conover's job to prosecute the case of Jessica Corales-Duarte, who entered the U.S. when she was two years old with her mother who had fled domestic abuse in Mexico, and obtained legal status through the Violence Against Women Act. Corales Duarte became a DACA recipient, and she's now 32 or 33 based on the articles that I read, and she has two children, but in the past year, she was arrested and charged with shoplifting and theft, and her DACA status has been terminated.

Starting point is 02:19:34 She allegedly stole up to $5,700 in perfume from an Ulta beauty location over three days, which put her over the felony theft threshold, though this number is disputed by her defense. She had no prior criminal record, and Kanoversed said based on a taped confession, she likely would have qualified for a program where she could pay restitution and get back on her feet. Then ICE came in. They detained Corrales Duarte as she was leaving her home for her waitressing job. The ensuing months were a disaster. Ice held her at the Eloy detention center about an hour from Tucson

Starting point is 02:20:07 and blocked her from attending many of the court dates for her shoplifting case, according to an article in the Tucson spotlight. Here's DA Kanover on the situation. So, for example, in our case, the result was just defendants disappearing into federal custody. And before any normal process. So you've got a victim who's now totally out of luck for any kind of restoration, be that through probation or through restitution, which is important. You know, so victims' rights are violated.

Starting point is 02:20:46 The defendant, obviously, like, gets no due process. You know, in our experience, they hardly had any contact with their attorney, and their attorney was just rendered totally ineffective in the local court. So it confounds the entire normal criminal justice process. It's like the opposite of collaboration. So not only are Corales-Duerthes' rights violated on multiple levels, but it also actually hurts the property owner because they won't receive restitution if someone is deported. It's not clear whether Corales Duarte was involved in some sort of organized retail theft operation,

Starting point is 02:21:24 but I want to stress again that the people in such a situation who actually do the stealing, commonly referred to as boosters are often poor, homeless, or struggling in some way themselves. Many of you probably already know this, but undocumented people commit less crime overall than American citizens, an analysis by the National Institute of Justice using data from Texas between 2012 and 2018 found that undocumented immigrants had offending rates less than half of that of U.S.-born citizens. This is in spite of the fact that the U.S. makes it much harder for undocumented people to obtain good-paying jobs, which can drive people into poverty and, therefore, crime. And for all of this, Kanova informed me that Corales-Duarte appears to be in process for deportation away from her children.

Starting point is 02:22:10 They're just more effective and humane ways to deal with this, like the diversion programs mentioned, which don't need to involve the federal government. But instead, we're just giving more power to ICE. With Lake and Riley and with Corka, you're talking about such a street-level local issue where we have local police and prosecutors whose entire purpose is to prosecute local crime and to just give some random. federal agency authority over that, sweeping new authority of that, just doesn't make any sense operationally. Not to mention the particular agency is one in which there's bipartisan concern about how recklessly they're being managed. On the note of recklessness with the expansion of ISIS surveillance network comes greater concern over warrantless enforcement, constitutional violations and technological mistakes. The podcast Reveal reported

Starting point is 02:23:10 case of ICE scanning the face of a 23-year-old U.S. citizen purely on suspicion. And according to Innovation Law Lab, the same seems to have happened to a woman in Oregon, where ICE used a Palantir-developed platform called Elite, which, without a warrant, essentially, geo-fence is an area and creates targets with a, quote, immigration nexus, unquote. In this case, the mobile Fortify app returned two different incorrect names and images for the same woman. Still, ICE has told lawmakers it's a definitive measure of immigration status that effectively supersedes other evidence of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is also reported that facial recognition tech is less accurate on women than men,

Starting point is 02:23:57 black people, and other individuals with darker skin. This all gets much worse when you're not in a controlled environment where you can get a well-lit, straight-on shot of someone's face with no obstruction, certainly something that isn't going to happen under the floodlights of a grocery store entryway. So again, I can't really say to what extent ICE will actually integrate all of these technologies or what capacity they'll have for enforcement, but it seems like the worst case scenario could be a warrantless surveillance frenzy where they couldn't care less if they're detaining the right people.

Starting point is 02:24:29 I say the right people as in the individuals that they're actually targeting and I don't actually believe there is a right person to be detained. It's all bullshit. But as Corka also calls for local and federal collaboration, cops could very easily worsen this problem, and ICE can leverage the Lake and Riley Act to ramp up deportations. It's not good. But anyways, here's some ads.

Starting point is 02:24:53 And we're back. To round out this two-parter, I'd like to connect some of the dots from the first episode to Corka. To do so, I've chatted with James about a concept known as moral turpitude. Moral turpitude is a vaguely defined concept and there's lots of nebulous legal language surrounding it, but in essence it's a crime that is considered morally offensive and it's important to immigration law.

Starting point is 02:25:28 Notably included in this definition is larceny or theft. Any conviction for one of these crimes can render an immigrant either inadmissible or deportable. Here's some of the conversation that James and I had. Inadmissibility could be important for someone who is inside the United States. Let's say they call it, Ewee entered without inspection. That means coming into the United States, not through a port of entry, right? Let's say they went over the wall, under the wall, around the wall, through the river, through the desert, through the mountains, right?

Starting point is 02:25:57 There are many ways that people can enter without inspection. They could then be found inadmissible long after entering the United States because they hadn't been admitted, right? They just came in. Just imagine like you want to go to Disneyland. It's prohibitively expensive. over the fence, you were not admitted to Disneyland. Yeah. Right.

Starting point is 02:26:18 So if Disneyland found you, they would kick you out. Yeah. The issue here, let's say if someone has been in the United States for a number of years, but they are undocumented, if they are found guilty of a crime including moral turpitude, or convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, and the offense carries a maximum sentence of one year or more, and the person committed the offense within five. years after the date of admission, they are then deportable. Now, if they eweed, if they ended with that inspection, there are other reasons they could be deportable, right? Yeah. But I'd say somebody has a visa. The same is true with inadmissibility, right? So we recently had a Supreme Court ruling about admissibility with regards to permanent residents, which kind of brings them closer in line to visa holders. But admissibility doesn't just mean them giving you the visa. It could also, for example, impact you if you went somewhere else and returned to the United States, right? So

Starting point is 02:27:18 a crime involving moral turpitude could then render you inadmissible so you could be detained or not admitted to the United States when you came back. It's also important, I guess, to note that some diversion programs, state diversion programs, don't count as a conviction in terms of federal immigration law if a guilty plea is not entered. So if somebody, who could previously have got into a diversion program ends up not in a diversion program. In addition to Corka, right, we have all these state sentencing enhancements.

Starting point is 02:27:54 Yeah. We see in California, right? If that person ends up with a conviction, instead of being put in a diversion program without entering a plea, that is a night and day difference in immigration terms, right? It's black and white.

Starting point is 02:28:08 One is a conviction for what is probably a crime involving moral turpitude because larceny is a crime involving moral turpitude and I think that's what this generally falls under right. Yeah, again, not a lawyer. But like, if that is the case, one of these sentencing enhancements at a state level results in somebody now having, for federal immigration terms, a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude, they are now inadmissible. And in a single conviction, as I said before, can make a non-citizen deportable if it has a possible sentence

Starting point is 02:28:40 for a year or more, which these sentencing enhancements make a lot more. likely, right? Yeah. And good luck, I guess, trying to find some way of getting that conviction overturned or like, you know, now you're fighting against all this lobbying that retailers are doing, right? And all this propaganda that has been put out there that it's going to make it harder and harder for people to avoid those convictions in the first place and then to get them overturned. Yeah. I don't want to get like too doom and gloom about it. But like, do you worry that there's just a combination of factors here that could massively worsen things with the level. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:29:15 Yeah. Like every time we make a new law, we're giving a new power of the state, right? And every single law is backed up by violence. The matter of it's a parking ticket or murder, right? The state can lock you up, beat you up, or shoot you up. That is the basis on which all laws rest, right? So you don't pick a parking ticket, then you don't go to court. Eventually someone's going to turn up at your door and it's going to be a person with a gun, right?

Starting point is 02:29:39 that is the structure on which the state exists to use the crass, verbarian definition of the state, I guess. This is a big one, right? We are handing a bunch of tools here to an entity which is tearing families apart, which is ripping children from parents, which is taking grandmothers away from their grandchildren, right? Yeah. I mean, what do you, maybe this isn't for the episode,

Starting point is 02:30:08 But like, what do you think people should do? Yeah, like, the answer to this is the same as the answer to everything. It's stronger communities. Like, people steal things because they need to meet their material needs. I'm sure some people also enjoy stealing stuff, right? That's the thing that exists. But the vast majority of theft is happening because people are not meeting their material needs. We need to work out a way to meet each other's material needs.

Starting point is 02:30:31 And, like, I was in Minneapolis in January, right? Yeah. Very hard for me to be hungry in Minneapolis. in January. Like, I'm vegan. I'm annoying to feed, right? But people would constantly bring me fucking food and hot tea and like, that's not that be all and end all, but guess it's a long way there? Like, if your neighbors aren't hungry, and I guess to know if your neighbors are hungry, you have to know who your neighbors are, right? So like, start by knocking on someone's door, you know, start by, hey, your truck's not working. Let's work it out. I bet I can find a YouTube

Starting point is 02:31:08 video we can watch and if you have a bunch of sockets, let's see if we can fix it. So I know the ending of this is sort of bleak, but I just want to be honest with you about the possibilities. If ISIS to take Corka as far as they can, as DA Kanover told me, you give them an inch and they take a mile, then this will get very bad. Surveillance capitalism isn't going to draw a line at immigrants, but that doesn't really matter either way. Clearly, the Democratic Party, given their votes, support is not going to stop this. As James said, it's going to come down to community. So go find your co-op grocery store, get to know your neighbor's faces before ICE gets to know your face at the grocery store.

Starting point is 02:31:48 Thanks for listening. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all?

Starting point is 02:32:16 It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks?

Starting point is 02:32:36 Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all. All week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka, showing out, she beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi.

Starting point is 02:32:55 You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans.

Starting point is 02:33:14 Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us or rather you know them. Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

Starting point is 02:33:44 How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk. about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guestrars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo, rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

Starting point is 02:34:18 podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stillard. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right?

Starting point is 02:34:44 What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of. technology. Danny McBride. He loves Mouthing. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie.

Starting point is 02:35:04 Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. Why are you telling you so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game?

Starting point is 02:35:27 I just really, I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There were some strange-looking people at the R&C. This is It Could Happen here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, The Crumbling World, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Robert Evans and Mia Wong, with a special segment later on by James Stout, who is on the ground in Spokane. This episode, we're covering the week of July 29th to August 5th, and let's actually start with James reporting from the wildfires in Spokane.

Starting point is 02:36:13 Hi, everyone, it's James. I'm in Washington State this week covering the fires here. I will cover fire more in depth on my new show. Natural courses, which you will soon be able to download wherever quality podcasts given away for free. But I want to catch everyone up on the fires here, so now a lot of folks prefer to consume their news this way and might otherwise not be aware of what's going on. So on the 1st of August, the National Weather Service in each from Washington and in Idaho issued a PDS, a particularly dangerous situation notice. Fires were already burning across much as a state

Starting point is 02:36:46 and across much of the Pacific Northwest, including on the land of the Colville tribes and the Spokane tribe. On Saturday, three fires struck near the north part of the city of Spokane. The PDS doubtless helped some folks repair. Other folks, I'm sure, will have missed it entirely. Very quickly, people went from nothing to level three go now warnings. This was somewhat compounded by things like a large travel volleyball tournament happening in an area which got a level three go now warning. What that means, if you're not familiar, there are three levels of warnings when you are evacuated for a fire, and that level three is the most severe one, that being like, you have to leave your home right now. Several people have related to me,

Starting point is 02:37:29 and I want to caveat here that I'm not being critical of the response, which has actually been very good. I'm giving information because more people are going to find themselves in this situation in the future, and I think it's important that people understand that the level three warning that buzzed on people's phones and the emergency alert came not very long before they saw fires and even structures on fire in their neighborhood, right? I think people sometimes think that like someone will come and tell you when it's your time to leave. That's not always going to be possible, right? And again, I'm not conveying that to say that like the response here was poor. I'm conveying that to say that people need to understand this because we're all going to have

Starting point is 02:38:07 to live with fire in the West because there has always been fire here. The climate is changing and we are pushing our homes further and further into the wildland urban interface. And that is where this fire began, right? On Saturday, the state was a tinderbox and it was these neighborhoods along the wildland urban interface that caught the brunt of these fast-moving fires that found a plentiful source of fuel and were pushed along by the wind. Currently about a third of the 200,000 people who live here in Spokane have been placed under evacuations orders.

Starting point is 02:38:38 And the community is obviously filling the way of that, along with the hundreds of people who lost their homes and all their possessions here. Notable points of the evacuations included buses, evacuating people from old folks' homes, and a VA hospital was also evacuated by buses. And of course, many people left their homes in their cars with their possessions, their pets, their families, etc. And of course, that resulted in very slow-moving traffic. Nonetheless, from what I heard this morning, seems everyone evacuated in time, at least to save themselves. I know many people will be dealing with tragedies, right? They've lost their homes. People will have lost pets, people will have lost things that are incredibly important to them, right?

Starting point is 02:39:17 I spoke to people out on the Colville Tribes Reservation who were saying they had lost homes that their father, mother, grandparents built with their hands, right? These intergenerational homes that had gone. That is absolutely tragic. I want to give an update that I got this morning from a public information officer of the IMT that's managing this fire. So we'll drop that in right now. My name's Tom Stokesbury. I'm the lead public information officer for California

Starting point is 02:39:45 Interagency Incident Management Team 7. So right now there's three fires that make up the Spokane area fires. That's going to be the Fairview Fire, the Old Trails Fire, and the Autumn Lane fire. Currently, all totaled in the acres, it's 10,540. But over the last 24 hours, our firefighters have made tremendous progress in putting control lines in around the entire perimeter of all three fires. Now that doesn't mean the fires contained or controlled. We just have those management and control lines there. Still have an active firefight. So have active flames in the interior to the point on the old trails and Fairview Fire.

Starting point is 02:40:21 We actually had a spot outside the line on each one of those that went to about an acre, acre and a half. But we had the resources in the right place and they were able to pick those up at about one acre each. So that just kind of proves that there's still active heat, hot spots in this interior. and that's why we have engines in all three of these fires still protecting the structures that have not been impacted yet because any kind of wind can throw embers and right now the receptive fuels in this area and by fuels i mean the vegetation that is so dry right your grass your brush it's very receptive to those those embers proof being as the two spot fires but we have 1300 firefighters here we're expected to be over 2,000 by the end of the week I also asked about the number of structures impacted and when people here can expect to return home

Starting point is 02:41:09 and here's what Tom said. Right now we're well over 700 structures that have been impacted. We do have damage assessment personnel ordered and en route. It's my understanding they'll be showing up today and we'll have them on the ground tomorrow. So we're going to start to get a more accurate number of what those impacted structures look like versus a total loss to just an impacted structure. And those structures include not only people's personal homes but garages, outbuildings, sheds, but we're going to get a better accurate number on those over these next few days,

Starting point is 02:41:37 trying to get these communities back to where we can get them repopulated. But in addition to that, there's a tremendous amount of hazmat in there. We're talking burn solar panels. We're talking LPG possible gas leaks, the building materials from homes that have been burned, the stuff that's inside those homes. There is a lot of hazmat. So we have to ensure the public is going to be safe before we repopulate and let them back in there. Because our ultimate goal is life first, then property.

Starting point is 02:42:03 And that life is not just firefighters, it's just the public safety too. While I was at the Firebase camp, I also ran into local community members and businesses who were helping out. People were constantly dropping off food and snacks and supplies. Here's one local business owner who explained his efforts to me. So my name is Tim Kodzzi. I'm with JK Boots. I'm one of the owners with my brother and dad. I asked him what him and his company were doing to support the community.

Starting point is 02:42:31 On Wednesday, August 5th, we're doing. something called Homefront Day. We're going to donate 100% of all the profits of that day to the Spokane residents who lost their homes. So they could do that. They could participate. Just go on our website and just do something. Just get something and that'll go to those people.

Starting point is 02:42:46 The other things you can do is you can come here and you can offer to drop off, you know, again, drinks, wipes, essentials. You can look on Facebook. They've posted those things. The other big thing is just there's other funds that are set up that have like meal trains because there's about 60,000 people that are still not able to go back to their. homes.

Starting point is 02:43:05 What's happening in Spokane is tragic, and it is going to impact this community for years to come. It will take a very long time for rebuilding to happen, and probably even longer for people to heal emotionally. I want to make sure that we do not overlook the several large ongoing fires that are impacting the indigenous communities around the city, though, because as resources shift to the fires that burn the city, these communities will see fewer resources, and indeed they already have seen fewer resources. I spent the last couple of days visiting the Colville Tribes Reservation,

Starting point is 02:43:38 Spokane Tribe Reservations. Today I spoke to folks who would cut their own fire lines around their homes and communities who were repaired to fight the fire. And indigenous people here have lived with fire for thousands of years, right? They have a deep understanding of fire and people that had decided to stay and to defend their communities, even in areas that were impacted by level three evacuations. Not everybody read some people who were more vulnerable, some people who were not able to pass his bait in that response or didn't feel safe doing so left and the folks stayed. As resources continue to be diverted to fight these fires in Spokane and as news coverage will continue to centre on the city, folks who lost their homes out in these tribal communities will also need

Starting point is 02:44:21 help and it might be harder for them to find it. Some of these people are still in their homes. Just today I spoke to several people who were determined to do their hard. us to save their homes and hoping that the wind doesn't pick up. They're cutting their own fire lines in several cases, forestry and mining workers, as well as tribal community members who were on contract fire crews have been using their machinery and their skills to clear space and create better firebreaks around their communities. It's a really tragic and difficult situation, especially when combined with this reporting that I will link to of Red Cross volunteers making racist remarks at shelters that made indigenous folks feel unwelcome there.

Starting point is 02:44:57 I don't think I need to repeat those, but I will link to the story if you'd like to read it. It is also, of course, amazing to see the strengths and resilience of communities coming together to take care of one another in these tragic situations. I particularly want to highlight the work of the River Warriors Society. I spent today with them moving supplies from one reservation to another. I will include a link to the Spokane Tribal Network, which people can use if they'd like to donate to support that mutual aid work. They're really doing excellent work. They're getting people what they need. they're filling those gaps, they're moving more quickly than big organizations of big government

Starting point is 02:45:32 things can, even tribal governments where it will require paperwork, whereas what they're doing is literally standing at gas stations using cards to pay for people's gas. So they can get where they need to go, right? Getting people hotel rooms, getting people food, getting people the things they need to get through this and to begin healing. Today I help load hundreds of pounds of pet food and animal food into a lot. a trailer, for instance, so that people who need to feed their animals don't have to drive for hours away from their homes, right when the risk of fire is high and they want to

Starting point is 02:46:05 stay home and do what they can to protect their homes. They're really doing excellent work, and I would encourage you to support them if you have the resources. I will have more of this when I get home, currently really tired, I smell like a campfire, and I am in the bathroom of a motel because it is the only quiet place I could find. If you'd like to donate, I would suggest the Spokane Tribal Network. I'm going to include the web address. It's Spokane Tribal Network.org. Not hard to find.

Starting point is 02:46:32 I will also include the Inovia Foundation webpage for donation to folks in Spokane and their ongoing recovery. And yeah, I have more on this soon. Hey, everyone is James again. Just a little pick-up here that I wanted to add. Someone has been arrested for arson in connection with the Autumn Trails Fire.

Starting point is 02:46:51 I want to remind everyone that an arrest is not a conviction. There were three fires that impacted Spokane and that fire needs more than ignition, right, to spread in the way that it did here. It needs fuel, crucially, in this example. And that fuel was already there, right? That's why I wanted to highlight the PDS that was issued on the 1st of August. Now, I also want to address these conspiracy theories, right? The most common conspiracy theory seems to be that this was an attempt by the big data center companies to clear a block of land in order to have a place where they could put a data center. I can tell you that I've spent the last two days driving hundreds of miles around

Starting point is 02:47:37 eastern Washington. There is plenty of land where you could put a data center here without burning down a neighborhood. Data centers are bad. They are destroying so many beautiful places and so many wonderful things. It doesn't mean that they are comic books. evil all the time. I think we need to inject a little rational thought here. We don't have any evidence that it was a data centre. If we did, then people would be presenting it, but the data centre hypothesis seems to rest on. People want to build the data centre near here, therefore burn down neighbourhoods, or the relatively common and frequently recurrent 15-minute cities conspiracy theory, which suggests that rather than 15-minute cities being an aspirational goal for urban planning

Starting point is 02:48:26 and a framework around which you consider permitting, building, and potentially growing our cities, they are some kind of George Soros mandated dictate that is now being enforced by burning people's neighborhoods down in suburban areas. Again, no evidence to support that other than this wasn't a city that, you know, the 15-minute city people consider to be a 15-minute city. city. I want to address these things because they come up every single time there's a fire. And I think we need, and we're going to talk about this more in my show, Natural Causes, which you can hear from the 17th of August, wherever good podcast is given away for free. There are going to be fires in this ecosystem forever. There have been fires since there have been plants to burn.

Starting point is 02:49:11 Lightning started fires before people ever did. But the people who have been here for tens of thousands of years have lived alongside fire for all that time. We can't entirely suppress fire and remove it from our landscape. This landscape needs fire and it evolved, co-evolved with fire. But there are ways that we can prevent fire from doing what happened today, but they require a lot of effort, they require a lot of resources, and they require some rethinking of how we live alongside fire. That's something I'd like to approach later and in more detail, but I guess I just want to to address these conspiracy theories because I see more and more of them. I also want to point out that there is no meaningful restitution

Starting point is 02:49:53 to be extracted from one person if that person did start the fire. Healing doesn't come from punishing someone. It comes from helping someone. And in this situation, there are hundreds of families who lost their homes, both on the Kovil Tribes Reservation, the Spokane Tribe Reservation, and here in Spokane City. I think the focus should be on how to help those people and how to help them heal rather than

Starting point is 02:50:17 blaming one person who may have started this fire, who may not, right? We haven't got a conviction yet, but either way, I want people to remember that this is about a lot more than one person. Thank you, James. In other news, on Monday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking New York's ban on ICE agents wearing masks. New York State is suing to shut down Kalshi for operating as an unregulated sports betting platform that offers illegal underage gambling. The state is also seeking $36 billion and penalties. And this lawsuit comes after a district court ruled against Kalshi

Starting point is 02:51:00 in their bid to protect itself from the enforcement of New York's gambling laws. Prior to this lawsuit from the state, Kalshi attempted to bribe Governor Kathy Hokel by offering $10 billion in tax revenue over five years. The governor responded on X-The-E everything app, Quote, Cal She can promise 100% of his revenue. You can't buy yourself an exemption from New York law. If an illegal bookie offers the state a share of their profits, will still shut them down, unquote.

Starting point is 02:51:31 In response to a lawsuit from Trump accusing Capital One of unlawfully closing his bank accounts for political reasons, Capital One is revealed in court filings that the Trump Organization bank accounts were closed in 2021 for quote-unquote, anti-money laundering reasons. Following, quote, months of analysis and careful review by the bank's money laundering team. A few months prior to the closure of Trump's accounts, Capital One had to pay a $390 million penalty to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for not enforcing an effective

Starting point is 02:52:05 anti-money laundering program. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's Senate confirmation hearing is coming up. But last week, President Trump said he would keep Blanche on, and as acting attorney general if Blanche doesn't get confirmed and just try to nominate him again after the midterms. The U.S. attorney has dropped charges against three people who were accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The motion to dismiss the felony charge against the former Olympic athlete claims that it wasn't until after he was indicted

Starting point is 02:52:41 that the Department of Interior gave evidence over to prosecutors that, quote, damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in July 26 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day, 2026. The motion also states, quote, is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the reflecting pool to vandalism, unquote. Of course, Trump was not too happy about this,

Starting point is 02:53:13 turning to truth social to say, I disagree 100% with the Chenine Piro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia on the reflecting pool. I don't know what she was thinking. To me, it was a pure case of vandalism, in all caps. That includes the grass, which had a big 8647 emblazoned in giant letters on it. Oh, my God. And many other elements of the surrounding area.

Starting point is 02:53:40 Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals, President D.JT. The president later said that Piro, quote, unquote, folded like an umbrella, and quote, frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious, unquote. There was some speculation that he might fire the U.S. attorney that has not happened as of yet,

Starting point is 02:54:08 but who knows? You know, it's the Trump administration. things could have changed by the time we finish recording this. Yeah. There's like a 30% chance things will have changed by the time we finished recording this. Obviously, it's good that these charges were dropped. It was very clear that the damage to the reflecting pool was not done by Vandals. No, and that fucking late middle-aged former Olympian,

Starting point is 02:54:31 bending briefly down to touch the water did not cause 150 foot cut in the fucking... In the center of the pool. Absolutely not. God. Ohio house rep Max Miller, who is accused of abuse and breaking his two-year-old daughter's collarbone, which we covered last week,

Starting point is 02:54:50 posted a video this week addressing the allegations made by his ex-wife, saying, quote, if I had assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later? Unquote. The next day, Trump was questioned about Miller and said this.

Starting point is 02:55:06 It's a very sad thing. I know Max, he's, uh, It's a good person. I mean, I always thought he was a very good person. And I'm going to let the families figure that out. You know, those families, I know they're working on it. It's a very sad thing, especially when you know somebody so well to be going through that. But it's accusations.

Starting point is 02:55:27 And I'm going to let them figure that out. On Tuesday, it was announced the House Ethics Committee would open an investigation after Miller himself requested a probe into the allegations. Let's go to an ad break and then return to talk about the primary elections in Michigan and Missouri. Yeah. Okay, we are back. This past Tuesday, left-wing populist candidate Abdul El-Said beat corporate-backed and APAC-backed candidate, Haley Stevens, in the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. In the week prior to the election, polling and showed El-Said pulling way ahead by W. digits. But come election night, he won by just one point, 48.5% to Stevens, 47.5%. Very close race.

Starting point is 02:56:29 Great. The more traditional progressive candidate, Mallory McMorrow, who suspended her campaign months ago, got 4% of the vote, over 60,000 votes. El-Said ended up winning by just 15,000 votes. But the fact that Tuesday wasn't a total blowout for El-Said, should not take away from the magnitude of this victory. Haley Stevens had nearly $70 million of outside spending, helping her in this race, about half of which came from A-PAC. El-Said was outspent 11 to 1.

Starting point is 02:57:03 For the past month, pro-Stevens' ads have completely dominated the airwaves. Jesus, I didn't know it was that big a discrepancy in funding. That's crazy. It's brutal. This is the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history. APAC and Dark Money really rallied for Stevens, especially in this past month. Whoops. Some of those ads and mailers just completely blanketing Michigan falsely implied that Stevens was endorsed by Barack Obama,

Starting point is 02:57:31 which some voters cited as their reason for supporting Stevens. Other ads tried to smear Abdul as a sexist podcast bro for comments critical of Michelle Obama and Gretchen Whitmer's politics. Stevens received the endorsement of Michigan's sitting governor, Gretchen Whitmer, as well as multiple Democratic establishment figures, Pelosi, Jim Clyburn, as well as the Michigan Democratic Party, black and Jewish caucuses. Israel and Palestine became a central issue in this race. In the last two debates, Abdul hit Stevens again and again over APAC and corporate funding.

Starting point is 02:58:07 In the final debate, even the moderator questioned Stevens on whether her APAC funding would influence how she votes in Congress. Also in that last debate, Stevens lied on stage about taking money from utility companies. In an interview just a week before the election, Stevens addressed the attacks over dark money funding. Quote, It seems like we got the campaign finance Zumi's.

Starting point is 02:58:31 Jesus Christ. We've got to be really honest here. Who's benefiting from this level of infighting? It's the Republicans who've already have all their dark money all lined up and ready to get. go. Unquote. Let's take a listen to what those campaign finance Zumi's can buy you in the Senate. Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future and I know that Israel will continue to exist for the Jewish people. Just the Zumis. It's fine, everyone. It's the Zumis.

Starting point is 02:59:03 God. Jesus Christ. I will not stop playing that clip because it's one of the craziest things to have a then sitting congressperson say. Yeah. Now, Haley Stevens tried to attack Abdul for having a super pack of his own, primarily funded by his father-in-law, who did donate $300,000 to the pack, which was the highest individual contribution. You know, $300,000 from his father-in-law versus $70 million of outside spending. Jesus Christ. Not a very compelling argument, but that was one of the main things that Stevens tried to hit Abdul on during the last two debates when he brought up the massive amount of APAC spending backing her campaign.

Starting point is 02:59:48 Abdul has worked in public health since 2015, and for Senate, he ran on Medicare for all and abolishing medical debt, which he did for 300,000 residents of Wayne County in 2024 as director of the county health department. His platform also includes repealing Medicaid cuts from Trump's quote-unquote beautiful bill, codifying reproductive rights and protecting gender affirming care. His quote-unquote money out of politics plank includes getting rid of Citizens United to stop dark money packs, ending partisan gerrymandering, supporting Supreme Court reform, getting rid of the filibuster, abolishing ice, and that, quote, ICE funds should be repurposed to build out the

Starting point is 03:00:25 legal infrastructure of courts to create a clear pathway to citizenship for those who are stuck in limbo in our current system, unquote. Abdul supports Ukraine and opposes, quote, the illegal and unjustifiable war in Iran. He also opposes, quote, direct blank check funding to foreign militaries, including Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others, unquote. And he supports an immediate arms embargo on Israel and rejects, quote, the false differentiation between offensive and defensive weapons, unquote, which is a reference to the Iron Dome. His money-in-your-pocket platform includes an anti-monopoly FTC, trade agreements negotiated with unions, restoring funding to the NIH, opposing private school vouchers, tying increases in the defense budget to an equal increase in education funding,

Starting point is 03:01:17 taxing capital gains over a million dollars at the same rate as ordinary income, closing loopholes used by the ultra-wealthy raising the marginal tax rate on earnings over $1 million, and a billionaire tax. He also supports a cost of living exemption on federal taxes up to $50,000, and closing the Social Security payroll tax cap. for housing his platform aims to streamline local regulations to make it easier to build, while banning large corporations that speculate on housing stock from owning homes and supporting legislation to ban algorithmic rental price-fixing software.

Starting point is 03:01:52 LSAID supports regulating AI companies, creating an independent technical agency with real enforcement power for AI, which he cites the FDA as an example, but having basically an FDA-type organization to regulate and handle AI. He also is in support of federal zoning guidelines and legislation to protect communities from the consequences of data centers. In a primary debate, El-Said said that data center projects must meet the following terms. Quote, all union labor, no raising our utility rates, increasing our utility reliability, not touching our water, and there's got to be a community benefits agreement that's negotiated in good faith with all the money put into escrow, unquote.

Starting point is 03:02:34 El-Said is not a DSA candidate. He does not call himself a socialist, but he was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and campaigned with Hassan Piker. He's also been backed by the UAW, National Nurses United, the Working Families Party, Jewish Voice for Peace, and if not now. A few days before the primary, but after polling indicated that Abdul would likely be the nominee. incumbent Republican Senator Mike Rogers released an AI-generated ad depicting Abdul as a communist Trojan horse. Let's take a listen. They'll never see us coming. They really think we're just Democrats. God.

Starting point is 03:03:18 Jesus Christ. Every AI ad, I hear Jeff Goldblum's fucking voice say you were so obsessed with whether or not you could you didn't stop to think, you know, should we? Is this a good idea? Is this ad going to work? So basically this ad has a Trojan horse rolling into Michigan with a large banner reading definitely not communism. Inside the horse, Abdul is dressed as Odysseus from the Nolan movie, along with Bernie Sanders, AOC, and So on Mamdani. Text at the end reads, Don't let communism into Michigan. Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate. I think Mike Rogers should

Starting point is 03:03:57 keep releasing ads just like this. Nothing else. I wanted him just to keep releasing these ads. I think that'll be great. Yeah. Rogers did release a statement after Abdul's victory. Quote, I spent years hunting terrorists

Starting point is 03:04:12 and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9-11, unquote. Abdul has never said that, obviously. And I also think that this is a example of just the sheer level of racism that has defined this campaign. And we also saw versions of this with Mamdani,

Starting point is 03:04:34 but just the unhinged amount of Islamophobia that has been leveled against Aeed is really, really disturbing. And it's going to get worse. Yeah, it's going to get so much worse. Yeah. But it's also like, this is an example of Islamophobia from the Republicans, for the Democrats, have been doing it too. And it's, yeah, extremely bleak,

Starting point is 03:04:53 the extent to which this is just a thing you can do running a political campaign. Yeah. It's interesting because it isn't entirely, at least lately, to their benefit either. Like, it recently really screwed them over in another Michigan race, right? Like Michigan's eighth district, the Republican primary between Thomas J. Smith, Amir Hassan, and Al-Limmo. Thomas Smith took ahead, even though he had, like, suspended his campaign previously, like more than a month ago. Amir Hassan had been endorsed by Trump and is not a Muslim, but has a name that kind of sounds like he would be, like, to a race. And so, like, at least that's the suspicion as to why Hassan did not do better against someone who was not actively running. Yeah, was not campaign. A lot of anger on truth social by MAGA people who thought that Trump had endorsed a Muslim. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, I mean, like the level of bigotry is off the chart. It's interesting that it doesn't seem to, or at least in this case, it torpedoed a Republican but not a Democrat, which I do think is kind of fun.

Starting point is 03:05:55 But yeah, the overall trend is very much not fun. On a similar sort of note, last week, the Michigan State AG Dana Nessel announced at an ADL, quote-unquote, anti-Semitism roundtable that she would not be attending the Michigan nominating convention for their Democratic nominee over fears of being booed for working with Trump and Cash Patel's FBI to indict pro-Palestine student protesters in June. I'm not going to be attending the non-leading convention for the Michigan Democratic Party in August and that is because I don't feel safe going. I feel like my presence is not going to be welcomed. I don't want to get chased around. I don't want to get harassed. I don't want to get yelled and scream at and I don't want to get booed off the stage irrespective of what I'm saying and I believe that if I go that is what will happen because it's been happening to me.

Starting point is 03:06:55 Get fucked. Fuck you. Which good, like you are, you are by definition a collaborator for having participated in this. That is like the absolute bare minimum of accountability that you should be facing is that you should be booed every single place you go to. Her office has tried for years to go after pro-Palestan protesters and has been forced to drop charges because her office was specifically discriminatory. And she only got her way via teaming up with. the Trump admin and Cash Patel's FBI to go after student protesters. This is something she's been trying to do for literal years and has been unable to because her office is too racist.

Starting point is 03:07:36 Yeah. And again, also, like, student protesters were horribly brutalized by the police repeatedly as I think most people who listen to this remember to some extent. But yeah. Also in Michigan, DSA endorsed Rashida Talib handily won her re-election in the District 12, primary with 74% of the vote. Also, in Michigan, left-wing populist and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, William Lawrence, won the Democratic primary for House District 7 with about 56,000 votes. Two more kind of moderate candidates, each got 35,000 votes. So there is a sort of moderate split here. Lawrence will now be facing the Republican incumbent Tom Barrett, who won by just four points in 2024.

Starting point is 03:08:27 There's 226,000 votes to 209,000 votes. So this could end up being a close race. It really depends on voter turnout. Yeah. Lawrence is a member of DSA, but is not DSA endorsed. Though he does have the endorsement of Sanders, El-Said, Rashida Talib, Rochana, the Nurses Union, Working Families Party, and Track A-PAC.

Starting point is 03:08:48 Quick update here, Lawrence went on CNN Wednesday night to clarify that, while he used to be a member of DSA, he let his membership lapse last month. In the weeks before the election, Lawrence was attacked by the Democratic establishment and the Congressional Black Caucus for being, quote, unquote, racist

Starting point is 03:09:07 because of a quote from a podcast conversation on Black Liberation and Black anti-war activism with an activist named Hoorie Peterson Smith. I'll read the full quote here that was clipped and spread around, mainly by Huff Post, quote, the extent to which the older generation of black political leadership are such a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power through their role as this kind of traditionalist

Starting point is 03:09:32 establishmentist pillar of the Democratic Party, it's a big problem. It's a big problem for left politics in this country, and it gets us every single time. It really defangs the white left and puts us in impossible positions, really, unquote. William Lawrence told Huff Post, quote, I have tremendous respect for black community leaders who have been at the forefront of the fight for freedom for centuries. This was in the context of a wide-ranging conversation with a guest on the show about racial dynamics in progressive politics. I regret how this specific point was expressed, unquote. And yes, absolutely. There is no reason to say the white left there specifically. This harms the entire left. There's really no reason to say that this is part of a larger conversation in this podcast he was having about racial

Starting point is 03:10:20 in like left-wing spaces, but I think that is a bad thing to say. Lawrence added to his statement online, quote, The way I made this point was clumsy, and I regret my choice of words. I understand the potential impact when received out of context. The way the stories being reported does not reflect my beliefs. National elected leaders across race, ethnicity, age, and gender have been supporters of unnecessary U.S. wars. This poses a challenge to the anti-war movement.

Starting point is 03:10:48 Americans of all races and ages must work together to advance peace. Until we do, our resources will go to funding war and genocide abroad rather than investing in affordable housing and health care or closing the racial wealth gap, unquote. DSA candidate Donovan McKinney beat Democratic incumbent Sri Tanedar by almost 4%, about 4,000 votes in House District 13, another close race. It was looking like Sri might pull ahead earlier in the night. but Donovan did end up winning, and will now likely become another DSA congressman. Tanadar was backed by APEC, Hakeem Jeffries, the Congressional Progressive Caucus,

Starting point is 03:11:30 and the center-left New Democrat Coalition. But it's not all wins in Michigan. Kyle Blomquist, another DSA candidate for Congress in Michigan House District 1, lost to moderate Kaley Barr, who will now face the Republican incumbent in the general. And DSA endorsed Asia Faruqi lost to pro-Israel Democrat Jeffrey Moss for Haley Stevens' house seat. So those are the two main losses for DSA last Tuesday, both U.S. house seats in Michigan. Though I think it is interesting to note that Detroit is now the only major city in the country to be fully represented in the U.S. House by DSA candidates.

Starting point is 03:12:15 And two DSA candidates for the Michigan State House also won their primaries. In Missouri, Corey Bush lost her comeback bid to incumbent Wesley Bell, who was backed by APEC and was also really, really outspent. And the Kansas City DSA endorsed candidate Herzl Gray lost his primary for House District 4 by just under 2,000 votes. very close race. So lots of wins, some losses, but even just El-Said winning is probably the biggest blow to A-PAC that we've seen yet. Like I said, this is the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history in a state with open primaries where tens of millions of dollars in ad spending can go really far in rural areas and with older low-info voters. A left-wing Muslim candidate overcoming both A-PAC and the Democratic establishment in a swing state,

Starting point is 03:13:12 is a massive victory. I have one final little election update for the gubernatorial race in Ohio. Oh, God. Because in late July, Republican nominee for governor, Vivek Ramoswamy, spoke or tried to speak

Starting point is 03:13:31 at the Young Americans for Liberty National Convention, an annual Ron Paul-esque convention for young libertarian conservatives at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ramoswamy's speaking block was for 30 minutes. He lasted 14 before being booed off stage. Let's take a lesson. The truth of the matter is, you know, no matter what happens in whichever direction we go.

Starting point is 03:13:53 People my generation have already made it, we're going to be fine. It's going to be your generation. You're a political creet and you need to get the opposite out of here. Seems like it's going great. So there are two. Two cuts in that clip, but all that audio is from the last like two minutes of his speech. Romo Swami was also booed as he first went on two stage. Great sign.

Starting point is 03:14:23 Great sign. And throughout the 14 minutes, he was heckled over Israel, H-1B visas, data centers, energy prices, and his comments about how the socialist government sees your home as a wealth asset, to which people in the crowd responded, we can't afford a home. Great. Also, isn't the whole premise of, of our economy that your home is like a wealth asset, right? Like, yeah.

Starting point is 03:14:47 No, that's socialism, Robert. Doesn't everyone who owns a home seat their home that way? Isn't that like how all of the U.S. economy is predicated on? I cannot emphasize this enough. Literally this distinction between your house as a wealth asset and your house and you living in it, this is chapter one of capital? Yeah, that's a wild statement. Well, exactly.

Starting point is 03:15:07 That is communism. Yeah. That is, I think that that is exactly Ramoswamy's point. Throughout this 14-minute speech, he tried to say that the true divide in this country isn't Democrats versus Republicans, but winners versus whiners. So why would you be a whiner and complain about all these things when you could just win? And this actually mirrors one of Haley Stevens' kind of late campaign tactics to refer to people to her left as being part of the quote-unquote complaining class. any like DSA, any kind of socialist person is part of the complaining class. Anyone talking about, you know, A-PAC, Israel, they're just complaining.

Starting point is 03:15:47 It did not work out for Stevens, as we know. And this might not work out for Ramoswamy either. Last month, the Cook Political Report switched the Ohio gubernatorial race from Lien's Republican to toss up. And the latest New York Times-Siena poll from late July has the race in a tie. All I have to add is that it's funny. Yeah. It is funny. And I picture him walking around the R&C like once a month.

Starting point is 03:16:16 He looked like a sad little guy. Not that little. His hair was very tall. His hair was very tall. His veneers were... Very bright. Veneering. In the presidential race, you know,

Starting point is 03:16:30 me and Robert were talking about how much, you know, Ramosami was trying to go after the sort of like, like, Groyper type of young, young conservative, right? That was kind of what his like affect, that's a lot of stuff he was talking about, seemed to be rooted in. And at this, you know, young conservative convention, he was like loudly rejected, right? This is the type of person that he's like trying the most to appeal to in some ways, or at least used to. This was also the case when he when he was doing campaign events with Charlie Kirk, one of which I went to in Georgia before the presidential election. But he was, he was definitely trying to go

Starting point is 03:17:03 after this sort of like young male Republican and like get make sure you mobilize them to the polls like that could be the thing that tips over the race is like getting like young Republican males and at least for the gubernatorial race his strategy of like you know it's it's up to you to fix everything actually millennials are going to be fine don't complain too much might not actually help mobilize young voters in support of his campaign so we will see how that goes come come November let's pivot to ads and then return for some prediction market and tariff news. Two great tastes that go great together. And we're back.

Starting point is 03:17:56 So I wanted to talk a little bit more about the munitions crisis. I've reported several times on the growing munitions crisis that the U.S. military faces, not just but largely as a result of our war of choice with Iran. Advanced munitions, though, like 155 millimeter artillery rounds, have been stretched past the point of sustainability for years now since the expansion of Russia's war with Ukraine. And so defense officials have spent much of the last four years scrambling to increase production of a number of different rounds. And there were a bunch of articles in like the spring, early summer of 2025 at the

Starting point is 03:18:27 Trump industry crowed over about how they'd finally met their goal of quadrupling production of 155mm rounds. And a major part of this was the construction and opening in mid-2020 of a fully operated 155 millimeter artillery shell factory in Mesquite. Texas. The factory is named Union Technologies. So that's all what the administration reported last year, right? I want to quote now from an article the Global Tactical Analysis Center put out in February of 26. The U.S. military is facing a significant crisis as production of 155-millimeter artillery rounds at the Mesquite factory has severely lagged. This shortfall raises alarms not only

Starting point is 03:19:03 for domestic military readiness, but also for ongoing foreign military sales that depend on timely delivery of munitions. Army acquisitions czar Brent Ingram expressed explicit dissatisfaction with the facility's performance during a recent congressional hearings, indicating that immediate investments are necessary to correct course and avoid further delays. The logistical and technical challenges at the Mesquite factory may involve outdated machinery or insufficient workforce levels to meet production quotas. Current estimates suggest a 25% lag in output compared to contractual obligations. And that sounds bad in and of itself.

Starting point is 03:19:34 That's not accurate. The lag is a lot more than 25%. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. The DoD Office of the Inspector General went out to look into what's going on with this plant and why isn't shell production up to where the administration said it would be. They spent several months investigating and put together a report that was published in mid-July of 2026. Here's a summary from TWZ.com. Despite receiving close to $500 million from the U.S. Army funded through supplemental spending bills from fiscal years 2022 and 2022-23,

Starting point is 03:20:04 general dynamics, ordinance, and tactical systems failed to make a single subcomponent needed to produce the badly needed shells as of last March. Without the 30,000 additional projectile metal parts anticipated from the mesquite facility, the Army will be unable to reach its monthly capacity goal of 100,000, 155 millimeter artillery rounds, the report concluded. As of March 26, officials have not developed a plan to produce the additional rounds that are supposed to be produced at the Mesquite factory. So this means that the U.S. is producing somewhere between like a third and a half of the goal the Trump administration claimed they'd already reached.

Starting point is 03:20:35 That's a little hard for me to tell. I've heard as low as like 36,000 and as high as like 70,000 shells a month that we're making, both of which are shorter than what we're supposed to be. And for an idea of how much of a problem this is, Ukraine, when things are at a fever pitch, can fire up to 8,000 shells per day, which means they're shooting enough over there to account for a year of U.S. shell production in two weeks. And as a result of this discrepancy, the U.S. has seen its stockpile of 155mm shells

Starting point is 03:21:00 reduced by 3.6 million rounds over the last several years. Jesus. So I was curious as to what had gone so wrong that these fuckers haven't been able to make a single solitary component, not fucking one. And it turns out this happened because the whole plot to have this mesquite factory, you know, close the gap in production, was based on a hope and a prayer, specifically a hope that the very old machines in the factory would be able to produce modern quality weapons. The IG's report called this a high-risk production line, which is not the kind of production

Starting point is 03:21:33 line you want for artillery shells, per an article in task and purpose. Rather than build new machines for the Mesquite plant, the IG said, the Army allowed general dynamics to convert machines used for M107 shells, an older 155 millimeter round that the M795, which we use now, replaced. The M795 can fire about six kilometers further than the M107, carrying a far more powerful explosive charge. But the decision to try the untested production program, the IG said, proved fateful.

Starting point is 03:21:59 Army officials believe the Mesquite facility was a high-risk, high-reward opportunity, the IG said. The service accepted risk associated with the contractor's plan to purchase and adapt M107 metal part production equipment. But the new production lines were never able to produce acceptable M795 parts using the reworked equipment. And the Army ordered the plant to stop work completely and stop spending money in August 2025, just months after the Trump administration claimed we were up to 100,000 shells a

Starting point is 03:22:25 month and that orders held through at least April of 2026. So we have no idea what's going to happen ultimately to this mesquite factory. But I should note here that our munitions woes go even big. deeper than a lack of howitzer fuel. Earlier this year, Reuters reporters, Aaron Bonko, Mike Stone, and Jonathan Landley published an exclusive article titled, U.S. has used virtually all of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say.

Starting point is 03:22:50 Citing three people familiar with the data, the article claims that the U.S. has used virtually all of our Army tactical missile systems and precision strike missiles. The Army tactical missile systems are like the older missiles we were using, the precision strike missiles are the new ones. These are our main surface-to-surface weapons. And it gets worse to continue with another quote from that Reuters piece. Military leaders have for weeks warned the president that stockpiles of defensive weapons, including Patriot Interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles,

Starting point is 03:23:16 were dwindling, said two of the sources. Last week, several media outlets reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive inside Iran, in part because his military advisors had warned about the U.S. stockpile. A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump's chose not to move forward with another attack because of pressure from Gulf states. Now, based on the most up-to-date info, We have at least 65% of our Patriot Interceptors have been used since February, and Thad stockpiles are down by at least 38%. We've also used about half, if not more than half of our Tomahawk stockpile.

Starting point is 03:23:49 None of these weapons can be replaced at rates that are even close to the rate we are burning them. And these are also the weapons systems that we would rely on most in the event of a conflict with Russia, China, or any other major power, which is why so many people in the defense industry are freaking out to the degree that Trump has had to pull back on some of his plans because they are telling him, hey, man, if we get into some serious shit and not this fuckery you're doing in the Gulf, we're screwed. Yeah. We can't make more of these.

Starting point is 03:24:15 So anyway, the reason I keep beating the drum on, like, the ammo shortage is because I'm certain that in history of books in the future, there are going to be pages written about this before whatever fucking disaster comes our way next. So that's cool. Keep your eye on that. The other thing you should keep your eye on is that we have now. added a new kind of gambling market to our gambling on things that are not traditional gambling industry, which is, I guess, the only growth industry in the country, aside from

Starting point is 03:24:42 data centers, there's now a bunch of different services that are letting people gamble specifically on wildfires and where they hit and how much damage they do. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, yeah, and I want to quote from an article in Oregon Live. As Oregon surpassed its wildfire acreage record over the week and with more than two million acres burnt, Oregon lawmakers also raised a new wildfire concern Monday as prediction markets continue to allow people to place bets on wildfires, saying it could lead to more human-caused fires. In a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction

Starting point is 03:25:12 markets, Senator Jeff Merkley led lawmakers from other wildfire-stricken states and Senator Ron Wyden in urging the agency to crack down on wildfire-related contracts. The group warned that the markets could create financial incentives for arson. And that's the big deal, is that, like, if you're letting people gamble on this shit, yeah, firefighters might be incentivized to fuck with stuff. Regular people could be incentivized to fuck with stuff. We've seen this happen already. Like, I reported a couple months ago about that Israeli journalist who, like, posted a video

Starting point is 03:25:42 of a missile failing to get intercepted and, like, hitting into some trees. And he started getting death threats because people were gambling on, like, how, whether or not it would be intercepted and his reporting was inconvenient to them. Shit's going to be happening like that with fires. In addition to people trying to start them, if this is allowed to go, right? Polymarket lets people bet on not just, wildfires, but a variety of natural disasters. People can choose yes or no as to whether or not they think a Category 5 hurricane is going to hit the United States or like a volcano is going to

Starting point is 03:26:10 erupt. It's just a really bleak thing. And there's one of the things that I read recently is there's even a new markets focus specifically on gambling on California wildfires called Wildfire, W-Y-L-D-F-Y-R-E. The company tagline is you can't predict wildfire, but you can trade on it. And I want to quote from high country news and an investigation of this company. Currently wildfire users can only simulate trading, but according to the site, the ability to bet

Starting point is 03:26:40 with real money is coming soon. Oh gosh. The platform purports to be the first prediction market of its kind, price in county and city wildfire risk in real time. California burns every year, and it's getting worse. The question is an if, it's when and where, the site reads. Wildfire frames its platform as providing a public good.

Starting point is 03:26:56 Wildfire turns collective intelligence into better wildfire forecasting. One traded time the site reads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. But entities with a real need for wildfire forecasting, including federal and state firefighting agencies, say they aren't interested in prediction market data. The Forest Service does not use information from prediction markets for wildfire forecasts.

Starting point is 03:27:15 Why? I don't even need to go. It's useless. It's useless. And everyone's saying this is an idiot and a liar. It's insane. This whole thing, it's like, we can chart like the world's collective knowledge because money.

Starting point is 03:27:25 People are fucking morons. Money is, you know, speaks, speaks more truthfully than just words. It's just complete, complete nonsense. No, people are going to burn down their own neighborhoods to get rich. Yeah. I mean, if you look at how much the prediction markets have been wrong about a sequence of high profile elections just in the past year, shows that this is not useful or reliable data, there is no hidden truth that prediction markets can find through the quote-unquote

Starting point is 03:27:51 wisdom of crowds. And like this specific thing on these wildfires is like a two-pronged issue. One, kind of evil, right, to just, you know, win money based on the deaths of however many people in natural disasters. The destruction of their lives, everything they've built, the fear. So like, you know, like, death markets is like one aspect. The other, you know, aspect is if someone has a lot of money riding on a certain wildfire hitting a certain location, then, yeah, there is financial incentive to maybe cause a fire

Starting point is 03:28:23 to hit a certain location. Or try to pay someone else to, yeah. There's like that aspect as well. It's evil for so many reasons. obviously should be illegal. Like, it's insane. Lee should be hanging these people. I mean,

Starting point is 03:28:37 I remember when arguing over whether the market is an information processor that, like, like, as you're saying, like, has, like, all of this collective intelligence from market signals that it's, like, the most efficient information processor versus arguing that it's a gambling den. Like, that used to be an academic debate. And now it's just like, oh, no, we're doing this on fires. And it's just, God.

Starting point is 03:28:58 Everything that was once metaphor is now literal and all of the metaphors suck. Yeah, this is pretty fucked up. I know this was a concern that was talked about with like the LA fires last year or two years ago. Because I know there was polymarket or a Kalshi betting on those. And that created like a little mini news cycle of like talking about this maybe being a problem. But like the scale in which this is like accelerated is crazy. Again, I used to do like sports gambling ads because I don't have a problem with gambling like ethically. Same way I don't have a problem with liquor and whatnot.

Starting point is 03:29:30 And then it just became very clear before too much. Oh, wait, no, this isn't your father's gambling. This isn't going to fucking, like, things are well beyond heading to Vegas for like a weekend or playing cards online with your friends. This is turned into like everything. Like this is the omniculture. It's almost the only recreational activity a lot of Americans have anymore. Yeah. I'm going to be honest, I didn't see that happening.

Starting point is 03:29:55 That took me by surprise. I used to have a lot more kind of libertarian-y views on gambling. Sure. And now I am firmly in favor of like harsh state intervention. Yeah. Into basically all forms of digital gambling. Yeah, I think you should be able to go to a casino and gamble, but I don't think you should be able to do it on your phone.

Starting point is 03:30:14 Like I've turned around on that. No. Yeah. And you know, you can look at those. There's a whole bunch of data on like when sports gambling is legalized in a state. Like the bankruptcy rate increases. It's a catastrophe.

Starting point is 03:30:26 Yeah. You know, I mean, it's already devoured sports and it's now just devouring everything that's left of our society until something changes. Literally everything else. Yeah, it's like. What if you copy that model for literally any event happening in the world? Anyway. Well, at least the economy at large is doing fine, right? Me?

Starting point is 03:30:44 Oh, oh, boy. Yeah, so let's check in with our dear friend. And by dear friend, I mean, I don't know if he's an enemy of the show yet, but. recurring character on the show. Yeah, recurring character on the show, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, who had a press conference to address the fact that in the face of,

Starting point is 03:31:08 you know, rising inflation, everyone was expecting there to be some kind of interest rate increase and he didn't do one. And, well, I mean, the Federal Reserve Board didn't vote for one. And he had a press conference that was so disastrous,

Starting point is 03:31:22 it triggered a giant sell-off of U.S. bonds. which is not good. I'm going to read this piece from John Cassidy, who wrote an article in The New Yorker about it because I think it captures the reactions to this. Quote, the sell-off, quote, looks very much like a loss of confidence trade, one market analyst told the Financial Times.

Starting point is 03:31:44 Another commenter, Dario Perkins, an economist at the research from T.S. Lombard, compared Warsh's press conference to Donald Trump's announcement last year of his Liberation Day tariffs and to the disastrous UK MIDI budget that costs trust her job as Prime Minister in 2022, describing them all as occasions, quote, where you suddenly realize global policymakers are totally out of their depth and don't know what they're doing?

Starting point is 03:32:11 Even some ex-Fed officials who tend to be more regarded in their public comments and voice concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg, James Bullard, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, described Warsh's press conference as, quote, a little bit rocky and the bond market's reaction as, quote, nerve-wracking for essential banker? I don't know. It sounds fine to me. Now, a little bit rocky

Starting point is 03:32:34 might seem a little timid to you, but for these people, that's like an insane thing to say. Yeah, for a Federal Reserve banker, that is the equivalent of just nine alarm fire. I'm going to read this one last part of it. Loretta Mester, who headed the Cleveland

Starting point is 03:32:52 Fed from 2014 to 24 told the Wall Street Journal, quote, I want to feel comfortable that the Fed knows what it is doing. I don't think it's sustainable what he's doing in terms of not saying anything. So, this press conference went so badly

Starting point is 03:33:09 that the current analysis from basically the day this happened until now, the analysis has been that actually know the Fed is going to be forced to raise interest rates just to make the markets take, like, warsh as as a guy running the central bank seriously? Oh, God.

Starting point is 03:33:25 Economist at Bank of America labeled this a, quote, central bank inflation credibility shock, a term I have never seen before. So, okay, what did Warsh actually say in this press conference that was this bad? Well, here's Jackson Maugh at Fortune. Quote, he has vowed, quote, regime change and quote, at the Fed by rolling. back so-called forward guidance on where rates are headed and offered no such clues on Wednesday, even talking around no-brainer questions on how to bring down inflation.

Starting point is 03:34:04 So what does that actually mean? The Fed usually gives markets some indication of what they're going to do with interest rates at our next meeting to set interest rates. And you do this because you want to give people in the market an opportunity to plan around what the Fed is probably going to be doing. Warsh thinks this is a bad idea. That is very weird. I don't think anyone has agreed with him

Starting point is 03:34:27 that not talking to like the markets about what the Fed is going to do. I don't think anyone has agreed with him since at least like the 80s that the Fed should just make his decisions in secret and not tell anyone. But that's not even the weirdest part of this. The weirdest part is that he's not just refusing

Starting point is 03:34:43 to explain what the Fed is going to do in the future. He is refusing to explain what the Fed is doing right now. And that is really, really weird. People just asked him point blank, like, hey, why did you not raise interest rates? And she just would not give an answer. And that is the thing that has been making it seem like she has no idea what's going on. Now, it's possible that this is pure incompetence. I think that's probably part of it.

Starting point is 03:35:12 Like, it being incompetence is kind of bolstered by the Fed's next move, which was to do basically a, I don't know if bailout's quite the right term, but basically to pump a bunch of money into the yen to maintain the value of Japan, or to increase and maintain the value of Japan's currency. Now, this is also a kind of cataclysmic thing. The U.S. hasn't done this for Japan since, I think literally it was the reverse Plaza Accords in the late 1980s as a way to like stave off the just complete ruin of the Asian markets during the Asian market collapse. So this in and of itself is remarkable. The ZEOS hasn't done this since almost every economy in Southeast Asia was imploding during the end of the 90s.

Starting point is 03:35:55 But the weirdest part is that instead of doing this by just selling dollars, right, he did it by selling euros, which is baffling. I have no idea why he did it. No one I've read seems to have any idea why he did this with euros instead of dollars. Everyone is just extremely confused. So it's actually very funny because the thing I'm about to talk about next was brought up as the most important thing the Fed had done during his tenure, and then this happened a few days later. So everyone is just completely baffled by what he's doing. None of it makes any sense. And it's not only doesn't make any sense. It's actively undermining itself because a lot of the things that he's doing, you know, this yen purchase is supposed to be about restoring confidence in the Japanese markets, but then the U.S. is doing some weird stuff and now everyone's going, what on earth is going on. The last thing I want to talk about with the Fed specifically is, is because I think I kind of understand what he's doing,

Starting point is 03:36:50 at least with the interest rates and why he's not talking about it. In order to get to this, we need to turn to some reporting from the New York Times, which reports that Warsh is trying to reduce the number of meetings that the Fed has to decide interest rates. This is also really weird. The number of meetings to decide interest rates hasn't changed since the 80s. So, okay, why is he trying to eliminate these meetings?

Starting point is 03:37:16 and when you put it all together, the reason why he doesn't want to say what the Fed is going to do in the future and he wants to have less meetings is that there is a Fed meeting in September right before the midterms. And if he raises interest rates, which is exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump wants,

Starting point is 03:37:34 right before the midterms, and this is one of John Cassidy's interpretations, if he does this, he could get fired by Trump so he doesn't want to raise interest rates right before the midterms. So he's taking a stance of, not saying anything to the media and then potentially even canceling this September meeting in order to not have to do this. So that's great.

Starting point is 03:37:55 I think it's an argument as to whether the U.S. Federal Reserve is the single most important institution for all of global capitalism. I don't know if you can win the argument that it's the single most important one, but it's one of the most important institutions. And it is apparently being run by a guy who is making economic decisions with the entire global economy based on him trying not to get fired. So this can only go great. One of the silliest things about that, that purchase of yen was the photos leaked from the meeting with the notepad.

Starting point is 03:38:23 They like, oh, God. To do, colon, buy 10 billion U.S. dollars worth of yen. Remarkably similar to my shopping with the other day when I went to Albertson. That's what concerns me is I feel like you shouldn't be able to remember to buy 10 billion yen. 10 billion U.S. dollars worth of yen. Is there not a better method to make sure? that happens in the U.S. government? I cannot emphasize

Starting point is 03:38:48 this enough. The last time we did something like this with Japanese currency, it has an actual name. It's called the Reverse Plaza Accords. It was a transformational milestone moment in what the American economy was going to be because that was the moment the U.S. abandoned having a manufacturing

Starting point is 03:39:04 economy. Like, that's the kind of decision that is being made here and it's being written on a notepad. Like, it's just... Just throw that thing on a notepad. I'll do that later this afternoon. I admit, I thought Warsh, because Warsh had been, like, with the Federal Reserve Bank before, I thought he was going to be, like, slightly more competent than this. But this entire week has raised what I think the odds are of the Federal Reserve,

Starting point is 03:39:29 completely screwing things up and blowing up the entire global economy significantly. Because if this is the kind of shit that you're doing, like, a couple of months into being in office, we are in for a long eight years, assuming I guess he doesn't like purge, Trump. Posting a picture of Jerome Powell. Hurts like shit. Just want him back. God.

Starting point is 03:39:54 Finally, I want to conclude on some tariff talk. Song. Sorry, we forgot to put the song in the last episode. They won't forgive you. My bad. Yeah, we're fixing it. We're fixing it. On Monday, half of the states in the union, that is 25 total states sued the Trump

Starting point is 03:40:26 administration over the regime's tariff policies. What is bleak here is that because of the speed that the courts move at and because of the speed that these attorney generals are moving at, these lawsuits are coming in an entire tariff cycle behind. Yeah. So these lawsuits are over the administration section 301 tariffs, which were the forced labor, 10 to 12 percent tariffs on basically all U.S. imports that are supposed to be about forced labor. And as I mentioned before, this is an entire cycle of tariffs behind where the Trump administration actually is now, which is his. even more illegal usage of smootholy tariffs against Canada, we are still awaiting the lawsuit about that one because they just haven't gotten there yet.

Starting point is 03:41:09 So it's fun in real time to get to see the stuff I said last time I was talking about tariffs, about how Trump is just going to be able to keep using this tariff justification because it just takes time for stuff to get to the court. We're seeing that here. I mean, I guess the Section 301 tariffs don't have a deadline, but who knows how long it's going to take to get rid of those ones, or if you could see a scenario where those tariffs are irrelevant. As we saw with the tariffs that he imposed earlier this year

Starting point is 03:41:36 that were nominally about like the U.S. having a balance of payments crisis where there were lawsuits about it, but the lawsuits don't matter because the authorization expired. Probably we're going to see a similar thing like that where these tariffs are kind of irrelevant by the time this went to the courts. So amazing political system we've set up here. Well, that does it for us today at It Could Happen here. James sent over two donation links for the Spokane Wildfires.

Starting point is 03:42:01 Both should be at the top of the episode sources in the description. The first one is Spokane Tribal Network.org. The second link is too long to fully read, but it's for the Spokane Complex Wildfire Response Fund. I can't read out the whole URL, but it should be at the top of the sources in the description. We, the News reported. We reported the news.

Starting point is 03:42:26 We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, poolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio 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. Hey, Portlandia fans. Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

Starting point is 03:43:03 The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here.

Starting point is 03:43:31 You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. Rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and IHeart Women's Sports.

Starting point is 03:43:56 We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka. Shoutouts to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Kashan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift.

Starting point is 03:44:07 The stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clemens.

Starting point is 03:44:22 We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our career. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenberg. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea.

Starting point is 03:44:49 Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? Because if he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.

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