It Could Happen Here - Story Updates #1

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

Updates on stories and events we’ve covered on It Could Happen Here. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Gonorrhea! Garrison, take over.

I asked for some grunting. That was like a word. What? Okay. What? It was gonorrhea. Bastards opening. That's how you open a show. I know. Lots of the Iconocanon openings have become bastards openings now.

I only have one kind of opening. Robert doesn't have more than one type of opening. No, there's two. There's grunting and then yelling something weird. That's basically the same. Learning how to do your job is cuck shit. Also, to be honest, most of the time doesn't know

which podcast he's doing they're all yeah what what is this are we doing is this the daily zeitgeist is this is am i jack o'brien no this is this is it could have you as miles this is it could happen here oh shit miles so we're talking today about the different things that are uh it um the here being the states this time um but we're talking about basically over the course of the past few months we have covered a few different topics on the show um and some of which have already kind of had some results or had updates to what we've already covered so we're i'm gonna i'm gonna go through a list of like uh three different things we've covered and talk about the updates in these stories.

Most of what we've covered around these topics have been a mix of original reporting and interviews. So now there's been further work done on this, and I just want to update people. If they're not as terminally online as us, maybe they have not heard that there's been changes to these stories, and I wanted of put together a nice little concise thing talking about updates to all the things we've covered um so the first thing that we're going to be talking a bit about is the cop city in atlanta and the defend the atlanta forest uh coalition so i think like a day after our episode dropped on that,

Atlantic City Council voted 10 to 4 in favor of getting the militarized police training facility greenlit, nicknamed Cop City. There was 17 hours of public testimony where 70% of the callers spoke out against the facility. Yeah, but I mean, we had that happen in Portland. It doesn't yeah yeah it never matters it doesn't matter what the vast majority especially when there's especially when there's money involved um yeah yeah do not do not ever be deceived into thinking that uh you live in a democracy and that what you actually want to

matter is in any way shape or form this is just not this is empirically not true like like 65 percent of texans periods support uh vaccine mandates in some instances but the governor just made it illegal to do them ever um yeah like it's it's it's that way across the board across the nation um people ask sometimes because like you know when you get into anarchist discussions of politics there's a lot of criticisms of democracy i don't I think democracy is a lovely idea. I would like to try it sometime. It would be nice to give it a go. It would be nice to experience. So yeah, the city council voted to lease the 350 acres of city-owned forest land to the Atlanta Police Foundation, at least 85 acres of which is going to be slated to become the police training facility. The facility is going to cost around $90 million.

Jesus Christ. I could train cops much cheaper than that, although training is the wrong word. Yeah, that is the wrong word for that. So yeah, $90 million, it's going to include a state-of-the-art explosive testing facility, firing ranges, emergency vehicle operations course, a classroom space, and an emergency helicopter. Well, at least there's a classroom space, and an emergency helicopter. At least there's a classroom space. So they'll probably learn to read, right? I'm sure it's for teaching people to do bad things.

There's going to be an emergency helicopter pad and an entire mock town. It is good that they have the emergency helicopter pad because cops shoot each other with live ammunition all the time in those training houses. It happens constantly. It does happen a lot. So yeah, the main backer for this project is the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is a political advocacy group that, you know, has a lot of funding from corporations and they try to, you know, sway the political power of the city into

giving more power to the police. So the interesting thing about this, though, is the vote was supposed to happen in August, but it was rescheduled for early September after there was a lot of public backlash around this proposal. Then the vote that was supposed to happen on, like, the 13th got pushed back a whole day because there was too many callers

saying that they didn't want the facility. So the vote got pushed back a day in September, but they still voted for it. Yeah, so $30 million is going to be footed by taxpayers, and the other $60 million is going to get paid for by the police foundation, which has a lot of different, like, corporate donors. So that's that.

And, of course, it's on, you know, on this forest land, which is, like, some of's on you know on this forest land which is like some of the you know biggest forest land in any major american city so you know they're tearing down all this forest to build this concrete city to train cops in yeah we should also we should also mention that at the end of our interview with some of the people resisting this they basically said like if the vote goes through resistance is going to continue so yeah this will continue there's probably going to be efforts to like actually try to physically prevent the construction of this but the next thing we're going to be talking about is stop line three um which means there was also you know physical efforts to prevent that but the type of efforts that people usually do in you know modern green activism usually are a lot more

do in, you know, modern green activism usually are a lot more performative or they're specifically to pressure, to create scenes that will try to convince politicians to veto the process. So it's not, you know, it's different from the 90s when it was easier to like actually physically stop the prevention of things. Now, a lot of the people who, you know, are trying to do this, it is they're not convinced that doing a lockbox is going to actually physically prevent it. What it's going to do is create media coverage that is going to hopefully convince politicians to be like

hey, maybe we shouldn't do this. And that's a hard bargain, right? That's not, there's no saying that that's actually going to do the thing. In the case of Stop Line 3, that did not stop Line 3. There was a really good critique of the Stop Line 3 protests posted in It's Going Down by an indigenous anarchist who lives on that land who was, like, younger. And they're, you know, watching all of these, you know, older indigenous anarchists, you know, keep on getting arrested and brutalized and, like,

but we're not actually doing anything. And the methods that we're doing, the methods that we're trying to, like, you know, know gain public support this isn't working in this specific context maybe we should re-evaluate what we're actually doing i know it's going down faced a bit of backlash for posting that critique but i think that i think the critique is actually worth reading any other thoughts on the atlanta thing before i move on to the stop line three stuff um no no other than to note that i think the best brisket i've ever had came from atlanta okay well i'll probably be i'll probably be visiting atlanta in the near future i may be there with you um in which case i'll get some more motherfucking brisket yeah it was actually

the fun story we were road tripping through town me and another friend in another car and we were talking over radios and a trucker got on like the channel we were on because we were talking about where to get barbecue and he told us where to go um it was neat it was like an actual nice like like moment of cb radio connection like this guy was just scanning the waves and found us and was like oh i can tell you where to go anyway continue garrison that was completely unrelated to stopping Line 3. So, the next thing is earlier, I think in September, maybe August, I forget. It's been a while.

We posted two episodes about me visiting the Stop Line 3 protests and the Earth First camp. And a lot of stuff has happened since then. So, you know, the main thing is that the pipeline has been finished now and is basically getting, is ready

to be operated, or it probably already has some operation. It's unclear how much is being used right now, but it is done construction. It doubles the capacity of the original pipeline. It's going to be doing like 760,000 barrels of oil a day. So it carves out

land through wetlands where people grow wild rice and do hunting. So overall, the past few months, police arrested over 900 people. And there's been a lot of felony charges specifically for locking down, which is pretty new because they're using felony theft charges for people just locking down to equipment. Yeah, that is an unfortunate escalation. Yeah. So by the time we posted our Southline 3 episodes, we kind of already figured this was going to be the result. That's kind of how we ended the episode, saying there's been all this resistance, but probably it's going to get built. And there's other things that we can learn from this movement going on into the future.

But the new developments that have happened, I did mention in the episodes how much Enbridge was directly paying cops. That was something we already knew that was happening. But there was an article by The Guardian that really gave a lot of new information around how much police involvement there is with Enbridge. they are actually coordinating a lot. So, overall, Enbridge has reimbursed U.S. police almost two and a half million dollars for arresting and surveying protesters. Also paying for, like, food, lodging, gas. So, like, they're not just paying wages, they're paying, like, for extra stuff as well. So, at least two and a half million dollars has been paid from the Canadian Oil Company. And that includes officer training, police patrol routes, surveillance, all this kind of stuff. The one interesting thing that was noted in the article is that the company, Enbridge, meets daily with police officers to discuss intelligence gathering and patrols. And when Enbridge wants protesters removed, it directly calls or sends letters to police.

So they actually coordinate when to actually get police involved during protests, and they have at least daily information meetings. The one other interesting thing, besides just directly paying them for food, for training, equipment, and the coordination between Enbridge and people being on the ground, is how much that Enbridge paid for,

like, proactive safety patrols and specific, like, specific officer surveillance following alleged activists, like, home. So they would, like, trail specific cars for a long time and try to, like, do, like, in-person surveillance on specific people they thought were activists. And all of this time was paid for by Enbridge and was being coordinated with Enbridge so it's not just you know paying for training it's not just for paying for equipment it's specific

surveillance of certain people and that is I don't know that's something that we weren't we did not really know the depths of that for sure but uh it's pretty it's pretty messed up I know we we suspected some of this coordination before, like when we talked about police showing up to the Stop Line 3 camp and blocking off access to the road. This was at the same day that drilling under the river was just being finished.

And so we suspected like, yeah, there's like Enbridge is obviously talking with police to prevent people from leaving so that they can finish up this specific drilling project project that was pretty obvious to us at the scene um and now we have you know extra confirmation that yeah they do like meet daily to coordinate these types of things um so it's good to have that extra confirmation of the stuff we already like suspected and stuff we already kind of like put together through experience but now we have like you know court documents and like records showing the extent of the coordination.

All right. Well, we'll talk about terrorism, but you know who else is a terrorist? Oh boy. The products and services that support this podcast are in a good way, you know? Uh-huh.

Like, um, you know, like, uh, like, uh, kind of.

Okay. All right. Well, it's, it's complicated. All right. Do ads. Just run ads. you know like like kind of alright well it's complicated alright do ads just run ads stop

welcome I'm Danny Thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum, an anthology

of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Oh, so it'll probably be funnier if you bleep out the name of the terrorist organization

This is how we pick up from the ad break is when you're saying that Oh, so it'll probably be funnier if you bleep out the name of the terrorist organization. This is how we pick up from the ad breakers when you're saying that. So, Garrison, we got some critiques that came in to the old news line, by which I mean people DMed me on Reddit. People DMed me on Discord. Yeah, I never respond. I almost never respond. It's nothing against people. I just don't like being communicated with. No shit.

Too many people ask me to send messages to you. Yeah, it's annoying. Yeah, Garrison, you're not my secretary. I know, I'm not like... Garrison, welcome to the last three years of my life. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, I mean, but that's funny, Sophie. Oh, ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha! What were you going to say, Robert? I don't know. There were people who were like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but Earth First has a problematic history with eco-fascism and that sort of stuff. Yeah, I got some messages like that, too.

Yeah, and it's one of those things. They definitely are an organization that has said things in the past that I don't agree with. There's been specific people who do organizing with them that don't have great beliefs specifically around like, you know, a lot of like in the old green movements has been, you know, a lot of like transphobia, some like racism. It's not because they're the green movements, like all left spaces deal with versions of these issues. Yeah, and there's a variety of stuff, you know, not like respecting like indigenous people. That's been a thing. But the specific term eco-fascism, I believe, is incorrect.

Because they don't advocate for the genocide of a specific group. And they don't have like far right populist policies. So like you can have bad opinions and bad ideas and you can actually be racist, uh, without actually being fascist, especially eco-fascist. Um, so I feel like people throw that word around a lot and they don't actually know what it means. Um, but I, what were you specifically referring to, Robert? Um, I'm, I'm trying to find the message here, but... Because I got a message saying that Earth First is bad because they're antinatalist, and that means they're fascist,

which isn't... Yeah, I definitely got that, yeah. Which isn't actually... I'm just going to disagree with that because I don't think antinatalism equates fascism, especially antinatalism for something like... And antinatalism is basically saying don't make people. Don maybe we should make additional maybe we should stop having more kids right now because you have a lot of problems to deal with and maybe we shouldn't be having like you know

three kids which is not it's not a take i'm not an antinatalist i don't actually disagree with that take though but i think it's more in the line of like the most fundamental of all human desires for the majority of the population is to make more people. Which is kind of why I like antinatalism because it has that thing that's opposite to what a lot of humans' natural reaction. And like no one's forcing – antinatalists don't want to force you to be antinatalist. No, no, no. They just want to like bring up this as an idea. Yeah, and I think it's a valuable idea to discuss and i don't think it's i don't think you're i don't think you're embracing like the massacre of human beings or genocide in a way by saying like i think it'd be best if we didn't

make any more people i'm not planning to have an arguable point yeah i'm not planning to have any kids because i don't see why i would especially when there's so many like children that can be adopted garrison we talked about you having kids so we could experiment with making them blue this is a separate conversation that we talked about last night we're not talking about involving colloidal silver we are not talking about this on the plot okay we'll just include that tantalizing hint i also just think in general when we talk about a group that's had a long history and a specific thing they're doing in the present, this has happened in other situations where people are like, well, you know they did this or one of them said this. And there's a couple of things I feel about that. For one thing, it's entirely possible that the people doing the thing in the present day have nothing to do with the people 20 years ago.

No, yeah. Most of the people at the Earth First gathering were like in their 20s or around my age. Like they weren't in Earth First in 1980. Like that's not like... So I feel like silly about kind of making them be held accountable for something somebody else said under a similar banner decades ago. And on the podcast, I talked about how people at Earth First gathering talked about this stuff. People talked about Earth First's

history and how they haven't handled some issues very well. There was a massive effort for this gathering to uplift and make sure everyone focuses on indigenous voices. They invited over multiple indigenous groups to give talks on

green resistance and land back. That was a big focus, making sure that this actually is something that is heard because people know, like, this is, yeah, this is something important. This is something that actually should be done. organizations and individuals accountable for their past um what matters is like a mix of what they did and what they're doing so obviously if earth first had been saying 20 years ago we need to wipe out all the jews i would be like i wouldn't care what they were saying now you know it'd be like yeah you can't really come back from that if you want to do a completely different thing it needs to be a new organization you don't yeah but they weren't and i'm not saying that where i'm just making an example but like as rule, I think we should embrace the fact that organizations and people can change throughout time and be better than they were in the past and learn from mistakes and flaws. And I feel pretty unwilling to condemn individuals or organizations for the mistakes of their past, although that is dependent upon the kind of mistake and the harm that it caused. Yeah, and how they address it in the future.

It wasn't like OrthoFirst was an overall organization. It was specific people they were affiliated with. Specifically, Edward Abbey has said some not great things around different social issues, and his books were extremely influential on the beginning of green resistance. But that's something people talk about now. That's something that is discussed and debated.

And he was, even in the 80s and 90s, he was kicked out of Earth First gatherings for kind of being a loser, for having these bad views. We're like, yeah, we probably shouldn't have you here anymore. Leave, go away. So that was something that was even talked about back then as well. That isn't just a modern thing. Leave, go away. So like that was something that was even talked about back then as well.

That isn't just like a modern thing. Yeah, and I think in general, there's a couple of things. Number one, whenever we talk about like an organization in a specific context, they're doing this, that doesn't mean we're embracing everything they've done. And number two, whenever we talk about the history of a movement or a group,

I hope nobody ever takes that as like here is the authoritative stance on the history of this thing. Like it's when we talked about the Black Panthers. There's a bunch of stuff we left out that's very important. My hope with those episodes and my hope with anything we do is that it like inspires people to want to learn more and read more. And we're giving them a basis of understanding that they can use to expand their knowledge on an important topic. So please, we are, we are,

there's like one thing collectively that Garrison and I have any kind of expertise on. And outside of that, you should not take anything we say as like, here's the comprehensive history of of this because it's i i i understand one thing and it's it's how the internet makes people shitty yeah so yeah um yeah i mean that was something this whole thing was something i thought about when writing these episodes is how much to include of this stuff and i did not feel like it was super important

to discuss this stuff because it wasn't relevant to the topic of Stop Line 3 and it wasn't relevant to the topic of the current ongoing green resistance. If we want to do a history of green activism, then yes, this is something that would come up. I think at some point we probably should do about John Muir

and all of that shit. There's a ton of stuff we want to talk about that we haven't yet because it's a daily show and my God, give us some fucking time, people. Speaking of Edward Abbey, you know what sells quality monkey wrenches? Okay, all right, that's fine. That's okay.

Maybe one of our sponsors. It's possible. I hope so. Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware. If Ace Hardware is sponsoring us, they do sell. You can get some good. I hope so. Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware. If Ace Hardware is sponsoring us, they do sell. You can get some good monkey wrenches

from Ace Hardware. Quality wrenching. For fixing your faucet. For fixing your faucet. So go get wrench-pilled and then listen to the rest of the show. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows.

As part of my Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, we're back. We just had a good discussion about what we're going to talk about, and we realized that it wasn't after the ad break. So here we are.

In early September, we had episodes about both California's climate and the ongoing recall election against Gavin Newsom. So a few days after our episodes dropped i think like the the day the day the second one dropped was was election day yep um we we we got the results in faster than what i was expecting um and uh newsom did uh handily uh beat uh larry elder uh with like yeah not even close yeah so people people voted 61% no and like 38% yes. So Newsom did a decent job in pushing off Elder. So this whole recall process costed California taxpayers $276 million.

Jesus. It's not like we needed the money for anything else garrison come on yeah so you know a few takeaways what else are we going to spend it on literally anything literally anything else water make giving california needs water and firefighters garrison come on giving houses to people who need houses i don't know um no no yeah so takeaways from this uh the recall process still should absolutely be amended. Yeah, it's stupid as hell. It should require more than 12% signatures of the last voter turnout.

And the government should be requiring to get, if you're going to be elected into government, you should be required to get a majority of votes, not just a plurality of a specific, you know, sect. So we talked about the specific reasons why it was bad in those episodes those are still those are still like those are still valid those are still relevant um because there's still the same issues yeah and none of the fact that this turned out well had anything to do with the democratic party who very nearly bungled it uh and it doesn't doesn't really impact, it doesn't impact, you know,

the California's climate issues so much. And like, just because Newsom's in office doesn't mean they're going to get much better. You know, there's still things that he needs to be pushed on to, you know, make the climate a little bit more habitable in the meantime. It means that we will continue

stumbling towards a cliff rather than speed running off of it. Yeah. So generally what voting for Democrats means. Yeah. I will say it's interesting to me that it doesn't seem like you can get a the vote was rigged thing to work unless the election is like kind of close. This is the next thing I was going to talk about. Um,

yeah, because, because like in the week before the election, uh, the Fox news Republican party and Larry Elder and even Trump were really starting to ramp up this idea that if Elder loses, that means the election was rigged. Uh,

this was like, they were really pushing this hard and, you know, spreading it. Like they were giving links to it, a website, like before he lost, even be like, if I, you know, when I lose, use this website.

It was like, okay, that's – Yeah, that was very funny. That's weird. But on the night of the election, Elder seems to kind of climb down from the inflammatory rhetoric around the election. In his concession speech, he told supporters, let's be gracious in defeat. So once the actual results were in he really climbed that down so we can read into that but the other thing i want us to read into here is that could this could this rhetoric around if we lose that means it was rigged could that

disenfranchise republican voters from even showing up if they believe that all elections will be stolen from them god i hope so will that mean that there'll be less Republican turnout if they think that it doesn't matter? So that's the other side of things. I'm not sure if the other side effects that this rhetoric could have. Yeah, there's an interesting... So during the last national election cycle, there was a bunch of interviews with people who weren't voting in Florida.

And I thought it was really interesting because there were there were several people they talked to who were like yeah i don't vote because last time i voted was 2000 and they stole the election which was literally which which yeah and you know i i'd say that i get it yeah yeah like i think it is slightly different when like 2000 literally actually was stolen yeah like literally there was there was the brooks like the there there ro been roger stone yeah roger stone led a riot to stop like the votes from being counted like whatever weird bush i think yeah people people got like struck like a bunch of people with like vaguely black names got like their names struck off the uh like the voting rolls like there was a lot of yeah but yeah and i don't know if it'll if it if the effect can

work that strongly when it's like completely bullshit which i think that's yeah i i don't know it's hard to say because it's it's it's unclear whether the voter turnout on the because like you know there were times where they were polling like 50 50 between between between newsom and elder and it's unclear i think definitely the big advertising push that corporate donors gave to newsom in the month before the election did help get democratic voter turnout you know like people voting for news yeah getting people scared about fucking like larry elder as the governor Elder as the governor was not ineffective. That very much works. That did increase turnout there.

But I don't know – because like with the whole election being stolen rhetoric, that could both increase Republican voter turnout. And there's also the side effect now where maybe it could decrease it because they're just disenfranchised about this concept. But this is kind of just speculation at this point. I don't have actual data backing up this claim right now this is just something that i thought about while running this right up i'm like huh i wonder if this could be a contributing factor in the future people really feel like they're always going to lose maybe they just not not even are going to bother um but it's hard to say it's like you know and the main reason why elder lost wasn't due to newsom's strengths it was because elder is that like it's completely like

he it was like it was the most wildly unqualified yeah like wildly unqualified and like one of the more extreme candidates like running and yes he did get a lot of support among republicans but among moderates and people you know left of center in terms of like an american spectrum uh they're like yeah no this is going to be a disaster if he gets elected. And that's the main reason why he didn't. It's not due to Newsom being great. But I mean, Sophie did mention a few things

that Newsom has done since then. Sophie, do you want to say the specific details just so I don't have to look? Yeah, Sophie's famously a big Newsom fan, so. So not, Come on. So not to give Newsom credit because this is like an obvious right thing to do situation. But at the beginning of October, the Senate Bill 796 was signed into law. It was a unanimous vote and Newsom signed off on it to give back Bruce's Beach,

which was owned by a black family, Willa and Charles Bruce, back in 1924. Their land was illegally taken away from them. It's a beachfront plot in Manhattan Beach. And it signed into law to give it back. So that's cool. That is good.

I mean, yeah. Yeah, more of that should be done. I mean, that is kind of the basis of like, you know, that is good I mean yeah yeah more of that should be done I mean that is kind of the basis of like you know that is one side of land back

is just giving land back to people who used to have it yeah this isn't specifically tied to like indigenous

stuff but you know I've seen people make that same comparison for like yeah we should just be doing this more in general to a lot of people

yeah yeah that's a I'm glad that that was done it's also now illegal to remove a condom without consent in california which is wait what really and you're gonna have to change a lot of things about how you have sex with californians that it's the first date that

is real bizarre to prohibit you didn't realize that was legal permission yeah during intercourse that's the it's the first state to do that, first of all. Huh. Yeah. And it's wild because under any reasonable definition, that's rape. No, I mean, yeah. Yeah. It's 100%.

It's just rape. Yeah, it's absolutely rape. California also now requires menstrual products in public schools. So that's bare minimum and great. Oh, great. That is good. Wow. I didn't realize that it happened.

Yeah. And I want to be clear here. I'm not giving you some credit for this, but if he had lost the recall election, none of this would be happening. No, it's nice that he I'm sure some of this was him kind of providing a sop to the people who lined up to stop the recall. And those are good things that were done. And I think I think that's sort of an important thing to understand about when politicians occasionally do good things that were done yeah and i think i think that's sort of an important thing to understand about when politicians occasionally do good things it's like they don't do good things because they want to do them they they they do things that benefit

from you because they're either in some way scared of you or it's because they need to buy they buy you off and and that that is you know that And that is a legitimate way that good things happen. I've got a couple other... There's been a lot signed in recently, so I've got a couple other ones that I think are relevant to our show. California will now streamline and extend assisted death law. That's good. That reduces the time until terminal patients can choose to be given fatal drugs.

Good. Starting January 1st, the waiting period required time a patient makes separate oral requests for medication will drop to 48 hours, down from the current minimum 15 days. That is good. That's pretty rad. Yeah. I'm very supportive of that. Yep. I mean, there's just, there's, there's, I mean, we'll see if this actually is a thing. There's a lot.

There's a lot here. It's hard to be worse than Larry Elder. Yeah, that's my point. This one definitely would not get through for Larry Elder. No, no. California next law to strip badges from bad officers. Very vaguely written there. Yeah, we'll see how it works.

That is very vague. But yeah, we'll see what happens. None of that stuff would have happened under a Larry Elder thing. I am surprised at some of those things actually got through. Because I'm surprised that Democratic politicians would actually vote for those things to be put into office. That's why I was shocked. And very important. Specifically at the condom thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. And very important. I was not expecting that to go through at all. Newsom signs legislation to extend to, absolutely. And very important. I was not expecting that to go through at all. Newsom signs legislation to extend to-go cocktails. Wait. All right, that's fine.

Sure. Okay. Fine. More drinking and driving. Where are my to-go cocktail heads? Sorry. All right. So at least Larry Elder's

not in office. There's still a lot of climate issues and maybe this rhetoric around stealing the elections is not going to work every single time they do it. No, that's nice. That's still a lot of climate issues and maybe this rhetoric around stealing the elections not going to work every single time they do it. No, that's kind of the main, that's the main things that I was going to talk about. And it is, it is, I mean, one of the things that people are talking about in a lot of the spaces I generally agree with is like the foolishness

of voting as harm reduction. And there's been a lot of, if you want to believe that it isn't, there's been a lot of information coming out from the Biden administration that will support that belief. Yeah. But what we're seeing right now in California is pretty, it can be like the, these are not, none of this is going to fundamentally change the major problems that are confronting us. But, but a bunch of those things are going to like, life's going to be easier for some little girls whose families don't have much money you know life got easier for that one family who got their land back um you know potentially it's going to be easier to get bad police officer or to get particularly bad police officers off the street and that's not that's not nothing like when we say voting can be

and i'm not saying that it usually is, but it can reduce harm. That's what it means. It means that like, oh, some bad things that would be worse are not as bad because of this. Not that everything is better. A lot of stuff will be the same and is the same in California. Like ecologically, nothing has really fundamentally changed. But some shit's a little easier for certain groups of people as a result of some stuff

that just happened that wouldn't have happened. Specifically, I think getting more contraceptive products and menstrual products inside public schools is one of the, literally the best things we can do. Like, for the whole country, that is something that, if that was required in every public school, that would

make so many people's lives better. That is a ridiculous degree. Significantly reduces harm in a specific way. And I think that just because like, yeah, I mean, it's not going to stop us all from burning up. But that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Yeah. So those are the three stories that I wanted to give some updates for. Because I know, you know, there were changes happened, you know, very soon after posting those episodes.

I still think the California ones are worth listening to because they do lay out a lot of stuff around California's climate. And the specific weird stuff that it has with its, specific weird things it has with its election process. I think the line three episodes are going to be pretty good to go back to as well. I think the line three episodes are going to be pretty good to go back to as well. And then the specific Cop City thing in Atlanta, that is the stuff that I am – it's going to be the most ongoing thing still because that's going to be an ongoing project. So I'm sure we'll come back to the Cop City at different points throughout the next few months. So that's the updates. Any closing notes from either Christopher, Robert, or Sophie? few months. That's the updates. Any

closing notes from either Christopher, Robert, or Sophie? I do. Excuse me. Alright, Sophie. Just a reminder, we've said this earlier in the episode that we're just giving you brief snippets about this stuff. There's a lot

of really good articles online that go deep into these things, and we'll post our sources on the website. Yep. Yeah, we do a good job, I think, most of the time. Patting ourselves on the back, Chris. Yes, yes. We're great.

Yeah, we're the only heroes in the world. I really like us. I think that's fair to say. Absolutely. But do not have a podcast be the only source of information no absolutely thing like don't do not don't listen just i am begging you no like for the love of god listen to if if you want more of a of a left perspective that is that that goes in some directions we don't it's going down is a lovely place to check out margaretjoy's Live Like the World is Dying.

St. Andrew's YouTube channel. He does some really incredible stuff. There's all sorts of good people out there. And then also like history books. More than anything, like history books. History books were the thing that radicalized me.

Yeah. If you want to read more about the Newsom Notable notable laws signed recently the kcra in sacramento did a did a really good breakdown article yeah that all it is a note oh sorry sophie it's okay and and as a note we we will be doing more episodes like this over time as like stories that we cover have additional things happen to them this is like we don't want to just be like dropping a story and then ignoring whatever happens next.

Sometimes that'll mean following up with people that we're talking to on the ground, but you know, we are trying to like keep you updated on the things that we think are important. You know, even when they end in a, in a broadly positive sense or whatever.

And lastly, what was the name of that brisket place in Atlanta? Because I'm sure people are going to ask about it. Oh, I don't remember. It was some shitty little place in the middle of South Atlanta in like a fucking strip mall. That was really helpful. I don't remember.

Sophie, it was like 11 years ago. I don't remember yesterday. It was the best brisket you've ever had. It was. But the best brisket,'ve ever had. It was. But the best, if you know anything about good barbecue, the best barbecue you ever have is either cooked by like your uncle or is cooked in some shitty little place

with a bathroom that wouldn't pass a code inspection. That is true. The more codes it violates, the better the brisket. Anyway. If you see the chef actively shit on the grill, that means it's going to be incredible. Jesus Christ.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at HappenHerePod and CoolZoneMedia. Subscribe to the feed and leave a five-star review. That's it. Don't shit on your brisket grill. Shit on everything. All right. Bye. Shit life.

Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of CoolZone Media. All right. Bye. Shit life. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of fright.

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