It Could Happen Here - The FBI Raided Trump: How Real is Civil War Talk?

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

We have us a goddamn round table discussion about the FBI raid on Donny Trump and all the civil war talk.See 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast,

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia,

and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh boy, it could happen here and it seems to be happening more after the last couple of days.

This is a podcast about how everything's looking pretty bad these days um and in particular right now we're we're here we've got the whole team not the whole team we've got 70 of the team here to do a round table discussion about the thing you know the thing the thing that happened this last week that is still the main thing happening, which is the FBI raided former President Trump's house. And now all of his fans are declaring war on the FBI, which is so far been, let's all be honest here, pretty funny. But everyone's also a lot, there's a lot of worry going on. There's a lot, the folks have documented, we'll talk about this, that like discussion online of civil war and civil conflict has like exploded to new heights over the last like four days or so.

So, yeah, we're going to talk about all of that. But but here's here's here's the team. We've got Garrison Davis, James Stout, and we've got Christopher Wong. And of course, me, sophie how's everybody doing today i'm doing great yeah magnificently yeah so uh where's where's where's everybody's new civil war counters at who here feels we're like we're we're closer and who here feels like we've gotten further away? Well, it's definitely gone up a little bit. Yeah, temperature's a little higher, for sure.

Yeah, I mean, we're still not really around the averages around J6. No. It's the highest it's been around the Biden administration. Yeah. I just made some ceramic armor purchases is where my uh where my current

civil war counter is at yes i did just get another set of rifle plates got some side plates yeah like you know you know who had body armor is the guy who single-handedly attacked that fbi field office in ohio with a nail gun and then died in a field. Okay, before we get into that, Ricky Schiffer. Can we talk about what the fuck is going on with that guy who lit himself on fire in his car and ran into the Capitol barrier and shot wildly? Oh, I forgot about that. What on earth? That might have just been a suicide because I haven't heard any

we don't seem to have any clear evidence that it was political yeah it's just like a really weird like I don't know that's a kind of thing that feels like if it was happening five years ago would have been like a major news story and when I was trying to find news stories about it

the first thing I did was okay I googled DC car attack and I found a different DC car attack and then I was trying to find news stories about it so the first thing I did was I googled DC car attack and I found a different DC car attack and then I googled DC shooting and I found a different DC shooting and like even combining the two it's just like oh this is we're living in a great time this isn't even the first

not even the first person to drive their car into a capital police barrier and then get out and start shooting right like this is this is the United States. It's just something we do here. It's an approved martyrdom method. I mean, it does kind of seem like it was just a suicide.

Like that one was just an apolitical suicide. That's what the Capitol Police are saying. He was 29 years old, didn't appear to be targeting any members of Congress, fired shots into the air before taking his own life um no officers shot their weapons it was very it was very quick yeah okay yeah it is interesting there's a chunk because he is he is no ricky schiffer who yeah that that the dc story seems sad the schiffer story story is, yes, incredible.

Much more funny. Having gone through, I mean, so this is obviously, you have Donald Trump get raided by the FBI, and then less than two days later, you have this guy show up outside of an FBI field office, try to force his way through or try to break through the bulletproof glass with a nail gun and then winds up in an hours-long standoff before being shot to death by the FBI, which is very funny. So I guess the thing about this that's unsettling that a colleague of ours, Jason Wilson, pointed out on Twitter and that I think is worth noting is that while this kind of thing is extremely American and very common, the thing that is kind of unsettling about Schiffer is that while this kind of thing is extremely American and very common, the thing that is kind of unsettling about Schiffer is that he's not, he's just a, he's straight up normal MAGA, right? Like he's not from any of the,

there's no evidence that he was kind of like dipping into these other subcultures that are more explicitly like terroristic in their nature. Ron Forsman says that he may have ties to proud boys but yeah we'll see he was at j6 you know so i'm sure but i mean it's what it is is a guy who is a normal trump supporter um getting radicalized what might call ultra mega in the uh yeah i mean i mean he was ultra to the extent of what he did a few days ago and he was on true social and like he he was uh yeah but that's not that irregular like if you watch the most recent jordan klepper video there's people doing like like regular ass people saying

things that are way more absurd than what they were saying two years ago. Like the reality has become so detached for a certain sect of like Trump lifers. And it's just impossible to pry them away to the point where they ineffectually attack an FBI office with an L gun and die in a shootout hours later. an L gun and die in a shootout hours later. And Schiffer, I mean, one of the things that you might compare a little bit to Schiffer is, you know, there have been, particularly during the Trump years, there were a couple of attacks on ICE facilities that were kind of like acts of desperation from people who were politically radicalized by the things happening, but also felt like there was kind of no hope of uh of taking any sort of useful action other than being an individual going out and attacking ice and i think this is a lot more

similar to that in terms of the headspace of the guy than it's similar to for example like the nazis shooting up like an el paso fucking walmart because they absolutely stop white genocide like this is this is a guy who was like purely radicalized by mainstream conservative media um and and the president's social media network he was directly radicalized by president trump as opposed to like finding trump funny and then like winding up in some some fucked up places online that radicalize him. And that is unsettling, even though it's, again, pretty funny what happened to him. I think both of those things can be true. And I think we have to take joy in the times when individual MAGA dudes use nail guns to try and attack the entire FBI.

He really thought that bulletproof glass can't be broken by bullets, but you can use nail guns to... Just really truly incredible. That bulletproof glass can't be broken by bullets, but you can use nail guns to just really. Well, he thought that this gets to what the communities that he was kind of radicalized. And he thought that because there's a lot of like normal gun YouTube videos where people will like is the thing on like gun YouTube is people will take different kinds of firearms or other weapons and different kinds of materials and see how the two interact together. Right. Like do what happens when you shoot a bullet at this how hard is it to get through bulletproof glass what are ways and like he certainly figured that out because of because there are some specific videos people pointed out that are likely the ones he watched where like

there are ways that you can kind of damage and take the um you you can gradually like make bulletproof glass fail by using a nail gun there are ways in which you can do that it just doesn't happen to be a way it's something you can do while you are standing in front of an fbi field office without getting shot to death by the fbi before before he before he died he posted a few messages onto truth saying well i thought i had a way through and i didn't if you don't hear from me it's true i tried attacking the fbi and it'll and it'll mean i was either taken off the internet the fbi got me or they sent the regular cops yeah to be fair to this guy he did successfully manage to shoot a nail gun at the fbi offices the fbi weren't the ones who killed him like he actually got away from that which is highway patrol wasn't it yeah he also called for people to prepare themselves for combat

in the days after the fbi search and that we must not tolerate this one along other posts around people urging to kill FBI agents on site and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it. All that kind of rhetoric. Sorry. I like the on-site thing. We all have this kind of joke about people dressing like feds, right?

But it's very funny that he thinks that maybe they're coming out like men in black or something yeah yeah he's not gonna be looking for like like feds in patagonia which is what they actually wear um he's yes yeah look for the man look at flannels if you see if you see a patagonia vest that is either a federal agent or an amazon executive and either way you should be frightened either way on site just such a generous interpretation that they'd take him off the internet for the crime of like trying to shoot up an fbi office they did, James. He's not online anymore. That's true.

Although, kind of bluntly posting about the terroristic attack you carried out on the FBI as you are actively dying. I know! As he's doing it. You have to say, the man had the soul of a poster. That is the poster.

He had the soul of a boom he had this whole that is the poster he had this well i think it's also like it's interesting right because this isn't like because like there's lots of like mass shooters who sort of who kind of have poster brain right but like this is like this isn't like like he's he's not doing it for the post yeah no no he just has poster brain it is like like this is just sort sort of like... It is separate from someone doing a specific like memetic attack, like an attack to entice memetic violence in the future. This was just his form of communication in his regular life. And it was the Ohio State Troopers that pursued the vehicle.

Yeah. But I think that does point to something that's kind of bleak about this right which is like the extent to which like the the extent to which the the the way this kind of politics functions is by having like you know social media becomes your entire like social sphere to the point where it's like well what are you doing in your last moments as you're like running away from the cops who are about to shoot you it's like well we're gonna post yeah and get all that gotta gotta send out a truth it's uh it's that scene from love actually but it's not true anymore right where they're like talking about what people did in 9-11 when they were stuck in the towers and they like called loved ones and told

them they loved them not this guy he posted on true social this this guy this guy didn't have people ricky sheffer no um i mean so there is one of the things that people have been asking again is in the wake of this massive surge in right-wing people talking about how it's time to have a civil war and one of the things you did see is like, as soon as Trump got raided, fairly like mainstream MAGA figures who tend to be more careful in terms of their language than like the radicals talking about like, it's war, you know, now we're at war, which is a cold civil war. And most of them, like Steven Crowder, were doing it to sell t-shirts. But that's still, that is an escalation in danger right because with that the rhetoric that becomes common again you're gonna have more ricky shippers and i'm sure

that was part of like what was going on in this guy's head is okay well if we are in a cold civil war then i'm not gonna just sit back and let the fbi destroy the only hope for western civilization i've got to fight back um yeah's what happened. And if people are asking what is about to happen, what is coming next, I don't think the thing to worry about is two sides taking up arms and suddenly fighting a big civil war. That is not, I think, the realistic threat model. But I also disagree with the folks who are like, look, it's just going to, it's not going to be a problem. You're going to get a couple of like lunatics carry out attacks, but it's all going to be fine. No, what is happening is we are normalizing the language of political violence and normalizing that violence is the only resolution

to our political problems. And that has gotten normalized for roughly 30% of the voting population of this country. That's where they are. And that is intensely dangerous. It is not, I don't think, and I think partly you could, it's not entirely bad stuff that's come out as a result of Trump getting raided. Some of it is positive because we are seeing that a significant number of like the media people are scared of that to a degree and peeling back. There was an interesting thing that happened just today. The article came out that apparently Trump reached out to Merrick Garland and asked him how he could lower the temperature. And it's interesting. And Garland is who for the

listeners who doesn't do not keep up with the attorney general so the the president of the fbi effectively um that's not how politics works but let's just say that and make the people online who pay attention to the way the government works very angry but basically, what it seems like Trump is doing is saying, hey, I recognize that like things are bad and scary. And the the political temperature is like at a boiling point, I want to try to use that as leverage to work things out with the DOJ. So you can see this as a couple of things, you can see it one as potentially Trump being just actually concerned about the rhetoric because they shooting more would not be a good thing for him. You can see it as Trump being kind of

manipulative and trying to use like, oh, well, this is now the fact that my supporters are scary and carrying out terrorist attacks is a way in which I can utilize leverage and like exercise power over the government. And it's kind of a bargaining chip that I have in my fight with the FBI. Or you could even see it as potentially evidence that he actually is scared of potential prosecution, because maybe this is him kind of that maybe this is a show of desperation. It's really unclear at the moment what it is. I can tell you I've read a couple of right wing. The New York Times is the one that broke this story and their reporting on it is pretty straightforward and mostly focuses on the claims made by Trump's legal team about how they attempted to comply with the requests to bring in classified information.

media coverage of this has been really different and has shown it as like Trump is just sort of desperately, you know, trying to be reasonable. And, you know, the Justice Department just isn't willing to talk to him and isn't willing to work with him at all. And that's kind of the way it's being spun right now. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. 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 Michael Duda Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though,

I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There was that pro-Trump protest in D.C. which got no one to show up because it was either

canceled or a whole bunch of forums or image boards or for our blogs told people not to go because they thought it could be a trap and I think stuff like that happening in DC might still take a long time to recover after J6 but stuff that's happening

in other capitals and other places and other now FBI offices is fbi offices is is much more concerning and i think more localized shows of support for president trump or support for just whatever the current thing is is probably gonna it's gonna continue going with some image of militancy you know right whether that's people in Hawaiian shirts showing up with guns outside the FBI office. Which you've seen in Arizona just in the last couple of days. Yeah.

Literally yesterday as we record this. When it comes to actual like – so one of the reasons people have been concerned about Civil War stuff is – and this is not unreasonable, is the fact that you have had Republican officials, including some state level elected officials, particularly in Florida, saying some pretty wild shit, including like a state congressional candidate talking about, we need to basically kick the FBI out of the entire state. Governor DeSantis needs to exercise basically saying that DeSantis needs to use Florida state law enforcement to stop the FBI

from investigating the former president. And were that to happen, that would be a big deal. That would be like, that is the kind of thing that could lead to a massive civil conflict. Right. Because vaguely speaking, stuff like that is what is what started the actual shooting in the last civil war is states saying we are not recognizing the authority of the federal government. We're not doing a thing that the federal government tells us we have to. And this is something like there's a lot of support from MAGA folks for this. Ben Collins, who does, I think, for NBC, was posting the other day a lot of like different Trump Q forum sort of posts where people are saying, hey, Don Jr., we know you lurk on the site. You should cross the Rubicon and, you know, somehow get DeSantis to use Florida law enforcement to attack the FBI. And there's some pretty gnarly stuff in those posts. Now, I don't think that that means

there's actually, I haven't seen evidence that there's much political will for that. And in fact, one of the things people are saying is that it looks like there's a decent chance DeSantis cooperated and helped the FBI. Yeah, because DeSantis wants to be president. Because DeSantis wants to be president, but he's actually on board with this because he wants to fuck over Trump. Now that is scary, and that is, I think, a more realistic threat model

than the idea that DeSantis might have the Florida state troopers start shooting at the FBI. As funny as it may be to watch Florida law enforcement shoot at the FBI. That would be pretty funny. Garrison, pretty funny. I know, I know. I don't think DeSantis will do that because DeSantis really wants to be president,

which is just another scary possibility. And that would honestly be less funny to watch. It's like, it's not great overall. It's two not great sets of choices here. Yeah, and I think if we're looking at what the actual kind of mass civil threat is, as opposed to DeSantis declaring secession or something and the Trump states trying to declare their

independence. I think the actual threat is that this could damage Trump enough that he doesn't run and DeSantis maybe is, and this is very unclear, by the way, if you look at the polling, it's extremely unclear as to whether or not DeSantis would do better than Trump in a national election right now. But some of the polling does suggest that even as unpopular as Biden is right now, he still has a sizable lead over Trump in any headway because people fucking hate Donald Trump, right? If you are not one of the people who is on the verge of attacking an FBI building right now, you don't like him. Even ifiden has not done anything to help you at least in your mind um you know then then and so that that is kind of the bet that desantis is making and i think what scares me most about

the rhetoric we're seeing right now less than the fact the idea that like florida is going to declare war on the fucking dc government is the threat that the rhetoric will stay at this heightened level and you're already seeing the thing that scares me more than talk about, like we should secede is talk about like, well, when we're back in power, we're just going to send the FBI after everybody that is that we considered enemy.

Let's, let's, let's raid them all, you know? And that's the thing that scares me. And that's the thing that I think could actually lead to the highest loss of life. There's,

there's that part. And then obviously like in terms of like bringing it back to bringing it back to stuff we talk about on the show, a DeSantis presidency would be extremely hostile to queer people, way more so than Trump. Yes. And that would be veering on some very dangerous and very unshaky ground. And I think in the short term too there's there's

another danger there which is that like we see this kind of militancy from the right like spreading more and more into just the other campaigns that they're doing and so you know we start getting attacks on gender clinics we start seeing more attacks on abortion clinics and i think that's possible and i think also like another thing to be thinking about is looking at what happened in 2020, where specifically around the anti-lockdown stuff, you know, you just had a whole bunch of armed people, like, occupying Capitol buildings. And it worked. It was incredibly effective, right? Like, there is, like, the net result of that and the sort of, like, resulting political campaign from it is that, like like the entire democratic party has decided that it just doesn't like it's not even going to talk about covid anymore and like the cdc is just like pretending it doesn't exist yeah and so like like

that that that strategy like that there's just right and the thing is again like that stuff is the actual policies like stuff like i don't like stuff like like vaccine mandates for teachers like a 64 approval rating right like the actual like everyone doesn't die from covid policies are popular it's just that like this sort of you know getting getting getting getting a bunch of guys with guns to go into a capitol building and then yell about it is enough of a political threat that they can they can force the democrats to back down and yeah there's i think there's i think there's a non-zero chance they start trying to do this other things they're trying to do this with other things. They start trying to do this with like, hey, if you're going to have gender clinics in your state, we're going to start occupying capitals again.

And you could see the fact that – and one of the things that is unclear that makes it hard to tell if – so it is unclear as to whether or not the Biden White House knew that this raid was happening and who knew. There are definitely reports that some staffers found out about it on fucking twitter i have to you i i have to assume that the president was aware of it and like it was probably him that he to some extent pushed for it um i would have trouble believing that he did not because it's the fbi raiding a former president right the fbi has a lot of power but i don't think that's a thing that the feds just do because, right? You have to have Garland on your side. And if Garland is directing this to some extent, then I'm sure Biden is aware. And that actually might be-

And the FBI director that Trump appointed. Yeah, yeah, Chris Wray, who sucks. I mean, obviously, they all suck. Everybody involved in this sucks. There was a great post someone made right after the raid that says look i want to make it really clear the fbi cannot do good things but they can do funny things and this is extremely funny and i just like that specifically some of the some of the crimes around keeping classified documents and this specific fbi director are both things that either trump signed into into law yeah or he appointed himself yeah it is very funny i have been talking to people who have had uh security clearances and understand some of that and um

like the the shit that they got from his house and those 11 boxes or whatever is the kind of thing that like does not get fucked with in the way that trump would like fucked with it like yeah it's it's i mean the fact that the espionage act is in play is pretty shocking um as is the fact that rand paul is now calling for the espionage act to be dissolved which is like i'm not against based wow incredibly based right of all so i mean it is yeah it is really it is really it is a thing to watch everyone go like you know defund fbi abolish fbi just because power gets used against one person one time and you're like oh this power only exists to hurt minorities why is it being used to hurt me or someone who i who i look up to there's a discourse on the left right now that is like should we be working with the right to defund the fbi or

whatever and here's the thing in my opinion no you should not work with the right on any of this stuff because they don't want to get rid of the FBI. They want to take the weaponry and power that the FBI has and they want to like deploy it differently, but they still want that power to exist. Right. Yeah. So no, you can't work with them on that. However, if they start actually trying to remove the espionage act, then absolutely we should vote to remove the espionage. That's fine.. Just like if they actually vote to reduce funding to federal law enforcement, that's fine. But that doesn't mean you act as if they're legitimately fighting against any of this stuff. So I think that there's some potential evidence, just the fact that this raid happened, that shows that maybe there are folks in the Biden administration who understand the stakes of the fight and are taking it seriously because

this is potential. I mean, and we'll see how it shakes out. It's all still too early to know if like anything more serious than his house being disrupted is going to happen. But like, if they really throw down legally against Trump in this way to try to stop him from being able to hold office again and to try to actually punish him for his abuses of power, that's potentially a pretty smart move if they have the stones, right? That's a big question is like, are they going to back down because the right starts threatening to shoot things up? So like the scary thing potential here is that the right wing starts howling about how they're going to do a bunch of murders over this and so the doj backs off and the right is like well what if we just threaten to

commit mass murder anytime something we don't like happens maybe that's how we win politics now the positive with this is that like the way fascists succeed historically is because people who are not fascists are not really willing to fight them and so the fascists go for it and everybody else backs off because they're scared of having a fight right so if this shows that there's actually some teeth within the democratic party to throw down that's potentially a sign that like they've started to recognize where the stakes are um that shouldn't be taken as too high of a possibility i'm looking at a post from david froome um famed centrist idiot uh who's talking about how he thinks the desantis nomination in 2024 quote represented a much better outcome for the whole country than a trump return maybe you don't like his manner or record but he's

a recognizably normal u.s politician oh no peacefully if defeated he'd go peacefully like first off great incredible that that's where we are right now that you're like yeah well he's a fine he would be a fine candidate for the republicans to run because he wouldn't try to overthrow the country if he lost number one not certain about that but number two um yikes again if david froome is saying something he's wrong right that is that is the rule the rule of david froome he's he's one of those kind of like thinkers in american politics or whatever he's saying is not right yeah and like in desantis like right now is like very openly like getting his people in position to take control of the Florida to take control of Florida's election procedures. He has this guy,

Sol's Attorney General. He's very openly trying to do a, what was the guy's name? Kelp, who rigged the election in Georgia a few years ago? Yeah. He's very obviously prepping to do that. I'm sure he'll be fine. He seems like a normal enough guy.

We'll be fine. He seems like a normal enough guy. Yeah, we'll go peacefully. 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 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. 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions,

sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley New episodes every Thursday. from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I do want to just read, before we close out, read a few things that how the FBI and how the DHS have been talking about the threats that they've been seeing. Because how the kind of institutions of power talk about these same things is worth noting. Yes.

They released a memo saying that there are threats, quote, occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to places so called Dirty Bomb in front of the FBI headquarters and issuing general calls for civil war and armed rebellion. So yeah, they said that they're looking at threats through specifically identifying proposed targets, tactics, and weaponry.

targets, tactics, and weaponry. And, you know, it goes on to talk about targeted for people in, like, the judicial system, law enforcement, government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, targeting the federal judge who approved the search warrant. And the FBI has also observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as the home addresses and identification of family members disseminated online as additional targets. So in terms of what the attack surface is on these types of image boards and social media sites, even before Schiffer did his attack he posted when they come for you kill them be an American not a steer and I think other kind of things that could be at play and things that are worrying me as stuff develops not because they're worrying me not because they're convincing they're worrying me because they don't need to be convincing.

Deceptively edited photos and videos have gone viral across social media over the past week following the search. While guest hosting Tucker Carlson tonight on Fox News, Brian Klamid showed a fake image of the judge who signed off on the search warrant

sitting beside Glissian Maxwell? How do you say her name? Ghislaine. Ghislaine. Ghislaine. Ghislaine. That's how it was.

Genuinely. No, it's Ghislaine. Ghislaine Maxwell. So, you know, showing this, you know, quote unquote meme while not saying it's a meme, just showing the picture. On Friday, a fake video purporting to show another Fox host, Sean Hannity, arguing with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the definition of what an FBI raid is. But that discussion never happened. This was spliced together footage from years apart in

different interview segments. Hours after the video went viral on Twitter, the platform did place a manipulated media label. And yeah, it's this kind of stuff that is going to be, you know, in terms of like, you know, trying to prospect what the next few years could be, depending on who the president is, what types of like media is going to be popular, how this is going to kind of impact the temperature politically and how people take in information and how people are willing to turn information into action in terms of taking out violence that how often these little small things are happening is it's it's this it could be the start of a of a thing that becomes a much bigger problem very soon. Yeah. I think maybe, like, in terms of the temperature rising, we should discuss just really briefly these other sort of more or less baseless or sort of wildly off-base conspiracies around law enforcement that we've seen on the right

in the last few weeks. Do we want to talk um do we do we want to talk about those do we want to talk about those separately i'm not sure what you're referring to uh so there's there's a couple of things that have happened that have sent like the the right pretty sort of crazy in the last few weeks one is the uh in the inflation reduction act uh there's there's this part where they say they're going to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, right? Yes, yes. A large part of that is replacing the massive amount of IRS people who are about to retire.

And the rest of it is getting them back up to sort of where they were a few years ago. It's not like they're going to actually hire. Pre-pandemic levels, yeah. Yeah, so there are like 70,000. I think half of them are supposed to retire in the next five years they want to hire 87 000 over the next 10 years so that'll get them up by 20 32 to where they were in 2019 or whatever yeah um so it's not what it's portrayed as but that combined i think with um the ATF visiting a guy's house,

which I know Garrison and I saw memes about in this crazy little conservative newspaper that we came across when we were reporting on a story. And the ATF reclassifying some things that are called AR pistols, which you probably don't need to explain, other than saying that they're a workaround for federal firearms. Or is that fair yeah there's a bunch of different there's a bunch of kinds of guns that you're not supposed to be allowed to have without a special tax stamp which is like a whole additional legal process in order to basically make sure that poor people can't own certain types of

specific firearms and there's workarounds where things function the same way as those guns that are normally illegal but they aren't technically that and the fbi or not and the atf is about to crack down on some of that um and so yeah yeah and the sort of combination of these things has led a lot of figures on the right you'll see it in that thread i think robert shared it and i shared it of like these dozens of tiktoks talking about civil war that came out the day after trump was raided they talk a lot about irs raids and about people coming for their for their guns and their short barreled rifles specifically uh which i think is the combination of these things leading to this sort of again like it's if you misunderstand each of those three things completely you get to the conclusion that the uh the irs has hired 87 000 armed shock troops

and they're coming after your ar pistol which is not true but uh that narrative has definitely been sort of spread around and again it's not exactly decreasing the temperature no i mean just i think today uh trump was on fox news digital and he said uh people are so angry at what's taking place whatever we can do to help because the temperature has to be brought down in the country if it isn't terrible things are going to happen the people of. The people of this country are not going to stand for another scam. So, huh, I wonder what he meant by that.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah, I guess, like, the other thing that, I mean, we kind of touched on, but I think is, like, important to understand is the extent to which, like, mean we kind of touched on but i think is like important to understand is the extent to which like trump is kind of a singular figure in his ability to actually get a bunch of people to do a thing and like i think that like that that power i think is reduced

since you know i'm like he's like he's not present anymore right like it's reduced since j6 yeah since j6 but like you know he still has the ability to mobilize like ability to mobilize parts of the right that like you're sort of like weird neo-nazi guy like can't yes and yeah he like you know and like he he seems to be aware of this and he seems to be aware that like you know he can use his either use this as a bargaining chip or use this to sort of like threaten people but yeah like that's a real thing like it is a real thing that there's an incredibly large part of the country who like if donald trump told them to like go die for him on normandy beach or something like they probably would yep yeah the fbi and dhs in their memo also warned that uh the 2022 midterm elections in november could be seen as an additional flashpoint in which...

Oh, really? ...will continue to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including federal law enforcement personnel. So, stay tuned! Yay! Woo! It should... If people haven't realized, by the way, it was Breitbart who named the FBI agents to obtain the warrant.

Didn't bother to Google what their jobs were. They were like, what does this acronym stand for? No one knows. It's very secret. Pop journalism there. Yeah. Well, good. We seem to be in a nice place then.

It's going well. Yeah. Yeah. Start organizing now. The best time to start this was yesterday. The second best time is now. The third best time is tomorrow. And don't let them take how funny this is as well, though.

Is this pretty funny? There is another lesson here, which is that there is an enormous amount you can get away with politically as long as it's funny and like frankly we we have we have not been utilizing that to no the left and like anarchists in general have forgotten how to do good funny shit uh for the past 10 years and we have to bring it back yeah it is this is we've been given a precious gift and how funny this is and you we have a couple of responsibilities. And one of them, of course, is to organize in order to be prepared to counter increasing like attempts to impose an authoritarian violence on us. that it is response that we have a responsibility to do is laugh at how funny this is and make sure that other people don't forget how funny this is so go out into the world and remind somebody that a fucking trump nerd tried to take on the fbi with a nail gun and an ar-15 and died in a

fucking field in ohio because that's pretty funny it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. 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 right 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, Now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast.

And we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral.

We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.