Some More News - Some More News: Checking In On Trump's Authoritarian Takeover

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Hi. Today we're looking at a few news stories from the past month we haven't yet been able to cover. One thing they all have in common: The Trump administration is going full boar [you heard us!] with their authoritarian takeover.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Marco Siler-GonzalesProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #DonaldTrump #AuthoritarianGovernmentPluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey there, cats and dogs and fish. Here's some news. A brand new craze is hitting the country called fascismat, right? Fascism.

I wrote fascism. Well, that's not news. If you know anything about Us of the Shoddy, you know that we've been sounding the authoritarianism alarm for a while now. Not a fun alarm, very shrill. It would be nice, perhaps, if it turned out to be a false alarm, in that the various safeguards we've established, do in fact guard us from what is undoubtedly an American fascist movement stoked and perpetuated by its cult leader Donald Trump. But alas, today's episode isn't about

the fascist clawing at the door, but rather about some recent news stories that seem to indicate they're already inside. They're in our homes, getting comfortable using our kitchen appliances, making swastika-shaped waffles. And no, you don't get any. Hello? And they say, we don't need a freedom, he's a dictator, he's a dictator. Did you say? A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator. I don't like a dictator.

That's not what he said. I'm not a dictator. The fascism is coming from inside the house. I mean, would you even want to eat a swastika waffle? That's less waffle when you think about it. Anyway, I don't know if you know this, but there's so much news out there, and we don't have the time to cover it all. Or perhaps we're going to cover it in a larger, later episode about a broader thing.

That doesn't make those stories less important. And in fact, most of the time, it's a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really dire stuff. That's exactly why you've all agreed to meet me here. So I can tell you fun and new ways the fascists are fashing. Or fascisting? Yeah, who cares? Look, I'm going to go. They're coming from all over the world, from prisons, mental institutions, and...

I don't think so. Silence. Involuntary commitment is back. Oh, good. I was super hoping to start with something horrible. Do tell. Well, turning out to President Trump's executive order signed late last week, ending crime and disorder on America's streets. The order says, quote, shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.

Cool. Cool. not cool. So back at the end of July, President Donald Donald Donald Trump signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to overhaul how they manage homelessness in the United States. Specifically, he directed those agencies to support treatment first programs around the country. Actually, let me be more clear. My therapist says I need to be more clear. The executive order encourages states and localities to involuntarily commit homeless people into mental health or addiction treatment facilities.

You know, institutionalizing people against their will, like a bad person might do. Now, you may not have realized this, but for the last 20 years or so, the typical federal strategy to fight homelessness was to provide housing first and then offer addiction and substance abuse treatment and other resources. And when done correctly, this tactic worked. Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, reduced homelessness by 49% using a housing first strategy from 2022 and 2023. Houston, Texas had similar results after investing in long-term housing. Even Republicans supported this. It actually gained prominence under George W. Bush's first term,

and it was praised by former brain surgeon turned housing and urban development secretary for some reason, Ben Carson during Trump's first term. It's a good idea. Like one of those hierarchy of needs type dillies. You know, the one is the triangle where the bottom foundation is physiological needs like food and shelter. So when someone has those things, they can then seek their safety needs like employment and health. Having a home increases your mental health and makes you less reliant on self-medication or drug use. And then you can gradually seek less vital needs like love and status and one of those N64 emulator consoles. Now, to be fair lineous and balanced full, Housing First tactic did hit a few snags, but not for a lack of trying.

I'm not, sorry, but it was for a lack of trying. That was the snag, because while Housing First programs have been proven to be effective, it's also really expensive. You have to pay for the good thing, which, uh-oh, oh no. And so, yeah, we never really did that. Like, the only reason some cities were able to implement this program was because officials were able to tap into federal dollars from Biden's American Rescue Plan to make those reductions possible. But the American Rescue Plan was kind of a one-time dealio,

and so only 15% of people experiencing homelessness are able to get into a housing first program in any given year. Meanwhile, the demand for affordable housing has far outpaced the supply. Combined that with a crippling epidemic of drug addiction, and we pretty much get to where we are now. The annual count of homeless people last year was up 18% from the year before. We had a a strategy that worked, but we never funded enough to see succeed. And then we elected Trump. More specifically, we elected Project 2025, which explicitly calls for an end to the strategy. And so we now have this man as our new secretary of housing and urban development. We have a Doge task force at HUD. The gentleman from Doge, they're part of HUD.

They work with HUD. They work for HUD. We're all one team. And they've done a tremendous job in helping our team at HUD to identify waste fraud and abuse, $260 million in contract savings, $1.9 billion in misplaced fundings that has accrued over the past several years. And so working together with those in our team at HUD were identifying waste fraud and abuse for that $1.9 billion for instance. That's Scott Turner, a pastor and former Texas state lawmaker who repeatedly voted down bills that would have expanded affordable housing and is often blamed. named government welfare for harming the American family.

Disincentivizing the two-parent home by perverse incentives created by the government and the welfare system which in turn creates an epidemic of fatherlessness in our country. Needo! So a guy who wants to do the opposite of what helps. A lot of that going around these days. Scott's plan is to have the government work

with faith-based and non-profit organizations more closely. Effectively kicking the problem to them. One of his first actions as HUD secretary was to stop enforcing a rule that bans discrimination against LGBTQ people in federally administered shelters and housing programs. Scott basically gave the thumbs up to discriminate against a demographic that is one of the most at risk of becoming homeless. Because apparently God told him so. Quote, this means recognizing there are only two sexes, male and female. It means getting government out of the way. of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in his own image. Super not sure why the HUD secretary needs to weigh in on that like, at all, but here we are. Also, imagine assuming the tiny voice in your head telling you to be a dickhead was God. The hubris of that.

I don't say God told me to wipe my boogers on the back of a child's shirt at the movie theater. I know it's Cody doing that for the sport of it. Anyway, so Trump's executive order prioritizes federal dollars for state, and localities that forcefully remove homeless encampments. It also calls for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to defund any program that uses harm reduction strategies. Stuff like providing safe syringes,

which are proven to keep people alive and reduce the spread of dangerous diseases, while not causing an increase in illegal drug use or crime in the area. You know, woke stuff. None of that anymore, though. America is officially great again, returning to our eugenicist roots when the U.S. locked up around 630,000 people in psychiatric facilities.

That's not an exaggeration. We actually had eugenicists informing federal policy on mental health and poverty from the early to mid-20th century. We've done multiple episodes on this like and subscribe. The point is we will most likely see more of this in states all over the country as our federal government prioritizes the imprisonment of people experiencing homelessness and mental health crises, kidnapping them against their will into a for-profit system that places the bottom line over the health and wellness of the individual. And sadly, this is probably preferable to the alternative suggested by some on the right. Billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population, either you take the resources that we're going to give you and or

you decide that you're going to be locked up in gym. That's the way it has to be now. Or involuntary lethal injection or something. I just kill them. If you're wondering why the Democrats aren't more upset about this. Well, they love it too, actually. Governor Gavin Newsom announces a new statewide task force aimed at dismantling homeless encampments on state property, especially along freeways and under overpasses. Ah yeah, there's a resistance fighter in Gavin's, I guess, defense. The idea is to also provide shelter to the people whose personal items are being unceremoniously thrown out. But there are mixed results, either because shelters were refused or in some cases never actually offered.

Point is that they don't really care so long as the tents are gone. No matter who is doing it, this is all in service of the American tradition of removing undesirables from public life. Where do they go? Well, as Jesse Waters said out loud on camera, it doesn't matter. As long as they disappear, whether they be immigrants or homeless people or the mentally ill, etc. And what Trump and Gavin are doing isn't too out of line with what other Democratic leaders are also doing in blue states around the country. When he's not doing photo ops, tearing down homeless encampments, Newsom also signed a law in 2023 that loosened the restrictions around involuntary commitment. An investigative report by the San Francisco Chronicle found that California is often committing

individuals into for-profit psychiatric hospitals where patients have reported being beaten and sexually assaulted. While these for-profit institutions are serving more patients now than ever, they are also spending less than half as much on per capita patient care than their non-profit counterparts, all of which accrued $440 million in profits between 2019 and 2022. So, yeah, it's disingenuous to say that you're offering housing when the housing is a nightmare. That's like setting up soup kitchens where the soup is shards of glass and hair. Or that beetle juice shrimp that comes alive, or glass and hair that comes alive and does a Beetlejuice impression. It's one of those three things. Ultimately, this is all tied into the Democrats' total failure when it comes to

grappling with the subject of crime. The GOP knows full well that they can simply use crime as the generic end-all justification for so many things. I'm surprised they haven't blamed the effects of climate change on crime. Oh, wait, yes, they absolutely have done that. Sorry, I forgot. Trump's executive order is actually titled, ending crime and disorder on America's streets, which of course frames unhoused people as criminals or bad people. And Democrats are just kind of falling for it, trying to yes and this ghoulish improv sesh rather than pointing out that unhoused folks are far more likely to be a victim of a crime than a perpetrator. And there's little correlation between unhoused populations and increased crime rates.

As I said earlier, last year, the U.S. counted more homeless people than ever before, about 700,000, including around 150,000 children. So as we're trying to disappear the homeless, we're also making more of them. Instead of helping the homeless, we're now going to all pretend like they are bad and deserve it because that's easier. And in any other decade, going against the data might be a problem. Luckily, for anyone in denial, we've transcended the need for objection. objective reality, which is why I know that you all love that we have to break for ads right now. Oh my goodness, look at you. You're all so happy.

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no. Swallow the last of the ads until the next ad break. Anyway, hi again. We were talking about involuntary commitment and the overall rejection of reality by people in the right wing. Crime statistics specifically is one that they love to ignore. And we'll talk about that a little later too.

The point being that for the right, if a statistic bothers you, well, instead of accepting it, you can just. President Trump abruptly firing Erica McIntarfer, the nonpartisan commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, claiming without providing evidence that Friday's weaker than expected jobs report was, quote, manipulated. Oh, wow, that's way easier than humility or self-awareness.

Why didn't I think of doing that last time I talked to my cardiologist? Chest pains, more like woke pains. Yes. You're fired! 2 plus 2 equals, you're fired. Stupid woke, gripping my heart like a vice! Okay. So, you know what they say.

War in the streets, love making in the data sheets. I'm sorry, but that is what they say, okay? Look it up. What I mean is that one of the reasons people claimed to have held their nose and voted for Trump was that he'd at least be good for the economy. They'll accept all the other bad Nazi stuff somehow, so long as the big green job arrow points up. Because he's the business guy, you see? He's good with numbers.

What's 17 times six? It's 11. It's 1112. It's 112. It's 112. 112. 1 12. It is 112? 112. Look at you, you genius.

Right, the kids didn't know. That's why you're dead. That's why I'm dead. Yeah, you're right, 112. Well, okay, not like literal numbers, I guess, because, you know, 17 times 6 is not 1112. Nor is it 112. But he's good with, I don't know, money numbers, right? That was the deal he made with voters.

They vote for him, he gets the jobs. But when all the charts and numbers are saying that jobs are down and the economy is slowing, what do you do? How do you save that? Well, the solution, it turns out, is very easy. All new numbers. Okay?

Oh, you can just lie. You fire the people collecting the numbers and you change them and you lie, of course. Do we need to figure out what that chart says or means? Probably not. All that matters is that the new line is going up. When faced with reality, Trump opted to fire Erica McIntarfer, the bipartisan approved commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

McIntyrefer had the gall to report that employers had only added 73,000 new jobs in July and revised down the previous two months of jobs created by 258,000, all of which are signals that the economy is not as hot as it seemed earlier this year. It's the latest sign that Trump's strategy of igniting a global trade war might actually be bad for the economy. Now, to be fairish and balanced-esque, every president has fudged the numbers on the economy a bit. Remember when Bush 2 reclassified fast food employees as factory workers

so he could juice the manufacturing job numbers? You don't remember that? But that's just all the kids talk about these days. Lawmakers actually had some form of a spine back then and voted to shoot that down. This is obviously not the case with Trump, and it's not only bizarre, but frankly, lazy. Like, it would be one thing if Trump were trying to convince us that some short-term pain is needed to accomplish his overall economic goals. But he didn't even bother to sell or spin it. He doesn't have to anymore.

He can just change the numbers and gaslight us all into thinking he didn't. The fact is that we had these blockbuster numbers for Joe Biden last year, that suddenly we lost about a million of them after he dropped out of the election. The U.S. government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can. And so to make sure that that's not going to happen in the data agencies, to make sure that the data are as transparent and as reliable as possible, we're going to get highly qualified people in there that have a fresh start and a fresh head of eyes on the problem. That's White House Economic Advisor and Energy Vampire Kevin Hassett defending Trump's

to fire McIntyrefer, suggesting that she was actually part of the deep state, who also wanted to taint Joe Biden's economic legacy for some reason. Seems like a plot hole. Not that anyone cares. When those correct job numbers were first released, Trump just posted on Truth Social that McIntyre had rigged them to make him look bad, which is like childishly silly when you think about it. McIntyre isn't the Lord of Numbers.

They don't just get to make up stuff. In fact, after she was fired, the BLS has continued to put out these low numbers because firing the one person in charge doesn't change that. The process of revising and publishing job numbers actually goes through a series of reviews by a cohort of career statisticians. Very serious, nonpartisan people just doing their jobs. Revisions made to the job creation estimates happen all the time. The fact that those revisions by the BLS are initially overestimating job creation follows

a consistent pattern that started after the post-pandemic hiring boom. Even under Biden, the BLS was revising job creation downward, which isn't a great sign for our economy. Also not a great sign for our economy is who Trump is getting to replace McIntyre for, specifically this guy. The president announced a little bit ago that he's going to nominate economist E.J. Antony from the Heritage Foundation to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The latest newly surfaced videos of him mixing in with the crowd outside the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Anthony declined to comment, but the White House says he was simply a bystander who wandered over after seeing coverage on the news. That's E.J. Anthony, the Holy Grail of Trump nominees, a J. Sixer, Heritage Foundation member, and a bit of a Nazi? Let's just say he's a history buff, Nudge Nudge Nudge, who also has some thoughts about the IQs of women. Nudge, nudge. In other words, he's perfect for Trump, in that he'll do whatever he says. Doesn't matter that even economists at the Conservative American Enterprise Institute have called this guy as unqualified as it gets. Doesn't matter that he has zero background in labor economics and has at times appeared completely clueless on how macroeconomics works.

Antony is a regular guest on Fox News and Newsmax, where he praises Trump's economic policies. So he gets the job, which again is going to be devastating. You see, turns out, reporting accurate numbers on job growth and other economic indicators is actually incredibly important. Oh no! Not this piece of paper. The private sector relies on credible data from the federal government to make business decisions. And even our federal agencies like the Federal Reserve rely on labor data to gauge interest rates,

which of course affects how much we pay when taking out a loan. You see how these decisions at the top have a downstream effect. What happens when our government no longer has an accurate or credible gauge on the economy? You could ask Argentina, which systematically understated its inflation numbers to the point where global trading partners lost faith in the government's data, which drove up borrowing costs and imploded their national debt crisis. Or we could ask Greece, a country that faced a national debt crisis, in part because their government reported fake deficit numbers for years. See, the thing about dictatorship is that it often relies on building this alternate reality

around the big, strong leader. The problem being that unless you have built a bubble around the entire country, like North Korea, then eventually the reality seeps through in the form of consequences. In Trump's case, it seems like he's happy enough to simply build the bubble around him Along with Erica McIntarfer, Trump has publicly stated that he wants to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Powell is a Republican who is appointed by Trump in 2017, and he has, as of when we recorded this, refused to drop higher interest rates over the last few years in order to counter high inflation rates. But that doesn't work within Trump's bubble.

He needs those interest rates down to spur investment and growth in the economy. Should Powell drop those interest rates? Did he already drop them after we recorded this? Who knows? Go ask your dad or your grandpa. Call your parents for God's sake, all right? Unless they're dead, in which case, I'm really sorry for even bringing it up. The point is that Powell, like McIntarfer, is just a very serious person doing their job and contending with reality, which naturally is a threat to Trump.

It looks like it's about 3.1 billion, one up a little bit, or a lot. So the 2.7 is now 3.1 and it just came out. Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody to the Fed. It's a building that's being built. No, it's been, it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago. It's part of the overall work. But it's not new.

Yeah, his days are numbered. You gotta protect that bubble, see? Of course, like I said, it's hard to maintain when that bubble is so tightly around Trump himself. Eventually, it might occur to him that fewer and fewer people are on board with his economic policies, while six out of ten Americans blamed the Trump administration for driving up their cost of living. If not by reading the polls themselves, Trump might face this reality during the midterms. Oh, if only there was a way to fudge those. Listen, asshole!

They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poisoned. Texas is gerrymandering us into oblivion. Ah damn! I shouldn't have given them that idea. Stupid Cody, always yapping! The Texas Senate passed a GOP redistricting bill, voting 19 to 2 to approve new congressional maps

and could give Republicans up to five more U.S. House seats. Texas Senate's Democrats walked out in protest before that vote. See, because the GOP is eating so many turds, there's a good chance the midterms could very well flip the House of Representatives blue, unless they, you know, change that reality. That's why Trump pressured Texas Republicans to gerrymander the living shit out of their voting maps. At the end of July, Texas lawmakers unveiled a new congressional map that would most likely

flip five Democratic seats red in the midterms. Texas Republicans had already redistricted their state just three years ago, where they had already, already, gerrymandered to favor Republicans as much as possible. Just take a look at Texas's 35th district, which packs in and consolidates Democratic voters within San Antonio and Austin, despite those being two cities 80 miles apart from each other. So while Texas was certainly going to remain a red state, the point of this is to pad Trump's majority in Congress for the midterms. A little extra something for Texas. And of course, Republicans gerrymandering isn't exactly new. Modern attempts started

shortly after the 2008 election delivered Obama and the Democratic Party a trifecta of power. Republican strategists realized that redrawing district lines to out-leverage Democratic opponents could deliver more seats to Republicans without having to actually campaign on winning ideas. Or really, any ideas. This was made painfully clear in 2012, when Obama carried every major swing state, and the Democrats even added seats in the Senate. But in the House, gerrymandered districting lines in those same swing states gave Republicans 64 out of 94 seats. It worked.

No need to be popular, you can just shove people around until you seem popular. Biff the vote! While there have been some reforms made in certain states to regulate partisan gerrymandering, states like Wisconsin remain entrenched in a skewed map. In 2018, Wisconsin Democrats swept the Senate, governor's office, and every statewide race. Yet Republicans still held onto 64% of Congressional House seats, despite receiving 45% of the vote. In 2019, voters in Maryland and North Carolina filed lawsuits alleging that their state's congressional maps were partisantly gerrymandered, which violated their first and 14th Amendment rights, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Elections Clause.

All the clauses. Even that Santa Claus won, and then there's Santa Claus 2, and Santa Claus 3, the Escape Clause, where he fights Jack Frost. They also did two seasons of a TV show called The Santa Clauses. Anyone watch that? I did. Also, district courts all agreed with the plaintiffs that their constitutional rights were indeed being violated. That case was then appealed to the Supreme Court. So, you know, in a five-four decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion

that the courts had no obligation to rule over the constitutionality of gerrymandering. Quote, partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts. You certainly can't let the Supreme Court decide on something being constitutionally sound. What are they? The Supreme Court? And so, without any judicial oversight or standards, states can now basically do whatever they want. It's road warrior rules out there. All of which has led us to this moment where a sitting president can demand that his party disenfranchised thousands of voters in order to hold onto power. In the case of Texas redistricting just a year out from the midterms, Democrats basically,

have two options. They can pursue performative measures like leaving the state to prevent a quorum in the state house, which is a great way to call attention to the matter, but never really succeeds in actually blocking the legislation. Their second option is to retaliate by gerrymandering blue states in order to make up for the potential lost seats in Texas. You know, get into the mud, roll around, slay it, etc., which is exactly what the gruesome newsome is promising to do some. maps on the ballot and we're giving the power to the people. This will be the first redistricting that's ever done it. Newsom is basically asking voters to sidestep the state's nonpartisan redistricting commission for the next 10 years, which would allow Democrats to redraw congressional

districts as they see fit. I mean, he loves displacing people, so this comes naturally to him. California Democrats estimate they can gain at least five house seats in the redistricting process. This is all set off a chain reaction of lawmaking. in at least six other states promising to gerrymander their congressional lines to win either more blue or red seats. A gerrymander arms race. Fun! You chop it off, another one grows, salamander, gerrymander anyway. Despite Democrats and other probable 2028 presidential candidates playing hardball with the Trump administration on partisan gerrymandering,

this whole situation seems like the exact kind of thing Trump wants to happen. He's dictating this scenario, dragging everyone down with him, and forcing Democrats, to play along. Setting off a gerrymander war will most likely further erode the public's trust in the voting and election process, which Trump has historically tried to use to his advantage in the electoral process. I mean, I get it. What other option is there? But this isn't about earning the trust or confidence of voters. It's about breaking a system he wants to replace. Of course, they aren't saying that. It would actually be refreshing to hear them say that, But they're still trying to frame this as a will of the people type of thing.

Because it's good for our party. It's good for our stay. And we need to ensure that Donald Trump's agenda continues to be enacted throughout his second term. And we as Republicans see this as the difference between Democrats trying to impeach President Trump again during the second half of his final term as president of the United States or accomplishing the agenda that all the voters in Texas by a significant majority sent him to accomplish. In ure-fascism terms, this is called selective populism. They really want to paint the narrative that most people totally agree with them

and that Democrats are actually the ones doing the gerrymandering. But so far, most of Trump's policies are extremely unpopular and his approval rating sunk to 37% not very long ago. He was in a similar position in 2018 when Republican House members were wiped out in the midterms, which is kind of what's supposed to happen when the current presidential administration is doing things that the American public doesn't agree with.

Texas in particular is getting hit hard by Trump's economic policies, with nearly half of Texas businesses responding in a survey that rising costs and reduced consumer spending could lead to a recession. Trump's approval rating in Texas alone has dropped considerably since the start of the year and is now well below 50%.

Even if California Democrats are able to offset the seats lost in Texas, that still means thousands of disgruntled Texans won't be able to make their voices heard in the midterms, because the new district maps, written by Republicans, guarantees that thousands of Texas Democrats and independent voters will be absorbed into larger Republican territories. Again, while state representatives gerrymandering their own districts isn't anything new for the president to demand

that those voters become disenfranchised certainly is. And like a lot of things, it seems, this is going to get worse. Sorry. The state legislative maps in place right now here in Louisiana violate the Voting Rights Act. That's the latest ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today. Violations were found in 18 House districts and seven Senate districts in many of Louisiana's largest cities, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Okay, so Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is designed to prevent racial discrimination when drawing up districts. Basically, it's to make sure the non-white populations are represented fairly.

Louisiana is roughly a third black and two-thirds white. Currently, the black population leans heavily towards Democrats. Not just in this state, but the country. Just something to note. So what happened is that the state was found to have violated Section 2, drawing maps that underrepresented their black population. The lower courts agreed with this. And instead of just obeying the law,

the state is now arguing that the Voting Rights Act shouldn't even apply to them. In other words, they broke a law and are now saying, well, yeah, but what are laws, really? And what makes that terrifying and devastating is that this is going to go to the Supreme Court? You know, those guys, the ones that seem determined to curb-stomp the entire Constitution while the lower courts struggle to maintain a semblance of reality. And if they decide to rule against the Voting Rights Act, well, guess what happens next? It's gerrymandering, but extra, the super shredder of partisan redistricting now based around race. Racist Super Shredder.

I guess he was already kind of racist against turtles, but I'm not sure why that's important right now. Anyway, fuck! It's hard to fully articulate how messed up this would be, so just fuck! Kind of bad. Don't like it. Patooy, spit it out! But you know what we do like, what we don't spit out, do you? Can you name something you like?

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It really does. It helps us out. We wouldn't be here without you, without your support. Anyway, back to the show. Do do, do, do, do, do. You know, I'm realizing gaslighting is really fun and easy. The best part, it's victimless. Anyway, hi again. Just to recap what we have so far, the president is firing anyone who presents data he doesn't like. He's ordering his underlings to cook the election maps to ensure that the midterms will go his way, but of course, if they don't, he'll just say it was rigged. He's also building an infrastructure to order people into detention, be it via ICE or that involuntary commitment stuff. And this is all leading to a state of civil unrest, or rather, it should lead to that, but who knows?

People are busy. But if it does lead to unrest, whatever will Trump do about that? Right now, we're learning the number of National Guard troops in Washington, Washington, D.C. will likely double over the next few days. You can see them right there. Big question is why. Well, Louisiana will join at least three other Republican-led states by sending troops to the nation's capital after President Trump declared a crime emergency. Ah, yes, the big question is why? What a mystery. I'm calling the police. Please, Mr. President, we need help. Law and order.

Oh, look. A police state. You see it? Did you see the police state? So in early August, a former doge worker, sorry, therapy, let me be more clear here. Big Balls was assaulted just a few blocks away from the White House by a handful of other teenage perpetrators. Oh, not Big Balls! Classic teen-on-teen crime. I'm sure it smelled horrible, like body spray and weed and balls, I guess. While the whole situation was extremely unfortunate and we won't get into it, it was a perfect excuse. for Trump to do something that he's wanted to do for a long time. We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean up, renovate, and rebuild our capital city

so that it no longer is a nightmare of murder and crime. People go there from Wisconsin, I want to see the Washington Monument, and they end up getting shot. Right. It's no secret that Trump can't really stand having to live in Washington, D.C., which is probably why he's never there. If he can't bring the nation's capital to Mar-a-Lago, he can certainly do his best to bring Mar-a-Lago to D.C., you know, like paving over the Rose Garden and making it look like that time he got an H.J. at the Holiday Inn pool. And then there's all

the riff-rath. Trump has claimed that crime is out of control in D.C. and the highest it's ever been, which is just not true. Violet crime in the Capitol, while ticking up during the pandemic, is on the decline, and much lower than it was at its height in the 90s. But again, they love using crime to justify just about anything, but especially fascism. So in response to this made-up crisis, Trump federalized the Washington, D.C. police force and deployed at least 500 federal agents who are actively patrolling neighborhoods, setting up checkpoints to stop and search vehicles and evict homeless people off the street. In many instances, these are masked federal agents without clear markings of which agency they belong to. And make no mistake, these are political

actors that relish this type of work. Here's a group of five federal agents violently arresting one man who was in the middle of making a food delivery. You all right, dude? Oh. Hey, pull crystal! You guys are ruining this country. You know that, right? Liberal's already ruined it. Oh, there we go.

Okay. You heard that right. their right-wing-weenies. Punisher wannabe vibes, 4chan street team, LARPERS with guns. That video has the exact same energy as that lightning bolt video from the before times. Remember when videos were funny?

Except, you know, it's terrifying. The man they arrested is an undocumented Venezuelan National. As you can see, he was working as a food delivery driver. The DOJ says that federal officers have made 2,300 arrests in the last month of being on the streets in the Capitol. More than 40% of those have have been immigration related. The administration has used the federal takeover to dramatically increase the number of immigration detentions in the D.C. area. The other portion of arrests are

for incredibly low-level offenses and misdemeanors, which is what tends to happen when you have hundreds of additional law enforcement officers scouring a city with nothing to do. The big difference is that these misdemeanors are now prosecuted at a federal level rather than a local one. And that's just one aspect of this occupation. Trump, along with the help of several repulsions, Republican governors, has also deployed over 2,000 National Guard troops to the Capitol. Those troops are largely confined to tourist zones like the National Mall. But that could very well change over the next few weeks, considering that the parameters of the National Guard are changing on a daily basis. At first, those troops were unarmed in order to play a supportive role for local and federal police agencies.

Just a week later, Secretary of Defense... Secretary of War, Pete Higgson, has ordered those troops to carry firearms, and they are now allowed to carry out law enforcement duties. And this is just a dress rehearsal. He has already told reporters that he'd like to expand his military occupation into other Democrat-run cities like Chicago and New York. The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is drawing up plans to deploy the military in these cities to make more immigration arrests and crack down on homelessness. Now, here's the thing. Crime has reportedly gone down significantly in D.C. over the last few weeks. Mind you, that report is from a very small

sample size, so it's kind of whack. But also, if true, well, sure, there tends to be less crime in a police state. You know, if you don't count the police state as a crime, which I kind of do actually. Also, which crimes are down? Also, what are crimes? According to the president, it's not the stuff he decides aren't crimes, like domestic abuse. So, you know what? I don't think shoplifting is a crime. That's just borrowing, folks. Point is, society is all about finding a balance between safety and freedom.

There would also be less crime if you nuked the city, you know? That doesn't make it justified, and that doesn't necessarily mean Trump can replicate those results in other cities like Chicago. But for Trump and all his little freaks, this will be enough to justify a full-fledged expansion of power. And most people say, if you call him a dictator,

if he stops crime, He can be whatever he wants. I'm not a dictator, by the way. But he could be whatever he wants. Ah, yes, the D word. That was the second time he referred to himself in third person as a dictator in the same day, by the way. This is as basic as fascism gets.

It's fascism 101. Lie and say that there's a crisis, often based on one incident, and then occupy your own streets to solve the crisis. Maybe you'll even instigate some violence that you can crack down on. Perhaps start replacing local police while you're at it. And boy, it is just going to keep getting worse and more overt. Recently, there was a murder of a Ukrainian refugee on a train. I'll gloss over the part about how right-wingers totally care about refugees

and just say that this murder was caught on camera and was perpetrated by a black man who had been previously arrested 14 times and incidentally also incarcerated for five years. This murder caused what some would call a firestorm on the right with people asking, why did the media not report on this? One reason is that there are murders every single day, and you don't see those widely reported on or get angry that they're not being reported on. Days before this incident in Charlotte, a white man slashed a woman's throat on a bus in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In that case, the woman survived, but still, nobody cared about that.

This particular incident in Charlotte, though, has everything needed for authoritarian right-wingers to pounce and use it as propaganda for their desired project. The victim was a small white woman, the perpetrator was a black man, it was caught on video and on public transit, and it conveniently took off as a story around the time they released Donald Trump's extremely incriminating birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein. But the important thing is, what we're now seeing is this one horrific act for which this person will likely be severely punished, being conflated with all crime, all specifically black crime, all homelessness, all mental illness, etc. Right-wing influencers who are already radicalized claiming that this has radicalized them.

Matt Walsh out there talking about black crime and calling for public executions of anyone who commits armed robbery. Another Daily Wire Freak saying that this incident gives undeserved credibility to Nazis. Popular accounts saying, your racist uncle was right for being racist. All kinds of extreme calls for committing people

and publicly executing people who had nothing to do with this one horrific crime. and easy to read page in the authoritarian playbook. Find one instance of violent crime that the population is enraged about and use it against certain populations at first and then broadly the population. All it takes is one incident to create

the perfect piece of propaganda to push an authoritarian project, as we saw with the Big Balls incident, which caused the president to send in the fucking military. Just as we saw when there was an allegedly trans shooter and the internet was flooded with lies about trans mass shooters, and the White House reportedly was looking into plans to ban trans people from owning guns.

This is also what they want. They want to ratchet up their own violence and authoritarian presence to provoke more violence so they can crack down even more and create an even larger police presence and eliminate any political opposition. It's bleak, folks, and what makes it even bleaker is what the silver lining to it is. The one thing we can kind of grip on to is that these people are stupid, and bad at this. For example, while scooping up and arresting all those people, DC federal prosecutors take orders from this person. Sunday, July 20th, nudes of popping starring Ron Jeremy,

the legend. Now, how come all the women are undressed and you're dressed? How come you get to be dressed and they don't? Well, where the, there's no room. There's no room on stage from me and my smackle. Not Ron Jeremy, I should specify. That's Janine Piro. Former District Attorney for Westchester, New York turned daytime television judge. As you can see, she's playing a role here, a stern judge with a zesty sense of humor. She parlayed that role into becoming a political commentator for Fox News, eventually hosting her own show where she spewed election conspiracies and racism. Trump appointed her as the top federal prosecutor in D.C. where she plays a no-nonsense role and is also still racist. I can't touch you if you're 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, and you have a gun.

I convict someone of shooting another person with an illegal gun on a public bus in the chest, intent to kill. I convict him, and you know what the judge gives him? Probation says you should go to college. Black kids. The clown lady is talking about charging black kids as adults. They're 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than white kids in D.C., so she sucks and is racist and bad. But the one bright side of Peer's ascension to the top cop of D.C. is that she's also not very very very, good at her job. Like Trump, she's just some reality TV ham, right? He loves giving jobs to unqualified celebrities. Remember? The downside is that it's one more person we absolutely don't and shouldn't respect somehow having more power over all of us. But in multiple cases,

Piro has failed to secure felony indictments against people who have allegedly assaulted federal officers. In one case, a federal grand jury refused to bring charges against a man who threw a subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol agent. Do you know how easy it is for a prosecutor to get an indictment against a suspect in our justice system? It's so easy, there's a famous legal idiom, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. Not a thrown one, though, apparently. A study from 2010 found that prosecutors secure an indictment 99.99% of the time. That's how bad Piro is at her job.

She's a prosecutor who can't prosecute. My point is that, yes, the fascists are here. They're making waffles, not in the cute donkey from Shrek way. But they are also completely aimless and incompetent. Mind you, incompetence doesn't necessarily mean ineffective. Many fascist movements are incompetent and still successful. Most of them, in fact. It's kind of a feature.

When you're looking for only loyalty and not merit or competence or an ethical backbone, You get a bunch of incompetent freaks, but that incompetence, and in some cases, silliness, is easy to dismiss until you can't dismiss it anymore because they won. Don't underestimate some silly reality show freak, and don't underestimate incompetence is my point. And of course, don't get me wrong, it's bad, it's all bad. But for example, reportedly, they're keeping that National Guard on 29-day orders. Primarily, that's because going over 30 days requires congressional approval. Kind of bad job as a dictator there. But also, the 29 days is supposedly because if they go over 30,

they'd have to pay the troops more. Meaning that they're doing fascist stuff, but don't want to pay for it very much. Because they're also doing that doge thing, right? And then on top of that, he doesn't want to violate Congress? That would take a lot of work after all. Fascism takes a lot of work. You'd have to round people up and wage direct war on the other branches of government.

You gotta coordinate your outfits, grow that mustache. And thankfully, along with being incompetent, it sure seems like they're also lazy and uncommitted. You have Trump, and he's tired. And he's surrounded by people all whispering different things at him. The GOP is worried about the budget. JD is over there passing notes from Peter Thiel. RFK keeps trying to get him to drink his homemade coffee,

fear, and Stephen Miller just stares all dead-eyed, mouthing the words, wipe them out, over and over again. I mean, they're all racist, they're all fascists, or at least fashy, but there's no unified goal yet. Trump so badly wants to be an authoritarian regime. He wants the parades and the big banners with his face on them, but he has no plan beyond that, really. It seems. Again, again, again, I'm not saying there are no victims here. ICE is doing terrible things. But there seems to be a certain Rubicon they're still not willing to cross, mainly because they don't seem to know what they do on the other side yet. And that's a possible advantage for us right now. They are laying the infrastructure for a full-on fascist takeover, but haven't fully used it yet.

And if there's one thing America's good at, it's letting infrastructure degrade and die. So maybe, just maybe, we can do that here. We just have to vote. I wrote vote. I just did the whole thing about voting. That's not gonna help. Okay, well, I wrote it under the words commie crapes, underlined twice, so maybe,

I don't know, I think I just got super drunk last night and just scribbled a bunch of stuff. See, scribbles? Kind of sped through the very end of that, because there's sirens outside, and I wanted to make sure I got to, like, right before the credits. You hear them? Go to editor to bump up those sirens.

Ah! Anyway, thanks for watching. Hey, everybody, thanks for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe. I really gotta start saying that at the beginning of the video. If you're still here, please subscribe to the channel. Also, leave a comment saying that you did or that you already have or something nice

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That's sad. We should get them in here. again but will we who can say we can but we can but we won't so