The Breakfast Club - Alec Karakatsanis & Olayemi Olurin Talk Copaganda, Wage Theft, Republican Party Gone Fascist & More

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Alec Karakatsanis & Olayemi Olurin Talk Copaganda, Wage Theft, Republican Party Gone Fascist & MoreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water,

500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zaka Stan. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-A-S-T-A-N on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha. And I go by the name Q Ward. And we'd like you to join us each week for our show Civic Cipher. That's right. We discuss social issues, especially those that affect black and brown people, but in a way that informs and empowers all people.

We discuss everything from prejudice to politics to police violence, and we try to give you the tools to create positive change in your home, workplace, and social circle. We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other. So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop.

Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap, there's another one gone. Each episode is about a different, inspiring figure from history, like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. Did you know, did you know, I wouldn't give up my seat. Nine months before Rosa, it was called a moment. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records.

Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, and every single wig removal together. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you listen to podcasts. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club. Charlamagne the God, Angela Yee. Envy is not with us today, but we have some special guests. Who we got, Yee?

Alec, I don't want to say your name, Lauren Cara. I've seen it so many times, and I saw you on Trevor Noah, and I still can't do it. Hold on. That's why I passed it to you. Cara Cat Sanis. That's perfect. Cara Cat Sanis. Yeah.

That's great. Is that really right, though? Yeah, that's great. Okay. The second name ain't no easier. Olayemi Oloyem. Olayemi Oloyem. That's great. Is that really right though? Yeah, that's great. Okay. The second, the second name ain't no easier. Ola Yemi or Lauren? Ola Yemi or Lauren, but say Ole.

Ole. Yes. Ole. Yes. I know you heard that forever growing up. Listen, all the things.

Like Yemi? Yes. Like Yemi is what everybody in the Bahamas and my family says, but I don't identify as Yemi. You can say it. I'll let you,

I'll let you get it off. Now Alec is the co-founder of the civil rights corps uh alemi oh oh yeah ole yemi alaya me oh alaya me is a lawyer for the legal aid society good morning how are y'all good great thanks for having us now spell it no kidding and i know i look ridiculous but it it's Halloween. I support you. Okay. I support you. Now, Alec, I did, I told you, I did see you on Trevor Noah. And so I'm aware of the work that you're doing, but I want to talk about that. And I know today we're talking about copaganda.

So can you tell us what that is? Yeah, copaganda is the way that the police and a lot of the companies that profit off of the criminal punishment system in this country convince us to support policies that make us less safe. They make us scared, they make us afraid, and they use that to boost their own budgets and their own profits. And so copaganda is how the media is constantly getting us to focus on low-level things that poor people do and have us ignore a lot of the things that are really dangerous that people in power and wealthy people do. Things like wage theft that costs $50 billion a year. It's five times all property crime combined. Now, what is wage theft for people who are listening and like, I don't know what that is?

Wage theft is when your boss, your company doesn't pay you what they're supposed to pay you. They're supposed to pay you a certain rate and they dock some of your hours. They don't let you take the right required breaks. They don't pay you for getting ready for work. They give you a paycheck that doesn't have all your hours on it. And that costs poor people in this country about $50 billion a year. We call that a white collar crime, right? That's what we call white collar crime. And you don't see that on the nightly news every night. You don't see all the illegal evictions and you don't see the building code violations and the

safety code violations, the workplace safety violations. You don't see the water violations. People are tracking lead poisoning that kills children all over the country. There's government agencies that track that, but not like the police. They don't issue public press releases. They don't have news conferences where they tell you which companies are poisoning your kids' water. And so as a result, a lot of people treat shoplifting from Walgreens more seriously than more urgently than they treat the things that are killing us. Like air pollution kills 100000 people a year in this country, five times more than all homicide combined. Do you think it's because those things you can't really see? You feel them and you know the impact.

But a murder, a robbery, rape, a child abduction, you can see those. No, it's just a deliberate way in which we sensationalize crime. Right. Because 80 percent of everything in our criminal system, all's just a deliberate way in which we sensationalize crime, right? Because 80% of everything in our criminal system, all of our criminal cases are misdemeanors, traffic offenses,

are nonviolent crime. But you would have no idea if you look at what the media plays up as crime. You would see, oh, robberies, murder, homicide. In actuality, if you're a public defender like me,

I've represented over 1,000 people in New York City. You're not getting those cases. They're not a bunch of robbers and murderers and spicy cases. It's just crimes of poverty. And that's the vast majority of who's in our criminal system. But if you watch TV, if you watch all these shows,

these sensationalized, you see a system that looks like it's everybody there. You watch the shows, you watch The Flash, they're in jail. They got a bunch of white people in jail. You see they have all these different kinds of crimes. And you think, oh, I have a system that reflects that. Then you get into any criminal courtroom and it's just me and you, just all over the court.

And then the only people that look like the white people, they show you in law and order and all these other different kinds of people that are prosecuting are there just as the police, as the judges, as the lawyers. I love the term you used. You said crimes of poverty because I feel like most criminal things you see in the hood are crimes of poverty. Everything from drug dealing to robbery, everything is a crime of poverty. Exactly.

Like, that's the thing all my clients have in common is that they're all poor. And I think something people need to recognize, they know a public defender is for poor people, but they don't realize how poor and the fact that that's everybody there. Like, to qualify for my services, you have to have little to no income at all. Over 60% of people that are incarcerated now in this country prior to arrest made annually less than $12,000. So that's the kind of poverty we're dealing with. I, up until recently, identified myself as the broke,

and I would not have qualified for my services. They would tell me I need to hire an attorney, and I wouldn't be able to afford one. So you have to recognize that you live in a system. If we're in New York City, you take, for example, there are almost 10 million people in this city. We have Rikers. Rikers is built to hold 3,000 people, but 5,000 people here, and they're all represented by public defenders, right? So underneath the poverty line, why in a

city where 42% of the people are fully white, over 90% of the people at Rikers are black or brown and poor? Wow. Now, I want to talk about bail reform, right? Because that's a hot issue with elections coming up. And I feel like we're getting a lot of misinformation. We talk about the TV and what the media sensationalizes. And so you've been, Alec, instrumental in making sure that bill reform is not monetary, right? When you talk about people getting out on bail, like we've just been talking about people who don't have the money to be able to afford that. You could be sitting in jail because you got a ticket that you didn't pay. And now I'm in jail because I don't have enough money to bond out. So can you talk about that? Because I see so many people saying this person got out on bail and then they

went and committed this crime. And that's why bail reform is bad. You're letting these criminals get right back out to do the same crimes over and over again. The first thing you have to understand is all of those attacks are basically paid for by Republicans. They are racist. They're unscientific. Let's start from what we know. Why did we do bail reform? We did bail reform, you know, when I started working on this issue after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. When I got to Ferguson, Ferguson had 3.6 arrest warrants per household, almost all of them for unpaid debt, almost all of them for a black family. And when people were jailed, they were jailed because they couldn't pay cash bail of $100, $200, $300.

When I started working on these cases in Ferguson and Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and California and Chicago, there were 500,000 human beings in a jail cell in this country every single night just because they couldn't pay. Not because they were found to be dangerous or a threat to anyone, but because their families were poor. And what we know from the scientific evidence is that jails cause more crime. Because jails take people away from their homes, their schools, their churches, their jobs. And they take people away from their mental health treatment they're getting, their medical care that they're getting. And what happens when you destabilize someone's life like that,

even two, three, four days in jail after their arrest, you actually scientifically, you make them more likely to commit crime in the future. So when we started doing bail reform these last six or seven years, we've gotten a lot of people out of jail. We saved a lot of people from convictions. We put a lot of families back together, children with their parents. And we studied this. Professors across the country have been studying this. And what they found is that it actually reduces crime. So all these talking points you're getting, fear-mongering, it's kind of like Willie Horton style. They're picking one

case here, one case there. But when you actually look at all the evidence, it's actually like climate science denial to say that bail reform is causing more crime. Why do you think that they don't make prisons actual correctional facilities? Because I can never say that. I know abolitionists don't necessarily believe in prisons. I can never say we shouldn't have prisons. But why don't they make them actual correctional facilities? Like when they go there, they can get learn some type of trade. They can get proper mental health services. services you know they can get actual tools because it's a profit system that's that's that's the reality right like when you say mass incarceration is slavery people think that you're just trying to make a moral appeal or you're trying to condense something but no in actuality if slavery is a system by which we

deprive people of their freedom and their personal liberty and we force them to work for another's gain right we have over two million people that are incarcerated in america 400 000000 of those people are being held pretrial. Those people in private and public prisons produce over $11.6 billion in goods for the country. Their families and fines and fees associated with the convictions and costs are in over $27 billion of debt. That's why. Because they're there. They're there to provide a service. They're not there. If we're funneling, when you think about it, right, we're funneling the exact same under-resourced communities through the prison system. This whole idea that the police are there to protect and serve

or that mass incarceration is there for our benefit. We spend over $277 billion on prisons and policing every year and another $80 billion just on prison. And yet we say every year this is not any safer. We're not safer. The place is more dangerous. But it's the same communities. How come the most safe communities are not the most policed communities?

Why are they the most under-resourced communities repeatedly? And it's for what Alec was talking about. It's not just the fact that prison takes you away and it destabilizes you, but it also warehouses you amongst the worst social ills. We all know suicide is the most, is the leading cause of death in prisons. Thousands of people commit suicide. And over 76% of the people that commit suicide in prisons and local jails, they are held for less than a week. So this is this like heinous, heinous, obvious, terrible system.

And we know this and we recognize it. But yet we continue to put all the money there and not into people because it's not there about rehabilitating them. We know that because if you warehouse them, they go back into their communities with all of the same terrible things that they've learned, all the violence, all of the things you claim to be condemning. All it does is guarantee. If I have fines, fees and everything associated, I'm already the most impoverished community. And now I'm in further debt. What happens? What happens? So that's why. It's like Chris Rock says, the money's not in the cure, the money's in the treat. Exactly. And take the bail system, right? Because people are talking about bail right now all over the

country. The bail system is a for-profit, multi-billion dollar industry in this country. And did you know that the for-profit bail system only exists in the U.S. and the Philippines. Every other country in the world doesn't let for-profit companies decide who is at home with their children and who is in a jail cell. Now, are we doing that? Have we figured out something that every other country in the world hasn't figured out? We figured out that our country is safer when people are in jail because they can't make monetary payments? Of course not. We're doing it because it benefits some people. Right. Yeah.

And we're doing it because of what is the racial demographic makeup of our community and where we do it. Because there are certain things like bail reform when you try to do it in a place like New York City or do it in Chicago when they're, you know, dog whistling about race. Because that's what they're saying to you. All these black people are going to be running the street. We're going to be in danger. That's what they're doing. But a place like New Jersey can completely abolish cash bail in 2014 you don't hear a peep right completely successful totally fine happened under republican governor christie no complaints all the places

where they have a majority white population and they have their criminal system they don't have they don't mass incarcerate the way we do but in a place like new york city despite the way like this progressive blue utopia they try to paint us as all come our jails predominantly only incarcerated black or brown people and that's the same thing you get in a place like cook county and you get like in la and that's why those bail reform efforts get those kinds of attack and focusing um in on them in the media that you don't see in other places with different demographics what would you say to uh i was gonna say just people who feel like um the bail reform makes criminals just be back in the street doing a lot of the same crimes. Because, you know, I've had people have things happen to them.

And when they find out who the person was, it's like, well, this person just got out last week for the same thing. Yeah. So there's a let's talk about what the actual bail is in New York City. Let me since I have the specific knowledge on that. First of all, is the fiction on what bail is for and what bail does. The legal purpose, the actual legal standard of bail is whether or not

this person is going to return to court. That is the purpose. We don't engage in a public safety analysis. That is something they paint to us in the media like,

oh, this person's in or this has nothing to do with that. That's not what happens in court. It's everything to do with whether or not this person is going

to return to court. Do they have a failure to appear in history? Do they have a bench warrant history? Do they have outside ties or something? But how bail is instituted is just, we're going to put money on you and poor people can't pay it. And those who have the money can pay it. And then if you look at a place like New York City, we instituted landmark bail reform in 2020. The purpose of bail reform is to make sure people return to court, right? Prior to bail reform, 15, about 15% of people didn't return to court. After bail reform, it's 9%. They've studied over, so bail

reform has been successful in that regard. And then in terms of rearrest, let's talk about felonies and stuff in general. Over 83% of anything charged as a felony in New York State, New York State period is not resolved as a criminal conviction at all. And then in New York City, that's 96. So it goes up. So most things in our system are just not that. They're just not felonies. They're not violent crime. That's not what any of that is.

But importantly, we retain the cash bail system. Cash bail can and absolutely will be set on you in New York City if you're accused of murder or any of these things. They sensationalize to you. So that's first and foremost. But when it comes to why we got bail reform, as we know, Rikers is a human rights crisis. It's been declared that. Last year, 16 people died in Rikers. And once that happened, that was the largest death toll since 2013.

They declared the human rights crisis. This year, 17 people have already died. So the situation is worse than ever before. Originally, the campaign to close Rikers launched after Khalif Browder received so much national attention. Yeah, I'm like, what happened to that? I thought Rikers was closing. And I'm going to tell you. So the plan was that Rikers was supposed to close by 2026.

Then they said there were delays that pushed it back since 2027. Now, originally, everyone's Eric Adams. Eric Adams said when he was running, he said he supported the plan to close Rikers and he would get on board with that. Rikers needs systemic change. X, Y, Z. Once he actually comes into office, he completely opposes bail reform. He opposes bail reform. He wants more money placed in the Rikers, more money placed in NYPD, which he did. He gave them 90, 90 million extra dollars to their 10.4 billion dollar budget and spending. So he started immediately pushing against bail reform. So the plan for bail reform was to decarcerate Rikers. Rikers is only built to hold 3,000 people,

but it has 5,000 people there. So we need to decarcerate Rikers in order to move towards the step to closing it. Eric Adams has resisted bail reform. So now that the numbers and Rikers are going up, he says, well, where are we going to put those people? We can't close Rikers because I just don't see why we put those 2,000 extra people if we don't close Rikers. So now he's opposing that. In addition to the fact that Rikers will be one and advocates one is a receivership for Rikers right now to slow the deaths. So a receivership is basically them saying Rikers has been under federal monitor for the last six years. There's a judge. They periodically do updates. She issues mandates as do this, do that so that we could get Rikers in compliance. Rikers, they have failed at every

single step. Earlier this year in April, they determined that over 12,000 medical appointments were missed by people incarcerated at Rikers because the corrections officers don't take them. So the neglect is at an all time high and there's going to be a hearing next month for receiverships. But Eric Adams is pushing against that tooth and nail he says why why is he we need to get him listen listen to discuss this and but he does have a background working with the nypd he's a cop he's a cop he is a cop eric adams is a cop that's just the truth of the matter and he was a transit cop which is exactly why when he first came into office the first thing he did was rail against the subways 24 7 and hire a thousand new officers there because that is his bag and that's where he was at. So now you would think,

though, he had promised, oh, he acknowledged Rikers needs systemic change. Rikers is out of control. If Rikers was out of control when 13 people died, if Rikers was out of control when 16 people died, Rikers not out of control when 17 people died. And I think the problem is as mayor right now in our city, there's been such an uptick in crime that the bandaid on the problem is always let's hire more cops. Right. But the problem with that is, is is this right? What is the magical number that you think automatically solves solves crime? New York City. This is the funny thing. They highlight us as this like lawless place, despite the fact that Republican and all these rural areas have way more crime per capita. Right. But they highlight us like we're Gotham City all the time.

But we have over 35,000 officers in NYPD, despite the fact that the media will tell you that Rikers is understaffed. And that's also not true. There are 5,000 people incarcerated at Rikers, but there are over 7,000 corrections officers. There are 2,000 more corrections officers. I know, it's insane, Alec. There are 2,000 more corrections officers in Rikers, but you wouldn't know that based on that. And it's all these different things

that keep happening. They have $10.4 billion they give to NYPD, but they don't acknowledge the fact that while you're giving more money to NYPD this year, he cut money on education, cut money on health, cut money on everything else, and then you act like it's a mistake. It's not a coincidence that post-pandemic,

when New York City was one of the places locked down for the majority of the time, we had an eviction moratorium that was just up and lifted. Rents, people lost their jobs, businesses closed down. Rents has skyrocketed to what, the average of about $4,000. The reason why New York City has crime is because New York City is astronomically expensive to live in. And instead of putting the money towards that,

we put the money into policing these exact same communities that don't have anything. And I want to say again, you can't give people nothing and then police them and punish them and condemn them for having nothing. So how do you message that without saying defund the police? That's literally what the defund the police initiative is. Yes. I think the most important thing to understand is if more police prosecutions and prisons made us safer, the U.S. would be the safest country in the world. Without question. It's not. We're not a safe country.

And the reason is that, again, all of the evidence shows that the root causes of crime, the things that are actually causing crime, are things that are structural about our society. It's like not having places to live. It's not having the support and care in your life. It's early childhood education. It's the defunding of those systems,

the welfare systems that support people and their families and their communities, the after-school programs, the music, the theater, the athletic programs for kids. These are the things that actually reduce crime in the long term. Also things like lead poisoning, right? That's associated with criminal activity

for years in the future if children are exposed to lead. And so these are like basic things that everyone who actually studies this knows. And unfortunately, we've got a political system and a very profitable prison system that is hellbent on convincing us that the only solution to any of these problems ever is more cops. And the sad thing is more police, prosecutors, and prisons actually make us less safe in the long term. Everybody knows money and resources are what make things better. They know that. That's why they have a for-profit jail system

because they're making money to feed their families. And they're never asked to reconcile. My thing about the fair thing is the people that are constantly fair-mongering to you about how dangerous

it is, how we need more police, are never always telling you that when they talk about black and black crime, according to them, all the violence, all the crime is happening to us in our own community so if we don't if we're the sole perpetrators and victims of violence and victims of crime shouldn't our opinion matter

shouldn't be relevant like why do you need if you're afraid you're afraid so you need more police placed in my community make that make sense right and why aren't we considered the experts on this it's it's not lost upon me that the people that push for criminal justice reform, the people that you see pushing for bail reform, the people that you see being the advocates for this are the people most experienced with this. Those are the people living in those communities. They have the solutions.

Exactly. Can I ask Olai, Ami, and Alec, what made you guys decide to do this work in particular as attorneys? Me? So I came to America because I wanted to be a lawyer. So I knew that when I came to America. But in college, I was, I thought I might be a divorce attorney

because I was like, ooh, drama. That might be spicy. But I was writing my thesis called Colored Bodies Matter, The Relationship Between Our Bodies and Power. And I think the Ferguson protests were happening at the time. And my thesis advisor is this white lady,

Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, who I love. She said it affectionately to me. She called me a gap scholar, which is someone in academics, an academic who points out a problem, but they don't necessarily have a solution or they're doing anything towards that, which is a necessary role.

But I remember saying, you know, in a criminal system where black people are disproportionately represented and incarcerated, I feel like it's insufficient for me to go be an attorney and not do something that directly benefits my community. And I just think you're not just affected by whether or not you're incarcerated. The criminal system doesn't just hurt you

if you end up with a criminal conviction or you're incarcerated, but just being criminalized, going through that process, all the collateral consequences and the psychological effects of internalizing that. And I think that is better impacted if you're represented by somebody who looks like you and is going to humanize you. And just basically the only black person in the courtroom shouldn of internalizing that. And I think that is better impacted if you're represented by somebody who looks like you and is going to humanize you.

And just basically the only black person in the courtroom shouldn't be the defendant. That's right. For me, I started my career as a public defender in Alabama. And the things I saw there really shook me to the core. The case after case after case was exclusively poor people. It was almost exclusively people of color. And they were being punished in ways that made no one safer. And I got into this work because I really care about safety. And so I started doing civil rights work a few years later. And

my first civil rights case, I got a grant to start my own nonprofit. And I went down back to Alabama and I went into a courtroom. And I just think it's important for people to understand what's actually happening in these courtrooms. And this is why I do this work. I saw 67 people in that courtroom in Alabama that morning. All of them were black. They were all chained together in the front of the room. Not a single one of them was charged with a crime. You know why they're all there? They're all there because they owed debt to the city of Montgomery, Alabama. And one by one, I watched them beg to the judge, you know, judge, I have four children at home. One of them, my children is disabled. Judge, I've been addicted to drugs.

I can't pay these tickets. Judge, I'm a homeless veteran. Please don't make me. And one by one, the judge ordered them into jail. And I went up into the jail that day and I started interviewing people. And I met this woman. She showed me her court document. Her court document said, pay us $2,807 or sit 59 days in jail. She explained to me that in Montgomery, you got $50 for every day you spent in jail. And she turned over her court document. And in pencil, she was writing numbers, 50, 50, 50, 75, 75. And she was adding them all up.

And she explained to me that if you agreed to clean the feces and the blood and the urine and the mold from the floors that all the women were sleeping on top, you got an extra $25 a day toward your debt. And she was counting the days and subtracting the money because when the police raided her home, she had her one-year-old on her lap and her four-year-old next to her. And they took her away from her kids because she owed traffic tickets. And she hadn't seen her kids in weeks. And that was my first client as a civil rights lawyer. And that's why I still do this work, because there are hundreds of thousands of people jailed because they can't pay tickets and debt in this country. There are hundreds of

thousands of people jailed, pretrial and bail, just because they can't make a payment. And our society is still unsafe. And so people like Ole and I do this work because we're trying to tell people that the story you're told in the media, not just Law & Order, but also the New York Times, not just the New York Post, but also NBC, the story you're told in the media is not what's actually happening to people who are vulnerable in our society every single day in our courts. What happened to that young lady? We filed, it was actually my first case. I really had no idea what I was doing. And we filed a federal civil rights case and they released her almost immediately and got back with her kids and they released everybody from the jail actually.

And so then we started bringing those cases all over the country. In the first 10 months of 2015, we brought 12 of these same class action lawsuits challenging people being jailed just because they couldn't pay in 12 different cities across the country. We started doing it. We've filed dozens and dozens of them over the years at Civil Rights Corps. And we're still doing it because as many of these cases as we went, we won a big case in Houston, for example, Harris County, Texas, and about 19,000 people a year are getting out of jail in misdemeanor cases alone, just because we stopped the practice of jailing people because they couldn't pay a couple hundred dollars. And we're saving about 24,000 convictions in Harris County alone. But you know what?

Almost every other county in Texas is still doing that, let alone California and Oregon and Arizona. I mean, these problems are nationwide, and a lot of people want to think it's a problem in the South or it's a problem in New York City, but it's a problem everywhere because the legal system is very similar across the country. Or they only want to be outraged by the particular one case they hear about. Right. And that's what I feel like is missing, right, is the proper messaging and the information for people to see that. Because like I said, with the elections, this is such a hot topic right now. But the narrative that's being put out there, I think, more loudly than anything else,

is that it's a bad thing because repeat criminals are going to get right back out and do the same thing again. I think Illinois did a phenomenal job of messaging that. The GOP in Illinois did a phenomenal job of messaging that to their people with the whole purge thing. Because if you read the fine print, it's like you said earlier yeah it's not like they're letting out murderers no yeah it's not that at all the pre-trial fairness act is not that at all and also i want to say law enforcement was very involved in the making of that law and it was a four-year process of scrutiny of uh victims uh victims survivors advocates law enforcement uh legal professional and personnel being involved in hearing scrutinizing that for a four-year process. They call it the purge, right? That's

what they've been marketing it as. But what's fascinating is that the law doesn't go nearly far enough because in Illinois, it's actually judges can detain you without money bail. If there's evidence that you're dangerous, they can detain you. And so it's not only is it misinformation, but it's targeted misinformation paid for by Republicans. And a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of the media, the mainstream media just picked it up. They loved saying the purge, right? And it made a lot of ordinary people across Illinois totally misunderstand that law. And that law is going to save lives because that law is going to get people back to their medical care to their children to their schools to their churches and their communities and it's going to prevent them from destabilizing their lives in ways that actually increase

crime in the future and so that law needs to go further it doesn't go further enough that's why democrats need to hire whoever does nike's marketing i was about to say no honestly their messaging sucks it's honestly you know what it is though i think it's too much um defensiveness instead of clarifying like the immediate fear when they get natural pushback and i feel like i have this conversation a lot in the professional spaces i work in we're supposed to expect pushback that shouldn't alarm us it shouldn't send us into an like an anxious rush and i think what happens is democrats instead of coming out like hocho should have done in this race,

like there shouldn't be this race between her and Zeldin. She shouldn't be as close as it is. And you know why? Because she could have come out and have effectively, they could have,

there have been countless studies. I'm trying to get her to come up here. And she should. And she should. Because you know what? Zeldin can't. And listen,

and not for nothing, like I said, these Republicans are quick to put their money behind. Let me put it on Ball Alert. Let me put it there. They know who they need to get to because it's about how you get people talking about something casually within the streets. That's where support comes from.

And what she should have done, there have been studies, all kind of support for the fact that bail reform is not linked to a rise in crime. She could have come out. She could have highlighted this information. She could have talked about the fact, all of the things that they already do. But instead, they decided to ignore it until the ninth hour. And instead of coming out and saying, hey, Republicans are lying to you. They are fair mongering to you. Here's the actual result.

They're like, I swear we're going to do it as good as them. We're going to be as intense as them. Rather than just acknowledging actually what you did and presenting the information to people. Because the reality is the average person does not have time to be, you know, in every aspect of politics and reading anybody's law and stuff. They rely on, they're going to consume, you know what I mean? They rely on you to tell them. And if all you're doing is sensationalizing and fair mongering to them about crime every day, that's all they see in the Post.

That's all they see in the Times. And then they hear this Republican putting all these things. And instead of you actually responding to that, clarifying and giving them the actual information, you go, I swear I feel just as strongly as the Republican. Like, that doesn't help because now you're just piggybacking on their message. And that's the problem, I think, Democrats have in general. We too often respond. And if you let people control the narrative rather than talk first, get our story out,

they could have been explaining. And they have every reason to be in a better position to do it. We have Democrats in every office in New York City, in every DA's office, in every council, in every this. It's nothing but Democrats. You had every opportunity to put the messaging out, but instead, because you're scared, because you panic, you wait, you ignore, you deflect, and now you're stuck, and we're all just in a bed of fear-mongering

that it's not going to help anybody, and ultimately it's going to end up harming black and brown New Yorkers who don't have the time, they don't have the time, they don't have the structural advantage or the privilege to be worrying about all of this, until they're the ones suffering for it in a criminal court and they looking at Rikers and all kind of nonsense because you weren't being proactive. What about President Biden's Safe for America plan? What do y'all think of that? The plan is a disaster. I agree. The plan is a disaster. It's not a serious

plan. I mean, it's attempting to add 100,000 new cops. Look, as I said earlier, this country spends more money on cops, prosecutors and prisons than any society in the recorded history of the modern world. Did you know that the U.S. has five times the prison population that we are our own society had 50 years ago? We now cage black people at six times the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid. Yes. The solution is not 100,000 more cops. And Biden knows this. Biden knows what the scientific evidence shows. He knows the early childhood education

and healthcare, right? And giving people resources in their community. He's not, he's not like He's made this mistake before. And they know that. And you know what? They know it. Because when they come at the end of the day, there's so much gas lightning and pandering and wasting our breath they make us do. Because at the end of the day, there's so much gaslighting and pandering and wasting our breath they make us do. Because at the end of the day, when it's their children,

when it's their family members, whenever you see it's a scandal involving somebody, their husband, their kid, they don't want crime. That's not even on the table. They are not interested. You don't hear nobody jumping up talking about, I really think prison would help.

That'd really help Hunter. That'd do Hunter good. You know what I mean? They're not saying that. They know that. There's so much empathy for his own son. Exactly. And his son fought his addiction.

Exactly. Exactly. Now, with elections coming up, like we've been discussing, right, if Republicans get control of Congress, how do you think that's going to affect everything? We're at a very dangerous moment with the Republican Party. That's an honest statement. Incredibly. We've been saying this for years. Fascist.

I remember when I used to use the word fascist, people were like, oh, you're overreacting. Yes. We're not going there in America. Yes. I've had people come on this show and tell me that when I would say we're fast approaching fascism. Yes, people would.

To this day, people get mad when I say no. It is, let's stop engaging in and legitimizing and pretending. They are white supremacists. They're galvanized around that. It's so interesting. The problem with living in a country that treats everything else as other and white is the default is all the rest of us when we're actually rallying around our interests or what we actually need to do to survive then it's identity politics but it's conveniently ignored that we have an entire party that is galvanized

around nothing but whiteness and white supremacy loud in our face we know what it is the most clear transparent it is gone from from rhetoric you had to parse out or statistics you had to go get a magnifying glass to insurrections and all kind of foolishness. We know it as clear as day. So dangerous is an understatement. They are quite, literally right now, there are two cases today in front of the Supreme Court challenging affirmative action. And we all already know with this Mickey Mouse court we have, we already know how it's going to go.

We already know it's going to go. And the only benefit I could see is it's important for people to start seeing that people are the champion of their own civil liberties and not the government and not the court, because the court in these kinds of places have been very instrumental throughout all of America's history in legitimizing all kind of discrimination and just prejudice. You see it now. Is there anything we can do? Because, you know, you mentioned the courts. legitimizing all kind of discrimination and just prejudice.

You see it now. Is there anything we can do? Because, you know, you mentioned the courts. It's like the courts are already stacked. It's like from the Supreme Court to the federal court, like what do you do? Well, the federal courts are really stacked. And, of course, that's a long multi-year strategy that a lot of us are working on. But the state courts. The Republicans worked on it.

They did. That's right. And a lot of people didn't see this but the the architect when the main architect of that the federal society it just got a 1.6 billion dollar donation a lot of people aren't talking about this that's more money than basically the entire criminal justice reform field has spent in the last decade yeah and one donation from one person to the federal society imagine what they did without that $1.6 billion. So I think what we need to do is understand that it's not just federal courts. There are, the court systems across the country are full of elected and appointed judges all over the country,

in every city. There's thousands and thousands of judges. There's thousands and thousands of opportunities to get involved in your own community. Court watching, bail funds, mutual aid. There are ways to get involved in your own community. Court watching, bail funds, mutual aid. There are ways to get involved in your own community right where you are and watch what judges are doing. You can work on efforts to change how your local legal system is operating. It's actually kind of an exciting time in some respects because across the country, people are coming together

and realizing that something has to be done. How can they find more information on what y'all two do? I would say justicenotfair.org is an incredible website and resource that's been following and actually debunking and giving you the actual facts, statistics and everything coming out for bail reform in New York City, bail reform in Cook County, bail reform in all these different places. So justicenotfair.org is an incredible resource. And for you guys, your organization. My organization is called Civil Rights Corps. You can find us on social media at Civ Rights Core. I write a newsletter about copaganda and all this stuff in the media we were

talking about called Alex Copaganda Newsletter. You can find me at Equality Alec on Twitter. And, you know, we both of us, we work on on these issues because they're incredibly important and we're an incredibly important time. And so it's not just enough to read about them and to look at social media. Find out who in your community is organizing against expanding the jails and who in your community is building mutual aid and who is watching court and who's running a local bail fund

and get involved in your own community. There's so many amazing organizers across the country, every city. I mean, and reach out to us if you can't find them in your neighborhood reach out to me on twitter dm me and I'll connect you with someone in your local community yes oh yeah my sub stack is olurinati it's my baby I release an essay every month and the Bahamas would literally disown me if I didn't mention that I was from the Bahamas

while I'm on here so I hear the accent because you sound like you're from Charleston but I'm like I know that's the island somewhere it's's the Bahamas. They would be upset. The only person that I hear shout out to Bahamas like that is Duval. Listen, you know what? I'm not even going to say nothing. Lil Duval, he love of the Bahamas. He be there. He's Bahamian.

Yeah, I know. Bahamians, we know. And Bahamians let me know. We claim Lil Duval. That's us. So, yes. Absolutely. All right, and make sure you guys vote

and before you vote make sure you know who you're voting for because like you just said it is very important that you hold people accountable in these local elections where you can actually

make some changes now it is an exciting time but we're nervous thank y'all for joining us man thank you it's the Breakfast Club

thank you breakfast club thank you hey guys i'm kate. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Had enough of this country? Ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine.

I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets.

Listen to Escape from Zakistan. Need help! That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha. And I go by the name Q Ward. And we'd like you to join us each week for our show Civic Cipher. That's right. We discuss social issues, especially those that affect black and brown people, but in a way that informs and empowers all people. We discuss everything from prejudice to politics to police violence, and we try to give you the tools to create positive change in your home, workplace, and social circle. We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other. So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, y'all. Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.