The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3526 - Horrors Inside an ICE Detention Center, Blue Bottle Unionizes w/ Alex Sammon and Blue Bottle Union Reps

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

It’s a No Emma Emmajority Report Thursday. Matt Binder is in the host seat today as we continue basking in Zohran Mamdani’s primary afterglow. Sam interviews features writer for Slate, Alex Sammon on his new piece about the history of an ICE detention center in a small town in Louisiana. Sam also interviews Claire Autorino and BB Young about their efforts to unionize Blue Bottle Coffee, a bougie coffee house chain owned by Nestle. Brandon Sutton joins MR for the Fun Half and we dive deeper into Cuomo, his backers, and the national implications of the primary The most fun of the fun half was watching Charlie Kirk spiral into a tongue tied moron as he struggles to find the right thought terminating cliched recipe to use against Zohran. African? Indian? Communist? Muslim? Zohran is their worst nightmare. All that and more, folks. Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Follow us on TikTok here!: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here!: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here!: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here!: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase! Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Text MAJORITY to 64000 for 20% off your DeleteMe subscription ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor. SMALLS: For a limited time only, get 60% off your first order PLUS shipping when you head to Smalls.com and use code MAJORITY.   SUNSET LAKE: Use the code LEFTISBEST to save 20% at SunsetLakeCBD.com  on all their farm fresh CBD products for people and pets. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder – https://majorityreportradio.com/

Folks have known my Trevelles with cats. And fortunately, before my second cat passed away, we knew that was coming. And I had the opportunity to feed him the best food I think he had ever had. The timing just worked out in this way. But this podcast is sponsored by. smalls and if you're a listener of this show uh you know about my cat travails if you want to get 60% off your first order plus free shipping head to smalls dot com use our promo code majority for a limited time only small's cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative

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time only because you're a majority report listener. You can get 60% off your first Smalls order plus free shipping by using the code majority. That's 60% off when you head to Smalls, dot com use the promo code majority again promo code majority 60% off your first order plus free shipping at smalls dot com it is thursday june 26th 25 i am not sam cedar but i am your fill in host for today, Matt Binder. And this is the five-time award-winning The Majority Report. And while the rest of the crew is broadcasting to you live from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal and the heartland of America, Brooklyn, New York City, I am actually coming to you from the industrially ravaged shadow of City Field, the home of the New York Mets. Yeah. In Flushing Queens.

folks we got a great show for you today don't be fooled by me being here emma's not here obviously but sam is here in spirit or i should say via pre-record sam cedar has interviews for you that he conducted and then the boys myself matt lech whoever else i get by brandon sudden will be joining us i'm sure uh and we'll take it over from there after sam's interviews but sam's guest for today are Claire Otorino and BB Young representing the Blue Bottle Independent Union and Alex Salmon

features writer at Slate discussing his piece. American Siberia Donald Trump is enacting his darkest agenda in the backyard of a small Louisiana town. We'll have all of that and much, much more

for you today on this beautiful Thursday. Matt Leck, are you still feeling so, I think there's still a skip to my step ever since the results of Tuesday night's election here in New York City. Do you feel the same one? Yeah, it generally feels like a corner has been turned on a pretty dark period. And this is, this is just me enjoying the moment right now. Obviously, rationally, I know that something, another shoe is going to drop and, you know, we're going to be back in, what do they call it, Hellworld? But, no, it feels good right now.

and it feels like, you know, it's like the law of physics have been once again reinstated into the world. Right. It feels like, you know, the dawn of a new day. I think Zoranam Dani said something like that himself in one of his speeches. But for some people, they're not feeling so hot like we are, Matt. They don't feel like Zoranam Dani's big win in the Democratic primary in New York City, as a running as a Democratic socialist on a platform of freeze the rent, city-owned grocery stores, free bus fares. They don't feel like that's so great like we do. And one of those people is the hedge fund manager and Donald Trump backer, Bill Ackman.

Now, for those of you who might not recall Bill Ackman, he was actually involved in the Democratic primary, which is sort of funny that he's coming into this now as if he's just been awoken to what's been going on. Because he was a big money spender for Andrew Cuomo's Super PAC, the Super PAC backing Andrew Cuomo. And along with being a Trump donor, like I mentioned. He's also well known for being the guy who can't write a tweet without turning it into a 10,000-word essay.

Also, the guy who... Are you verified on Twitter? Are you verified on Twitter from the old days? Yeah, I am. Well, no, I'm actually verified because of Elon Musk's punishment on me. Oh, that's funny. When he wanted me to stop the blocking blue checks. My question is, because I'm not verified.

Do you have access to some sort of metrics of how much of this tweet did people read? Because the way that these guys write novellas and think anybody, even the people who agree with them, is scrolling to the bottom. on Twitter, like, I don't think it's ever happened in the history of the app. Right. We don't know how much people are reading, but what I do know is that in order to promote those features, being able to write

more than 280 characters, you need to be a blue check, which for most people means paying for Twitter, aka X, the Everything app. And so the algorithm does promote those long extended tweets

algorithmically to people's feeds in order to promote the idea of writing these long essays on Twitter. But I don't think any, you know, it might get more views because it shows up in people's feeds, even though they don't want it in their feed. But I don't think people are reading it. I don't go to Twitter to read long form content. I'm trying to think like drop site. I even mentioned it like I've read to the end of a drop site news tweet that was over a long

and it was, I could tell it was the first time I'd ever done that in my entire life. Right. Also, I don't know if people know this, but Elon Musk's Twitter sucks so much even just, like, technically, that if you write one of those long tweets that extends past, like, the show more thing, you actually can't search anything past that show more in Twitter search. Like, the tweet won't come up. So if you write the keyword that people are going to be searching, like, below the fold, like, past the 280 character mark, it's just not going to show up in Twitter search because they haven't figured out the technology. to do so yet. Look, GROC is only getting exponentially better. It's going to be basically as smart as all of humanity ever pretty soon. We just need about $10 billion more of data servers. And that the problem in any other problem with society will be fixed. Right. Now, speaking of, like we were saying, Bill Ackman's long tweets, the guy who also defended his wife's plagiarism and in turn accidentally sort of, I don't know if unveiled the right word, but cemented in everyone's brain that

Uh, she has connections to Jeffrey Epstein, uh, uh, uh, this guy. So he, he, he supported Trump in 24. Sorry, just to add that to. Right. Right. Big Trump supporter in 2024, big money donor to Trump and Cuomo. Uh, so Bill Ackman yesterday posts in the middle of the afternoon, like, when you guys are doing this show yesterday, I have a great idea on NYC. I will share it as soon as I can. I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but I am now optimistic. And then, A couple minutes later, he posts. We are looking into legal issues. And everyone's like, what?

Is he going to try to overturn the election? Like this fair election that just happened? Right. And then so Bill Ackman comes again a couple hours later. Legal issues concerning the potential for another candidate to run now. Now, this is obviously they want, you know, people should know that this isn't over. Mamdani goes to the general and he's not going to be facing just one other guy in the general. there is actually a whole slate of candidates waiting for him in the general.

Andrew Cuomo is technically on the ballot because he registered under a third party that he made up specifically to be in the general election ballot in case he lost. But he wasn't expecting to lose this badly. So now he's actually trying to decide whether it's even worth running. And then you have Eric Adams, who is our current mayor, the incumbent in New York City, who didn't run on the Democratic Party line, which he won on in 2021 to become mayor, because he knew he would lose in the primary because he's now beholden to Trump,

so he could get those charges of corruption and bribery from Turkey dropped. So he's running on an independent line as well as the incumbent. And then there's the Republican candidate, the actual official Republican candidate, not to be confused with Cuomo and Eric Adams, Curtis Siawa, who is the Guardian Angels guy,

who you know is the red hat, Barret wearing, a guy or whatever. With like 20 cats, right? Yeah, he lives in a studio apartment with 20 cats, which is honestly the most likable thing about him. The Guardian Angels are known... Some of two cats, that's too many cats.

Yeah, I guess. But apparently he helps them or whatever. But the guy goes around, though, and this is what the Guardian Angels have done for decades, literally going around, like, as vigilantes, policing the streets at any authority. And they most notably, on Fox News Air, we played it on this show, I think, a year ago,

saw someone who they thought was an undocumented immigrant commit what they thought was a crime and they literally just attacked him on air. So that's the type of stuff that you'd get, I guess, if the safe. It should work for ICE. Right. The law and order Republicans, of course, choosing their Democrat, excuse me, the Republican mayoral candidate as the literal vigilante and interesting. And then there's this other independent guy, Jim Walden or something like that running, who's just like, I don't even know his deal. But so there are people to go with, but apparently not good enough for Bill Ackman

because early this morning, like around midnight, he drops one of his long essays about how he awoke this morning, gravely concerned about New York City. I thought, what has NYC become

that an avowed socialist who has supported defunding the police whose solution to lowering food prices as a city-owned supermarkets, who doesn't understand that freezing rents will only reduce the supply of housing, who has no free in an organization, let alone a city with a $100 billion budget and a $2 trillion economy

and who believes chance for globalizing the Intifada are acceptable wins the Democratic Party. And then he goes, after speaking to those who supported Mom Dhani, I would love to know who the hell he spoke to, which, by the way, it actually might be his own daughter because one of the reasons this guy got politically active is his daughter went away to college and became a Marxist. And then, like, I think had some questions about Israel too.

Yes, yes. He says, I believe that he won the primary largely, not due to his policies. Yeah, all right. But that's exactly, that's something we've seen from everyone from the abundance guys to there was a whole slate of candidates. Many, many, maybe they didn't call themselves democratic socialists, but people who were considered progressives in New York City who did not take off whatsoever. Because Brad Lender was at the court. Brad Lander, if Mom Dani didn't run, Lander would have been the person that progressives coalesced around. But Mom Dani had better policies. And I guess the speaking and charisma adds to

that, but the policies were at the core. I mean, people know what Mom Dani's policies are about because Bill Ackman, for example, was just able to check off each and every one because that's how memorable they are. People like those policies and they're memorable policies because they're unique and different, and people support them. So he goes, but rather because he's a superb politician who ran a remarkable and inspiring campaign. So you're wondering why Bill Ackman is now promoting Mamdani, and it's because, again, I can't read this whole thing. It's like a 10,000 word essay. But then he uses it to segue into how there are plenty of charismatic individuals out there,

including people who have centrist or moderate policy ideas. And he's basically begging someone. Here, I'll skip down below. This is like five or six paragraphs later. The good news is that there are other charismatic, intelligent, articulate, handsome, charming, young. Wow, he really has a hard on for Mom Dani. It sounds like everything but the policies. The good news is that there are other charismatic, intelligent, articulate, handsome, charming, young,

yet more experienced and, importantly, more centrist politicians who are New York residents eligible for office. There are also extremely talented members of the New York business community who could be superb mayors. Bloomberg being the reference standard from the past. And this setup is extremely attractive for a run for mayor. There are only 132 days until the election, which means the commitment of time to run is de minimis. so basically he's basically saying hey if you want to run in this election you don't even got to care about the people of new york enough to run a long campaign this shit will be over in a heartbeat uh this one then you have to be mayor yeah this will be the most closely watched mayor in decades perhaps ever uh particularly in the social media and podcast so he literally goes on to say there's all these positives of running as my candidates to stop man my mom donnie But none of it involves actually serving the people of New York City.

It's all about raising your own personal profile. And in return, you help me stop Mom Donnie. It's literally what he's saying. He continues, importantly, there are hundreds of millions of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mom Donnie that can be put together overnight. Believe me, I am in the tech strings and the WhatsApp groups. I would love to be in those WhatsApp groups and see these guys meltdown. Oh, my God. So that a great alternative candidate won't spend any time raising fonts.

So he basically comes up. One unfortunate fact, he adds a couple paragraphs later, as far as I understand, and this is where the legal issues from before come in, is that the candidate will have to be a right-in candidate. So on top of that, he's looking to feel the candidate. Again, there are four other candidates at least on the ballot whose name is not Zoron, mom donnie and he is looking to back a completely separate new candidate that can't even get ballot access in time because that that ship has sailed and he's fielding this person as a writing

candidate who doesn't have to run a real campaign for a long time because a there's not much time b he's got all the money in the world behind him so don't worry about it we'll just throw money at it so you don't even got to you don't even got to meet those smelly peons of new york city the people who live And let's not mean talk about just the people in the Bronx and Queens and Brooklyn. You definitely wouldn't even have to talk to those petty bourgeoisie in Manhattan. So it's incredible that he's doing this. It's absolutely incredible. And so this is what their plan is to stop Mamdani,

field another candidate who would run as a write-in. But I guess it's a little bit more interesting from Ackman's view is a little bit more interesting. than some of the other things I've seen, such as this right-wing pundit who's been on Tucker Carlson show, Fox News, Tim Poole's show, Nick Sortor, who has taken to social media begging Donald Trump to invoke the Communist Control Act of 1954 in order to block Zoran Mamdani from becoming mayor of New York. We have to play hardball, he said. of justice can easily establish communist ties given Mamdani openly boosted a communist group and called for a communist mayor. He should also lose his status as a naturalized citizen given he began associating with communists within five years of becoming a U.S. citizen. Now, a communist control act in 1954 is actually still technically on the books, even though

in 1973 an Arizona court ruled that the act violated the constitution of the United States, when Arizona tried to block a communist party USA from creating a new branch of the party in the state and run candidates in the run-up to the 1972 U.S. presidential election. So this has already been shot down. An incredible Hail Mary to literally get someone removed from the ballot and the country because of their political beliefs. But also, stunning all around from the Ackmans to the soortors,

the guy I just mentioned that like if mom donnie is going to be so bad like they think and they hate New York so much they tell us this all the time why wouldn't they be joyful that mom donnie is going to destroy the city they hate and in turn ruin the reputation of progressives and leftists and democratic socialists all throughout the country I mean if that was if you felt so strongly about those things, then the combination of events here is the perfect scenario strategically for you to prove once and for all that you've been right all along about about liberal cities, about the left, about Democrats, about socialism. This is your opportunity. This is like this is, this is the best thing that could happen to you. They were acting the same way after

AOC won the primary in 2018 that, oh, we're going to use this to cream the Democrat. in the midterms and then in the general in 2020 and Democrats did well in both of those elections. Right. But what I think is going on here is that unlike AOC, Mamdani actually has the power to do these things that he's saying he will do. Like people keep saying, oh, yeah, I don't know. He can't freeze the rent. Actually, he can't. He can freeze the rent.

Yeah, people don't even understand what he's talking about either. Like the freeze the rent thing is all about freezing the rent. of rent-stabilized departments in New York City. And they love to bring out the idea that this isn't going to solve the housing crisis. And all Mom Dani cares about is helping out, you know, recent transplants to New York City. I can tell you, as a born and raised lifelong New Yorker for over 38 years, the people living in rent-stabilized departments, rent-stabized departments are pretty hard to get in New York City. people who are in rent-stabilized departments once they do get it they live there for years not years decades generations yeah they stay there so what this would do is provide relief to lifelong

more probably mostly born and raised new york working class residents and that's the main thing here to provide relief for them he has other plans for a whole slew of how policy initiatives. This is to straight up help New York's working people who've lived here for many years and just help give them relief as prices raised all across the board, really all over the country, but especially in New York City, to give them relief in just one area, the rent. And I can tell you, as a rent-stabilized resident myself, you know, it's going to be a huge help for working families like myself, especially people with kids such as myself. So, you know, this is what they fear, that Mamdani can actually do something by himself

straight up that's going to help people. Like AOC's win was huge and it's important to have someone like that in federal government. But as a single U.S. House representative, she can't enact her agenda alone. So, you know, they can use these things to knock her. But Mamdani, there are things as mayor he can just outright do and that's why they are so scared of this because a democratic socialist can finally has finally been given the office in which they can enact at least some of the things they outright plan to do on their own and they are running scared because people will like it can i just insert one other element to this uh ion hersey ali who is a sort of like right wing

as she calls us an ex-Muslim and she's also somebody who was cited by Anders Breivik before he murdered 77 people in Norway I think it was and her response to that was the people who failed to speak up against Muslims coming

to Europe are the actual cause and they left people like Breivik no choice but anyway Ayan has a recommendation that I want to second in fact she responded to this novel that Bill Ackman wrote about being gravely concerned. She said, the answer is looking you in the face. You are the best candidate to run against Mamdani. The Michael Bloomberg of 2025, a dedicated New Yorker and the

opposite of this guy in every respect. So I would just say yes, please Bill Ackman. Cuomo spent $100 per vote that he got. I want you to double that. I want you spend 200 of your own dollars in order to lose in the general election as a running candidate against Zaraamamani. And please, listen to these people like Ian Horsi Ali who are definitely not just trying to get you to open their checkbook and sponsor their next sort of venture in Islamophobia. They really mean what's best for you

is to run against Zoran as a writing candidate using your own money. Right. These people have no idea about New York whatsoever. They don't know about the people who live here. They don't know about the politics of the people who live here. They know nothing about New York. I've seen people say, oh, we're going to let

a election where only 9.1% of eligible voters voted. More people voted for Zoran Mamdani in the first round of this election than voted for Eric Adams last time around. And you don't see people denying that Eric Adams should have been mayor because less than 9% of people voted in the election in total. This is just how new, this is really how it is in general. People, most voters are sort of passive politically and they just don't care enough about the

primaries and they let the more politically minded people hash that out and then they come out in the general and just pick whoever their party chose. That's just how it is. I wish more people were active, but most people seemingly don't want to be. You know who needs to be active? DSA and that's who was and that's why we won. Thank you to all the DSA folks who have been knocking so many doors and that's not something that it's going to want to be emphasized by these people saying it's all about Zoron's Riz. I think it's about the people who are ready to go to battle for him and they won. Right.

All right. So with that said, let's get to the interviews that Sam Cedar has awaiting us. Which one is up first, guys? First we got some ads and then we're going to get to Alex Salmon. Perfect. All right. Myself, Matt Leck, and the rest of the MR crew,

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Go to ZockDoc.com slash majority to find it instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's ZOC, DOC, Zoc, doc.com slash majority. Zock.com slash majority. We are back, Sam Cedar on The Majority Report. It's a pleasure to welcome back to the program, Alex Salmon, feature writer at Slate.com. Alex, you wrote this really amazing piece, disturbing in many respects. about Jenna, Louisiana, as a population of 4,000 people, has a crazy history of, I don't know that crazy, but a history of being closely associated with the carceral state for quite some time.

Give us a little background about this before we get up to present day. Yeah, so this is like central Louisiana. So it's, you know, a part of the state, part of the country. There's not a lot of economic activity. It's not a, you know, certainly not a metropolis. It's like a lot of these places, you know, it was an oil and timber town, basically, Gina. It's like either work in the oil fields or the logging woods. And both those things went bust in the 80s.

And so what happened there, as in many places in Louisiana, is they had to diversify the economy. And they built a prison, which was, you know, steady. industry it's like a lot of the it's the way a lot of these towns bring federal money or state money uh to places that are pretty much you know uh blighted and forgotten about so they built this prison um in just outside of town it was a juvenile detention center at first and uh it's like 276 beds um basically from the moment it opened it was like incredibly scandal plagued it was a state uh juvenile facility and so okay yeah it was a state facility um and yeah state facility 267 basically teenagers um and it was like from the second it opened in in 98

and i think with just over a year it was so scandal plagued uh just the allegations of abuse are like stunning that like the Clinton administration which is obviously the tough on crime Clinton administration uh which couldn't find a jail that didn't like to look of they sued um both the state of Louisiana and Wackenhut, which was the private prison company that would eventually become a geo group, basically alleging that there was like widespread mistreatment, borderline torturous conditions for these kids. And like the, you know, the federal, the DOJ documentation from that period is like, it's pretty stunning. It's, it's the, the catalog of abuse is like unbelievable. And they, um, at first they were like going to set up a deal to get it back on the

straight and narrow and then Wackenhut, the private prison company, it was just like, never mind. We'll just shut it down. It's not worth the effort. And this was an era when private prisons was really just starting to gear up, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, it's a real, I mean, really interesting. You know, the political economy of this stuff, I think is fascinating.

But, right, it's sort of deeply neoliberal era where it's like you want to build out state capacity to imprison people. but you don't really have the ability to do it on a public sector level or you think it's cheaper to do it with the private sector. So Wacken Hut is sort of a great exemplar of this as at that point, the largest private operator in the world goes on to become geo group. Now we have geo, which is the biggest in the country. And that's all before we get into immigrant detention, right? That's before this industry evolved. So that was, you know, that was late in 90s. Right.

And this is all sort of like a trajectory, I think, if I remember correctly from the 80s, the early 80s as, you know, Reagan era. And it had really its biggest growth, I think, as far as I remember, I should say, until I think recently, in the wake of that crime bill under Bill Clinton, that sort of. confluence of both the tough on crime era and the like you say neoliberal sort of more corporate uh policies of the democratic party um and then uh okay so what happens after uh it closes then what happens uh with this facility yes a really short run right nothing not the best nothing was heartening ROI on that thing. They build it up. They get 16 months of basically child abuse. It gets shut down and emptied out. It sits empty for a handful of years until Katrina hits. And so this is, you know, then becomes a classic Louisiana story where Katrina hits and then there's another hurricane,

the name of which now alludes me. But three weeks later, there's another category three hurricane hits. So like the lower latitudes of Louisiana are obviously flooded and a lot of the prisons get flooded so they need to relocate prisoners um to different facilities uh and they reopen this facility in gina to to house prisoners from other uh prisons uh that have been decommissioned by the storm and so in o five it reopens um and they yeah they just relocate uh hundreds of prisoners up there and and on an emergency basis and they actually bring down i mean the the the staffing is is not Wacken Hood at this point. The staffing is actually,

they bring down like CEOs from Rikers and other places in the state. So is this a state-run facility at that time, or is it Wacken-Hut just sort of like subcontracting back to the, they're just bringing people around for the rest of the country? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they enter into an agreement with the state just on a temporary basis, emergency basis to house people there, basically, quote, unquote. And, yeah, so it's not even staffed up with, with, you know, private staff.

It's staff from other prisons. But, of course, like, the behavioral pattern is, is exactly the same. It takes almost no time. I mean, the stories of even just relocating the prisoners at this place, like, horrific, like, the testimony about how they relocated the prisoners itself is stunning. And then you hear these reports come out later about how, I mean, unbelievable. torrent of racial abuse for black prisoners um and it too is so bad that they end up having to shut it down and empty it out again it's uh it even despite just whack and hut like i don't understand like it's one thing to say like we need to shut down this prison because um there are abuses going on

here you know um but how does the facilitator of these abuses like it's not the physicality of the prison that is problematic it is obviously the company that's running it right like how did they stay in business um and like what kind of when it gets shut down are they just like well we tried and they just walk away or like how is there no recourse or accountability for the actual company it's pretty amazing um i mean they they rebranded uh they became geo group so uh it's not that there was no movement in uh in their corporate behavior um i mean i i went through and i looked actually at earning statements and uh and shareholders reports and stuff from this period and uh and when the facility is empty obviously uh they're not happy about that all right balance sheet they're

you know, they're like, there's a, you know, a line for the Gina facility and it's empty and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, it's out bringing in, you get these federal contracts and you bring them down and, and there's a lot of, I mean, it's a lot of money. It's a big industry. And, you know, we've seen their political influence also grow and grow and grow. And Pam Bondi, of course, our esteemed attorney general was a lot, you know, lobbyist for, for them up until the second that she took her current position. And, yeah, it's just, you know, it's just incredibly remunerative industry, finally.

And so, okay, it shuts down then, then it gets a third life, I guess. Yeah, third life. So it shuts down again after the post-Katrina debacle. And then, you know, they get the idea that they can expand it, actually. The incredible thing that happens is they're like, this is, you know, two tries that this have not worked. let's make it way bigger. And so they build out a ton more bed space out to 1,170 beds, which is obviously much larger than the 276 they started with.

And they start marketing it to the federal government as a facility. And, of course, at that point, ICE is a relatively new department, right? Ice only is, you know, created in 2003. This is 2007 at this point that they're shopping this facility around. And so they win a federal contract for ice. And as it turns out, you know, ice pays even better. Like it's a much better deal to get an ice contract than it is to do state. So they're happy.

And, you know, 2008 it opens as a nice detention center. And I want to get to the part of the story about how the, I should say, the town reacts to this stuff. because it really is fascinating and a little bit disturbing. But they start ramping up as an ice facility through the Obama years, where there is a lot of, you know, Obama was very aggressive in terms of deportations, you know, depending on who you talk to, but from their accounting to build some credibility to develop comprehensive immigration reform, that was an abject failure, the entire project. By the end of the Obama administration, he puts a moratorium or ends private prisons for the federal

government. Was this facility now considered a private prison or because it had sort of changed its category to a detention center? Was it not really subject to that? I mean, of course, Trump comes in and it reverses it immediately, so maybe there was no issue. But what happened in that instance? Yeah, you know, I think that it would have been open just before Obama was elected. And I don't know how actionable that standard really was finally in terms of outstanding contracts.

I don't want to speak too confidently on this because I don't really know the ins and outs of it. But I don't think that that affected this facility. and what may have sort of slowed some of the ice the ice in private prison alliance like ultimately ice as a department is entirely reliant on private prison companies it just it couldn't exist without them and so like currently 90% of people in ice detention are being held in private prison facilities um i you know i don't think there was a big push during the obameters to build public ice facilities or ice jails or whatever so i don't know exactly the ins and outs of that thing, but it is interesting because during that, you're very right to bring up that period because it does slow down a little bit there. Like from 08 to 16, at least in Louisiana, you don't see growth in this industry, but then in 17, it goes crazy. And like, that's, you know, sort of where it picks right back up is, uh, is once Trump gets

back in, uh, or it gets in the first time, rather, like that, that at least for Louisiana is where, you know, the ice detention industry takes off. and we should say that and you know it's it's extremely remote 4,000 people what percentage of the town works in the prison or is just sort of like reliant on the prison because I imagine there may be some slight outside contracting that the prison does as well yeah yeah it's interesting so the 4,000 figure and I went through census data on this I think it also counts the people who are in the prison which is you know common practice for prison towns like this is how they do this stuff but um i i went through that data it said that it said that gina was 25% Hispanic um and there are a thousand beds at the facility and i went to there's one mexican restaurant in gina and i went there and i spoke with the wait staff and i said you know uh i was like how many how many latinos live here must be sort of an interesting dynamic and they the both people i spoke to were like it's there are 15 Latinos here so uh the

rest of the thousand, I'm pretty sure people that are in the facility. So it might really be even lower than that, you know, in terms of like functional population. Um, anyway, it's very small town. Um, I think it's amazing about this is that the numbers are really, like, they're very low the numbers, right? Like, uh, like, I think that at most recent accounting that, like, the tax revenue to Gina specifically was like $30,000 a year. I think it's like 250 jobs. It's not like, you know, we're not talking about huge numbers. It's not like, um, I mean, if you have 3,000 people in a town, you know, 250 gets close to 10% from one employer. Right.

And, you know, working age is probably, you know, maybe even a higher percentage. Right. And you're right with subcontractors and everything else, right? Like, it's probably a little higher than that. And it does end up being a pretty substantial percentage in the final accounting. And this is the facility that Mahmoud Khalil was held at. Yes, yeah, yeah. So he was in there for, what was it, 104 days at final tally. It's an interesting place because it's the one place, right? He was the one who was stuck there the longest. Alarezi Doroti, who was the Iranian student from the University of Alabama. He was also held there for 40 days and then ended up giving up and just accepting deportation. So of the facilities in Louisiana, of which there are, There are nine, and then there's a 10th just across the Mississippi border that's part of the New Orleans field office.

This is the place I think is hard, you know, sort of like the hardest to get out of at a lot of levels. Like it's the old, it's the oldest large one. And then, of course, the place where everyone else got out and Khalil was held the longest of any of these students. And then, of course, Terodi got actually deported in the end. How long are, I mean, the detainees there. are presumably in process of being deported, right? I mean, I don't know if the trend to Agua people came from, Gina, as well. But how long is the typical stay?

Yeah, it's a really interesting question because immigration court and the whole proceeding, it's very opaque, and I think that not uncharitably is called kangaroo court by a lot of people who know it pretty intimately like um the the length of stay is basically like how badly do you want to be in this country right and it's like um if you just give up and accept deportation you might be gone in a matter of days but if you feel like you have an asylum case that's legitimate or that you are in status as often people are now right we're getting snatched by ice agents like well you probably don't want to just accept that and get deported right um what happens then once once you're in the facility is that you can win your case and still not get out.

So this is a very common story is that people will win their asylum case. And then ICE has the ability to appeal those decisions. And they can appeal again and again and again. So you can win a case. You can appeal multiple times? Yeah, yeah. You can appeal. They can appeal multiple times.

And they have time to decide if they want to appeal. So they don't even have to appeal immediately. You can sit there for 30 days while they're mulling over whether or not they will appeal. and so it's one of these things where like there was a man who died in detention in Gina who had already won his asylum case like he had been there for months after he'd already won his case and it was just because ICE had decided that they wanted to appeal it and so um you know there he was by any estimation you would say he was someone who had gone through all the you know it's so hard to win these cases he'd gone through all the hoops and won the case and uh and was still there

and then ended up dying of a heart attack after, you know, he submitted multiple, multiple allegations of abuse by the staff there, and again and again in the end, didn't matter, he was stuck, and then eventually he died of a heart attack. So those are not uncommon stories. Talk a little bit about, before we go, the town. I mean, before we hopped on it,

It reminded me a little bit of zone of interest. Of course, you know, this is not a death camp, although for some it was. But it's not, its purpose is not, you know, to kill people. But you can see in your story how it feels like this detention center is a source of shame for the town. and that it sort of feels like it's slowly eating away at people. Yeah, it was a really interesting environment to be in because this is a town that does not love outsiders. It's, you know, I have like a pretty evident Southern California accent, and that was not doing me any favors talking to people around there.

And there were some people who I think were very combative, right? Like most of the time I was in the town or multiple times while I was there, I was getting trailed by the police. Like, it was not like, there were two separate incidents where I was, you know, had the cops on my tail. And this is not a big town. And, you know, it's not a, there's no secret of what was going on. And when I tried to speak with the, you know, the chief of police, it was very combative. When I tried to speak with the mayor, she, you know, was one day escaped out of the back door.

The next day, didn't show up. The editor of the newspaper was extremely combated towards me. And the other people I talked to were sort of. between, you know, fearful and, you know, sort of cagey and, um, no one, no one wanted their name, no one wanted their name, uh, on anything. Um, and there was like, you know, there were some whispers. There were some things where like people would say, oh, you know, every once in a while someone shows up at the church and we just don't, we don't ask. We don't ask them about their family. We don't ask what they're doing here. Like, we just pray and we go about our business and,

um, it was, it was a church presumably to visit the prison. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like given how, um, you know, how white the town is and stuff and how insular it is. Like, you, everyone knows exactly what someone is doing. And if they have a family member and ICE detention, um, it's, there's no surprise. But yeah, it was very much like, don't put anything on the record. Don't say anything. Like if, um, people would express stuff to me and then immediately take it back, um, I had a lot of interesting conversations like that where I would talk to someone, they would be like, please, please, please don't use my name. Uh, Like, and it was a really interesting environment to be in and challenging on a reporting level, but I think, yeah, certainly had that sort of spirit of something like the zone of interest where, you know, everyone knows there's something going on up there, but it probably doesn't, doesn't pay to make a lot of noise about it.

How many places like this are there around the country? That is a great question. It's, central Louisiana is very unique because it writes so remote. And it has such a favorable court system for facilitating deportations. Like, it's sort of a perfect storm of, of remoteness, lack of resources, willing political climate to facilitate both detention and deportation. There are places like this sort of all over the country, though. It's gotten, you know, Louisiana went from, you know, in 2017, I think there were two

or three facilities. Now there are nine, you know. Wow. They opened five facilities in 2019 there, and they're all sort of peasant. around these little towns in the middle of nowhere. They're very hard to get to, purposefully so. And so there are mega, you know, there are giant facilities sort of scattered around the country and Texas has got a few and California's got some big ones.

There's one in Washington. And Mississippi has a huge one. But, yeah, they're, you know, it's interesting right now is they're trying to expand this as well, right? There's a big push by the Trump administration to expand ICE detention. And so I think we're going to see more and more. of these what's what's interesting is that basically they identify prisons and jails that have been closed or not being used oftentimes because of abuse allegations and they dust them off and they

turn them into ice facilities that's sort of the afterlife of uh pretty much any of these uh these buildings well uh Alex Salmon thanks so much for coming on and talking to us about your piece we will link to it in slate uh entitled Donald Trump is enacting his darkest agenda in the backyard of a small town absolutely no one wants to talk about it. I appreciate your coming on and telling us about it. Once again, thanks for coming. Yeah, you bet. Thanks for having me, Sam.

We're back, Sam. We're back, Sam Cedar on The Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program. Claire Otorino, she is a barista and a member of the bargaining committee for the Blue Bottle Independent Union. She is on from Boston and also joining us, B.B. Young from the Bay Area, a former barista at Blue Bottle. Welcome to you both. Thank you for having us. Hi, thank you. So, Claire, let's start with you.

Give us a little background on, for the folks who don't know, a blue bottle and basically how this unionizing drive started. So the unionizing drive started thanks to my comrades who came before me last May. So we recently celebrated our one-year anniversary. Thanks to Alex Pine, who has appeared on more perfect unions bit about our unions, such like that. They were very instrumental. They're our current president and helping us found the union. Did you want like a brand rundown on Blue Bottle itself? Well, yeah, I mean, just tell us, like, you know, give us a little sense of it because I'm not sure that everybody's familiar with Blue Bottle.

It is a, how many stores are there nationally and where are they mostly located? I should have the number. I'm not sure nationally. We have East Coast stores here in New York City where you're located and then on the West Coast where it originated. Then internationally, it's mainly East Asia, so like Korea, Japan. Oh, so it's a pretty sizable coffee outfit. And do you have a sense of how many employees work at Blue Bottle? I should also have that information. That's my bad. No, at our location, I would somewhere between like 10 and 20 at the moment. And Bibi, tell me your story. You're no longer working as a barista there? No, unfortunately not. Okay, well, but tell me what your involvement has been. So I was a assistant manager like cafe leader alongside with my manager.

and I was just how I help him with the day-to-day progress of just you know how to run the cafe and whatnot and just because of that involvement I wasn't too hands on with the union because I just just possible deniability you know and just not trying to cross too many wires but I wanted to be more active and more a more part of it so I decided to read the letter with the rest of my cohorts and then literally which letter back up and tell us because we don't know this story. Sorry, no. So our, on June 17th, we made, you know, claim that we wanted to have our union be public and be recognized by our company. And so we, on that

Tuesday, we read a letter just of our demands of just livable wage. Wanting to have hours and having certified and hours just being, sorry, I'm trying to see how to phrase the word, just having, um, sorry, consistent hours or consistent hours and just hours that we are, we were guaranteed when we first signed on and stuff like that. And so I've read

the letter out loud to our, our guests and everyone who was in there. Um, and then literally less than 24 hours, I was fired the next morning. Wow. And so how many, uh, were, were you the only person fired? I was the only one fired. This was just last week. Yes. Oh, I see. Okay. And, and we should say this union drive has been going on since almost for a year and change, I guess, back in April of 2024. And so, Claire, where are we in terms of the, and this is, I should say, this is an independent union. Are you guys working with an affiliate, with any other union, uh,

to work through this or, um, no. So we, we shopped around a little bit, but ultimately it was decided to remain independent. It gives us a little bit more freedom in terms of our collective action. Um, and to be vocal on what we stand for. Like we, uh, we're lucky enough to be able to release a statement on Palestine. Um, we just sort of thought that everything worked better when the union was operated by the rank and fire. members who are like in the cafes and and where is is the union has it been certified is the

union in in every blue bottle around the country or was like BB's experience um a function of a national thing we can get to that but give us a sense of the union uh from shop to shop like how many shops are unionized are they are they recognized at this point Yeah, so in Massachusetts, the BBIU was initially founded for like Boston, greater Boston. I guess that's technically the whole state, but all the, obviously they're in the metropolitan areas. So right now we are in the talks of a contract. We won our union election. The Bay Area just announced their union campaign. So that's the letter that BB read and faced retaliation for immediately after. So, if I understand correctly, all the shops in the Boston area are unionized. And are there any other, and the Bay Area is starting to, are there any other sort of, I guess, regional areas where the union has either operated or plans to operate? I guess maybe you can't tell me plans, but. I can't sell any plans, but we were the first domino to fall, as it were.

And as it is now, the only domino that has fallen, and which takes us to Beebe's participation in this action, were there any other people who were fired during that action? No, I was the only one. So what is the justification that the company has given you to fire just you? Presumably, there were other people who read off this letter to or no? well they were trying to be they were trying to crack down on a lot of stuff just within like within house because I just feel like there was kind of a shakeup of just trying to get new staff and stuff like in so there was a lot of us who are on like our final writeups for like very small like stuff like me personally I ended up getting my final write up for being four minutes late to work and so that was kind of the drive that pushed me was I was like if you're going to fire me for being four minutes late to work. I personally didn't have anything else to lose And I want better for my coworkers and my cohorts around me So that like I said, that's what pushed me to go

You know what? Yeah, I am going to read this letter And I am going to let them know that I want this union to happen And I want better for my staff And so then like I said the next morning they said Well, you were you were late for this amount of time And we're letting you go How do you have a sense of how many folks In your particular shop

and within the context of the Bay Area are interested in formalizing a union? I think within at least my cafe, a good, like I want to say like maybe 80, 90% are for it and are like ready for it. I know a lot of the other stores also kind of have that same sentiment like I want to say 8090. Yeah. And so how is it? I guess the the and so are you guys planning a vote like walk me through the process here so if we have a union that is representing folks who are working for this company but it's only regional like why does each shop need to have a union vote and will that because the union is recognizing or is being recognized in. in the Boston area, in the event that each shop votes for it, will the company automatically recognize them as a union?

To my knowledge, as far as I know, I know when we first read off the letter, we asked them to try to recognize, not like try, but to recognize us on that following Friday. I'm not sure of what date that was. But they know radio silence, didn't say anything about it, didn't recognize us. So I think if they are to recognize us, it would be as in the Boston area that they are going to cover the whole, at least East Bay part of the Blue Bottle chains.

And what are the next steps for in the event that they don't voluntarily recognize? Do you then have a vote? Like, where do we stand relative to, A, the National Labor Relations Board? and I imagine you're also dealing with a regional, national, I should say, a regional labor relations board as well. Me personally, I'm unsure. I don't know if Claire can talk to talk a little bit more about that than I could. Because like I said, I'm still kind of new onto the hands of the whole, the whole shebang. Claire, tell us, like what, you know, if you can. and tell us like what will happen like how does a vote happen now in that one particular shop

and if that vote passes who gets unionized and and has the company committed to recognizing the unionization of each shop or each region after having done so in boston right so far the union we brought this up in our last bargaining session which was coincidentally the day I think, after they read the letter off on the West Coast over there, the company's official responses that they declined to answer, whether they will recognize us as a union, at least for now. It's sort of a strategic up in the air right now, whether they'll be folded into our bargaining unit. A lot of it depends on, from what I've been told about some of the people who are a little bit more senior to me and a little bit more involved in the organizing of it all

is it depends on where the company wants to draw the lines for the West Coast specifically and then whether that should be a parallel contract or literally the same contract that we're still being stalled out for because we don't even have our contract yet. Interesting. And Baby, tell me, like, what, when you decided to, what has been the reaction of your fellow workers after you were were fired and will uh i don't know if this is a question for claire but or for you b b but will there be some type of unfair labor practice filing take place in the wake of your firing um not to like put myself like on a pedestal or anything but i felt like i helped harbor a lot of the community and um closeness that i had with the customer

based co-workers at my cafe. So it's like for like a lack of a better word, it feels like I kind of die at the cafe. So the shake-up has been a little just unsettling with everyone and especially with my other co-workers because like I said, it's

if they're going to retaliate and retaliate so soon off of something like that, you know, some of them are a little just worried of what else that they can see them under a microscope and what else that they can fire them and stuff off. I mean, that's probably the purpose. I would imagine, is to scare other people.

Especially with me being an assistant manager. And it was like, if you can get rid of your assistant manager, you literally can get rid of any of us. And so a lot of the customer base were like super unhappy and like not cool about it because our cafe itself is a neighborhood cafe. So we see all those like those people every day at least like once or twice. And so a lot of them has felt the shakeup itself. So it's just sad. It's unsettling.

I would imagine. It's stressful, I would imagine, on you as well. And what about the filing of an unfair labor practice? I mean, it sounds like you are obviously targeted just for announcing, it seems like, quite a coincidence. Let's put it that way. Yes. I am talking to them. I have set up meetings, but nothing has been sent. in motion yet. And so from your perspective, both Bibi and Claire and Claire, why don't you take this first? What can people do to help support you guys? I mean, I know that you're starting

negotiations and Bibi's shop is attempting to unionize in some fashion. And we also have a National Labor Relations Board that is largely dysfunctional at the moment. And, and And we still have, particularly when you're talking about Boston and Los Angeles, or I should say California, still have labor relations, regional labor relations boards. What can people do to help in this environment? So we do have a strike fund. We have striked multiple times this year so far. it's been one of the most effective forms of collective action that we've engaged in. The strike fund helps replenish lost wages, obviously, for workers participating in the strikes.

But also, as a plus of being an independent union, all of our bargaining notes are fully transparent and available on our website. So if any member of the public sort of wants to stay up to date on what's being passed back and forth over the table, recently we were able to get a tentative agreement that sort of secured some migrant rights in terms of protocols when dealing with ice that were favorable. So that was a recent win that people can read all about and sort of like to follow along to know in more real time what's going on with the union. We'll put a link to that. And from your perspective, BB, I mean, you know, it sounds like these shops are hubs for the community. And I would imagine the customer base can influence what these shops end up doing with their employees.

How else can folks help out in your situation? For me personally, I have a GoFundMe if you would like to support to me directly at tiny URL.com slash defund. Sorry, Defend Beebe. Defend BB. And then I know just I, this has ignited a little bit of a fire within myself. And I hope that with the other cafes,

not only just like us California based cafes, but also like the New York ones and stuff like that. I know that they can go to the blue bottle union dot org website. And they can also get in touch

with everyone there if they want to even try to unionize and try to get their stores, you know, recognized and get their rights and stuff taken care of. Bluebottleunion.org. We'll put that link in the podcast and YouTube description. Claire, Bibi, thanks so much for coming on and talking to us about it. Good luck with your respective fights that you have with Blue Bottle. I hope this company does the right thing by you guys.

We'll see you. Thank you so much, Sam. Back. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. I hope you enjoyed those Sam Cedar interviews after myself and Matlick had some fun at Bill Ackman's expense. And now joining us on the show as we're about to head into the fun half of the program is Brandon Sutton. Brandon, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. How are you doing that? I'm doing I'm doing good as we were talking before a little bit better than usual, a little bit of a skip in my step since Tuesday night's election results. Yeah, you know, I try not to embrace like the politics of pettiness. I think that's become such a core premise on what drives so many people in our political system. So I try not to, I'm trying to indulge in that too much. But watching the right-wing commentators,

watching the turbolibs have their varying degrees of meltdown has been something to behold. And I should say meltdowns about Zoron, obviously. Or as I've been calling it on my stream, Zoron derangement syndrome. And I think it's spreading. It's spreading like wildfire. Right. Right. What is it?

That would be ZD.S, right? Yes. ZDS. Yeah. I don't, I, it's funny because it's, it's across the board. you got the uh you got the the the libs having varying reactions from like the abundance guys all of a sudden crediting abundance of it's so funny yeah bender just to jump in on that you have you have people like matt iglesias who are like oh well this is just a fluke you shouldn't have

ran a uh you know a pervert um like quote well on the top of the ticket literally literally literally literally like hours before the election results came in inglesias was literally saying Like, you know, Zoron ran a pretty good campaign. It's too bad he ran on socialism. That's going to hurt him a lot. Oh. That's what he's paid to say. Matt Iglesias at this point in his life cannot reach an alternative conclusion.

Was he an Adams guy? Was that like Maddie Iglesias as a horse? I don't know if he was, but Nate Silver certainly was. I'll never forget the Nate Silver tweet shortly after Eric Adams won the election in 2021, where he said something like, you know, I shouldn't really be looking too much into a New York City mayoral election this way. But Eric Adams has got to be one of the top five picks now for the future of the Democratic Party and their next, one of their next presidential contenders. And it's like, wow, could anyone have been wrong? I don't know.

Who's wrong more often now, Nate Silver or Jim Kramer? like if you if they had like a wrong off who do you think would have like the the worst run of predictions i don't know i mean i mean for this one nate silver did it again where uh just like iglesias a few hours before maybe it was the night before the election uh silver posts a screenshot of the um what's the uh the gambling website that pays him and he doesn't disclose it uh polymarket polymarket yes he posted a screenshot of the polymarket like a graph showing where people's money is going

and he's using that as if it was an actual poll and he posts one that shows it was one that came shortly after Mamdani had a bump that came close to Cuomo and then as that second poll that ended up being super wrong came out it went back down for

Mamdani and Cuomo took the lead again he posted it right after that a screenshot of the polymarket graph right after that And he was like, you know, maybe if this was two weeks ago, Mom, Donnie could pull it off, but it's not looking very good. I mean, so much of that is wishcasting. So much of what counts as like deep, serious punditry in liberal and conservative basis.

It's just like vocalizing your own biases without attributing them to that. Right. I mean, it couldn't have gone worse for these. The pollsters, I believe the only one who had any polling showing. mom dani in the lead with it was the emerson one that came out the day before but then public policy polling had one like weeks before

and um like he he out did it all he out did all the pundits there was the best case scenario for mom dani was at the end of the final round of rank choice voting he would finally come ahead of quamo after all the other votes were redistributed after he

got all of the lander voters who put Zoran second and not only did he not need any of that he was by and far away the first place choice for so many people that Cuomo isn't even a sure thing for an independent run anymore. Quomo was an incredibly weak candidate. I think, you know, Maddie Iglesias is right in that analysis. Like he, like, Cuomo might have been the perfect storm for badness that guaranteed this kind of result or at least facilitated this kind of result because I don't want to minimize like Zoron's ground games, Zoron's like compelling vision for New York

City, but, like, Andrew Cuomo ticked all the wrong boxes for what they were be trying to sell in a Democratic Party primary. In many ways, like, trying to get him over the line was just their micro version of the 2020, you know, Democratic primary for president in Joe Biden v. Bernie Sanders. They were trying to get another, you know, another alleged sex criminal over the line in, you know, the form of Andrew Cuomo to, dispel the illusions of the left that they might have a chance at power but in this case they weren't able to do it you know i think it has to do with the unique makeup of new york city in many ways and then also like the unique nature of like what andrew quomo resigned as a result of right right there's there's one final thing before we do plugs and get to the fun half but this quote here i'm just is this by uh is this a washington post is this new york times or washington post i

can't tell. This is, oh, Puck News, I guess, maybe. Or no, alum. So maybe this is MSNBC. I'm not sure where exactly he's reporting this, but he says, as donors try to assess their next moves in the mayor race, one of the biggest donors to Andrew Cuomo's Super PAC, the investor, Mark Gorton, who I looked this up, he's the creator of lime wire. So shout out to the limp biscuit urban assault vehicle MP3 that I got 25 years ago. Mark Gordon said he is likely to back Mamdani. That is because of the support that Mamdani got has gotten

from Brad Lander, who Gorton said he ranked first. Quote, I feel like people misunderstood my 25 Let me just say. People 50. Yes, exactly. I feel like people misunderstood my quarter of a million dollars for Cuomo for real enthusiasm.

Gordon said in an interview. It was basically oh looks like Cuomo is coming back. We don't want to be shut out. Let's try to get on his good side. that's kind of how things work with promo it's sad political pragmatism i wish we live in a world where these sort of things were not useful things to do right this is a this is a that's definitely uh something to be said about quomo and his brand of like mafioso politics that's what he how he ran albany when he was governor but also like it says a lot about how the rich people uh donate i mean

when i sent bernie sanders twenty seven dollars back in 2016 that was the absolute most I'm enthusiastic I've ever been. Yeah. So I can't imagine how enthusiastic I'd have to be to part with $250,000. It's just a business expenditure. It's like, for some people, once you're giving that much money into the political machine, it's a business expenditure. I think, you know, we like to pretend. And by we, I mean, the people who are taking that money like to pretend that it has no impact on them.

So that's not the way it should be viewed. But yeah, it's not the same as the donations that Bernie get. it's a much more quid pro quo situation right all right so let's go to the fun have this is a lot of stuff to get to a lot of great clips um i will be uh live tonight with leftist mafia at youtube dot com slash matt bender i believe we have a special guest joining us tonight uh ole who is uh eric adams is number one uh arch nemesis so it'll be interesting to hear what she's got to say about the upcoming general election now that Zoran is the Democratic pick. And Brandon, while I hand my daughter off to someone else, can you say what's going on with your show this week? Yes, absolutely. So I actually

just finished streaming right before coming on to the majority report, and you can find that past stream in my next stream, which probably won't be tomorrow, but sometime this weekend on my YouTube channel the discourse with brandon sudden which is also a twitch channel that you can watch the exact same stream one at the exact same time the discourse on twitch so very nice be there matt leck what do you got going on this week left reckoning we did a tuesday we did a big public show on iran two guests derrick davis and eskander sedagi uh also talked about the uh fight between abbott and patrick in texas over t hc and the i mean really in an insane

political system they have in that state. Sunday show patron.com says left reckoning, David and I will be back Sunday for patrons. All right, perfect. And we will, Sam will be back live tomorrow on the show

if this is where you say goodbye to us. But otherwise, we'll see everybody else in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now and I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now and I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now but I think around 18 months out we're going to look back and go like wow what is that going on

it's nuts wait a second hold on for hold on for a second Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun hack. Matt. Who? Fun hack. What is up, everyone?

Fun hack. No me keen. You did it. Fun hack. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint.

Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women's... talking for a second and let me finish where is this coming from dude but dude uh you want to smoke um seven eight yes um it's me um it's me i think it is you who is you think it is you who is you single freaking day.

What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to just know what. Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled eke. We fucking nailed him.

So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge met. I'm positively clovery. I believe 96 I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501.

1.5. 3.8. 911 for instance. $3,400. $1,900. $6.5.4. or three trillion dollars sold. It's a zero-sum game.

Actually, you're making me think less. But let me say this. Poop. You can call it satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you.

All right, folks, folks, folks. It's just the week being weeded out. obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out. I don't know. But you should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question.

Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Got a jump. You got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it, bro.

Two o'clock, we're already late. And the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulaw? Outrageous. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Love you.

Bye-bye.