It Could Happen Here Weekly 49

I always mess up the name of this podcast, and it's really embarrassing because I work on it. It could happen here. Um, not the same words to me in my head though. Anyway. We're joined today by guess that I previously had on the podcast that I co host, Ethnically Ambiguous, and she has a podcast coming out that is super important and I'm excited to talk about what it's a as itself. Joining me today are Garrison and Chris and our guest nasse Hi. Hello, Hello, welcome, thank you,

Welcome to the show. So you're you have a new podcast called Partition. Explain what that's about? Yes, So Partition tells the story of the separation of India and the formation of Pakistan that took place in on Monday, well, Sunday Monday, because I happened at midnight, celebrated its seventy anniversary this year. Um. So it's quite a large event that most people don't really know about. I myself didn't really know the specif I first went back to Pakistan

where I was born and Cratchy um. But basically Britain was like, hey, we're out of money, we can't control India anymore, We're gonna leave. And in that process they were going to trans for the power UH to India and they were gonna they were going to have independence. And then all these other politicians kind of came in the picture and wanted their own personal agendas and UH Pakistan um dominion while India would be the Hindu Sikh dominion.

And basically within this process it was such a rushed job that fourteen million people were uprooted, wanted two million people died, you know. Um. The boundary line actually a few days after independence happened, so no one knew like what where they were in what country. Um. So it was just like a lot of confusion, a lot of violence, a lot of just a lot of mess that happened, and a lot of the survivors are quite old now. My grandfather's a survivor. He's four He was fourteen when

it happened, so he's eighty nine now. And so the only way we can really get these stories or through oral histories. And I never really learned about it in school. And because i'm parents again, like I said, I didn't really know about it for a long time. So if I don't know about it, um, and this is like my history and my family, UM, I'm sure there are many other people who don't know about it. Well. I definitely was very uninformed before you came onto the other podcast.

Ethnically ambiguous because it sounds like I'm plugging it, but I'm not. Um, but also go listen to it. Thanks, I appreciate that. But but no, I do think it's really important because it's absurd the huge like kept out of what we were taught in history class, if you can even call it that. Um. But but yeah, I think it's really important to know about this huge thing

that happened in our recent history that created these two. Um, can you tell us what the process was making this podcast for you and like what research you did, and we like just the steps leading up to it. Yeah. So I originally wanted to make this UM story into a limited narrative series, but I didn't really know how that would happen UM and I Agent or anything like that. But it was just a project I wanted to work on. But it's such a vast event. I was like, I

don't know, like where I would even start. Um. And then a couple of months later, I saw um that our Heart Radio was creating a program called Next Up. And that's when the idea for the podcast came along, and I was like, you know, podcasts are a really good way for people to digest information. UM. It's a lot more accessible, I think than other forms of media. It doesn't cost any money, uh that in a number

of ways. You can listen to it a number of ways. UM. So I thought that might be a good place to start, and I ended up getting accepted into the program. And it's it's still like a lot of work, and it's a lot of just a lot of draining work, um because you have all these like horrible facts written in like one Google dog that you're saying to people because I outlined them, and then I write a script because

it's mostly a lot of my narration with it. But the first thing I did is, Um, I talked to family. I talked to my grandpa. I talked to my great aunt who was actually born the day of independence. Um. Yeah, so Sunday Monday, but just in case the day is not fifteen. So this year it happened to be a Sunday in a Monday, and you know, so I asked her what stories people told her? I asked my mom. We went to an exhibit in Pakistan that's kind of what spurred everything for partition for me, and we talked

about there. I had like my dad do some voice over for my grandpa because the our connection wasn't the best. He's in Pakistan. We recorded it via WhatsApp on a pad track recorder and it's it was like it's very loud over there. There's you know. Instantly, it was just like a it was a situation. Um. But I just started reading books and then I started talking to a lot of people, and I ended up talking to an author named Nisida Jerry, whose book I referenced quite a

bit in the second episode, which drops twenty two. And you know, the first thing he told me was you can't cover everything. So once you understand that that's going to be the case, and it's going to be a lot easier, and it's true, like you can't cover everything. And I kind of struggle narrative I wanted to tell because so many of the stories out there are very biased. There's a lot of you know, like the great men in history stories which I don't care about, and I

just wanted to tell the facts. But I quickly discovered that's really hard. My history, this is my story. This is something that impacts my family for um future to generations and my identity without a doubt. So I was like, let me kind of do it with the lens of disguise. UM. And I wanted to tell the stories that people don't really hear about. So I didn't want to talk about like meetings that happened in libraries and whatever between like

all these politicians. I literally don't care about that. But out um, the way women were treated. It is thought that seventy to a hundred thousand women were raped, abducted, murdered. I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk to artists and creatives who had kind of like a reckoning with and then use their work to teach people about it. So an artist who reframes the narrative with her pieces

and talks about the actual people it affected. A filmmaker, oral historians, uh, survivors, um that I wanted to tell. I didn't want it to be um something you would get like on the History Channel, which is totally fine, that's great, there's an audience for that. But that just isn't something that I wanted to do. You're not doing a whole bunch. No. I did watch an episode of Doctor Who that talks about partition, and I think there

were like aliens or something in there. There is something thrown in there about some sci fi stuff though they did just see how Doctor Who handles partition. I mean it was actually done really well. It was written by Yeah, it was written by South Asian person and so that was like the first uh thing that I saw in my research that really case, like the emotion and and the things that people went through. And I didn't see any British people besides like the people that originally came

on the mission or whatever. So that was nice. Um. But yeah, like there there was a sci fi element. I can't what that side. It was actually something that um that people told me about. When I mentioned partition, They're like, oh, there's this episode of Doctor Who. So I've only seen that one episode, but I think it in the in my research. It was the first thing where I was like, this actually tells a perspective from the people of South Asia. Let's get to know it

was written by a South Asian person. At first, I was like, I'm not even going to touch that. Yeah, up next Stephen Moffatt writes about apartheiz, so I'm curious not including like including some things but not other things. What what like how did you decide what to include and what not to include? Yeah, so no way you can say, like the actual history is maybe the least

important part I think of the podcast. Like I talked about like events like there's something called direct Action Day that happened about a year before the boundary line was announced. Uh Mohammad A Legiona, the future founder of Pakistan, kind of called on Muslims to be to to kind of uh have demonstrations, but it was kind of unclear what exactly that meant. And massive looting carnage took place and how that was like a big catalyst for a partition.

But I didn't want to like get into like this treaty and this event and like this meeting and whatever, because that information is out there if people want to know. I mentioned, that's not really the aspects UM that I took particular interest in. I wanted to talk about women and survivors and just you know, I felt I found it to be very common people who are my age and I just turned UM, I guess millennials you could say, um, their parents and only don't talk to them about it.

So it's been really interesting to talk to people who are my age, who are older than me, who are younger than me, have very similar experiences and how they

found out about this information. M. So those are the kind of things I wanted to focus on because you know, a lot of our stories uh from minority communities UM that are out there in like mainstream media, are rarely told from our perspectives, and so I wanted I wanted this story to come from me and from other people who UM have just different experiences with partition, whether they lived through it, whether they're an oral historian, but they

write a fictional novel about it to cope with their trauma, which I interviewed a woman who did do that. She was four years old when it happened, and she disassociated herself a lot with partition until she wrote about until she wrote about it in this fictionalized novel. UM, and I wanted to talk about what forms of media were also out there, which is why I watched that Doctor Who episode. I also watched Gandhi three hours of my life I'm never going to get back. Um terrible, so

not great? Um, you know, I love Richard Adinborough like Dresser Park is great, but this wasn't it. Um, So I wanted to I wanted to point people in that direction where if you actually wanted to dig deeper into this information, like here's where you should go, Like don't d um, like don't watch I mean I love the Crown, but I mean like let's be real, like you know, like if they mentioned I think India. Once in the pilot episode, um where and it took place about three

months after partition happened. Up it's getting married to Queen Elizabeth and um what's his name? Once in Churchill is walking and he sees Lord mount Batten who was tasked with the separation of India, who was also Prince Philip's uncle, and Chill goes, oh, that's the man who gave India away, and I'm like, that's not really what happened, but okay, and that's the only thing that they say. Um. But I do love period dramas and I do love Corgis,

which is one of the main reasons I watched The Crown. Um. But yeah, wait, sorry, one back is the guy who got whacked for the I r A in the seventies, right, yes Jesus, yes, yeah, I actually didn't know that until I was the Crown so uh, you know, um, because again that was into him and his history. I don't care. I ended up seeing it in the crowd. Um. Yeah.

So I just I really wanted to focus on South Asians and like our story and working through how drama is and kind of reclaiming our narrative with um just kind of the truth. And you know, something that popped up when I was creating kind of getting deeper into the podcast was Miss Marvel. I knew it was going to follow him most great, but I didn't know that they would talk about partition and how that was like a major plot point and so people are starting to

learn about the history because of that show, which is amazing. Um. So if I can kind of add on to that

and expand um people's education. Something else I also wanted to do was I want people to have empathy and sympathy for immigrants and refugees, especially once that don't look like them, um, because we come in all colors and sizes, and you know, I think their response to Ukraine, Ukrainian refugees and the UK was great, but I don't really think that same courtesy was extended to refugees from Syria. And I think that's really important because I'm an immigrant.

It took quite a long time for me to become a citizen so um, and it's very hard and it's something that people don't know about, and so I just kind of want I want people to care about things that don't directly affect them, which I think is very much like an American rooted thing. So I really I mean, I don't think my podcast is going to change that, but if I can, but if people can look outside themselves, um with this, I think that would be really great. Yeah.

I was wondering what do you actually think about the way that I smartvil like, did they talked about partition? Because I saw a lot of I don't know, I saw a lot of conflicting sort of a yeah. So I liked it, UM, but I'm also I think worriedy and you see something that has affected you in your family or has oppressed you, you expect this art form

to talk about every single thing. You know, UM writ and that we bear as creative artists of color that if we don't talk about every single thing that's the Presidi community, then it's not worth our time. It's kind of like the mantra that we have UM. And for me, I'm like, this show is six episodes, Like you know, you need to understand that that is not something that they can encapsulate in there while talking about all these other things. So I think it does a really good

job capturing emotion. UM. I feel a lot of times you get the partition story from people, UM who are currently in India. So it was nice to see people from Pakistan, UM like, and they're from Grati just like

I am. And I found it, you know, like every episode just made me just crying more I'm also very sensitive and so I would just um, you know, there was there was a particular scene where Gamala is talking to her her nanni which means grandmother, and her grandmother is like, my passport says Pakistan, but my roots are in India. And I really felt that because I was my parents were born in Pakistan, but all other generations

were born in India, and that is a place. Because of how tense the borders are between these countries, I will not get to visit for the foreseeable future. If you are born in Pakistan, you are not allowed to go to India. You're not allowed to go to Pakistan. And it's just crazy because I'm like, well that's where I came from in a sense, you know. Um, so for me, just because like I said, I am a

sensitive person. Like the emotion, you know, the people going on trains that you know, that is something that I talked about a lot in my podcast. A lot of people experienced or read about. Um, a lot of people were hoping to get on trains and when they tried, those trains came, We're filled with bodies and not people who are alive. And so I think it did a good job capturing the emotion. But it's like you, there's just no way you can capture the complexity of that

event with that. Even with my podcast it's ten episodes, and like NISSID, you just can't cover everything, so you have to pick and choose what you want. And also like it's as an artist like for me, for me specifically, it's like I want to give you like the crumbs of something and then I want look into it more, right, Like I shouldn't have to force feed you information. I should keep you intrigued enough for you don't want to look at this information on your own, you know. So

like that's how I how I see it. But I am in a little bit of a different position because M and TV, like I programmed several film festivals and things like that, so I'm almost also looking through that with that kind of I um, but like I can understand people are like, oh, I wish they talked about this. I wish they talked about this, but you know, you know, I'm just like old six episodes. They have to do all this exposition, they have to do this, that's just impossible.

But people aren't thinking that way. But I think it really captured the emotion and the trauma of that event and how how um sad did it? Um because it is sad to be like I'll never get to see where my great grandparents lived or my grandparents because they were children, you know, at least until they decide that's not the case anymore. Um. But yeah, I can understand people's but I think for me personally, I thought it

did a really good job. And actually, uh, the woman who created the exhibit that I saw in Pakistan that really spearheaded this whole thing for me actually directed episodes four and five of Miss Marvel, so, which is really cool. That was another thing I guess I sort of wanted to ask about was like, what was the process of

doing this? Like emotionally, I know I did a I wound up doing somewhat similar things for a couple of episodes about two and like talking to my family about what it was like in China was just like and like just doing the sort of our coup of reefers, which just like brutal, and yeah, I want to know like what that was like for you and what that was like for like your family having to talk about it, and yeah, it was really draining because you're just reading

so many awful things, like I read a number of different books, and you know, talking to all these people, and I think, for my grandfather, I think, like I don't, I don't. He's not a very emotional person physically there with him when he was talking to me, and I think it's like something that's for sure, like in the

past for him. And he was fortunate in the way that he came from an area that did have violence, but it wasn't to the extent that you of other people's accounts um and but talking to survivors was really hard. I actually went to San Francisco to talk to someone specifically because they're very hard of hearing, and so doing it virtually would have been very impossible and hard because he was saying all these things and then he would tear up, and it's like, where do you just listen

to this person? And then where do you comfort them? Is really hard because I don't want to interrupt, but I don't want them to be like I don't care about what you're saying, like it's a um And that person spoke to me for two and a half hours, and I had yet to really listen to his audio I've just like listened to bits and pieces just for like clarity purposes. Um. So that's gonna be rough when

that happens, and it's going to come up soon. Um. It was just really draining, and it's just like like highlighting. It's like you know when you're reading. I've read all these books and you're highlighting things, but it's like you're going to highlight the whole book because it's just there's just so many crazy things. And Yeah, it's just really sad. It's really dreaming. Like I had mentioned writing this, and I'm like, here's just like twenty minutes of terror and

like any page Google doc that you have to say. Um. And that also brings up another point where even though this podcast is sad and it's not particularly pertain ways, I did want to be myself and so I try to add a little bit of lovity in there. Um. Like there was an artist who um that I mentioned

Her work name is Parthica Jodrey. She had these really beautiful installations uh of like female body parts, but they ended up getting ruined in transportation and so she digitized them and is and made n f T s and so me trying to explain what an n f T is is just the most ridiculous thing in the world. So I was like, I'm not going to talk about it. But it's like lovity in there that we're talking about n f t s in this podcast, you know. Um,

but yeah, it's it was. It's still like a really draining process because I say this a lot, and people I've interviewed say this, that partition isn't something that's in the past. It's been breathing and you know, prothecas it in a really distinct way where she's like it lives in families and it really does. So like every day I feel like I just kind of it's hard for me not to get bogged down with all this and I am a sensitive person, so well I tend to

hold things and carry things with me. Um. Yeah, it's been a really rough process, but I think what kind of makes it a little easier is like, well, these people's stories are getting out there. Um, people are going to learn about it now, and maybe that inspires them to learn about other events that they didn't learn in school. Like all of my education was done in Texas and that can be another podcast within itself because our education

is something to say the least. Uh oh, that's kind of the way I try to look at it, like it's really rough. And then I also, um, I love reading and everything, so I'm just like, well, I'm going to read this like thirsty rom com to get me away from like the horrible nous of the work I'm doing it day. Definitely a little bit of balance too. I do think to hear you say that you're I'm very sensitive as well and how you hold stuff in.

I do think as people of color are families, especially like immigrant families, that people that have been through trauma. That's that's why, that's why about this, because this intergenerational trauma is something that they've kept and barely talked about, if at all. Um, So I'm really glad that like you went to San Francisco and that person was able to like release all of this and that they were holding probably for their whole life. So so yeah, I do.

I I think, um, there are many reasons why your podcast is important, but I think even the chance that someone can like that not trauma sounds a little bit more dramatic than I wanted to, But like the feelings behind with that means and their family history or even if you're not South Asian, it's important to note again something that doesn't affect you. Yeah, the whole world really Yeah, just like understanding your history and like where you come

it is Chinese. And she texted me she was just like, now I kind of want to look into like my history, and I'm like that's great, Like that's what I you know, I wanted if I wanted any kind of like actionable thing to happen, it's like that exact thing history looking into other people's histories. Totally wow. Um, I for we confirmed you as a guess that you're good at talking, and this confirmed that. Thank you so much. You were babbled a lot, so I was like, opinion, the perfect

podcast guest like this period. Um, But I really I appreciate the both effort and like emotional energy that goes into making a show like this because I can kind of relate when I talk about the Middle East stuff, like it's really really hard. So I appreciate your time and to learn more about the partition and what that means. Um, can you tell the audience where they can find you? And the podcast obviously is where you can find it. But let's I'm going to hand it over to you.

Here you go, okay. Um. So Partition podcast on augustive teen. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, um sucially the I Heart Radio app. Um. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter, Instagram at Nahazie's Twitter at Nahazie's thirteen. And you can find Partition on Twitter at Didition podcast on Instagram. Nice um on EA, you mentioned a upcoming project you want to do that's also about like a similar topic. Yeah, what that is? Yes, something

that I really wanted to do. And this is another thing that we're kind of talking about of like people not talking about like everything, like encompassing everything in like one uh story. So um, something very it happened in when East Pakislan became Bangladesh. Um and a lot of my mom's families from there, My grandma UM and a lot of her family currently live there. And it's again very similar to Partition, a lot of violence. UM. And that story, to me, UM deserves its own time and respect.

And I remember when I first talked about partition, They're like, oh, you're gonna talk about this, and I'm like, I want to mention it. But it is too just kind of throw into what I'm doing because it deserves way more than that. So that is another story that I want to tell. And it actually celebrated it's fiftie anniversary last year. UM. And from my understanding, it's all memorials in either India or Pakistan that commemorates, not commemorates, but showcases like how

partition was. Like we don't you know, there isn't like a like here all the people who died, or here's this or here's like the statue of a bird or that that you know that people. There's no like communal place of grief. And it is my understand that Bangladesh really does have these things. I believe there's a Liberation museum and statues and there is a Partition museum, but it is not a government sanction thing. It's privately owned.

And again it with it being in India, UM, there's also a lot of barriers, like it's not a place I can visit um and so UM that is something I'm actually trying to go to Bangladesh UM this year and it's been a little bit difficult, I think, trying to obtain her visa. But I hope she gets to go soon, and I hope I get to go with her. But um, yeah, that's other stories that I want to tell because I feel like it is starting to kind of people are starting to understand that. But I feel

like one is just not there at all. Um it's I think, something that people seem to just forget about, and it's just crazy to think. I'm like, it's that's not that long from like seventy five years, like fifty years. That's not a long time. Um. So it's just like really insane when you think about it that way, and um, especially when you think of how ancient these and just how new these places are. UM. So yeah, that's something

I would definitely love to tell. Um. I would love for my next project to be on that, um but that decision is not up to me. So hopefully, um hopefully it'll work out. Yeah, I really hope so too. UM. I do really appreciate, I'm sure everyone else does, to the fact that you're talking about things that are just glossed over or not even mentioned. Usually I hate that, like it's usually our job to educate people. But in the meantime, you're doing a fantastic job and I can't

wait to see the other projects you do. But obviously listen to Partition everybody first. UM, yeah, that's the show. Hello, this is it could happen here. And today it's me James and I'm joined by and Diego and we are talking about San Diego's lying there and how he likes to punch down on poor people even though he promised he wouldn't. So joining me today, I'm gonna ask you

guys to want to introduce yourselves. It can spend a little bit about a background you have in the area and then we'll get into it because there's a lot to talk about. So, Mandy, would you like to go first? H I'm Mandy. I am I'm a homeless advocate and mostly do um on the groundwork mutually and then I advocate for them as much as I can almost city municipalities. Um, and just organize that way great, And Colleen, you can go next to us. Okay, Yeah, my name is Colin Cusack.

I'm a criminal defense attorney and I uh represent uh perhaps my fifty homeless person's pro bono right now who are sighted with the crimes of survival such as encroachment and over So I can challenge and have them to quote unconstitutional McConnell. I'm an advocate for people who are living unsheltered or homeless, and I've been working on this

for about thirteen years. First part working within this system as a philanthropist, advocate, volunteers, former vice chair of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless and founding was a founding member of a local philanthropy group called Funders Togethered

and Homelessness San Diego. I have participated on quite a few initiatives Blitz Week where we housed about a hundred people in three days, Cities initiative where we worked on any veteran and chronic homelessness created the regions first by nameless for veterans. Worked on a lot of CEOC continuum of care initiatives such as how we score projects to get homelessness funding. H long communicated with our endless elected Yeah, who's an mayor who's made so many promises over the

years and so many claims on homelessness. People just doubt almost everything he says about homelessness at this point. Rightfully so, and uh probably most I on the ground advocacy now where I do a lot of in Camas support work with of course unsheltered people, filmed the police around in camera sweeps and enforcement of of laws at target and continue that till this day. Nice Yeah, containing a lot

of work on the street. And then LEVI last been at least ed Hi you guys, I'm levionly with homeful Solutions, UM. I have lived experience and being homeless. UM. I also worked with a group about the kids called Lived Experience Advisors here in San Diego. UM we try to hold him accountable UM. And uh we're also able to advocate for uh a lot of what these people need in the recovery process, just beyond like, UM, housing, which is the main thing you know that uh, the real estate crisis. UM.

And then I also work as a housing navigator downtown. UM. So I work with a case load of about two clients, UM, about sixty or seventy of them. I would say, have UM s M I s UM really in like uh kind of one of the main areas of town that UM, you know, we have a lot of these people living outdoors.

So UM, I'm at kind of the front lines of it every day when it comes to people needed to get a show one that they cry to um, you know when when they think that it's a you know, when they don't understand that it's the system that's broken. You know, I'm the one that they get yelled at, but that gets yelled at, but you know, they think I'm I'm not doing an off, you know, and be able to see all sides of it and see the

promises that get made. And I literally have clients come in and say, oh, hey, look everything's gonna be fine because the mayor just said this week he's opening a new shelter. And I'm like, all right, let's do the math. That's a right, And there's eight thousand homes people in the county, so you know, and so um, yeah, I

have to kind of break down that. It's a good responsibility, I guess, to to break down the system to my clients so that they can understand how broken as uh, you know, me being able to teach some patients to get them through the process too. So yeah that's me. Yeah, that's good, thank you. And so yeah, I want to get into because it consistently, I think, like every time, like I like to ride my bike around a lot,

I'm always riding around town. Often are running to people who are in distress, right, especially when we ride past the hospital, will do something we can get into and they'll be like, oh, just just call up what you sort of out with a shelter like and then they'll have this horrible moment of realization where they're like, oh shit, like there's nowhere for this person to go. So let's talk a little bit about Todd Gloria. Right, Todd Gloria's

are there. He's a Democrat, he ran on a very progressed uh and what he's done has been extremely reactionary. And I wanted to start just by reading some Todd tweets. Todds a poster um, perhaps not not as much of a poster as Rachel Richel laying his I guess Sian's manager. I think she has the soul of a poster and will attack people working like Michael to help people, which is distressing to see. But I wanted to I wanted

to talk, so I've got a few tweets here. June. Yes, I will be the first to enforce the law against those sheltered around sheltered who break any law, but I will not use our code to harass and criminalize sick and poor people. That's the number one organ bean. What if we chose to take the resources we used to criminalize the homeless and redirect them to building housing instead. What if Todd um Janu in his tag Michael in

this one. Maybe right, But the sad fact is that this before the p I t C. That's the point in time count of un housed people. It happens all the time. It's unfair to the unsheltered and too STPD. My goal is to end chronic homelessness. The only way to do this is with permanent supportive housing, not criminalization. Right, But that's not what you did, Californians of all political views. No, a homelessness crisis is a serious problem. More housing and services,

not criminalization. It's past time to tackle this problem. I could keep going with these things, but I will get the pictures. So Todge talked a lot about how we don't need to criminalize poverty, how we don't need to criminalize living on the street. Uh, and then has proceeded to criminalize living on the street. Right, and so maybe we can just start with these happened pretty much consistently.

I think since Todd took office and UH, people might be familiar with a little bit, like they may have seen some of the bikes being thrown away that that was like Michael had a video of that which which had how many Oh gosh, yeah, it's a lot of people have seen that. But perhaps one if you would like to describe like exactly like how a sweep goes down right, Like like there's there's a process of posting

sometimes a process of posting notices. But this is because people are encroaching, Like what's the sort of justification for it? And then what does that look like for people on the ground every fourteenth of this year, but Glorious started

his sweep enforcement. Um. It was unspoken during COVID, Uh, they were just killing people with COVID and instead of my police, although the police were doing so this this what the police do at the sweeps as they use a series of unconstitutional ordinances city ordinances only existing in

the city of San Diego. UM. And these unconstitutional ordinances taken together eagle for um, anybody to exist in public space, so me, our mothers, our children, anybody in public space can be ticketed for these violations because they're so overbroad. For example, standing on a sidewalk, just being there on a sidewalk, UM will be enough to get you a citation issued if you can't prove you have a house to live in. UM. These laws, like I said, they're

written over broad. They apply to everyone. Use their discretion to only use them against or persons. The Vehicle Habitation Ordinance UM lists a series of items that if they're found in your car, police could use those to arrest you. And those items it's like food, water, trash. So everybody with food, water, or trash. It doesn't have to be

all three, just one of them. UM could be the objected to arrested, have their comfort, have their taken to shelter, having their children taken to CPS, and all because UM, the city wants to come after poor people with with ordinances. UM. So here's the fund. These ordinances can be charged either as misdemeanors or infractions. Mayor Glory announced a progressive ordinance scheme which means on day one, say Monday of the week, the individal jewel. On day two, the individual is issued

a infraction citation. That infraction citation gives them a day to appear months down the road UM to contest the case. But the very next day, they can be issued a misdemeanor. That misdemeanor station also has a date months down the road the resolution and then UM gave four. They can be arrested and taken into custody UM all without ever having a day and UM the citations, if there are issued to people in Midway or downtown San Diego, direct

them to appear in Claremont Mesa. It's about twelve miles away. These are individuals that have mobility issues. They can't get to and from court can't They can't really get to and from the end of the street very well without police starting to take away their property. Court won't allow them to bring their property in with them. The buses won't allow them to bring their property on the buses.

So they have to make a choice. Do they all the remaining property that they have in the world to go to court to defend against the charge that they're really don't have the The police can cite either as a misdemeanor infraction, but when they sit as an edule doesn't get UM an appointed attorney and UM nor jury trial and so UM the punishment the issuance of the citation becomes the punishment process, we're just to get to court and take care of your responsibilities becomes a chore,

even if later it's dismissed. We found out through public records requests that of the misdemeanors that are being cited are so people aren't getting their attempt, their their opportunity to defend themselves in court. They're all being dismissed. Um. So if the city was was serious about believing that these individuals were committing criminal offenses, and they wouldn't be dismissing them after of them after they were were issued.

So colleens talking about the the the laws or the codes that are used to used during enforcement sweeps of people out here on the streets. So the police go out and you codes and municipal codes, two right people tickets and eventually take them to jail. That's just one kind of sweep. That's the enforcement sweeps. There's also sweeps

or abatement sweeps. We call them homeless and CABA sweeps or homeless community sweeps where per settlement with past lawsuits, the city has to post three hour seventy two notices in areas. Then police and Environmental Services and clean up cruise and they'll throw away all your belongings if you're not there, So that's another kind of sweep. So there's

actually two kinds of sweeps. There's these clean up sweeps where they throw away your belongings, and then there's the enforcement sweeps where they just go out with sometimes oh gosh, Colleen, we've probably seen as many as fifteen maybe fifteen plus police go out to ticket people in a particular homeless community. So and just to the ringer with all these citations that Colleen went through. Yeah, and then preps leave. Are

you familiar with the system, right? I think maybe the the idea here is that the police are supposed to offer them shelter, right, if they asked a shelter, they're supposed to offer it to them. Can you just exp shelter could be extremely difficult or impossible for people to access. Yeah. Absolutely, And then I'll tell you kind of some of the consequences that UM people face even or as a result of this. But um so basically like let me paint the picture for you. So, UM, our location is a

have any housing here on site? Um? And uh so the clients will typically there's a line out the gate when we get here at eight o'clock in the morning. At eight o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock, all I do is shelter refer that's everybody that's coming in the door that wants to get a shelter bed for that night that night. Right, we're doing this at eight o'clock in the morning. And UM. Oftentimes I will get one or two. Some days I don't get anyone into

shelter um clock. All of those beds are full. And that's what they report back to me, is the service provider, right is is at nine o'clock in the morning, there's no more shelter beds. Um. And uh. On top of that very thing to him mentioned too is like you know, the police are supposed to offer them shelter, but um we have like some kind of like conglomerates as far

as organizations go in the shelter space. UM. So if a client is for some reason not allowed to go back, UM, that's one pretty much forever um and be it could be something like behavior like they got anxiety and yelled at somebody, right, or it could be uh, someone who can't complete their A d l S as they call it, UM, or like an incontinence issue. Um, So there's times yes it is sanitary and medically necessary for you to use

this little bottle or whatever. But then the shelter will then kick them out and not let them return for that kind of thing. So by nine o'clock, the shelter beds are full. Um. In the beginning when playing, they were doing their sweeps real early. Um. Now they're doing their sweeps um after the time that I'm being told as a service provider that the shelters are already full.

And um. And on top of that, our shelter her system, you're there during the day, right, So some of these people that they're taking their stuff and throwing it away are actually in shelter. You know, they just had to take their belongings with them back to the streets where everyone can see them every day. And and um. Recently, I had a client who we had spent like a month and a half trying to get him in the

shelter every single day and it wasn't going through. Finally we got him in the shelter, and um a ticket for encroachment that you know, was not paid and he didn't go to court. So even though he was in shelter in the middle of the day, the police officers stopped him. They arrested him for his warrant. He was

in there all weekend and he lost a shelter. Then, Yeah, so that's and perhaps you and Mandy could explain then, like some of the things, because yeah, under the guys, if I guess a clean up or a bait call it, like often that actively stripping people of the things that they need to access shelter, to access housing, to transport themselves around, right, And just what if you want to take on like what this means. M Well, they'll you know, they do it under the guys that we're gonna you know,

we're cleaning up the area. UM. But they will drag entire tent people's belongings and put them in the compactor. They won't go through them. They never look. Oftentimes there's medication and their ideas, paperwork, things that you know, people have to have to survive. UM. You know, people can't get have identification. It's really difficult for them to get identification. UM living on the streets. You know, it's it's a

process and that process UM sets outreach workers back. So you know you've got an outreach worker who may have got them an i D and you know they've taken their UM. It's called the espadat when they're entered into the how sing system and they're waiting a housing match and then their i D and everything gets thrown away. So then the outreach worker has to take time to go back their i D when they could be helping you know, someone else get set up to maybe get

into housing. UM. You know they don't, they don't look through the things. This causes UM so much trauma for these folks. I've seen so a lot of times with sweeps UM. Sometimes I say, they'll allow people to gather their things and move them and then they'll sweep the area.

I've seen times when they have had things, they moved their things and then the police surround their things while people are standing there and they place their things in front of them while they are begging for their things, and they them and they will put them in the track compact or in front of them and it's I mean, the only way that you can view that is it's just punishment, like you're not you know, you're out here,

you're poor, we don't have many options for you. But We're going to do this to deter you because we just don't want to see you here. Yeah, Like I remember I was talking to someone downtown a couple of weeks ago and stop to give some folks some water, and like, this is the ship I chose to bring with me, Like I didn't. You know, it's not like I could take everything, And these are the things that I wanted to keep because they were special to me.

And yet now now they're being trashed. Indeed, I think a person was thrown in it's right, yeah, like inside their tent and just fucking unbelievable. And so, yeah, we've established these sweeps are cruel. We've established that there's not really anywhere for people to go, and that they don't they don't provide a lasting solution to homelessness. They just they just move people around and make it harder for them.

And so one of the things that we do in San Diego is that we we have this thing quote a point in time count right, and I think the students at the sweeps were increased in certain areas around the point in time counts. Is what if you want to explain what that count like is and does? Yeah, so the Point in Time count really only captures, like one night out of the year, people experiencing homelessness. Um, there was a couple of ostables. Um that process this

year was particularly really cold that night. Um there were some tech glitches that should have been worked out way more in advance. UM. But UM, that really only pictures like takes capture of one night. The data I like to often refer to because it just feels more realistic to me is um our t fh Um states that in any given year, there's thirty thousand people seeking assistance for homelessness. So are point in time count you know, shows one night. Um, there is data being collected all

year round. So at the point in time count, you have a lot of volunteers, UM go out very early in the morning. UM, they have them count the population to some interviews with them real quick. Um. The interviews are very personal. UM. You know it's it's it's not necessarily something somebody wants to wake up and answer at

five am. But we found some people that were you know, UM, but that's that's the point in time count and a nutshell Okay, And then like, what's I know that downtown I think the downtown partnership collects our own data, right, because the data we have is very unreliable, what's the best guess at people like maybe in the city sheltered at at this time, over fifteen hundred unsheltered homelessness, meaning that they're not in a shelter or you know, some

kind of program, okay, in just and that's just in downtown San Diego, not the whole county, okay, yeah, yeah, So downtown San Diego, for people not familiar, is a pretty small part of a very large county, right and with I think San Diego has the highest ratio of average income to property prices anywhere in the country now costly,

it's incredibly unaffordable. And so this has led unfortunately but probably pretty predictably to a number of deaths on our streets, right and for four last week, for in a seven day period this August is it's hot. It's it's hot for San Diego right now. And despite this, we've seen

this just like incredibly callous response from the city. I guess we've seen Todd for instance, to Gloria, who's on there giving a speech in front of a shelter where somebody's remains were taken away a few hours before and not mentioning that someone had just passed away in that place. I want to talk gap between rhetoric and reality, because if you were only learning about this from the city and towards Twitter account, you'd think that it was fined

right because he's posting about these new shelter pits. But perhaps you can explain how best that's a it's a distraction from a problem is getting worse. I think that, Um, there's the reality that they want the public to ski, and then there's the reality that's happening. Um. And I think that they're failing so badly um at getting people into services because um, many of the services just don't

fit people. UM. So they want to paint this picture that all the unsheltered people that are out in their tents, living on the street, or living in their view goals are service resistant. Um. And I hear that all the time. You know, we asked them, they don't want to It's not that people don't want services. Many of these people have tried some of the service centers in San Diego and the barriers are extremely high. Um. You know, the check in time and check out time can be difficult

for people. UM, they'll separate families so UM. You know, sometimes the they'll tell you, oh, you can go in together if your husband and wife or if your partners, and then you get to the shelters and they say, I'm sorry, you can't be together because okay, so you have to go to a men's shelter and you have to go to a women shelter. UM. They'll also do that with uh. Say a mother has a sixteen year old son and she needs to go into a shelter, and there's not a family shelter, UM, she cannot take

her a women shelter with her. He has to go into a men's shelter. UM. So you know, then you know, people with their pets, they're only source of like love and acceptance. You know, a lot of places won't take pets. A lot of places they're using substances. So we've got all these boundaries that are keeping people on the streets, and no one's talking about that, and no one's talking about the fact that some of not all of them, but some of the service providers are profiting off of

these poor people because they represent state and federal dollars. UM. So you've got shelters that are run horribly, and you know, the more people that come in, they just want to cycle them through because that gives them money. CEO and all of their family members that are you know, working for the nonprofit UM and and these people because they're unsheltered, they don't feel they have a voice, they don't feel

they can speak up because of retaliation. So they're just constantly and then you've got the city who's saying, look at all these fantastic things we're doing UM, which is couldn't be farther from the truth UM, And then they constantly use the narrator that folks are service resistant UM. Services that are out there are too few and too difficult, and just they're not meaning people where they're at and

they're just setting people up to fail every time. Another thing I want to get into with the shelter specifically, is these congregate shelters, right, and what in the in the context of an ongoing pandemic that maybe is transitioning into another pandemic, can you explain what what's a congregated shelter? Right? It's along word, but what does it mean? And how are those dangerous especially for medically compromised older people living on the street. Both of our shelter system here in

San Diego. In the city of San Diego is congregate shelter h meaning people are just placed in big room or in some cases big circus type tents. We have a few of those where people are sleeping in cotton three ft apart. So you can imagine how horrible that is for the spread of disease. That's why we've had some very large outbreaks of COVID in our in our shelter system, and and they're frequently closed to new intakes.

I think it's really let folks know that, Like you said, if you live, if you look at mayor glorious Twitter or social media feed, you think they're doing everything they can and there's all these resources, But on any given day, there may be a few dozen shelter beds, literally thousands and thousands of people that are sleeping on our streets at night. And the only reason there's a few dozen shelter beds is because they've kicked some people out that

day for a breaking some minor rules. Most people who leave shelter street, so shelter is not a very good pathway to anything roughly one in seven people who leaves a City of San Diego shelter go to a permanent housing solution. That's that's a very very In fact, under Mayor Gloria, I've seen some of the lowest success rates of our system than I've ever seen in my thirteen years of working on this. Our our system has actually

is actually working worse. For Todd, Gloria took over, so he has done very very little, and most of what he's done has been mostly performative, adding some shelter beds here and there, uh very little on the house. In fact, he's left tens of millions of dollars on the table that he hasn't applied for. He did not utilize a California funding stream called Project Room Key that would have allowed him to rent hotel rooms most and dime on our taxpayer dime to get people off the street. He

actually refused to do that. He has refused to open safe camp areas where people could go and camp and get off of the sidewalk. Many of us and and others in the community have pushed for real solutions and for him to utilize these funding sources, and he's absolutely refused to do it. Meanwhile, like we stated earlier, he has the plus garbage trucks and everybody else to go out there and make people's lives miserable. So he's just

been an absolute failure on this issue. And at the same time, he's been the one who's given the most two solutions for this. It is absolutely incredible what a disaster he has been for, not only for the unsheltered community, but for San Diego. I've begun I've that he is San Diego's worst enemy, and and I just can't believe as somebody who supported him, supported him in his election urge people to vote for him. Oh who do winked?

I was. I just can't believe that this guy has been so horrible for our city and and and every indication is that he's going to continue being He's gonna continue running the vide into the ground. People die on our streets at record numbers. Correct me if I'm wrong, But but didn't when he came out of the gate, didn't Gloria how many people he was gonna house under his term, and didn't me low ball at the lower

the number than than in previous years. Oh yeah, that was some kind of a yeah, they or a federal government goal that he set, and he actually set a goal of housing people that was less than we had done in the previous year. So his his big stretch was to actually house fewer people. I don't know, I don't even know if he's even getting there. I mean, this guy, this, this guy is unbelievable. The kind of nonsense that he is pulling on the citizens of our city.

It is unbelievable. Has invested so much in pr and he's got these folks who who are just good at spinning this this nonsense to make it sound good. And because he gets a lot of media big obviously a big pulpit to disput this nonsense from he's he's able to get a lot of people to believe it. Now on homelessness, anybody who has a decent set of eyes, it's basically calling bullshit. I don't know. I don't know a whole lot of people anymore who think we're we're

doing very well on this issue. And so I think he's gonna have a harder and harder time convincing people that he's worthy of worthy of reelection of a higher office at some point, which is all he seems to care about yeah more so, so he's personally to blame. He has personal involvement of getting rid of ten thousand s r O single rental units that that if we had minus our eight thousand homeless people, we would not have homelessness of units that he was required to replace

and never replace them. That's his fault. UM, I call him a monster. I I was gonna criminalize, but he was a Republican. We expected it of him, and he didn't tell the promise less he was gonna end criminalization to get our vote. UM. One of the reasons that are probably the only the main reason that that Glory didn't put funding into Project Group key Um was because the city is in this unique position of owning and

operating the nonprofit that runs the convention center. So when COVID hit, they were looking at nonprofit going belly up events in there and having to lay off all their staff. So instead of putting people in hotels where they'd be safe, they put them in a convention center where they'd be exposed to COVID and would die. But the city funded

convin nonprofit would be funded. So UM Dutch and A hundred and thirty two million dollars is what Todd Gloria got the city to to pay out on a settlement on Ash Street as his boom dogg all if he cost us that, he convinced city council to invest all this money to slide donor money too, slight city money to his donors for the listeners who aren't familiar with great scene. So, James, if you were going to go buy a house right now, uh, you would think it

is important a property inspection? Correct? Yes? Ye? Would you think it would be important to google or seek out documents that may inform you of asbestos prior to your purchase? Yeah? I do want to know that. Yeah. So these are two of the opportunities that they missed when they entered this deal with UH, with the one on one Ash Street. Um, so they basically had a middleman SISTERA come in and purchased the property and then least to own it back

to the At no time was an inspection done. The asbestos wash people were aware of it, um, but there was no studies done on what the impact was going to be in all that. So now we've got ourselves sunk into this deal that is taxpayers two hundred and two million dollars, right, So I punched some of the maths, okay, And if you assume uh, one year's rent as twenty four thousand dollars, right, two and two million divided by thousand dollars is more than eight thousand people that this

taxpayer money, you know. And it's always it's just and it's in a cycle, and it's it's not only the cycle there. But we don't have enough police, so they're bringing in more police when we don't have the housing. And then the police that we do have are working overtime to pick up shopping carts and throw away tents, you know. So yeah, so the as street deal, there's plenty to go. It is uh like historically going to

go down in San Diego's screw ups for sure. Yeah, it's a giant monument to grift go ahead, but we don't have any police. Is also more gas lighting. We have started professing law thirty years ago to police officers would show up at the scene. Now at least six

police officers show up every single time. We have an overblight of of police and we could afford to lay off two thirds yeah yeah, but instead we just built childcarec and fluid spinking back on that real quick about the police, um one, I think they also push the narrative that you know, there's this hot team, the homeless outreach team, that the police they never take water, they never really take anything. Um, And they search for unsheltered people and thence and they rarely get any traffic to

these things. And people often wonder why, Um, we cannot expect unsheltered people to trust and accept help people that criminalize them, to arisee them, harass them and throw their things away. UM. So you know, adding more police to deal with homelessness, Um, it's just also a waste of money.

It causes more trauma to the unsheltered people unnecessary. So we're talking about this duality between like what said and what what what exists on the street, right, And it's it's very apparent people on the internet left to be wrong about George or well. But the one time recently where I felt that like, oh well would be a useful things to deploy is the idea of a care court, like which is the thing that Todd has been very strong on to gavin nuisance. First right courts, in my opinion,

don't care about people. So can someone explain what a care court is and why it's relevant in this setting. So framework of this is you have a bunch of um liberals in Gloria and Gavin Knistance ear saying we have to, uh, we have to end homelessness, and the politicians are saying, oh, well, we can't and home because they're all mentally ill drug users. Okay, So that's the first premise that we're working with, and they're not. Ten are used drugs in a mental illness and debilitating to

an abilitating extent. And the homeless population. Um, this uh is parallels the rate of drug use in the house community. We don't take houses away from drug users who are housed and make them get sober before we return their houses to them. So requiring that they be sober bes how is asked backwards? Um, we have to get them into housing first. Now the care court is set up just to pass more money to their donors. That's all it's set up to do. It's not gonna ease anything.

It's gonna set up a situation where a person is considered gravely disabled then they can be put into a conservatorship. And gravely disabled is defined as unable to provide shelter for oneself. So essentially everybody who is cooled, bably disabled and the rich who got them in this position can make all the decisions for them. I'm very passionate about this because it's it's cruel and it's it's it's it's essentially the return of all the yea that was set

set turned off. The whole reason that you know, Reagan got every get everybody released from the prisons because of the mental illness, but he never paid. There was never any payment into community mental health services. So um, now they want to return them to the institutionalization after never providing any street a sufficient street um services for them. And that's that's just cruel. Yeah. And so with the

whole care court plan, there's like all in it. One is that it does not mention and that there is any housing uh stipulation at all, So it does not say that the conservator must provide them shelter. Um. The checking guidelines are once every thirty days, which is about time period that we have them checking with their case managers is at least once every thirty days. Um. And they also try to try to tell it like, um, well it's it could be temporary, right, like, once they

get better, then they'll be off. The concert as to me is it's like, okay, you forced them into treatment, and then once they get kicked out of treatment, you say, okay, they're healed, and then you know they're back away from their services. And I've had clients who thought maybe a conservatorship is right for me, begging where they're like, I

just can't do stuff right like you know. Um. And I had one client specifically asked me to be her conservator, and I care about her so much, UM and if I thought that her having a conservator would really benefit her. But as of right now, there's no difference in um, whether a conservator can get somebody shelter better than me as a service provider, or if they can get them

into a treatment program better than a service provider. Now, Colleen was talking about how only ten of our homeless population has a drug in San Diego County as a whole, fifteen percent of Sandy against have a substance use issue. Right, my type percent was debilitating, a debilitating Uh yeah, okay, good to clarify, Um, Instead pcent is way more than our homeless population. Those aren't the only ones with substance use.

But if you're on medical right, if you're low income and low income in in San Diego as anyone making less than seventy six thousand dollars per year UM, which is a lot more people than they really if you are low income um untilicet bumping just because if you're low income. But I have some memes here. I want to point facts on the care Court. Care Court to address houselessness. Five million dollar budget, zero will go to housing and zero will go to mental health services. That's shocking.

Zero to mental health services are housing. Care Court will weaponize its unchecked power and worse than historical violence against communities, and care Court claims to address mental health ability disabilities, but allows a judge to rub anyone they find unfit of autonomy over their health, home, and life. Yeah, and I did remember my thoughts. So um, like the people on medical um there as far as it's like we

already know fentin als and everything. Now, even if somebody thinks they're getting coke or or whatever they think it is, typically there is s fentl in it. So um, anyone who does wish to go through a detox um it's impossible to get them bets of aients who come in there, like please, I know, I know, I've got to get work this out of my life, and I'm gonna try. Can you get me into detox? Almost spend the whole day, you know? And and and there's one and like all

these people are competing, but the detox facility. So if it was like we had the infrastructure set up, and we had this awesome mental health care, and we had these awesome like street medics and street therapy, and we had okay, and everyone in the Conservative ship is gonna be housed at this place, like maybe, but like this whole thing, it's just it's it's a lot of crap.

So if I if we had, if we had all those things, if we had a good system that had good substance use treatment, good mental health care, and housing, we wouldn't have all these folks on the street. Amen. So it's kind of interesting that they're creating something to solve an issue that they don't have the infrastructure to solve. But I think it's important to note that h Care Court is a conservatorship, but we already have conservatorship law.

Conservatives laws, they're very strict. It's a very high threshold to get somebody conserved currently for good reason. You're taking away somebody's civil You're taking away somebody's right to make their own decisions, is what a conservators But for some folks that are gravely disabled and impaired, it is the best thing to do. It's for you know, for very

few people. But but that the city attorneys and the people in the hospital, uh, the workers, Uh, they don't want to go through it because it is very difficult and challenging, and oftentimes the judge, the judge will deny it because that's how important it is for people to have these civil rights. So sometimes even have to do it multiple times with somebody who probably you know, who

may actually need it. And I speak from firsthand experience of helping people, you know, go through this process and try to you know, and conservatorship on somebody who just really really needs it care court would lower that threshold so much I I doubt it's legal. I'm sure it's gonna get challenged in court. It it is such a dangerous leap against our civil liberties or civil rights, uh that I I just am gonna find it incredible if

if judges allow this to move forward when it's challenged. Uh. But thing is that people need help, they need care, not court. And if we would provide the care, which are elected officials don't want to do. I think this is just a cop out on their part. I think is this is the elected officials saying, uh, we have failed, so we'll just pun it to the courts and let them take ownership and control of this, which in effect

the courts are just kicking it to the county. Is our behavioral health provider who's gonna have to provide these services and be responsible for these folks. I think this is gonna be set a train wreck. But the one thing it is illuminating is that our behavioral health system is so broken, so dysfunctional, that they would even be trying to do this. I think it's basically a an indictment and but care court is not going to fix anything that's and I think it's setting people up for failure.

I've talked to some families who are who are really now These are who have uh seriously mentally ill loved ones, whether it's spouses or children, um siblings. They see this as a silver bullet two get their loved ones. And maybe it works better for that segment of the population because they have somebody, they have a loved one as an advocate to make sure that the care is the care is the focus. But for for unsheltered folks, they're gonna be abused and used by this system. Uh maybe warehoused.

Who knows, they're gonna end up worse off in my opinion, and so and against it as it's written, and certainly fear that the implementation and of it is going to be a travesty that I just can't imagine. I can't imagine this so called liberal state. Uh, we try to trample the rights of people like this, and oh boy, I tell you it's there's so much dangerous about this that I mean, we could we could have a whole of this and maybe and I'm sure there will be

a lot of talk about this down the road. Yeah yeah, alright. So what I want to do is focus a little bit to finish up here on some solutions. So the things that a lot of you guys are doing right now to provide people with help, to provide people with the basic being a dignified existence, and like how the state could do better? Right like, what what housing first solutions look like? What solutions are informed by evidence rather just informed by sort of cruelty and the desire to

brush the problem aside. Those I think you have to. You know, you can't expect people to get well on the street, so you've you've got to get them inside UM and congregate shelters. We've already talked about why those are so problematic on so many levels. UM. There is a model in San Diego that's being used by a nonprofit UM there right now. It's only for elderly UM individuals.

It's called Housing for the Homeless, and they put UM unsheltered elderly folks in hotel rooms and it's had tremendous success. For some reason, it cannot get funding for UM county funding. UM. But getting these people off the street and out of survival mode is first and foremost. And then you've got them in a stable place so that services can find them when they need them. They can get the at mental health services UM. You know, we need to bolster

our our rehab an addiction UM services. We also need more harm reduction UM. You know it can take you one through two detox at McAlister, which is the only UM detox center in San Diego south of Incimidi's and Detox is separate from UM. So we living. So you made detox and then it may be another one to three week wait, UM get into sober living, which is just enough time to get turned back out on the

streets and relax again. UM. And after that, even there's no housing at the end of the tunnel, so you know, really the biggest thing that we're missing is housing, and

then everything else trickles down from there. UM. You know, just building these relationships with people so that they can can trust that you're on their side and you're not going to lie to them, give them antie promises or or use them in some way to uh, to monetize them for is one of the biggest things that I've found of importance for me as an on the ground

UM you know, outreach worker and doing mutual aid. UM. You know, most of the time, these people just don't have water, you know, they're they're thirsty, they're hungry, UM what poverty looks like. UM. So I think we've you know, we've got to get these people inside UM immediately, and then we start deploying the resources to them, um, to help them recover from the trauma or you know, whatever trauma led them to be in that situation. Um. I think people often forget that a lot of folks on

the street. Um, you know, there's the foster to the streets pipeline, there's the jail to the streets pipeline. So you know, many people don't end up on the streets because they have family to help them. And a lot of these folks on the streets they don't have any family members. So um, you know, as a community, we

need to set up and be their family. So that's great, and I think I think we we have to understand that the homeless service system, and I'm gonna talk about some of the good things that are it's important for people to know there's a ton of stuff happening both grassroots all the way up. But it's important to understand that the homeless service system can only do so much. As as Manny was talking about these pipelines that feed homelessness,

people are becoming homelessness. I've never seen so many new people out here on the street. In my work, I'm on the street some part well a lot of the every day and I'm seeing more new people than I've ever seen in my last thirteen years. And there's all these feeder systems. It's it's child welfare, it's foster care, it's it's the education system. You know, you can name it. It's it's uh, the health care system. All these things

are feeding homelessness. It's the it's the how we've commoditized housing. It's I mean, I can go on and on talking about feeding homelessness. It's safety nets, it's a lack of good mental health care and substance use care. So homeless services cannot control these things up above, these systems, these billion dollar systems that are feeds that are failing people

and feeding homelessness. What system is And I like to say, they've got a lot of mission creep going on here because ideally they really should be focused on getting people into housing and out of homelessness, but they've become this this big system that's UH is really getting very costly, be inefficient and effective. But we know what solves homelessness. Housing and services solve homelessness, period and it works. We see when these new quality projects like Zephyr or Trinity

place these uh they're not projects, they're housing. They're housing with services, so we call them projects, but they're just like any other apartment building really, except they have supportive services for folks and they work extremely well. They have a nine plus rate of keeping folks housed, even folks who have some who are disabled and have some significant issues. And it helps provide that self sufficiency by providing a deep rental subsidy and supportive services for folks who aren't

take care of their own rent totally themselves. There is no free housing. Everybody who gets these these units pays thirty of their income, whether it's disability income, social Security retirement, whatever, they're paying some free housing. People are helping themselves and that's really important to say. And they're participating in services. But once you're in housing, your participation in services rates go up because people want to going better and stay

in the housing. These things are being built, there're being built as we speak, but at a snail's pace. And that's the things that I fault are elected leadership for is they're nibbling around the edges. So Todd has Todd Gloria done some a few, but they're so small, and he blows them up to like he's solving something and he's not. Has the county done some good things, Yeah, they've actually done more good things than I've ever seen them do, but it's still not anywork the piece that

we need. They've opened up some mental health crisis centers that are actually walk in centers. They put together some mental health crisis teams that respond to a small percentage of cases of when you call. But it is helping all of these What really needs to be done is the things that we know work need to be taken to scale. But we have to also understand the challenges of that. We can't just fault the elected officials for some things they don't have control over. As we all know,

there's it's hard time. It's a hard time hiring people. So we need a lot more staff that work with that are providing mental health services and substance use services. But we won't get there. And this is officials have have a lot of fault is they've really not put a priority in on this issue. And this is where there's the biggest disconnect. On one hand, you have Todd Gloria constantly saying how this is his number one issue.

On the other hand, so that I'm a big believer in in bicycle safety and safe roads and things like that. But he seems to put more importance on a bike lane than he does solving homelessness. And they're both important. But people dying on our streets because they're homeless, that's you know, he he needs to put. He needs to back up his his talk with action, just like you know.

There they're expanding some bike lanes and I think, uh, I think they need to do it a lot smarter because some of them don't seem to be that safe to me. But that's a whole another show too I shouldn't be involved in. But they don't seem to be very strategic to me, and they be very they don't seem to care. They seem to be more interested in hoodwinking the public so they can get their next job. We need people who care mostly that care about people,

but also care any efficiently and effectively. But some of the grassroots stuff, like I say, getting people into hotel rooms and then getting into housing is a good pathway. The county opened a small shelter. I think it's forty four beds or so. It's the first they open that's really more tailored towards people with substance use and mental health needs. It has a great uptake rate and and and the feedback from people on the street, which is good.

So here we have something that the county did that was good. We need a lot more of them. They're opening another jumbo tent. So these things are very frustrating to folks like myself and Mandy Fellen, the different people that the people who are actually on the ground working that are trying to get people into We know what we know the things that people will go into, including substance use help. But whenever you try to get somebody in it and you're told there's a three week waiting list,

you lose that person. They want to go. Now, you've got to be responsive to the person's motivation in that moment to get the help. And it's heartbreaking for people like Mandy and me who are out there on the street and people are crying out for this help. Bullshit when these folks, whether it's the police or the mayor, say that there's the people don't want help, it's really disgusting because when you're on the street like we are and people are pleading for this help and we can't

help them because it's not available. And and we call bullshit. We call bullshit on on the rhetoric that comes out of these people's mouths. We know the people, we see their faces, those tears are real, that pleading for help is real, and help them if we do what's right. And so uh, we could talk all day about some of the good things too, that the grassroots people like Mandy are out there, um just on the ground doing We're yes, none of us here on this call except

for Leave. I Leave works within the system, and thank goodness for him. And the last thing I want to say, and I I'm always remiss if I don't remind remember to say this, but I always want to send a shout out. It's not the fault on the hard working people on the street, whether you're paid or not. I just want to say thanks to all of the folks who take on this job, paid or not, to go out and help people firsthand to the best with this

shitty system that they're given. So there's a lot of people who take very little pay they do this because they care, or the volunteers who do it because they care to help people. And there's a lot of folks out and hard to help folks, and they are helping people one by one by one, and we need to support we need we have to have the support of the Todd Gloria's and the Nathan Fletchers of the world and the Gavin Newsomes to do the right thing and and to keep funding what works and to quit doing

what doesn't. And so, UM, I think it's just important to round out by saying that, Yeah, I think it's pretty good. Oh, if you are out helping people, see it all the time on your on your social media, where can people find you? Uh? And how can they support what you're doing if it's getting people tend to getting people water that kind of thing. Uh, tree start with let's just go down to this. We'll start with Mandy.

I usually UM kind of bum off of Michael for funding UM because most of everything I do, UM, I pay for myself. UM. So he has he does a go fund me and then you know he'll be like, hey, I gotta go fund me money, and you know, I meet him and he like loads up my car and off I go. UM. You know people can can find me on Twitter. UM Cooper to UM, I'm I'm very passionate. So UM. You know it's like because let you look at on my feed. UM. You know, I just I love these people and I want to see them because

there I want to see them get the help. And one thing that Michael taught me in the very beginning of this, because you know I started this, um maybe about two or three years ago. One thing that Michael said to me that resonated with me because you know, he's you know, like I call them parades now, which are like liberal marches, um, you know, yelling at buildings when I want was in and you know, then going

home and feeling good about what I did. UM. And he said, you know, Mandy, he said, social justice issue that everyone fights for, Black lives matter, immigration, UM, disability. UM. You know, all of these things come together, l G B, t q I A plus all of those people are overrepresented in the homeless population and so it shakes down to that and so I thought, you know, my mind was like blown and I was like, oh my god, you know, I'm not her marching for people most marginalized

with them are living on the street. UM, and there's very little help for those people because unfortunately, whether what whatever marginalized group you come from, when you become that overtakes all of them. And there is a huge public hatred for unsheltered people. And it is my parson across

the board. Um so we we all just need to realize that this is you know, this is a societal failure in a social um and I hope that you know, more people would will get up and and get go to the ground and start talking to your unsheltered neighbors. Try to build a relationship with them, reach out to their humanity. Um and and one person, if each of us just did it with one person, it would make

such a difference. Even if you can't get them in housing or you don't have a lot of money, literally, just treating them like a human being means so much to these folks. Yeah, that's that's very important, Kelle. What would you like to say? Where can people find you? How can they help? That was just like how to find us? Right? I know, I thought it was great commits. Sorry, yeah, I thought it was really good. We should have a mandy.

Um I I my name is Colleen Q. Sack c U S A c K. You can google me and find me. I'm in searchable on the attorney directory. My number six two and my email address is C another c U S A c K dot policy at gmail dot com. UM, and I'm on Twitter at symbol chan, which stands for objection Great, thank you, all right, Michael. So, I,

like Mandy, I've just funded my work myself. Also, except for about oh two ago, I was out on the street film in some sweeps, watching the police and the environmental service workers throw away people's tents and and I and I UM, and I said, well, I'm gonna go get those people some new tents. Sir told me go ahead. We can throw them out faster than you can give them out. And I tweeted about that, and you know, I think it really you know, I struck a chord

with people. So I've had people, but I've just had this real outpouring of of offerings to help lately. So for the first time ever, I set up a go fund Me and in the first day I just said, you know, this is just to help support encampments that are impacted by the sweeps or or whatever, or other grassroots people like Mandy who are out there. And I think I raised about three thousand dollars in the first day, and I was like, wow, that. It really was touching

because you know, I didn't even hardly. I just put it out on Twitter, I think, and I haven't promoted it much since, but I think we're up to six or seven thousand dollars use that every day. I don't where are you the uh I'm retired, so I get to do this all day long. People like Mandy, they have a job. They're doing this as a second job that's unpaid. So um So what I do is is is is help UH is the buy stuff. I help

other other organizations. I also promote that it uh go fund me of other people on my social media site. So I really would appreciate you following me. On Twitter it's at Homelessness Homelessness SD. On Facebook it's Homelessness News san Diego. On on Instagram it's the same, and on YouTube it's I think it's Homelessness New San Diego on YouTube. I just started a YouTube page, well, but I just started posting stuff on there. I have a lot of followers.

It's a pretty active conversation, especially on Twitter. I get the bear's people lashing out at me, attacking me because they don't like me calling them out. Um, I get I I get haters on there too. I let them voice their opinion. Uh. I let the conversation flow. Um. But what I do is your what And I do warn you that, especially on Twitter, it's heart wrenching stuff. On the ground, I'm seeing people die. I'm seeing horrible stuff, and I'm sharing it with you because I think people

deserve to know the truth. The elected officials like Mayor Todd Gloria, they don't want you to know the truth. But I'm gonna bring it to you. I've worked to bring you the truth that's going on out here on the street. And it's ugly, it's it's it's but it's also I also see some amazing stuff. I also see some amazing, heartwarming stuff. People helping people. So it's everything holar coaster, right, folks. So you know, just be prepared and from there you can find my go fund me um.

But most of all, you can get educated on the issue, make up your own mind. Uh. The bullshit that's spewed out of city Hall. Uh, see it on the ground for yourself. Take people out with me. Uh. I do a lot of work with the media, but but just just just join the conversation. Conversation learn, donate if you want to learn where you can donate your time to other people. Yeah, message me, you can coust me. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

We're just real people out there doing, you know, doing And I worked within the system trying to I went to all these meetings. I spent a whole ton of money within the within the mainstream system, which I'll never do again because it's a black hole. So I mostly promote grassroots stuff and we're just out there doing it and and doing what we can, uh in a very difficult situation. But join the conversation and see what's going on.

And thanks James. I just I appreciate all your support over the years, uh, both amplifying our messages, getting messages out on social media and just for everything that you do on social justice issues and and and safety issues. Um, so I can hold them accountable on the bike stuff. Yeah, absolutely, well do that's another episode. I will plug LEAVI on Levi's behalf because I leave. I had to jump off to sort out an emergency. But it's which on Twitter

is at the Solution nine. You can find them there and leave. I can help folks if they are in San Diego access services and so yeah, that's being us today. Please do follow these people and be a good neighbor to the young housed community. Wherever you are, feel free to reach out to any of us if you need some help or advice on how to do that or want to come out here in San Diego. All right, thank you very much. Everyone appreciate you taking some of

your afternoons. Welcome to it could happen here podcast about how the world is falling apart and sometimes about how to put it together. Today mostly about the people who are accelerating the falling apart. Garrison's with me, Sharen's with me. We are talking today about the Merchant of Death, the Lord of War, Victor Boot. So she probably started off

by we're talking about Victor Boot. Victor Boots always an interesting topic of conversation, but he's come up recently because he's one of the people who has been proposed to be exchanged for to US citizens held by Russia, one being Brittany Grinder and one being Paul Wheelan. So I'm guessing folks are pretty familiar with the Brittany Grinder situation. If if not, what's the what's the t LDR on that t l d R is. Brittany Grinder is a

two time Olympic gold medalist. She's a basketball player and she often plays offseason basketball in Russia, which tells you a lot about in wages between men and women in professional sport. And unfortunately, when she was traveling to Russia, I guess she had a weed vape cartridge in her back and so she was arrested and accused of drug smuggling.

Oh my god. Yeah, which, yeah, like it's as you as as we go through this, it will become very clear that I don't think it's controversial to say that the Russian state engages in hostage taking, right for sure? Yeah don't. I don't think that's like a controversial statement that this lady is not drug smuggling. Yeah, I too would probably want to take drugs if I had to spend my off seasons in Russia. But like, it's so

transparent what they're doing. It's like, don't even attempt to not it's just yeah, it's they're are being sneaky about it. They're very clearly being like, we're taking this person hostage. Yeah, and we will hold this person hostage until you give us the person that we want back, right, there and even so there was a um he was a marine held by Russia. So if there's Paul Wheeler as the other guy, right, Paul Wheeland was a Marine, he had

a he didn't have a dishonorable discharge. He had what's called, i think, an other than honorable. He was doing a couple of things. He was embezzling shipped from the United States government, which is pretty based. Yeah, yeah, we should all be so lucky. And he was also writing bad checks. His checks were bouncing, so booted from the Marine Corps for that, and was doing some kind of private security work it seemed like. So he was arrested in Russia.

Another former Marine towards Trevor Reid was arrested and his cases just well, it's not coming. But the guy was driving with his girlfriend at the time. They've been on a big night out there in a car. He got drunk, got belligerent, started getting fighty uh, and they pulled over and some of his mates were like, look, if you don't calm down so you keep fighting with us, they called the police. The police were like, right, we'll take you in, you sleep it off, deal with you in

the morning to kick you out. And then at some point the next morning, the FSB turned up, which is like the inheritor of the legacy of the KG, like, oh, Trevor, why did you attack the cops last night? Why why did you do that? Why why would you assault the police the Russian police? And he was like, what are you talking about, bro? And they were like, yeah, you're

going to jail. You're a spy. Yeah, the government Biden and the Biden swapped him out, and the two who are left, well, there are other people left, obviously, But when he stopped out for for the other guy, Trevor Read, I'm not sure who was traded for Trevor Read. It's the most like weird. I mean that nothing is too strange at this point, but like when you really countries like trading people, Yes, so strange to me. Yeah he was, he was. He was when who was in here on

drug grafting charges? I guess? So they switch out Read, right, But Read and Weiland have become close in their captivity, and Read's been a big advocate for having Whelan released. Wiland's kind of yeah, you're taking the pit if you think Brittany grind is a drug traffiica. But Whillan does have like five different nationalities. I think he's he's got American, he's got Canadian, he might only have four. I think he's got British and Irish. So he's a former service

member in the United States. And like, this guy was broke, right, he was. He was bouncing checks. As we're learning this episode. One of the things intelligence agencies tend to like is people who are bouncing checks. Those of those people are easy to recruit, right leg if you're if you're if you're trying to buy ship that you can't afford, you might be easier to recruit if you if they offer you money. Right So it's I'm not saying no idea whatsoever.

I've got no unique insight into that, but I am saying that, like, his case is a little bit more interesting. So the United States has proposed trading Victor Boot for both Grinder and Wheelan that was kind of doing the m Aussian source confirmed it last weekend. So that's why we want to talk about Victor Boot today. It's spelled bo u t by the way, if anyone's looking up, if people are familiar with Victor at all, I believe from the Nicolas Cage film Lord of War. Have you

seen that either of you know? I subjected Chris to it. Now Chris can't make the podcast, so that's good. Will be Nicolas cage free in this it's a pretty epic film. It's a good thing. Cholas Cage play boot Yeah. Oh fuck yeah, yeah, Like I need to see that to see that. I wish, I wish I could share with you just the scene where like he just turns to the camp like there's there's fifty million guns in the world. That's one for every twelve people on My only question

is how do we arem the other eleven? But at some point he like just puffs on a fat cigar in the middle of that. You have an accent. No, he doesn't do a Russian. It's appointing. Allegedly, that's a real quote from from Victor boot. By the way, you can find a clip, we can slice it in. Yeah, I can find a clip. I got one. I got one lined up on my computer. I will send it to our our fair editors. There are over five hundred fifty million firearms and worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for

avery twelve people on the planet. The only question is how do we wren in the other eleven. It's great, it's classic Nicholas Cage. He can't do anything wrong. It's so true. Ghost ghostwriter never happened. I don't know what you're talking about. Nope, it's been a race from my memory. So aside from Nicolas Cage's accent, betrayal of the film is in and that accurate. Notably, he didn't actually grow up in Brighton Beach, Old Victor. He grew up in Duschan bay In. That's uh. It was in the tagic

province of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Right now, it's introgugoush And we know, well, there's a lot of stories about this guy. It's very hard to confirm which of them is true. There are He's clearly told as many background stories as he's met new groups of people, when he's moved around, as his mom is on the scene. So we do know that his mother is still alive. I think she's eighty five. She will occasionally pop up in the Russian press and ask Joe Biden to let

her poor innocent son go, which is very amusing. It was a car mechanic, so he's not like a child of privilege particularly, But at some point he seems to have joined the Soviet military, probably the Air Force, and he's trained at their military academy of languages. And guy's capacity for languages insane, Like he can go down the shops in like fifteen different languages. He can speak flule in half a dozen. He can, you know, order a

sandwich in like twenty language. Yeah, I want that power, Yeah, don't we all? It seems to be like, um, these people who like thrive in like nonstate activities in crime and stuff like do seem to like having a capacity for language benefit in that world. And you hear about quite a lot later on when he's in prison in Thailand, he learned Sanskrit. Um. He doesn't bother to learn Thai. He doesn't want people to think they can understand what

he's saying. But I'll learned sanscrit while I'm here, like I'm running out of options. So yeah, he's got this amazing capacity for language, which probably ends up with him being a spook. It's not like it's not for the KGB, but it seems that way. We know that he was bouncing around in Angola as part of the civil war there, so it's it's unlikely that he was a pay clerk or like the guy who changed the tires on the airplanes.

And then to Angola, and and when the Soviet Union collapses, Victor is in Angola, right, or at least he gets to Angola pretty quickly. Not I think because it's the place he wanted to be, but because places that had the least regulations on civilian use of military aircraft. So this is where he goes from KGB duty speaks a lot of languages to beginning to be this international arms sort of god. And he does that by buying these Antonov planes. People might not be familiar with Antonov. It's

just a giant plane. It's a huge cargo plane. Obviously a little bit outdated now, but you'll still see them. But it's like the Russian big hauler, right, carries a lot of stuff to a lot of places. And by getting those and having absolutely zero morals, he launches his career. And like he's not just selling weapons, he's um American people don't get this, Like we have this British stereotype of like the wheeler dealer, as epitomized by like Delboy in a TV series called Only Fools and Horses. But

he's like a market trader. He'll buy whatever he thinks he can scorch wherever he thinks he can sell expensive. Right, so he's moving like frozen chicken. At one point, he's moving flowers from South Africa, and like throughout his career is this massive international arms dealer. He'll just be like, oh, chicken, right, let's move that chicken over here. We can make a killing. Like he doesn't, I think like we should stress it. He's not like a guy who's obsessed with with the

guns and weapons and killing people. I don't think. I think he's a guy who has absolutely zero and it's just like, well, there's a high profit margin on guns, so that's where I'll move. But I don't think it's like there's there seems to be no moral angle to his his existence. Like very quickly after doing that, he's Democratic Republic of Congo. He's setting into Liberia in the

conflict there Sierra Leone, Rwanda after the genocide. He's there, right, but he's also like transporting French troops to Rwanda, will be doing contracts for the United States government, for the British government, for most of the Western governments participate in the Forever War, right, And it's very funny actually, like if you're in the phase when the for him, which is a bit later when he becomes like a wanted man.

He keeps doing these different shell companies right to avoid things like sanction and the way that he the way that the United States Department of Justice publishes their list there will be every year, right, no one can do business with these companies. They're bad, they're connected to arms dealing. And then the United States Department of Defense will go down its list of people it does business with and be like, oh, ship, there's like six of them who

we were like integrally relying on. And then and so it's fine because they change their name and then it's like they're it's like Tom and Jerry or whack a mole. You know. He keeps popping up with these new companies. Um, so he sort of really gets this massive boost around two thousand and with eleven. So nine eleven is a big win for him. It's well, that's the oppisode here, that's the sound by Yeah, so he's super tight with

Ahmed shah Masud. People are but that we call the Northern Alliance, right, um, the the people in Afghanistan who the United States back to fight the Taliban. He'd been selling weapons to Massued for a while, and he seems to actually like with Massud, Like he talks about him, and we'll get onto how we know him talking about him a little bit, but he talks about him very fondly.

He's he's a big Massud guy. And so he claims he doesn't trade with the Taliban, and he hoped for a long as time until crew his plane and crew are held by the Taliban at an airport in Afghanistan, which like how did they get their Victor? And there's two really like how they escape. The one story is that like the Taliban require them to maintain this plane every so often because they want to be able to use the plane. Right, so these these Russian guys are

these these contractors for Victor for doing the plane. And then they like in sort of like Michael Caine movie style, like cosh their guards over the head, jump start the plane and just pin it to the end of the runway, take off and fly to freedom. And that's the narrative popular until Victor boot was like nah, like I know all those people. I just called him, was like, do you want to do business with Victor boot or do

you want to hold this plane hostage? Because it's one or the other and you're fund without me and seem yeah, it's a shame. I like. I like story. I like story to story too is objectively, in my opinion, a little bit more badass on his part, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's the power he has. Yeah, oh yeah, I think when this this guy clicks his fingers, the world the world listens. Did until he was in prison

learning sanscript. Yeah, if you're the pilot, there's There was an interview I found on YouTube with one of his pilots as well. He's like, yeah, man, you can't do that for very long. He's like, what study landing? Like, we're being shot at woman landing, We're being shot at woman. We get on the ground and just like eat everything out the back and then just take off again, and like we make a ton of money because no one else is prepared to do that, but probably isn't great

for your long term well being. And so he's by the peak of his career in the early two thousand, he's got hundreds of employees. He's got sixty aircraft and he has moved his operation to Charger, which is a very sort of conservative emirate. It's a twist, alright's right, but it has what's called a free trade zone, so on on top of all his other ship, he's also not paying import export taxes and so he's based there, which seems to allow him to operate pretty much with that.

He's moving a ton of small arms from Ukraine. So at the end of the Soviet Union, Crane makes a big thing of being like we're returning on nuclear weapons. Right, people will be familiar with this that they don't want their nukes are but they also amassed just an incredible amount of small arms, right, So that's like guns, bombs, grenades, things like that, right, machine guns. And because a bunch of the small arms are stored in Ukraine, that becomes

like the nexus for the black market. And we think that if ethnically Ukrainian, and he certainly seems to have just been shoveling weapons out of Ukraine to conflicts in largely there's a civil war that you know about in Africa or one that you don't know about. Probably both sides were using his weapons like that, that's a that's

a fair assumption to make. And by the late nineties early two thousands, he's selling everywhere and business to laund the money for other leagal activities and he was he was linked to the Kaddafi regime. He was also selling to rebels in Libya. Um, so it's a huge operation. He's the go to guy for weapons, right, and he

sort of comes and they interpolo after him. In two thousand and two, there's a Belgian warrant for him, but Belgium as of having to drop their case because it's unclear where he lives, so they can't be like, yeah, he's a resident here, he's a Belgian resident, because like now this this guy keeps moving around like it's not

clear if you have jurisdiction. And Central African Republic also I think had a warrant out for him, but they haven't I guess, been successful in serving that warrant um in the In the Belgian when they dropped their case, they noted that it would be impossible and very time consuming to prosecute him, which is kind of funny given that he's doing a lot of crimes. But despite this, in two thousand and three, he does this incredible New York Times, like this thousands of words profile interview of

the world's largest arm stealer. It's like a relic of another era of journalism. They send this writer to like look for Victor Boo, to try and find Victor Boo. Yeah, two thousand and three, there was a different era that was completely different. Yeah, yeah, that is. Yeah, it's a shame. You look at I look. I looked at it, and I just couldn't help this. But they just let this person expense a shift out of flights. Wow, like this,

this doesn't happen anymore. Such a shame. I would love to go to a Russian nightclub and drink carriage juice with armed stealers on the job. Yeah. Yeah, and then that to the New York Times and yeah, in the PC drinks carriage Jews. He's vegetarian, he caught himself, a scapegoat and a family man. He's what a hero every day Joe trying to sell some kalashnikovs to people who are doing genocide and he is does this interview. How

we know a lot about him? Yes? That and his Uh, this man loves a hand the home video, right, international crimes the best idea we ever had. Quirky little dude, but he's not doing crimes in his videos. He just looks like like ah I from the office, who is just like the most mundane dude and ill fitting suit.

He just looks like a salary man who drives like a regular car and on the weekends like to like go to Buffalo Wild Wings and what sports events, like he or to slide with his like white ass body and pot belly at one point in one of these home videos, and like he just yeah, he just strikes you as the most boring family guy. Like he's not. He seems to be like more drugs one point. It's fascinating and bizarre and one of assuming he has children if he's a family man. I think he does have children,

certainly has a wife. His wife is out there. His wife is pretty vocal about let me let my man go right right right, Yeah, so I'm pretty sure he does have children. Yeah, probably more than we know about, but maybe not. Maybe he's your wife guy. Well, I just think it's funny in these home vid like he's yeah, like no one else, no family, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be pretty yeah, that would be pretty pretty entertaining.

So two thousand and three, where it's the the article clearly has these two like it's named after George Bernard Shaw play called Arms and the Man, and it's just like epic and meandering and very long. And he talks about in the article. He's like, look, they're using me as like this is a thing that like the reason there that it's very hard to prosecute Victor boot is because there are not that many laws against arms stealing.

And the reason there are not that many laws against arm stealing heedral to how we do foreign policy, right, Like we are hosed without people like Victor Boo. And that's like the other side of this coin that yeah, we need a Nicolas Cage bad guy to pin this stuff on. And yeah, he pretty horrific things or sold weapons to people who did horrific things, but he what he's doing is not that like abnormal and it's not

that always illegal. And as we'll see tr into like gross entrapment to arrest this guy, and he is right that like is he really the biggest arms deader in the world or is that like Dick Cheney or you know, Lockheed Martin or that's raytheon, Like, is he really any more evil than like I live in San Diego, right or most of the companies I just mentioned have offices here a road past one of them today, you know, and those people also go on the waterside with their kids.

He does have a kid. He has a daughter, one daughter or a child, I don't know, born in the Emirates, and they really are now. Yeah, he's a great dad. He's been in jail. Yeah, he has a wife to Allah. It's his wife, just she was. She's a fair bit younger than him. Um so as he's really lost weight in jail. And he's looking pretty good picture of him, but with a mustache and stuff. He's really he's having a glow up, I think in jail. Are you pretty

thirsty for Victor? Here? Yeah? You look at that mustache. Tell me you could say no. And one of the things he says in this interview, which is interesting, is if I told you everything I know, I'd get the red hole right here, and then points to the middle of his forehead. I wonder when he meant by that. Yeah,

a poet, he has a way with words. Yeah, and yeah, he's got some of these great one liners and which it's people have recently like reinterpreted that to be like does he know some ship about put it which is to exchange it? Or is he just saying that like like he might possibly have something like signed by someone who's today a senator, right, like engaging in business with one of his companies or something like that, because that's how this works. Yeah, I don't know. He's rich and powerful.

People have probably done business with him, whether they knew it or not, and he's aware of this. So that article really bounces him up in the sort of world Bad Guys List, which is when Nick Cage steps in, makes a whole just there's a whole vibe about it that moves the person to Brighton beach Um because I guess American audiences don't know is yeah to Gikastan no less. If you're looking for a film the notorious Mr Boot that's the Home Videos Sundance Film Festival Award winner just

depicting his dad bought adventures. I think I think it's worth a serious It was at Sundance. Yeah, it's classic. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they keep working with me. I know all the time, and I will believe anything at this point, so crazy. I quourteen film yep screen the sun Dance Film Festival. Holy shit, yep, it's a classic. Um, it's got It's got some real scenes seriously like on Rotten Tomatoes. Yep.

And if you watch actually you get it. There's like some pictures of him like dad dancing with his his partner at the time. It's just yeah, it's good stuff. I would recommend it. And there's picture to him around lots of weapons. Obviously you're about Boots yep, yep, tourist Mr Boots. Yeah, it's a kitty. It's yeah, it's very very busy. It's just a quirky little dude, Like what is what a little a little dude? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a picture of impertend I know what I mean.

It's not like he's just do you expect him to be like evil and I don't know, smoking in a dark room all the time. No, this is how they get away with it. Yeah. Yeah, Like you would see this guy right like you go to the lounge like my life, it lounges in like small airparts in like the Middle East Africa whenever trying to fly cheap. You would see the student the lounge, and you wouldn't be like, oh,

there goes in international arms dealer. It'd be like if that man is in conductors or you know, yeah, yeah, like he's not, he's not the joker, and no, he is a joker that you can see him having some good old japes in this film. When Nicholas Cage plays him, he doesn't even have a mustache. I know that's disappointed

because that is his trademark feature. Well okay, okay, So technically the character Nicholas Cage plays is a fictional illegal arms dealer based on the stories of Victor about another real life arms dealers and smugglers. They want to play both ways. Yeah, so I've just got to bitness trailer where it's just like eye contact with the camera, hip thrusting and it's wow. Okay, well, thank you for that description. That's all right, that's all right, guys cut the edge

of journalism here. Yes, that's right, all right, So we should return to to the narrative and not my description of a Victor beat dancing. So, um, his arrest is kind of fascinating and again, like his arrest is one of those things where you're like, oh, this is terrible, and then you realize that again, we do this ship all the time, right, and so to understand his arrest, you've got to first understand this guy Andrew Smoollian uh former, he's British, he's born in Britain, but he's a South

African Air Force officer. Then he goes into commercial flying, but at some point he's turned by their intent delivering shipments of stuff and then doing a little bit spying on the side. Spying on the side. Yeah, yeah, who's the longest hasn't found themselves doing a little Everyone has their side hustles, a side spying for the doing in the Aparthei era, but probably we're certainly in their military

in the Aparthei era. Yikes. Yeah, smoothly is not not a man with morals, I don't think, as we'll find out. So Simolean has fallen on hard times by two thousand and is working in a hypodermic syringe factory in Tanzania. And that's just the fact that I found without context, and I haven't felt any need to research further. And at that point, slowly it's contacted by generals, right um

Revolutionary enforces Columbia. Fuck right left wing Marxist guerrilla group that have been fighting in the Jungles for I think they're one of the world's longest insurgencies for decades. And these fuck generals are like, hey, Smooleian, come and meet us in a tiki bar in curis out and we will have a chat. Smoleyan right, he wants to get out the syringe factory, so he's got about it. He hops on the plane and they meet in a tiki bar, right, which is obviously a good place to do at armsteel

and very I mean movies are right about that. Stop going down in yep, that's a that's the one thing that was in fact Cinematic University Victor Boot. So um, they're in the tiki bar right now. It should be noted that these two farn generals, shockingly are not really fun generals. They are d e A assets. In fact, they have been This isn't the Colombian Armed Forces, but they've decided to pivot to a career in selling cocaine, and in that career pivot they've unfortunately come into contact

with the d A, which is generally not good. Yeah right, they're just trying to sell cocaine and do the other thing. Yeah. Yeah, they're just vibing and killing indigenous people. Probably. They have a pretty rough record in the Colombian military. It's fair to say so. D A C. C. M Is like, yet, those are our people, and gives them a ton of

money citizenship families, I believe, and turns them right. Asked him to pretend to be fun generals, which they're like, yeah, can you can you spell the word you're saying, what is the fun? Yeah? F A r C matas Okay, yeah, thank you? Yeah, like sorry, f A R C. Fuck. I might have got the act I am. I am someone that does not know what that is. So honest about that. Sorry, you know, there's no reason to unless

you're a global conflict understand the slash doc. They're very nice people, some of them actually, Um they've started micro brewery now, Um, yeah, they have a micro brewery. Anything you say that, fucking I will send you a store brewery. Unlike Scarred by Robert, he just tells me all these crazy things that are not true. And I believe I'm not like Robert. I'm a man of the truth. I'm gonna I would drop it in the chat like, yeah, they definitely have started a micro brewery. These are such

a weird little dudes. I'm saying, Okay, actually the person who runs a micro brewery is a woman. Uh good, good for her feminism. We love girl bus funk. We're very committed to dender quart with you. They had women there in their in their military. Yeah, we'll do an episode of Robert and I want to go to the micro brewery. It's one of my why not sure, We've we've got this far. No one's caught us out. So anyway, Interestingly, the US government had just done exactly the same thing

to Monzer al Kassa, who's a Syrian arms dealer. They've done the same we're too farck, generals, we would like to buy these weapons, And in the discussion the quo fuck generals are like, we would like to buy these weapons to kill Yankees. We want to kill Americans. It would be great to have this gun with a sniper scope so we could see if they're American before we shoot them. Just like this is where this is where we get to like the entrapment, right, and this really

is like yeah, whatever, bro, like you want guns. I know a guy and they're like to kill the Americans. So and he's like, yeah, dude, whatever you need. Okay, it's getting weird um. But then Smoothly and so he is go, okay, so my guy's Victor boot v I K T O R B O U T Oh my god, which that is? That is a poor move and Smoothy's part. So Smoody drops him in organize a meeting, right the two generals quote unquote generals and Victor in a hotel in Bangkok, and that is where the Victor boots story

sort of ends, at least the free Victor. So they go through the deal and again he's being like, I can't believe he conducted his whole life like this because his his degree of concern with security is minimal. That he'll be like, you guys are getting like five thousand a k also some surface to wear missiles and like writing it on the hotel notepad. Amazing. Yeah, Like normally this isn't the Like the d A rolled a yakuza arms recently and they had to explain he was talking

about cake and ice cream. He meant like surface to wear missiles the same for me. Actually, yeah, I'm just going to head down to the cake shop. That guy funked up by sending a selfie of him weapon to the Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's a good picture. I'll send you that picture because he does look like an international supervillain. He has blue aviators. I think, like, oh my gosh, some people know they're playing the part, you know what I mean? Yeah, you gotta lean in,

and he leans in. But so about is in this in this room, but he's negotiating with his two Colombian friends and income the Taype police right the way the d A say it. They're like he put his hands in the bag and we all pointed our guns at him, or like Victor, no, it's over, and and like they thought he was going to pull a gun on them. But like in the video, he kind of just like then I think he says the game is up. He has some like Bond villain like a line of course.

Is he the poet? What did I say? Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, that's why they're letting him out for his contribution to our I do what if there's ever like he was a poet Sharide just like hey, yes quote acclaimed podcast. This is red shot to describe a gunshot on his groomstad. He was a poet, nothing else, poet and no other gigs. I was aware what slide duty ast. And so they arrest him, right, they hold him in fights the extradition, He's like, I'm just a businessman. I don't know what

you're talking about. I just wanted to say cake and ice cream or whatever. And eventually they bring him back to the United States. They try him in this federal jurisdiction in New York where they try and nearly every rorism case like this, right, Like the recent oh nine A case was in the same jurisdiction, so like that makes sense. Yeah, they always do it in New York. I think that his trial was like September or October.

The you know, you're trying someone like seven years after nine eleven, six years after nine eleven in New York, around the anniversary of what happened eleven, right, so people are pretty and then you're like, in this dude sold weapons to the town. He moved gold out of Afghanistan for al Qaeda, and he's pretty screwed. Cancel culture strikes again. The work mob came for Victor and his wife says outside the court, which I thought was interested. They're trying

Nicholas Cage, not my husband. Oh, Ship, that's actually a really interesting statement in terms of like media perceptions of people. Yeah, yeah, they do not go after this guy until and then Victor and then what's it called the Nicolas Cage movie Lord of War? Yeah, and then you can't separate. I don't think the like, look, he's a piece of shit, but like he did make a movie about himself, though he didn't. I scot that they already sent seven years after he gone down, Okay, I didn't look at the

date that. Yeah, no, I was like, that's why, completely different until just this second, my mistake, the Sundance film seven years later Victor boot It would have been amazing if yeah, get that up with our listeners, Ship, we could go it up to the nineties. I reckon m H and that because the thumbs up, So I think

they probably did write. Like in organizations like the d A, in these big federal law enforcement agencies, there are a lot of people who want top jobs, and I think one of the ways to advance is getting one of the right. I have very little federal law enforcement understanding, but it strikes me that they kind of they had the d A agent in charge of his arrest on ABC I think, or in sixty minutes or something, the guy talks about himself and point on there. It's a

bit weird. It's clearly like a career defining a thing, right, And I really don't think it would have been if like no one made a film about Monterel Castle, right, he was selling all the weapons to you know, they didn't trap him in the same way actually, but it's it's not such a big thing. So Boot goes to jail. He's been in jail about twelve years now, and now the Biden administration seems to or at least know that he's like worth offering, and they offered him in trade

for Snowden apparently, uh yeah, and Russia didn't take that. Um. I just think it's probably that they seem more value with Snowden. But the yeah, they they seem to have offered him again in the in this grinder wheeling trade. It's still unclear if Russia will accept him or not.

Like we said before, it's a very weird practice to be like like Pokemon cards, yeah, or like literally like the NBA, like the thing that yeah, pretty greater works for It's like you're literally creating like a fantasy team or whatever, the ship of of prisoners and or people

that you want the hostages. Yeah, it's interesting to see like Russia kind of just like I don't know if they sort of want to be like, look how much we owned you, Like we made you trade the world's most notorious arms dealer for a basketball player, Like if they kind of I don't know the ridiculousness of what they've done to somehow win for them, or if Russia wants him back because he has some kind of intel that they're afraid of. I'm not sure if that's the case.

He lived in Moscow for a while, I didn't know how close he was to the Russian state. I'm sure he knows some stuff. It's almost does not much of a state in the world that he doesn't have something on, right, So it's possible, and I guess he's kind of served his purpose, which was just like you know, we can find you anywhere, we can come after you anywhere, Um, we can arrestue And I don't want to be like like pro armed dealer on the podcast, but like on

the podcast, James flee different. But Mike James is gonna say that we're not technically pro arms stealing. Yeah, this is not not a prom stealing podcast technically. Yeah. That would be a good place for an ad pivot, wouldn't it. But do you know who is pro stealing? Yeah? Yeah, based on I don't know how long we have left though, and may not makes sense here, but we can leave the joke in to prove that we're funny, Yeah, that

we sometimes think about it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're considerate and funny yea, yeah, and kind and I'm not pro arm stealer and most apportently yeah. Yeah. So Victor is in prison. He's been imprisoned for about twelve years. He's got he got twenty five years. The judge, you've not proved he was going to do any crimes other than the ones you kind of talked him into, like a fair Yeah. Yeah, it woke judge because again, when they're

meeting him, they're like, we want to kill America. The scopes are hig enough magnification so we can see their American. There's some specific dialogue about the sniper scopes too, like to ensure and they they're trying to get surface to our missiles as well, right, and surface to our missiles one of the harder things to acquire in the international arms market. And so he's gonna supply those. And they claim they're going to shootwn American airliners and do a terrorism. Yeah,

that'll definitely get them mad. Yeah they're gonna Well, but he only says that because the two d a plants. Yeah yeah, yeah. I don't think the dude would have bat nihlid either way. I mean typical fed behavior, right, like, yeah, they walked in there in the cool flannel shirts and he did, Hey, who is a crime? Let me escalate the level of crime. So he's in prison, they've offered to trade him. It remains to be seeing, Like, don't know how relevant he will be if he comes out.

It's interesting, Like the area I'm most familiar with the books firearms transactions is in Myanmar, right, Robert, Now, I've spent some time writing about that, and the price of weapons going small arms going to rebels in Mihama is insane right now, like it, And so maybe taking him out has changed that market a bit. I don't know, you'd think someone would have stepped in to fill that gap in the time that he'd been out of the game.

You'd think, especially after the giant clusterfucker of leaving Afghanistan by the but we'd have done a lot more weapons onto the market. So what you're saying is there's yeah, get your resume ready, listeners. Yeah, you know, learn those languages. That's what I'm saying to the other applicants. Yeah, yeah, learned soundscript. But on your resume, no one will call you on it. It will be fine. It's okay to lie about Sanskrit unless you're I guess going to theological college.

And but yeah, he's learned Sanskrit, he's learned a bunch of other languages. In prison. He's probably writing poems in there, right, Yeah, he's probably dropping a book, is what he'll do, or come out. I'll drop a book, Honestly, I'm not I wouldn't be surprised by that. If that was true. I would read a book written by one of the world's most famous international arms dealers. Add poets And that's right,

add poets. Hey, based on what the quotes are that he's given so far, I'm sure he has really good writing. So who knows. We don't know. How much money he has. No one seems it's done a good job of hiding it. We don't know what the state of his businesses. It seems like he has just kind of pieced out, hang out in jail and maybe now we'll be going back to Russia to live in his ducher and just right

sides all day we can dream. It feels like, yeah, if they offered him for Snowden already and now they're offering him again, either the only like quote unquote good Russian hostage, like worth worthy Russian hostage, or they in my head, I feel like they're trying to make a big statement like Brittney Grinder is so important to us this man. Does that make sense? Yeah it does? Yeah,

I hope. I mean, look what's happening to her is disgusting, right, and every day he spent abhorrent and so like, yeah, you hope that that they I think, Yeah, I think he's there's no real I don't know. It doesn't really serve the interests of the state to keep him in prison, right, Like the big win was getting him there, and that I think showed people doing what he does that like the US will come after you and and so like that.

It really I think twelve years is a long enough time, you know, leg So I don't know, I don't understand the motivations of world leaders. But hopefully we get some up this I don't know. Hopefully Britty grinded doesn't have to don't get in what I'm sure it's a pretty terrible Russian prison for having a vape pen, because that is bollocks. And I just want to say before we finish up here that we are indebted to our friend Matt, who is at I think enjoy It on Twitter or

Raccoon Liberation Front Black Flag Enjoyers Matt's Handel. Matt actually came on to help us do an interview with this. Matt has worked in a lot of these places, not as an arms dealer, I should add, but doing some like civilis and even thinks that he ran into Victor boot in a bar in Somali land once. And because if we discussed you would not know that the student

was an arms dealer. Unfortunately Matt's audio was unrecoverable, and and as debt for his help, and you should follow him on Twitter if you want to anything else, WEECHI plug Sharene Garrison now I think I think that does it for us today. So just google Victor boot up. Yeah, here weekend? Oh hi, this is this is it could happen here. It's this. This isn't my episode, this is actually christ Um. But I guess I guess we're starting. Uh, Chris, how are you doing today? You know I'm running on

very little sleep and a lot of bubble tea. And by bububble tea, I mean canned bubble tea. This is the good ship really in terms of it being bubble tea is kind of okay, in terms of it being like a thing that has more sugar than like any human should ever consume and functions as an energy drink while tasting good, It's good ship. That's why I lived. That's why I lived that Bang life, Baby. We would not we would not get any of my scripted episodes

done without Bang. Yeah. I drink rip it. It really is. So speaking of colonialism, actually I don't have a colonialism tie into this, all right, But what I do have is a bunch of people attacking a children's hospital. Ah So, on August, police and Boston were called to investigate a bomb threat against as parents waited outside an agect terror for their children's who are still trapped in the building. Police bomb squad swapped the building for hours. This time

there was no bomb. Next time we might not be so lucky. Welcome to the next Day, trans People. So okay, how how did we get to right wingers calling in bomb threats to a children's hospital? A thing that I feel like I need to make a carve out at the beginning of this episode to talk about how absolutely absurd it is that people are sending death threats to

eight children's hospital's. Children's hospital, they take, they do health care for children, like So the answer to why this is happening is basically the right's new media strategy drive it all once again is Chaya Raychick, who is better known as Lives of TikTok and the Enemy of the Pod recurring character on the POT. She's she's kind of displaced.

She's kind of displaced, done that much lately, And it's like the recurring pod like person her and her and Matt, don't worry, He's bigger, easy the walls, walls will appear and the Washington Post editorial page that one always God, you know, I I could I could write I could write like all of my episodes about the Washington Post editorial page, so I don't do it and instead talk about this fucking Twitter account whereas and you know, okay,

last scene sticking rabid mobs of reaction areas on teachers, schools, drag queens and random children on the internet for the crime of being queer or supporting queer kids in anyway. Yeah, not the last time we're gonna talk about her, unless like miraculously he's destroyed in the next like three days.

But well, we're gonna do here sort of take a deep dive into how and media strategy works and how sort of like the broadert right wing media sphere uses in Launder's rachex talking point pudo pseudo intellectual babble stuff to sell to wider audience, and the strategy like functionally is not It's like it's literally the same thing Alex Jones does. It's like, okay, so you you missread a headline, right, or someone puts a video in front of you that you haven't won, do you lie about what it says?

And then you and you like invents basically some incredibly dramatic story about what it says and then you get a bunch of other people the writing media sphere to back you up for it. And then when inevitably someone's like, hey, you're wrong. You claim your being censored. Yeah, but I don't. I don't mischaracterize anything. I just post people's own videos that that they that they themselves posts and then also then also just call them a pedophile for a saying

that they were pronoun pants. Um yeah, anyway, yeah, um so so on. On August eleventh, lives a TikTok posted a tweet that said, quote Boston Children's Hospital at Boston Children's is now offering quote gender refirming his directomies for young girls. And so there there's there's a video attached. Right, does not say anything about this. Right, the video is literally just an explanation of what it has directed me is. And you know, but but this this like goes viral

like literally three hours later. Matt Walsh, a man who once said on video and I think my kids consent all the time, I tweeted quote he said that that's on video that I am not selectively editing this. He just said that, so yeah, he he tweeted up. Nice effort to fight back against the drugging and mutilation of children. There should be rallies outside of the hospitals that butcher children. There should be marches on Washington with hundreds of thousands

of people. I will try to get this ball rolling. Yeah, he's he's been increasingly trying to do like this moral like superiority war and be like, of course we should hate I'm not a morally compromised degenerate and that that's kind of that style of talking points that he's trying to mainstream. He's a popular guest on Fox News. He made the he made the infamous anti trans documentary What

Is a Woman? Earlier this year. Talk about at some point, but he's he's, he's he's trying to present himself as like an authority figure in the war against trans people. He's his work has been boosted by J. K. Rolling. He describes himself as a theocratic fascist kind of jokingly just completely accurate. There's no sub such a difference between what he believes in, like what the fucking people believe

so like no or the like. He's wanting to organize rallies outside of like trans health clinics to like destroy trans research. What does huh? Yeah, never happened in human history anyway, continue, I also want to mention this. Okay, so as bad as was a woman is, he made it even He's actually created something even worse than this, which is like maybe history's most dogshit children's book, Johnnie the Walrus, like just unbelievably transphobic piece of ship thing

that he made. Like I don't think a single child has ever read willingly. The Daily Wires kind of pushed like a children's media creation has been kind of wacky, it's awful, like it's it's I don't know these people, like they just they're all hacks. But the problem is if you want to make a children's book thing, like you actually have to make something, but you have to make something that like a child will really just like you don't you don't need to. You have to sell

it to parents. Yeah that's not actual kid, it's about parents. Like the actual children will be extremely unhappy about this, but like, you know, okay, yeah you can, you can. You can. You can sell the pictures of a walrus to like forty year old mothers who are scared that their kid is wearing dresses or you know whatever. So all right, so Matt Walsh, the Kid's consents Man, is on go. By August fifteen, Matt Walsh is on a show which is called The Matt Walsh Show, which is

the thing people great type. All of these people the name of their show is just their name, and it's like, that's why this, that's why this show is called the Robert Evans Show why in which Robert Evans occasionally appears on. It's true. So Tim Pool, he made the Tim cast. He showed some real initiative there. Look, this, this is this is the kind of innovation that only the only, the right and only entrepreneurship can bring us. They changed

by three words. I mean, I still remember like a decade ago when Matt Walsh was like a niche but growing figure and like the evangelical influencer community, it's like a younger evangelical kid kind of interest in what Matt Walsh was doing because he was like kind of like a hipstern trying like doing like more like modern spins on some on some more kind of classic evangel evangelical topics.

And then as I was getting evangelical Christianity, Walsh was like was getting way more radical in kind of in line with like you know, the lead up to trump Um and then he just went fully off the deep end. And even even as like in my meeting stages of being Christian were like, oh, this Walsh guy is like kind of nuts. He's like he is like going in

some weird directions. He used to be kind of more like a moderate evangelical, still very conservative, but like he used to kind of be the cool kid on the block and through spear and then we're like, oh no, he's like he's doing some weird ship. Yeah, and and that weird ship. So like okay, So he goes on his show and he starts screaming about how Cuban purity blockers are chemical trend castration, yes, which is like this

is objectively not true. Like people like Matt rich I will argue that, like it's the same drug and like, yeah, you can use fertilizer to make a car bomb. That doesn't mean that gardening his terrorism. Yes, as as you if as long as you were taking it make you not able to reproduce as you're taking it, then when you stop taking it you can can reproduce again. Also, it's kind of concerning how much they're they're worried about twelve year olds not being able to reproduce. Uh, correct,

Matt Walsh. Matt Walsh, I violate. Let me go back and read this exact quote. Don't. I don't want this to be taken. I don't. I don't want him to argue that I'm quoting him. I violate my kids consent all the time, Matt. No, he claims that forcing his kids to clean their room. But will that is some interesting word choices, you know, Okay, And obviously for like the pauty puberty blocker thing. We've talked with this in

the show before. They're trying to frame this as like if you take if your kid gets on puberty permanently sterile, which just isn't true. That that's just false, like that that that is, that is not that's not how these drugs work. Um They're also claimed that these drugs are are like fatal. They're like, look with people who took this drug, this mat this massive percentage of them and

um as they were on it. And this is because the drugs also used to treat terminal illnesses, so the it's like like a specifically heart condition or like I think I think it's I think it's some some the heart condition thing. Um, so people like old people who are on the drug will because of their because of their like condition that drug is treating them for. So they try to use that false statistic to then make lead like kids are dying on this puberty blocker, which

is again is not true. It's it's all blatantly false things. We're gonna get into more of the bullshit they get into a second. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a time he's doing it that they've they really really started

leaning into this. One is screwing about like hospitals mutilating children because you know, this is it's an incredibly sort of lurid image and it's like, okay, so she's just like literally what he's describing it is just a hysterectomy, right, which is like a thing that it's just a regular that also, and I kind of emphasize this enough, no one under eighteen is getting a hysterectomy, not really, I

mean there is. Again, I think a few a few places have specific conditions for people who are over the age of medical state that they're in, like, for instance, Oregan's medically consent for most things. Is a sixteen years old. Um, there's certain conditions for like seventeen year olds usually to start the process if they want that down the line

can get consulted. Like the Yeah, the thing of Boston Joe's Hospital they're they're all screaming about, is there's a thing that says seventeen on a document talking about this, and what they mean is that you can start consultations when you're seventeen. But in Boston, like this hospital has never they've never done this that happens to surgery on

like fifteen year olds that that just like just that happens. Um, there's possibly been like uh like like literally a couple like literally like through like one to three extremely rare incidents that patients, doctors, therapists, medical professionals have have done things to to help treat very severe gender dysphoria. But that is only extremely few instances because all of these surgeries and all these treatments are so medically gate like

gate caps. Like I've been trying to get top surgery at their an adult and they've been doing this process and its like it takes years like it is so it's so challenging. Yeah, like there there is an entire system of gender bureaucrats whose like entire job is you have to like like you have to convince these people that your gender is real and it yeah, the gender allowed to do things, year allowed to sign off on things happening to your body. Yeah, like okay, you know, okay.

The product of all of this bullshit is, like, you know, all the surgery back they're coming for your kids ship succession, just like absolute obsession with making sure that people with eaters is can like you can force them to have kids later down the line. The product of this is Matt starts yelling about how this needs to be stopped, and then, like COYLEI suggests maybe we should start with Boston Children's Hospital. Um, like that same day, Boston children

Hospital is delis with death threats. Now the media matters goes after him, and Matt Walsh makes a bunch of tweets about how he's been context and that death threats aren't his fault. But like, you know, okay, the context is him yelling, well, somebody rid us at this battles some children's hospital over and over again. So I think

Matt Walsh doth protest too much. And you know, even as this sort of like the threats mount right, like this fake story all over the conservative like ecosystem, like wildfire, like bright Burt has an article up about it, like on day one, like within a few hours is of like right check making this like fake tweet. Um. Within within a week, it's on Gateway, Daily Callers, on the Blaze, on Daily Wires, on Fox News. It's it's you know, it's hit the entire ecosystem. Um. The problem, Okay, let

try a right check. Like very quickly realized this is going viral. She just keep tweeting about it, keeps treading about it, keeps treating about it. But she has this problem, which is that everything she's saying is incredibly easily demonstrable lie. And so she keeps having to like trying to yell at like fact checkers and like regular people who are

going like this is just bullshit. And like like the hospital itself has to issue a statement being like, hey, we don't actually have to change their website to make it clear that seventeen year olds don't actually get the surgeries you can just get. The company has like they've never like, well, you know, and this is this is kind of a problem. For the propaganda wing, because like, try a right check is like a fucking hack. I gonna convince anyone who like isn't already convinced that like,

transpeople are evil. Like you know, at this point, I think in earlier in two, I think she may have been able to crap propaganda which convinces people. At this point, it's gone so much further. Her radius is gonna is gonna is gonna severely grow in terms of people who are like you know, if someone's fine with trans people, I don't think they're gonna look at her page and

suddenly be like, oh, these trans people seem like they're bad. Actually, no, she she she doesn't have She doesn't have like that. She doesn't have the sort of like advertising ability to do this. But do you know who does have the advertising ability to sell you things? Is it our lovely, our lovely and very very fans friendly sponsors, every single one of them, Chevron. Uh, what what other sponsors do we have? I have no idea watch that's right, highway

patrol blue ape. Well we can't. We can't say that of a fatherly archetypal deity. That's right, all of these people, uh will love and accept you for being trends and then offer you a job at a defense contractor. Um. Anyway, you alright, so we're we're we're we're back. Uh we revealed the problem try a right check is that she's a hack and she can't convince anyone wh doesn't connects. And this is where a bunch of people who are not actually any smarter than try a right check, but

like can write more fancy swinging the gear. Um, and I'm gonna walk through some of the arguments they're using so you can like even the quote unquote more research it is once you actually look at the stuff they're sighting, and these like very official looking threads. So, for example, on August seventeenth, Wesley Yang he was a hack pundit who, admittedly I must applaud him for doing more in his lifetime to combat the stereotype the eight than any other

person ever born. Has um did a di did a threat attempting to defend lives of TikTok's like you know the thing about Boston Children's Hospital giving out his directomes and Okay, so it starts with him going all right, all right, so we're going gonna work for this right,

He's like, okay, gender surgery. That means it means they gave like three people missectomies, right, and then under what condition apparently apparently eight they may actually have given like three people who were like seventeen missectomies, which is again not his director, this is a different thing. Okay. And and then and then he goes, well, okay, so hospital, there's hospital doc showing it they that they do do

genitals or he admits that they don't. It's never happens, says they could do it, but they never had document. But I've misread and don't understand the feed a consultation and getting it a surgery clown and the who destroyed his entire brain for money in like two thousand and fifteen. I would be interested in seeing, you know, if if they're arguing that seventeen year olds cannot medically consent to surgeries, are on what seventeen year olds can consent to another

another situation. There's there's two angles for that, right. There is the uh, there is what what percentage of these people like fucking Tucker Carlson have gone on a show and defended child marriage? And then there's the second question, which is okay. So if these people aren't okay, so if jenior Old is too young to quote unquote mutilate their bodies, why are you allowing people? Why are you allowing these people to be in the lead up the joining the army a place where you will in fact

get actually mutilated. Also ignore the concept of circumcision. Anyway, let's you okay, Yeah, it's great, So so okay, so and and is the last thing he does. He starts ranting about other clinics who have done sectomies, so like like, let's let's take this piece. So first of all, again, no trans dude under eighteen is getting like at this hospital.

It has never happened, it will never happen. Uh, there's anecdotal evidence that suggests that trans women have been able to get bottom surgeries like elsewhere when they were when they were like at like age seventeen. But but if you if you chase down the citation, the evidence for this is purely anecdotal. So there's no actual like evidence that like this happened. It's just they found They found several studies, all of which are siding with each other.

And at the beginning, one starts with I heard some stories about this. This is going great on the sectomy fronts, like like okay, so like the like some there are some trans men who have gotten sectovies, like when they were technically a minor, right, but like okay, I again, depending on the age of medical consent in this day, depending on what other there's another treatment options were available

after years of therapy and consultations. And also we should mention this like with actually sis sis girls get missectomies like all the time. This is like this, this is a regular procedure that like get we should explain what messectomies and its directs me off for people in just

in case they're not familiar. I think, Yeah, so okay, so his directomy basically is the okay, what what was the simple sway to explaining like surgical removing of the uterus, right yeah, well yeah, yeah, it's it's it's mostly so it's this is a rouble of the uterus. There are like some versions of it where you get your overras taken out to um. Yeah yeah. Missectomy is like you're getting your breast removed or sometimes it's like size reduction stuff. Um,

it's a it's a fairly common procedure. This happens like all the time. And okay, if if you look at what's happening here, right, So there's no evidence that the kids are getting his directivies. So what what Resley Yang and like who is redirect focus on gender affirming mussectomies?

Because again they don't have any evidence first things happening, and then because they don't have any evidence, uh, they have to start using conspiracy logic and going like, well this other thing happens, and other people also did a completely other unrelated and this is evidence that this hospital has secretly been giving these things out even though you just said like three treats before, they've never done one

and they've never actually done his director. It's incredible stuff, right, Like this guy, I need to point this out, like what Wesley Yang, Like there was a period of you get an understanding of like people people who weren't around at the dosen't tends to understand like how bad the

intellectual scene was. Like there was a time where this guy was like the like the rising Asian American intellectual like star who was like supposed to be like this is this sort of like like great revolutionary like thinker of the new twenty one century, and here he is

doing this bullshit because absolute goddamn clown. I hate him. Yeah, okay, so moving on to other stuff, Like but the thing is like this doesn't matter, like the fact that everything they're saying is a lie and his bullshit like doesn't matter to trans is like they need this sort of like visceral emotional pull of the sort of like their mutilating children ship. And then the other thing they need is like threads that make it look like what they're

saying is true. And this is enough to get a huge part of the sort of conservative base on board, and you know, it starts to move right. The story spreads to to the Donald, which is like the re hosting of the old ar slast to Donald sub bredit that was banned for being like an absolute accessible of abuse. And they start organizing campaigns to harass people who work

at this hospital, and this just gets worse. People like Steve Diese like start targeting specific doctors and calling them demonic and screaming about like Butcher's and so okay, So by the eighteenth we're on like day six or day seven of people like doing this, five of people setting death rests to a children's hospital and finally a platform

does something. Uh so Facebook bands lives TikTok for one day and then it worked, you know, Okay, but they use that time to reflect, right and to think about what they do. Yeah. Yeah, and there there change was we need to post more about this, and so you know, we should be like, like the social media companies are never actually gonna talk because louser TikTok, especially with Twitter. TikTok is good for Twitter in the same way that

Trump was, like, you know, like its presence. It brings traffic generation, they generate conflict, which is the entire purpose of the Twitter algorithm. They drive like advertising revenue. They got a lot of engagement. There's no reason to ban them. Yeah, and like and with Twitter especially like they like with Trump gone right, they had to they had to ban Trump for political reasons because you know, tried to overthrow

the government. But like you know what Trump gone, Like Twitter, Twitter is like just a declining like social media as sure is. And you know, so I I watched I watched Donald trump pizza Hut commercial yesterday, and I forgot how funny Donald Trump was. Like he's as long as

he's plagued the character of Donald Trump. He's actually really funny that I that I remembered all the fashions and parts and then else anyway, Yeah yeah, but like you know, okay, so yeah, okay, So like they the way the sort of thing works, right is that they get all these users and engagement from the right, starting like a campaign against the children's hospital. Then they get engaged with from

the left going after them. They make money no matter who wins, and like you know, sometimes they'll band like Trump right because you know, or the dow temper of right wing people, because that that gives you like good liberal media attention. And then you know, and that that that that that gives time for a cycle to sort of build up for the conservatives to all talk about how they're being censored, and then when they returned to the platform, they do their whole eye was censored arc

like we've seen there's Jordan's fifteen times. So with the loser ticktow on, they August they start targeting another children's hospital and this this is time. It was a Children's National Hospital in Washington, d C. Which is like DCS by far largest and most important children's hospital and they bring they bring their website down, like the same stuff is happening, and Twitter finally locks Lives of TikTok off

of their account for a week. Um partially what's happening here was like there's pressure by friends, guess Alejandra klar Baio, who's been doing like a lot of great work like documenting and like documenting what lives tum be doing and like sparring with them and try a right check like keeps miss gendering her because China is a fucking enormous piece of ships who should be flushed down the ship belongs unfortunately, Like well, okay, so so some of the

some of the like dozens of tweets that that I lives talk made about children's hospitals and take it down. A lot of them are still up and you know, probably was gonna right still band off Twitter, But like, you know what's gonna happen is there's gonna be like a wave of like good glberal media press, and then there's going to be the next wave of the conservative outrage over censorship and cancel culture stuff, and then she'll be back in a subject post a right chick said

quote Now more than ever, I need your support. Consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can continue this important work when I get banned permanently. It's only a matter of time. All need your help to keep the light song so I can continue telling the truth. They can't cancel me if you don't let them, because there it is begins. Yeah, I mean, like I kind of says enough, like this has all always been a grift, Like this

is like her fourth attempt. She's been trying her fourth attempt. Yeah, like she's been trying to become a vital Twitter personality for years. She gets found the one. She finally found something that worked, and that's uh baiting conservatives into being mad at her, yeah, giving them like some kind of excuse for being mad at trans people, right, Like yeah,

it's like a self self validation thing. Yeah, specific specific and specific targets too, and like yeah, I mentioned this, like okay, like right check like is an actual human

piece of ship. Like her ideology is bad, but like it is the stuff that she's doing is mostly about money, and this is true of like the entire ecosystem, right, like all of the conservative outlets is why, like Matt Walsh and is like like all of these people spent all of their time staring at metrics and looking at their fucking viewer data looking at the anti trans. The anti trans documentary is paywalled behind plus the hit new Like it's like it's funny because like all of these

people like ran constantly and there's there's there's like increasingly anti semitic versions of it about how like the TRANSACTISI, the trans lobby or like funded by billionaires, Like every single of these people paid by fucking sorryes presumably well all all supposedly we're all getting paid by by George Sorrows. In reality, it's it's the rights all getting paid by

what my black other guy's name, the fucking Fox guy. Teal, No, they are, they're now getting paid but the guy guy, uh no, the yeah, they're they're they're also all getting paid by just like the rabid base of like yeah, dealerships just think they're working class because they have a four enet and like, yeah, it sucks so true. They're about nine hundred thousand subscribers to this daily were Daily Wire plus the hit new streaming service. That's correctly, that's

why it's a hit. Then they give me such a catchy name. But yeah, that's a ship ton of money for someone, right, pumping out hate getting Gina Curiso to make crappy films. That's right. Yeah, that an amazing career. Yeah, she went from and Pooled to Star Wars to Ben Shapiro, just gonna have her own Star Wars show on the prairie. It's amazing. Fucking countr bidy like that, that's the god. Like, Oh,

the Hunter Biden trailer. Yeah, there's this trailer for a film that I forget Who's I forget, who's Who's um making this one? Um? But it's it's a film about all of Hunter Biden scandals and Gina, Gina is in it and Tyler. It looks like if this was directed by a smart person, this could be an amazing comedy like this, like the way the everything about it is so innately comedic, yet they're playing it as a political scandal.

But no, it's just And if it was, if it was directed by somebody with any competency, they would have recognized it's a comedy film and it would be hilarious to watch. But instead it's going to be boring because look,

conservatives are getting good at comedy left is worried. The left is getting very scared like the other the moments I knew that Glenn Greenwald had like like he wasn't just purely grifting, had like actually falling down the rabbit hole was what he spent like fucking like two years pretending that literally anyone on earth gave a shit about Hunter. Biden's also here here. Yeah, he's been simping for for

limps of TikTok. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. This is all all leading up to his uh, incredibly hardball interview with Alex Jones. Great, great, incredible journalism. Just god, I love it here, so it all sucks and the other like the other big problem here, Right, It's like okay, on the one hand, like all these people are just doing this to make money. But the problem is that and I kind of emphasize this enough, it is easier to get the material brom and it needs to get gender

affirming surgery. And this is a real fucking issue because it turns out when you convince a bunch of people that children's hospitals and mutilating children, what happens? Oh wait, hold on, I don't even need to go back to the anti abortion terrorism, the people bring down abortion clinics and murdering healthcare workers. I could just talk about the

reaction to uh. Like almost immediately after the lockdown started, a guy tried to buy a bond to blow up a children's hospital and was killed in the shootout with the FBI. He was killed like a week maybe like a week and a half before. Another guy tried to derail a train to Rammay Navy medical ship. M hm. There was also the Staddy lady, the lady who tried

to shake all the knives on board the hospital ship. Yeah, like it's just like okay, like if they're allowed to keep doing this ship, like, people are going to die. And this isn't to say like they can't be beat, especially I r L with first of these people in total are actually pretty small because like the number of people who actually rapidly care about this stuff is like a vanishing lea small minority of the US. And you know, and and I r L. That works for us because

these people suck. Everyone hates them. Communities will come out to like to try to communities will come out to confront and defeat them. But this is you know that this is the this is the ecosystem, the media ecosystem of the modern right. It works like spreading conspiracy theories and citing mobs and then claiming they're being the censor when everyone tries to stop them, like in two to three weeks, when they found another one of these things.

I don't know, it will be like fucking like transgender clowns are working make a wish foundation or something like we're gonna be talking about another instance, another instance like this in tomorrow's episode. Um, it's great, it's it's good. It's not good at all. That is bad. Yeah. Yeah, if you do want to be mad about force historict uh that immigration services force historicts means on people in

their custody, it's a good thing to be mad about. Yeah, it's it's it's a good time on that we have here on this earth. Yeahs. Warning for some pretty intense transphobia and miss gender ing. Eighty year old Julie Jaman was permanently banned from her local y m c A after demanding that a transgender worker leave the women's locker room. Jaman said that she was trying to protect little girls from a biological man and a women's swimsuit who was

watching them undressed? So this week a few dozen people joined Jaman to protest the y m c A. Some of the protesters, including her, were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women. Okay, first of all, that granny rocks. But when pressed Poor Towns in Washington police said that Mr Mrs Jayman had an emotional response to a strange male being in the bathroom and how helping a young girl take off her bathing suit. Well, I should hope

the response to that would be emotional. Yeah, because this, you know, you can just picture this kind of situation where they're grooming little kids, uh, completely inappropriately, and you're you're you're doing the thing that a lot of people want you to do and that a lot of people watching would But I hope everybody is aware that this, from what I understand, is pretty wonderful profit for big pharma and medical systems. It's and what's happening to children

becomes even more disastrous. And you were protecting the kids. You were protecting the kids. I mean, they should have a responsibility to do that. The Young Men's Christians Association UH should be doing that themselves if they were playing any role in this whatsoever. It's pretty frightening. This is

it could happen. He Yer. I'm Garrison, and today we're talking about a recent flare up of anti trans hate and the anti trans protests and campaigning that's engulfed a small town in northern Washington in what conservatives describe as

the culture war front. The past month, for right media personalities and anti trans so called feminists have partnered together to create an international nexus point for the increasing attacks on trans and queer people, resulting in a wave of harassment, death threats, and rallies, including an upcoming anti trans rally in association with the Proud Boys and Three per Centers slated for Saturday, September three. Port Townsend is a small city of just around ten thousand people located on the

Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, just north of Seattle. The city has a geographic footprint of just under ten square miles. Over the course of the past month, the quaint beachside city has become the focus of a disinformation campaign against

trans people and transgender inclusivity. But unless you frequent right wing news outlets, you probably haven't heard anything about this story, let alone are aware of the massive amount of harassment and death threats being targeted at trans people and their allies. Anti trans and far right activists have already descended on this small city from all around the country and plan to do so again on September three, with Proud Boys and three per Centers promising to show up. So what

actually happened that escalated things to this point? On July and eighty year old woman named Julie Jammin was in a pool locker room and began verbally harassing a trans woman who was on the job as an employer of the Olympic Peninsula y m c A. Julie Gemmen asked invasive questions about her genitals and later accused her of engaging in inappropriate conduct while continuously mis gendering this employee.

Both the employee and y m c A officials, and like everyone else present in the locker room, have disputed Julie's highly publicized version of events, which we'll get into in a bit, but first we're going to hear from the original target of the harassment. A few days ago, I was able to talk with Clementine, young trans woman about what happened to her near the end of July while working at the y m c A. It was a pretty normal day that week. We were doing uh

swimming with the kids. UH and man the other childcare workers you know, use the locker rooms kind of as expected, and I was using the woman's locker room just because you know, that works for me, um, and that lines up with how I feel. We went through all that

no problems. We got the kids, the kids got changed and their stalls, and then once we were out in the pool, one of the kids needed to use the locker room bathroom, so I took that kid and another kid into the locker room in accordance with the wise rule of three system. To clarify, at the y m c A, there is a quote rule of three where staff always accompany children in a group of three, so that a staff person is never alone with a child

and children are never alone with each other. As Clementine was standing with a kid outside the restroom stall, waiting on the other kid who was using the bathroom, Julie Germmond was showering nearby in a curtained off stall across the locker room. I was waiting outside of the bathroom stall with the kid being the buddy making small talk. When Julie Jaman initiated the dialogue by asking if I

was a member of the lgbt Q plus community. I responded, yes, I'm trans And she asked me if I had a penis, and it kind of caught me off guard. Um, and I and I told her that, you know, that's none of your business. Um, Julie asserted that I needed to leave and that I can't be there. And then in response to her assertion, I just shook my head. Now, Um, I couldn't really leave or I'd be leaving the kids unattended. And you know, I was backed into a corner the kid.

At some point, UM, the kid using the bathroom exited the stall and had her swimming. Her bathing suit like wasn't fully pulled up, and she asked me for help, and so I assisted her by pulling it up by its straps. And you know, there were other patrons present in the locker room at this time. And at some point around the girl coming out and meeting her straps pulled up, Julie was back in her shower stall. And then around this time two more kids entered the locker room.

It might be good to mention I have prescribed glasses. Um, I wasn't wearing my glasses and I couldn't see anything, which is kind of terrifying because you know, it was like a shot in the dark, like I just heard a voice and I had to search around before I figured out who was talking to me. But anyways, uh,

the kids. Two more kids came into the locker room and they overheard Julie shouting at me and asked me what was going on, and like they had this concerned look on their face, and I just kind of told them to leave because I didn't want them to get involved. The kids went to the pool manager, Rowan, and asked for help with the escalating situation. They went straight to her and asked her to come help and told her

that someone was yelling at me. And moments later, Rowan entered, and as she walked by, I got her attention and I told her, you know, there's an older lady yelling at me to leave right now. Uh, And I pointed at the shower stall that Julie was using. Roan kind of like posted up and Rowan stood in between me, the kids, and Julie and waited for her to come out. And then Julie you know, poked her head back out

and said get out, you're a man. Um and Rowan you know, intervened when she sort of like popped back out and said, no, actually you need to leave because right now you're discriminating and kind of being a bigot. So it's actually that you need it's actually you that needs to leave right now. And Julie told Rowan she was confused about gender. And then Julie pointed at me and said, he has a fucking penis. He has no business being around little girls. He has a penis, and

he could rape someone. And after that, Rowan uh sort of ushered me and the girls out of the locker room and uh told me to go to her office, and then the other staff members found me and helped me. UM and Rowan stood outside the lobby side of the office when I was in there, and UM, I guess like, yeah, after the police have been called, Julie came out and engaged with her, uh, and they were yelling. But I kind oft hear what was going on, and I mean

that's kind of the end of it. I know that Julie left after that, and I just kind of checked out for an hour two. It shocked me. I haven't had someone do that to me before. I've never been talked to in a bathroom or locker room before, especially

in that way. The y m c A pool manager told Julie Gemmen that she needed to leave and suspended her membership for violating the Wise Code of Conduct, which prohibits quote discrimination, hatred, derogatory or unwelcome comments, intimidation, conduct or actions based on an individual's sex, race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status unquote, as well as having no tolerance for disrespectful words or gestures

towards y m c A staff or others. Part of an official statement released by the Olympic Peninsula y m c A, published as the incident in question was growing into a much broader anti transspectacle, clarified that Julie has had quote several incidents where she has repeatedly violated the Wise Code of Conduct, specifically using disrespectful words or gestures towards y m c A staff or others, and abusive, harassing and or obscene language or gestures towards y m

c A staff or others. The Aquatics manager then informed the patron that she was permanently suspended from Mountain View Pool and all Olympic Peninsula y m c A facilities unquote. After Julie was banned from the pool on Monday August one, she started showing up outside the facility with anti trains signs and led a small group of people into a city council meeting, resulting in an hour of public comment

logged about the incident. Here is some of the statement Julie read in the city council meeting, which also gives a look at her version of events at this time. Personal podium, state your name and where you live for the record, Peninsula, and I'm here because I had an experience that you need to know. I have sent it to you all in detail. In an effort by the city and the y m c A to apply the neocultural gender rules at Mountain Viewpool dressing shower room facilities,

women and children are being put at risk. My experience while showering after my swim was hearing a man's voice in the women's dressing area and seeing a man in a women's swims watching little girls pull down their bathing suits in order to use the toilets in the dressing room. I reacted by telling him to leave, and the consequence is that I have been banned from the pool. There is no signage informing women the shower room is now

all gender and what that means. Nor have parents been informed of what they can expect with these news policies. The why has not provided any dressing shower room options for women who do not want to be exposed to men who identify as women. The y m c A, the city, the police and sheriff's, the parents, the professionals who assist victims of royalism, peeping tom's, pedophilia, and assault need to come together to figure out how to make the new policies work for all pool patrons, not just

one group. How to keep children who are less able to discriminate safe. It is ironic that women who discriminate when a situation threatens their safety or their children a message from our ancestors are now accused of discrimination, as if they have made someone else a victim. We need to do much more intelligent and wise about applying the

rules and developing policies that are respectful and inclusive. Thank you, thank you, thank you, so just a few notes about that trans inclusivity at the Y is not some new policy. For years, it's been literally Washington State law that people have the right to access the locker rooms, changing rooms,

and bathrooms that align with their gender identity. This has been the case since the law states, quote, entities shall allow individuals to use the gender segreted facilities such as westrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, and homeless or emergency shelters that are consistent with that individual's gender expression or gender identity unquote.

And regarding Julie's account of the incident, there have been no complaints from children or parents who are using the pool, and multiple accounts conflict with Julie's telling of the story, as the employee never did help anyone undress, nor was watching anyone change. Throughout this city council meeting, there were several public comments in support of trans rights that pushed back on Julie's outrageous claims and called out the overall

trend of miss gendering and the groomer style transphobia. At the end of the meeting, city officials themselves took a stand against the transphobic rhetoric that was present throughout the hour of public comments. Oddly enough, for this show, one of the people I interviewed for this episode serves as

a Port Townsend City councilwoman. Right. Um, my name's Lebby Winstrom. Um. I'm an elected city councilor for the City of Port Townsend, and I'm speaking today on as myself rather than as a representative of the city or a representative of the city council as a whole. When did you first kind of hear about this thing that's now ballooned into this larger issue with people coming in from out of state

to do protests and all this kind of stuff. I think I first heard about it on Sunday night, which would have been I guess the thirty one July, and I heard about it from the y m c A Aquatics director Rowan mackins Um, and it was more in the tone of kind of a heads up that this

was a thing that was going on. And then I heard a lot more about it the next day, which was Monday, the first of August um, when uh Julia Jaman showed up at the pool with a whole group of people doing a protest that they were picketing at the pool, and she also submitted a public comment to the City council meeting that night. And at that point I realized that a group of people, including Julie, was probably going to plan on attending the City council meeting.

UM and reached out to some friends and acquaintances in the UM trans and Allies community, UM Olympic Pride, UM, the Social Justice Group and at the Unitarian Church here in town and various other people who had been kind of resourced and say, hey, this is going on, you need to be aware of it. And in fact, that night there was over an hour of public comment. There wasn't anything on these council agenda. There wasn't anything we were discussing. It wasn't really a matter. It wasn't really

i think, even on the city's radar. But people show up the City council meeting and normally when there's a public comment about an item that's not on the agenda, they cut off public comment half an hour, but for whatever reason, let it run that night, so it was

well over an hour of public comment. And some of the things said, we're pretty shocking, and um, you know, to the to the tune of that you know all transgender people were pedophiles or that you know, this was a rape happening, and some some stamons it was just not true. And then based on what I heard that night, I was really concerned and felt that this was both you know, this was ballooning out of proportion, which now seems kind of funny given how much more belit's out

of proportion. It's gotten. There's not really any action here for the city or for the pool. I mean, one of the things that Julia Jaman has retained legal counsel and sent a demand letter to the city, but her demands were like, well, you should fire people. Well they don't work for the city. There why I'm a employee. Um well you should change your policy. While the policy is literally state law and you know a bunch of things,

so it's just you can't do this. Um. So it's not really clear why this is all focusing on the city because the city doesn't really have there's not really

any action that the city could take here. On top of the dozens of people Julie lead in giving public testimony, which largely consisted of transphobia, miss gender ing, and baseless accusations that trans people are pedophilic inherently, but that same day, August one, she also led a protest to outside of the y m c A. To learn more about this, I talked with Cass and Raven, who are both part

of a local affinity group. The first protest was August feet, and they announced that they'd be back the same time

on the second, third, and fourth. So the second drew a much larger counter protest um, and then a lot of the same people who were there on the second came back the third and fourth, but there was nobody to counter protest against because the protesters gave up in Lenthallum after one day when they saw the kind of backlash they were facing, and most people, I think, thought that was the end of it, But people who do this kind of thing more often realized that this was

more likely the vibe of the beginning stages of something bigger. A lot of red flags went off when we found out they were protesting at a city council meeting planning to come back the following week. Oh, that's right, that was The Other thing was the council meeting on the first,

where there was a lot of public comment logged. It seemed to us like this was going to escalate further, but other people um tended to feel that it was going to be a quick, you know, one and done type thing, with how fast the news cycle picks up a new issue. And I think it was probably about a week later on the council meeting on the eighth, because by that point we knew about the planned turf action on the fifteen. That's when it started to click for a lot of people that this was going to

become a bigger thing. But I don't think anybody, including us, thought it was going to become an ongoing issue. When I searched Court Townsend on Twitter and saw trending hashtags on a wall of anti transferator, a lot of red

flags went off. Since the city council public comments, the y m c A had started receiving threatening phone calls, and Jamen had been returning to facility nearly daily with some friends to protest, approaching everybody coming in and out of the pool and talking about how men are allowed in the locker room and airing signs that miss gendered the employee. Julie's group had said they were going to

be picketing every day at the pool that week. Um that they showed up and there were about a hundred counter counterprochesters isn't even really the right word, um people

that were there. Was sort of like a little pride parade there, and um, Olympic Pride had a kind of a booth table set up and we're handing out Pride flags and the Social Justice group from the q o F had a um, you know, standing on the side of love banner, and there were kids blowing bubbles and and it was just it was much more of it.

Just kind of a lot of people here. As these initial picket style protests were happening in front of the Y, the head of the Jefferson County Transgender Support Group called some friends and assembled this sort of counter protest to voice their support for the trans employee and the y m c A, which resulted in this gay as trans rights party massively overshadowing Julie Gemmen and her friends little protest.

As she was getting outnumbered in person, Julie took to alternative tactics by getting in touch with media outlets that will give her a soapbox, resulting in a new wave of harassment targeted at the Y. There were about a hundred people and it was I think it was Julian one or two other people, and people had some conversations with Julie and it sort of seemed like that was

going to be the end of it. And the next day the pool was closed and about fifty Trance Right supporters showed up and nobody showed up to pick it, and the pool was closed because pool employees were receiving

death threats and just so much harassment. They basically couldn't use their phones because the phone lines were jammed and voicemails were filling up in fifteen minutes, things like that, um so, and then the pool ended up staying closed, I think, from the third which was a Wednesday, all the way through out week in the and the following week, and it was just kind of a safety issue of not wanting to have children present for day camps and

patrons there if they were going to be harassed. Right after, I think probably on Monday, the first um of August, Julie reached out too. There's a local sort of far right blog site called the Port Townsend Free Press that isn't really a newspaper a news source at all. It's it's kind of this this one guy, Jim James Guarantino's blog, and she reached out to that and he did an article.

That first Port Townsend Free Press quote unquote article came out to August two and served as a mouthpiece for Julie's inflammatory version of events, coupled with some conservative transphobia. More reputable news outlets and local press didn't really cover the story until it had already turned into a vital topic on the right, which means there was over a week where the only documented right of the incident was

the Port Townsend Free Press blog post. Two days after that piece was published, Andy Knows the Post Millennial posted an article largely pulling directly from the Port Townsend Free Press right up, and that was just the start. The next day, August five, Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire did an article about Julie Gammond and the danger of men

watching little girls undressed in the locker room. Later that night, the story was on Laura Ingram's Fox News show, citing reporting from the Post Millennial, which of course cited their reporting from the Port Townsend Free Press. And across the country in Washington State, we found perhaps the most maddening story of the week, an eight year old grandmother was banned there from her y m c A after demanding that a biological male leave the woman's locker room where

little girls were undressing. They then went to play clips of Julie's public comment at the city council meeting, amplifying Julie's ever changing, altered version of events. Now on the national stage, I think the mainstream actual you know, real local newspapers didn't pick it up until the seventh or the tenth, respectively, for the Peninsula Daily News and The Leader, and that gap when they amplified it out to the larger right wing press that's got picked up by bright Bary,

got picked up by the Daily Mail. They kept quoting that original portens of Free Press article, which was very inaccurate about in terms of what it described as having happened, and I mean it was both outright wrong and it also left a bunch of things out, like that the transgender person was a y m c A employee, for instance, or that they were in the locker room because they

were supervising children. Um and uh, I think we're really hit a crescendo on Thursday, the ninth sheet now earlier whatever, not Thursday's past week, but the previous Thursday. Um, it was on Tucker Carlson. And that's where I really saw the email volume explode for plate people from outside the area, where it was like, you know, you're getting thirty emails in five minutes, and they're from you know, they're from Texas, there from Tennessee, they're from New Jersey, they're from Australia,

they're from the UK, etcetera. That when it got picked up by Fox News, the reach really got broad. The first time the story was covered on Tucker Carlson. Tonight took place on August eleven, in an episode guest hosted by Brian Clemide by m c A. Has changed a lot over the years. Now women and young girls at the Y finding themselves in locker rooms and showers with men who identify as women, but they still have all

their genitalia with them. And if you're complaining to the y m c A about the genitalia and what they're dressed like, you might get yourself banned. It's what exactly happened to an eight year old woman in Washington State. Here to explain but not actually make excuses for but explain is our West Coast correspondent, Seattle based radio host Jason Rance. Jason set the scene. Yeah, so, I mean, here's the scene. Democrats used to stand up for women,

but now they can't even define one. And as a result, you have eight year old Julie Jamon who said she was banned from a pool and locker room facility that was managed by the Olympic Peninsula y m c A on Port Towns in Washington. Now. She said she was headed into the locker room to shower and she saw something pretty alarming. She explained what happened at this council meeting. Then a clip from the public comments plays and I will not subject you to that again, but here is

a little bit more of that clip. So a number of residents showed up to support her at this council meeting, but the mayor, his name is David Faber, he was not pleased, accusing them of transphobia. Townsend is a welcoming community and hate and discrimination has no place in this community. I listen to you quietly. I'd like you to listen to me quietly. Now, given the rise in harassment and bigotry, the trans persons are experienced recently. It's essential that we

all speak up. The CIS gendered people like me speak up in support of our trans community. Now, Jamon says the staff accused her of being discriminatory. The YMC put out a statement basically saying we're not going to tolerate the bias, discrimination or hatred. And of course, in Washington State, the law allows anyone to use locker room change, remember bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. So they're basically saying, we're doing what we have to do, except, of course,

protect women who don't want to see this. Unbelievable. That guy should be ashamed of himself behind the mask in the media after Methodist, did you see it alluding to this scale or did you think this is just like a one and done traumatic incidents? Absolutely not. Um I I really just thought, you know, oh my my days came. I finally have the bad bathroom experience. And I know

a lot of people do have that bad experience. Um nobody, nobody is ready for it to be, you know, to have this much attention called just such a small thing. Um No, because I wasn't eaving for it to be like this, Because yeah, it's escalated to the point where you're like on international news for these like right wing grifters who are trying to basically get trans people killed. Um, yeah, and you're I don't know, it's really it's really upsetting to have my face and and name, you know, sort

of be pushed out like that. And it it's crazy how that feeling, that the sinking feeling when I saw my my name and face I don't even think it was my face at the time, when I saw my name appear on that local PP Free Press article, and you know, at the time it was that still a pretty big impact. And then to have that just keep happening and it got it gets like kind of depressingly numbing. Yeah,

just have it keep intensifying. I mean, yeah, I've been on hormones for almost a year now and I've avoided that for kind of reasons like this that it sucks because I just feel like, I feel like this is a very common experience with trans people who are like starting out, like you just can't really go anywhere because you look too weird to go in the vince room and you're not quite like you don't feel comfortable the woman's room because of stuff like this, and you know,

if you're not in binary that, if it's a whole other issue of like where the fund do I go, Like there's there's there's not a lot of options sometimes, but then to have something that's already very stressful we turned into like a fucking like Daily Wired New York Post Info warship is like like what like like it's

we like Tucker Carlson, like all of it. It's really it's disappointing that there's this idea that I, you know, I'm I'm actively trying to violate people's space, and and it's really frustrating because of how uncomfortable I feel putting myself in that position, being in that room. Um, and I don't want to have something like this happened, and I don't, you know, I don't abuse that space because

I'm not some guy trying to prey on people. I'm I'm just trying to use the bathroom and get changed and and like do you try to talk about like oh, you know, walking in penis, hanging out and and all of these things. But I don't change in the public space. I go into a changing room, and you know, I I understand, you know, that confusion, and I try to subtract myself from the space as much as possible and

make it, you know, more comfortable. When when I'm in a position like that where I'm trying to, you know, sort of entertain a kid who's not happy to be a bathroom buddy. And and I'm kind of putting that position where I have to talk um, it's super vulnerable and and I just remember feeling small and and I just shrunk when she talked to me like that, And I don't even the space just got so small. Piggy backing off the groomer and growing anti trans attacks we've

seen this year. A large swath of right wing influencers and media personalities jumped on this story to drive outrage and push their rhetoric. Here is a brief clip from Newsmax. They're more than willing to just ignore possible pedophilia happening at the y m c A in the locker room. Well, it's from my point of view, it seems more like some sort of hypnotism. I know the word woke has been put to it, but I have to tell you that all public agencies I'm connected to UH as a

citizen in a very small town. They are all operating with this gender identity, and you've got to wonder what is happening and those most private places that people, particularly women need to have. We've we've had you on We've had you on the show a couple of times now, and you seem very level headed, Yes, very very level headed. Indeed.

Um By now the story has been headlined and obviously very miscare seized and transphobic fashion, but still headlined by The Post, Millennial, The Daily Wire, Fox News, Daily Mail, Bright Bart News, Max Info, Wars, New York Post, The Federalist, and the quote unquote feminist news site Redux. As false retellings about what happened in the Olympic Peninsula y m

c A went viral on the right. Threatening emails and phone calls started pouring into the y m c A, prompting them to shut down the entire facility for over a week, leaving many local families without childcare services. Intense harassment and death threats were sent to city officials who voiced support of trans rights, and also to the pool manager. In my conversation with Libby Winstrom from last week, she detailed some of the threats and the impact the harassment

has had on the community. A lot more of the ire is now kind of directed at the city and the mayor and just at the pool director, unless at employees. UM. The transgender employee who was you know, attacked in the locker room by Julie Dremond is actually no longer. Why UM and other people have left is another undisclosed location, just out of concern of trying to get the kids

as far away from this whole process as possible. And and so that took a little bit of time in juggling to set up, and they were so short staff they were actually calling for volunteers in order to try to keep the childcare open this week just because UM they were already somewhat short staffed and with people leaving, it had just been even harder. UM. The y has been open I think all week this week. I think it was open Monday, Tuesday, today's Wednesday. UM. So it

has been able to reopen. They've they've changed the around. It's now not open Saturdays again, UM and shuffled and I think some staff are working seven days a week in order to try to keep it open. UM. People are still getting threats. UM still getting I got a terrible email last night. I haven't been getting death threats. I've been getting things like, UM, you know you're a disgusting, fat pig bitch, why don't you go back to the buffet? Um, and you know, things like that. It hasn't for me

been death threats. UM. The pool director was receiving photographs of her children saying there next and UM, some pretty explicit threatening messages like I'm coming for you, I know where you are. UM. And Mayor Favor has been getting similar things. He got one where somebody was threatening to come to his home and rape his wife. UM. So these have been pretty horrifying messages. For the most part, most of the email has voicemails have been coming from

out of the area. You know, they're not they're not local. UM. So it's a little hard to gauge whether these are serious threats. But at some of you you feel like you have to take it somewhat seriously. UM. And that I think has been pretty disruptive, both for the y employees and for the city. As Julie's retelling of the story was going viral across the right wing and turf media,

resulting in the pool having to temporarily shut down. So called press conference was scheduled outside of another city council meeting for August by Julie and her allies. There's a local UM she builds yourself. There's a sort of radical feminist UM named Ami Susa who has a uh so anti trans blog site, and Um, she has really taken

this and run with it. So I've plugged in, but not well, she's really taken this and run with it and has I think has been really this kind of driving force between behind a lot of this amplification onto

far right media. UM and Amy Susa held a what she built as a press conference on the August fifteenth, the night of the most recent Um City council meeting, and showed up with a group of I don't know, probably twenty five or thirty supporters, and there were estimates are between three and fifty and four hundred UM trans rights folks from town. I mean that there were local who had just showed up and most of them were waiting in line to go into the council meeting and

you know, flying flags and raising gland at banners and stuff. UM. But there was some heated shouting and one person got arrested for shoving. There weren't any charges filed. I did confirm that with um UH, the Sheriff's office, um that with the courts, that that not no charges got filed out of that, which is contrary to those stories they've been putting out that like there were some charges filed,

that's not true. I believe there were about three hundred people that came out to confront less than twenty UM people coming to try and bring Hayten to our community. And it feels like that really inspired a lot of the different networks to get connected. UM. Our personal little networks are incredibly white. Most of us are are trends of some reguard UM and we were reached out to by a local bipop community that we've we've had some

crossover with, but not a lot. But since this happened, UM just the interconnectivity with with that group has just exploded. After the press conference, protest footage of the event went viral, spawning another new wave of right wing media outrage. Clips from the quote unquote feminist re Dux magazine Twitter account show Julie trying to give a speech while being drowned out by chance in support of trans people, and at one point someone running behind Julie to rip down a

Suffragette flag put up by one of the turfs. And a side note, in some much less viral footage, we can see turfs trying to rip Pride flags out of the hands of people who are counter protesting. So conservative coverage of the protest painted a pearl clutching picture of scary trans people assaulting women. A few days after the press conference, Julie Jaman herself made an appearance on Tucker Carlson tonight. Julie Jaman is one of them. She's eighty

years old. She's now been banned from stepping inside a y m c A y because she dared to object when a male employee was assigned to watch little girls remove their bathing suits in the back room in a women's locker room. So this week a few dozen people joined Jaman to protest the y m c A. Some of the protesters, including her, were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women. Here's some of the footage from that.

On Monday, you may have read some version of my personal experience a naked old lady in the women's shower room and what I saw that day the police. You can see women screaming at her. Julie Jaman is the woman, the brave woman. Just on the video she joins us sight. Julie, thanks so much. We're grateful that you are joining us. Why at this stage in your life are you taking it upon yourself to speak up against this in the

face of what we just saw. I was in the shower and I saw that man in that women's suit, and I saw him watching little girls. You can't not act when you see that going on. You must do something, So I and and bless you for doing that. That's exactly right. Your your moral sense is just is clear. I have no idea what your background is, but you have a very clear sense of right and wrong, and

I wish more people had it. So you tried to explain that in the video we just played, and rather than listen to you, people screamed at you and then appeared to come at you. Have you noticed there's no conversation about this. There was. It was a mob of hundreds of people that came streaming into this permitted gathering, and they kettled us. I think that's what you'd call it.

They pushed shoved, They knocked women to the ground. These are the men in the supporters of men that apparently the y m c A and the city want to allow into the women's dressing and shower area. I object. And you, at the age of eighty, were banned by the y m c A. It's hard to even believe this is real because you were taking a shower and there was a man in there and they banned you, not him. What could tell us if that's true? A and B. What y m c A. Is this? Yes,

that's correct. I told that guy to get out of the shower, and then a staff member came around the corner and I said to her, get him out of here, and she said, that's discrimination. You're out of here for life. And I'm calling the cops. Can you tell us what? Why? M c Where did this happen. This happens in Port Townsend, that's on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It's just it's I hope they are punished for the way that they treated you, and I appreciate your bravery and forthrightness.

I do too. We did try and get the police to come help us. They were standing across the streets and they were told by a directive to stand down. They did not come to help us. I hope they wrought Juli Jaman, thank you for all you've done. I appreciate it. Good to see you tonight. Throughout all the media spectacle, I feel like the actual original victim of this harassment has kind of been forgotten, despite them being

the current face of the transgender menace. In my conversation with Clementine, we talked about what it's like to be turned into this sort of outrage symbol, Like I've I watched the three hours of public testimony UM a few nights ago, which was I was, I was on so much caffeine. UM, it's the only way is that the meeting that happened right after the incident or the Monday meeting from both. I did both in one day. Yeah,

it was Yeah. And one of the more shocking things was just how how how miss one how mischaracterized the incident was and to just like how much blatant miss gendering there was, and like talking about you not as like an actual person, but as almost this like evil archetype in people's minds, Like it's so dehumanizing in a really bad way um let alone all of like the

like miss gendering stuff like it's it was. It was wild watching this person after person completely mindlessly create this villain in their own heads um and then just attached it onto an actual human being who's like, you, like,

your privacy has actually been violated. Like you're like like you're like like private information, your pictures, names is going all over these like like neo fascist news sites, and like if something you know, people are framing this is like you know, safety and privacy, Like if you want to look at what's actually going on, it's so different.

And there's such a disconnect between watching all of that public testimony and looking at all of you know, the the right wing press of this incident, and I don't know,

it's it's very depressive framing. It's really clear and disappointing when you're the subject of it because I know what happened in that space, and you know, there were people to witness what happened, and we worked to get our reports out quickly, but it just didn't you know, it didn't matter because of how dedicated this woman was to getting her side or whatever. I mean. In reality, it

just feels like she was dedicated to hurting. Um. I don't know what her motivation was, but it's the blatantly false side of the story that really hurts because accusations that I was standing there watching I think they go anywhere from like two to five kids. It's their number. Um. I was watching the Tucker Carlson and I think I saw that number five watching five kids undress, um, when

that's just not what happened. I was standing there with one kid who was fully clothed, chatting while we waited for another kid to come out of the bathroom. And it's just wrong. It's misinformation, and it's not about you know, it's not even a about um pushing an agenda. It's it's about people's livelihood. And it's really damaging to have my privacy violated like that, you know, Um, straight up, that's what it is. It almost feels like you're just

like this sacrificial archetype that. Yeah, it's like they're not even but they're not even like interested in you as

a person. Really, they're interested in you on this this this this this like idea, and to project you onto this whole other idea, which is so fucked up because you're an actual person, Like yeah, well, and and you can see in the comments and stuff on some of these that it's pretty you know, I won't try to dig into like the ugly, the ugly and the bad of Twitter, but like I've seen people say that I'm like a fully bearded man, or like I'll be paralleled

as a lumberjack, and it's like I mean, and not that you know, your appearances matter, It's it's about how you feel. But it's kind of, you know, interesting to see how I'm I'm painted in such a weird and twisted light. Despite going viral in the right wing and turf news sphere, local sentiment in the port towns in the area has been widely in supportive trans rights and not very pleased that their town has been upended for over a month due to one woman's personal prejudice and discomfort.

I've lived for twenty four and a half years, and in talking to people over the last couple of weeks, I would say nearly universally, the local sentiment is why is this such a big deal? Like this basically somebody got startled in a locker room, made kind of a jerk of herself, and is now trying to blow this into some kind of international incident, and you know, here's this little tiny town at the edge of the continent, and we're like, why, why, why is this the most

important thing? You know? Why did you know dozens of families not have child care for ten days? Why did you know the y m c A employees have to not get paid? Why? Why did you know? The the impact of this has been so outsized relative to the actually what actually happened. The person who started the initial

incident with the trans employee. It's it's kind of funny in a way that yes, she's gotten out her message to the whole community, but it's spread as a result of the organizing against her and against the group of people that she's bringing into the area. And it's gotten to a point where just random community members that we don't have any direct connection to our recognizing her and knowing why she's a known person, and are just kicking

her out of their businesses on site. It's like the the backlash against that incident is really spreading really well, and we're getting this really good organic network building throughout the community. Earlier in August, before the big press conference thing, various BIPOC and queer collectives and affinity groups started networking, and a solidarity meeting was set up to figure out how to take care of each other as the far

right's spotlight on the town grows. Myself and one another person went and maybe a couple of others who I didn't know, but the two of us were the main ones who are more directly involved with the queer community side of responding to what was going on, and it was really great, like they just like, we want to support you, We want to, you know, help take care

of you. What can we do? And then for the action on the fifteenth, when we were talking about you know, like here's here's the kind of response that we're wanting from the whole community, but here's some of these background needs. Because none of them were experienced enough with protesting to feel comfortable going out on the front lines and doing stuff, they went about a quarter mile away and set up

a community picnic. And I don't think people took nearly enough advantage of it because the planning happened so last minute, but they did a great job of setting up in solidarity and in solidarity and in support and we're really

looking forward to working with them more. We spent the last few years running small group basic medical classes UM and UH workshops and really making innections like within our community and having this come about and having everyone come out to one place and see each other and going, oh, we know you and I know you UM and from different communities coming together. We've really been able to enable those folks to come together to start building more of

a unified front. I want to reiterate that with all the media spectacle, it's important to not lose sight of the original target of all of this hate and transphobia. The physical and mental effect of such a massive wave of bigoted harassment and boxing can take a substantial toll. I had to stop going into work at a certain

point because I couldn't do it. I woke up in the morning and I looked in the mirror and and I just broke down because it was too much to keep going into keep trying to bring that bright energy uh uh to work UM and a lot of doubt. UH. That's what I've been experiencing is a lot of you see so many people trying to divulge your character in a negative way, and it's you know, it's toxic, and it can kind of seep through and make your life toxic.

And that's why I just had to stop looking because it hurt too much and it's putting me in this limbo. I don't feel like I've gotten a break for a month. I feel like I've just been tired and like rust, I feel like I'm purgatory. You know, has there been any kind of like support on the community level that has been helpful? Yeah? Yeah, Um, I've been I've been definitely grateful and um blessed to have the community response

be really astounding and supportive. Yeah. I've been given the opportunity to be so much more connected with my local queer community as well as my local community period. Um, there were a lot of supportive voices. Uh that made it a little bit easier to ignore the darker side of this um and elephant in the room. Uh. The

go fund me. I don't know how I would feel if there wasn't, you know, something rigid and like a rock to lean on, like to go fund me, to be able to have something hopeful to look forward to and think that I can you know, be me and that I can afford being me. Uh, I don't know how I would navigate the storm without something like that in the distance. It's been overwhelming and I've just been waiting for it to end, and it looks like it's finally slowing down. But um, the support makes it easier.

And the support is a kind of attention that really helps right now, because it's strikingly easy to feel bad, ah, to feel just associated when when your life is kind of thrust into a different lens and what felt like a day, what kind of was just a day or a week. This month has felt like longer than my entire summer break. The situation in Port Townsend is not over yet. In a bit, we'll talk about the upcoming

anti trans rally on September three. And there is this kind of absurd irony that's not uncommon when digging into these types of issues, at the types of talking points common among reactionaries, and all the complaints around violations of privacy just end up actually being enacted by the people who push these moral panics and so things that just continue to kind of escalate and escalate my understanding, And

I wasn't there for this. Is that yesterday which was Amy Susan, I'm not sure if Julie Jaman was there, not because of course juli Jaman has been banned from the pool. UM showed up at the pool with a film crew and was trying to push their way into the locker room when patrons were there using the locker room, trying to film inside the locker room and got asked to leave. UM. So it's it's still continuing to escalate.

One of the things that I've been noticing a lot, and it's something that for those of us who are more involved, this is kind of a you don't say moment, and it's the people who are coming in and making accusations and making attacks against the community are very much doing the exact thing that they're making accusations of. Uh. There was an issue the other day of the people who planned and hosted the protest at the council meeting going into the y with a camera crew and demanding

to film the locker rooms while people were using them. UM. There's lots of accusations that have been thrown that we bust in people from Portland, and in reality, the main aggressors who were there on the fift in their group did come from Vancouver area. Or we're flown in from Texas or we're flown in from Texas. Yeah, Like, this was three hundred people who live within twenty minutes of Court towns and showed up because they care, and they had to fly people from as far as Pennsylvania to

post an hour long press conference with twenty people. And so we're seeing that a lot recurring. The person organizing this upcoming action is also lives in Vancouver area and is inviting people from all over to come up and start fights here and try to get video of confrontations going. And everybody up here wants to just be left alone and live in peace, but they also want to show up, and they're kind of getting an opportunity to show up in the most low effort way. It's it's in your

own town, you might as well show up. I remember a few weeks ago there was this headline from a federalist think piece that when a bit viral for being a big yike's almost mirroring the fascist framing of blood libel. If you replace quote the transgenders with quote the Jews, you'll see what I mean. The headline reads, quote the transgender movement is not just intolerant, it's barbaric and violent

and it's coming for your children unquote, almost exclusively. Its sources are Twitter accounts like libs of TikTok and a few random turfs. And this is what we mean when we talk about how things that seem like they should just be insignificant Twitter bullshit actually do affect the world off of social media. This is how entire conversations on

the validity of people's existence get formed and directed. Now, the last section of the Federalist story is about the Boston Children's Hospital, and if you listened to yesterday's episode of It could happen here, you can guess the kind of disinformation the article pedals, and many readers, many of whom are not on Twitter, will take whatever it says at face value. Same thing for Libs of TikTok stuff

being boosted on Fox News. The majority of the Federalist think piece, though, is about Port Townsend and everything stemming out of the y m c A incident, and the whole article is as terrifying and fascistic as its headline. I remember seeing the Federalist article headline and just being like, Oh, here's another another piece doing the same thing, and I didn't realize it was about like this specific incident until

much later and now. Yeah, it's the kind of it kind of does play into the idea that like, we know these things happen, you just don't expect them to happen like right where you are, until it's until it's

until it's going on. Yeah, I've spent years screaming at a wall telling people that this is coming, and AH really hope that all of my preparation had been for nothing and it's happening in my hometown now and getting national media attention everything from you know, Ben Shapiro to Info Wars to interviews on Tucker Facting the Trump presidency, we were pretty much just gun nerds and UH had started a small little UH gun club and we're inviting our friends and our our local queer community up to

to learn about that. And it went really quickly from that to people having more of an interest in the medical suffering teaching specifically UH stopped the Bleed and UH so after the Trump presidency was over, UM a lot of people dropped off and just the majority of the people that stuck around happened to be trans UM. But we continued offering these classes. We were hosting ones out here about the escalation, about stop the bleed, We're hosting

the os on stuff. UM. I think with UM they're being such limited options for direct actions in the area, a lot of people were kind of naturally tending towards how can we better support our friends who live in areas that are doing direct actions, And we started getting a lot more interest in those kinds of support roles than medical training to de escalation, even things like emergency

preparedness and food security. UM yeah UM. But because of that, we've just spent the last few years running these just a small group like wonderful people UM basically workshops on all these different subjects and built somewhat of a connection with the community, a bit of respect. So when this happened, we actually had that to draw on and we could really help enable people to organize themselves and create some

form of unity. So it's not small groups of people coming in without a plan, but a large group of people showing up all at once. UM that we're not directly involved in any sort of lead a ship of it's just naturally organically happened, UM. But have really spent the last few years just feeling like Kok screaming at a wall. Um until this happened in our small town

and completely unexpectedly, and now we're actually somewhat useful. Before we close out, we do need to talk about the upcoming anti trans rally planned for the afternoon of Saturday, September three at Pope Marine Park. Organizers are explicitly tied to the Proud Boys, and this rally is one of the most clear examples of how Turf's self described feminists or people just looking out for biological women's rights are perfectly willing to ally with fascists if it means hurting

trans and queer people. The rally is billed as quote a rally for decency, stand up against men in woman's public pool locker rooms, and tell the city of Port Townsend to let Julie swim unquote Yeah. The guy who runs Common Sense Court Conservatives, a man named Robert Um. I always mess up his name m Zurfling. I think it is zurfing z r f I and g Um who's associated in some way with the Proud Boys and his associated with Roger Stone. He runs this blog called

Common Sense Conservative. He is organizing something that's being billed as quote rally for decency unquote UM to be here in Port Townsend on the Labor Day weekend Saturday, which is the third and UM, it's unclear whether this is going to be a large event or a small one. They have not as of yesterday, pulled a permit for that UM, and there's some questions about, you know, if

you're planning a large event, what what's that unfold? Like, Uh, Poor Johnson is a tourist community and at this time of year, we've got a lot of people in town over Labor Day weekend. UM, so a large Proud Boy rallies is kind of you know, it doesn't feel very comfortable.

It's kind of the first kind of big instant where you've had these types of like you know, more kind of experienced activists on like the anti trans side or on you know, affiliate with Proud Boys or whatever kind of come in and try to make this problem inside the town. We've had little bits and pieces of stuff. Um, the Proud Boys or something kind of connected had a kind of truck drive through parade rally in sort of

just prior to the election. UM that kind of drove through town and you know, with a bunch of big trucks, and I think some people were open carrying, and it was it was mostly a bunch of noise. UM. But it hasn't This is a very liberal community, UM, and it hasn't really hit us. This is also just for context. This is a town of ten thousand people and and it's the biggest town for you know, fifty miles in any direction. So it's not you know, it isn't like

ten thousand people that's a suburb. This this is the big town. This is the county seat. UM. So it's We've been kind of insulated from a lot of things. You know, we had, you know, we definitely had some Black Lives Matter protests. We definitely had you know, we had a big women's march in sen but we haven't seen that kind of explosive clashing protests that you know,

Seattle or Portland have. The far right is planning to mobilize people from around the Pacific Northwest, pulling from folks in Oregon and Idaho, and are expecting anywhere between fifty to a hundred people to show up on the anti trans side, especially people from Proud Boy and three percenter

affiliated networks. One of the leaders of the Washington State three PC of militia, Eric Road, has stated that he will be present and is encouraging his fall blowers to join him, saying on telegram, quote, I don't care if five of you show up or fifty of you show up. I will always march against men staring at girls as young as eleven pulling off their swim trunks. It would be pretty cool if people could cancel their plans and

show up to stand against child molesters. God said, if you even look back, I'll turn you into a pillar of salt. I wouldn't have looked back, but I never failed to answer the call to something so simple as don't stare at little girls when they take off their clothes unquote. He then goes on to do some unhinged rambling about federal observation and his commitment to God and country, but he ends that post by saying, quote, when I get threatened by Antifa, all matched Antifa unquote, which I

don't even know what that means. The grammar on that is very confusing. Another telegram post from a three percenter account reads quote calling all patriots, all proud boys, all three percenters, all lone wolves, We roll out to Port Townsend on September three. Hope to see you there. We got proud boys and three pers rolling in from all

over unquote. The three percenter crew is also planning a pre and post rally barbecue party on Friday and Saturday night at Wildby Island, which sounds like an awful time. That sounds like a horrible party. Our major concerns going forward is if protesters keep coming out here, UM, that the right wing will get more footage that they can spin UM, bringing more attentions on this, bringing more harm to the trans community across the country. UM. That the

right wing will attack someone locally around here. UM. Or that all of the spun footage will inspire someone from outside of the area or someone just sitting in the woods who will come and pause serious harm to a large group of our our local trans community. UM. And our intent is to be there to have some sort of response via medical or otherwise. Trying to think of

how to say this UM. I've lived here on and off most of my life and had started UM working towards transitioning, but due to the national political situation, specifically when the former president temporarily got rid of trans protections and medical canceled all that changed my medical records back and have been presenting as a cis white dude since then, specifically because of the amount of privilege that gives me and having a trans partner who is working on their

transition in this town while this is happening is hitting home to a level that I was completely unprepared for. And the emotional impact that all of this has been having on me, and the fact that it's not just here but that this is getting national attention is something

I'm still trying to wrap my head around. And I'm just really thankful for all of the networks that we've built and all of the community, the local community, the broader Washington community, all the people who have just shown so much support for us, and it makes me feel like there is there is a future where we can just be left in peace. And that is the story of what's been happening in Port Townsend over the course of the past month and what could happen in the

next few days. I'm going to close this episode with Clementine discussing the details of her go fund me. The go fund me is sort of a general transition fund for me. I originally made it specifically for two surgeries. I low balled the amount greatly because I felt like if I asked for too much, I wouldn't get anything.

And I still got nothing for a long time. At some point when the articles were coming out, one of the nationals used one of the national articles used my go fund me as a source um to find out more about me. But that got my go fund me out there um and a lot of different people started picking up on it and spreading it. I actually didn't do much at all to to help that. I it was never something on my mind. The go fund me. It just happened and I looked at it one day

and I thought, that's strange. I have more donations than the last time I checked, and it was pretty empowering to see that, or or more hopeful um. But now now, so I talked about the go fund me was originally for two specific surgeries, and I lobald the amount UM. I later revised. Actually, it took me a couple of times in a lot of consideration because I didn't want to feel like I was cheating the people that were being gracious to me, which I'm not trying to be.

But yeah, uh, finding out that things cost more than I thought. But you know, it's way better than it was before. And to find it, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's the first thing that comes up when you look up my name now, which is better than Fox News is video or or a daily Wire article or whatever. The big thing that would pop up otherwise is but um, yeah,

it's called Clementine's Transition fund fund go fund me. You can find the transition go fund me at go fund me dot com slash s r s for Clem and that link will be in the description, or you can just search Clementine's Transition Fund on your search engine of choice. See you on the other side. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is

a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool Zone meda dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,