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Yes, Well, today we're going to start, obviously in Arizona. Huge news from the Supreme courtner zoning yesterday on an abortion ruling one hundred and sixty year old abortion ruling that is now in effect in the state of Arizona. Will break it all down. We're then going to talk about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's a conversation with Tom Cotton during testimony in front of Congress yesterday, and some other big updates out of this.
CNN has a new investigation into the Flower massacre. Looks very similar to the World Central Kitchen massacre. Looks to be a deliberate assault on the distribution of aid for the purpose of what Lloyd Austin says is not happening.
So we'll break that down.
People can also see Ecuador on the screen. Not every day that we have Ecuador on the Counterpoints Rundown, but.
Today we is a wild one good reason to.
Talk about Ecuador, and a really interesting guest.
Yes, you may remember gaili Long, former foreign minister from a previous show. He's now going to join us because Mexico yesterday released harrowing video of Ecuadorian police raiding the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, dragging out the leftist vice president who they've charged with corruption, and kicking off an international incident.
And we'll talk about the US response to the behavior of.
Its US backed regime in Ecuador, which is quickly becoming going from one of the safest countries in South America to be a US back narco state.
So Martya Taylor Green is on the precipice of moving to vacate the chair charity. I guess filed the motion, but when she pushes faux vote on it is anybody's guests. And one of the big reasons for that is actually a really admirable fight over Section seven two that Freedom Caucus type Republicans and Justice Democrat type members can come together on and try to get to some reform. It's a huge surveillance mechanism. We've talked about it many times
and most of you are probably familiar with it. But there's a lot going on. The Biden administration is backing a terrible reauthorization bill.
Essentially, and that vote is today and tomorrow.
So this is a six month fight over surveillance authorities that is coming down today. Donald Trump weighed in on truth Social We'll try to figure out what he was trying to say.
And Norfolk Southern agreed announced that it will settle for six hundred million dollars with victims in East Palestine, So we'll bring some details, talk a little bit about that, and an NPR business reporter of twenty plus years penned an essay in The Free Press yesterday. It was super buzzy, kind of blowing the whistle on NPR. But I think Grann and I will have a lot to talk about in that segment. Yeah, all right, let's start in Arizona.
We can put a one up on the screen. This is a report from NBC News in which they point out this one hundred and sixty year near total abortion band that's still on the books in the state was ruled enforceable by the Arizona Supreme Court yesterday. They call it a bomb cell bombshell decision that adds to the state growing lists of places where abortion care is effectively banned. Now more from the article. This is an eighteen sixty four law in the middle of the Civil War, before
Arizona was a state. It made a or a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs an abortion or helps a woman obtain an abortion. Now, there's some back and forth in the courts after row, as happened in a lot of states. Arizona is similar
to a lot of states in this respect. The Civil War era law NBC rights, enacted a half a century before Arizona even gains statehood, was never repealed, so an appellate court ruled last year that it could remain on the books as long as it was quote harmonized with a twenty twenty two law, leading to substantial confusion in Arizona regarding exactly when during a pregnancy abortion was outlawed.
The other thing I think is worth noting in this case is that the Attorney General of Arizona has said that she's not going to enforce it, but local prosecutors can enforce the old law. So that's not entirely comforting to supporters of abortion in Arizona or even opponents of this move from the Supreme Court. The other thing that I want to point out that I haven't seen in a lot of media reports is the way the Arizona
Supreme Court handled this. Basically, they said, we think a decision of this gravity should be left to the people of Arizona. Basically that there's legislative supremacy over the court in this case, so it's not sort of like the Alabama you know, sort of what's the best way to
put it, like Judeo Christian theological decision about IVF. They're actually just saying that we think the people of Arizona, this is almost I'm paraphrasing from the decisions the people of Arizona, the legislature of Arizona, their representatives should make a decision on this, and in fact, it looks like that's what's going to happen in Arizona later this year.
It's like, hey, you know, the people of Arizona spoke in eighteen sixty four, fifty years before Arizona was a thing, and there were probably what fifteen settlers you know who passed on him and voted on that.
And like how you said before Arizona was a.
Thing, Yeah, I mean it was a thing. It was like part of Mexico and it was part it was, you know, home to you know, a lot of indigenous population still at the time. But yeah, seven of them got together and wrote a law banning abortion. And so now but yes, so before we get into Kerry Lake's response here, the stage was set by Arizona Republicans. And you correct me if I'm wrong, as you follow this closer when they passed this fifteen week abortion ban in twenty twenty two, before Roe v.
Wade was overturned, and they.
Put into that law a provision that said, if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, then actually forget this fifteen week ban. We're going for broke. The entire eighteen sixty four law goes into effect. And that's why the court was able to make this completely ridiculous ruling and go back to eighteen sixty four because they had re upped it in twenty twenty two. And it's also why Carrie Lake kind of knew ahead of time that this was going to happen.
So it's not as if she can say she was caught off guard here.
Carrie Lake, of course the Republican senatorial candidate in Arizona. So we can put up her reaction here to this ruling, which is saying that this would be a three. You know, this is her saying, I oppose today's ruling and I am calling on Katie Hobbs in the state legislature to come up with an immediate, common sense solution that Arizonas can support. What's odd about this reaction is that she was asked about this in twenty twenty two. And this is in a presidential debate. This is not like a
gotcha moment with somebody on a rope line. Here she is in a twenty twenty two senatorial debate.
Carrie will start with you on this one. The new law banning abortion, well, the new law banning abortion in Arizona after fifteen weeks. There's that law, and there's a territorial era law which bans all abortion, zippo. Over which law do you think should take effect?
My personal belief is that all life matters, all life counts, and all life is precious.
And I don't believe in abortion. I think the older law is going to take is going to go into effect.
That's what I believe will happen.
Okay, but you approve of that at conception?
I believe life begins at conception. Okay. What do we do about abortion pills? What do we do about I.
Don't think abortion pills should be legal, not in Arizona.
So there you have Carrie Lake saying, look, I suspect and I support the older law going into effect.
Did she not?
So?
What explains the change in two years?
Is it the she lacking that Republicans took and the polls in twenty twenty two.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely I've sort of seen the pattern after Row and again, like Doug Doocey passed that law, he was the governor of Arizona, considering.
He was on two Are complaining about it, he was on.
Twitter campaigning about it. It's considered sort of moderate, and Doug Deucy said, this is not the outcome that I would have preferred, and actually a lot of Arizona Republicans it reminded me in many ways to what happened in Alabama after the IVF ruling came down, where you had a sort of race among Republicans to get out that statement condemning the ruling and saying, you know, it's not
a workable solution. It's basically sounding similar to Democrats on some of those questions, but with the caveat that I'm really pro life, but X, Y and Z.
So it really is like condemning the panther eating your face, you know, after you nominated the panther to the court and signed into law legislation that enabled the panther to then.
Eat your face.
It does seem like there was something intentionally ambiguous about what happened with the fifteen week ban versus. Yeah, it does seem like that, but obviously Dougducy says it's not the outcome that he would have preferred. Carrie Lake is back pedaling. I saw a senior advisor to Carry Lake talking to Steve Bannon yesterday saying, you know, this is obviously Democrats. Basically Democrats have a huge electoral gift in the question of abortion, and so there has to be
a way to talk about this. And that puts the writing on the wall for where Carry Lake is going to go going forward. Now, I think a lot of Arizona voters are going to be heading to the ballot box and making decisions based on economics their pocketbooks in the fall. I think it's probably going to be a
heavy border related election. But man, in terms of mobilizing the base or demobilizing the base, not getting people excited to vote for, for example, Carry Lake, brutal just I mean that will matter the margins.
So you think Carry Lake going kind of kind of wobbly on this from the rights perspective, could kind of hurt her with some I think for ground support, Well, what do you mean by that.
I think it's the type of thing that makes a kind of the oposite. It makes a suburban woman who's really upset with what they see is radical policies from the Democrats, from Joe Biden, from Gaho, all of those things, say I just I'm not going to vote. I can't vote for Kerry Lake. You know, I don't like the other guys, but I'm not going to vote for Kerry Lakes.
I'm staying home, Okay. Yeah, Or they become single issue.
That on that question, finitely, that'll happen too.
And come out and say, look, this is we're not going to be governed by seven settlers from eighteen sixty four.
I also think this is such a bad This is just a particular, particularly egregious flip flop on such a high profile issue for Kerry Lake, where she's on tape one way and now it's it just that's one of those things that seeps into your public persona during an election like this. It's hard to get rid of that. Nobody likes to see that.
Yeah, and yeah, the SoundBite is not great for her because she also tried to do a little play on like all lives matter, Yeah, like she's too kind web brained, and I'm sure she regrets that.
But at the same time, how do you not see that coming?
Like, if you're going to be a calculating politician, then be the calculating politician in twenty twenty two.
Also, wasn't an ancient history. I guess the only.
Thing you say is that it was pre row and that she genuinely just did not grasp, you know, what a electoral albatross it would be. Although she seems to be in the minority on that, most people who were have been pushing this. You're you know, you've been very open about this that like this is our view, but it's not. It's not an electoral winner. Maybe, so maybe
she's not. Maybe she hasn't thought about it enough, Like maybe it's more of a surface issue for her, because if you're if you spend any time thinking about it, you're like, this is not going to work out electorally.
Yeah.
No, And you know I heard Nancy Mace talking about that as a Trump surguit actually on NPR yesterday. She did pretty good interview with MPR. As much as a loath to like congratulate Nancy may sometimes, but she talked about it as a survivor of rape, she said, I understand why there need to be exceptions, and I understand why this is terrifying to women basically, And you can see that's just it's very They didn't expect to have
to talk about this in that way. They didn't expect post row, and I think that's the big mistake of both the pro life movement and the Republican Party. There was just not preparation, adequate preparation for what would happen if Roe fell. People and people on the left too. It just seemed so unthinkable that this would actually happen.
It was like the pipe dream of the pro life movement, and it was the nightmare of the actual Republican Party, where people are sort of moderately against abortion, but mostly in favor of winning elections and gaining more and more power. So I just Carrie like to me as an example of somebody who was really riding high on the Trump wave, somebody who was super popular with Trump's base ultimately lost the election. When a lot of people said, carry Lake is going to win this thing, like she's a man,
I've never seen anything like it before. She lost, But she was riding really high, and I think the bubble kind of popped.
Yeah, and so if we can put up a five.
This is this is to Emily's point earlier that the Attorney general has said, you know that she won't enforce this a reminder of sometimes every vote does matter. Two hundred and eighty votes separated the Democrat and the Republican in the Attorney General's jacey. If you remember, that was one of the races. It wasn't called for weeks and weeks and weeks. She she won it, and now she's
saying that she's not going to force us. Like you said, local prosecutors you know, still still can do that in the in the fall, it looks like Arizona is going to have a constitutional you know, referendum. Basically in every single state, including Montana, Kansas, Kentucky, abortion rights have triumphed at the ballot box. And so the ones that we're looking at this time are what we got potentially in Florida, YEP, Arizona.
Florida, Maryland, New York looks like now definitely it's going to happen in Arizona. They have to collect three hundred and eighty four thousand dollos signatures by July fourth.
That should be quite doable. Now that's the Supreme Court.
Kyle, we could do it today. Yes, So it looks like that constitutional amendment, as you said, Ryan, is going to be there. Their efforts underway also in Arkansas, Nevada, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Colorado. It's possible but unlikely according to the AP's analysis, that it ends up on the boot in Iowa, Maine, and Pennsylvania in the fall. But a lot of swing states in there, obviously Florida, Arizona, Nevada, maybe Missouri and Colorado. But states where this is going
to be a huge issue. Is this is better for turnout for Democrats than Republicans. There's just no question about it at this point. So actually, in a way, by kicking this back to Arizona voters, what the Supreme Court did is give Arizona voters a chance to get rid of the fifteen week Doug Doosey law.
Yeah.
What I when I saw that ruling and I wanted to check was this Democrats?
Yeah?
On this seriously, who or do they just really hate Carry Lake?
Like Carry Lake must be thinking to us, So what have I done to this Arizona Supreme Court.
I think there to treat me this way.
Well, this also happened the day after Donald Trump sort of you know, chrisln Sager talked about this, but had a little bit of an earthquake or induced a little bit of an earthquake in Republican politics with his statement on abortion. And his statement on abortion was one that basically only Donald Trump can get away with. It's sort
of a blueprint for other Republicans. And that's where you see Kerry Lake, her senior advisors, Nancy Mace, all kind of clustering in that region, which is basically saying things like, look, we think the voter should have the voters are wildly against the Democratic position, which is to not ban third trimester abortions. We all basically agree that somewhere, you know, meeting in that second trimester is the way to regulate abortion.
We don't agree with you completely cutting off access. There have to be exceptions, and you know, it is an electoral disaster, blah blah blah. That's sort of like taking from Trump adapting it to different candidates. But I don't know how what works if you're not Donald Trump in particular, there's just It's like when he went off on Hillary Clinton and that one debate you remember, where he was like,
she wants to rip babies out of wombs. At the same time, he also believes like pro life Mike Pence type people are kind of crazy and everybody knows it. Yeah, frankically, like everybody knows it.
So yeah, yes, he's creeped out by them, yes, but he also every time during his presidency when he was in trouble, that's.
Who he would go back to.
The pro life community because they know.
It most ardent supporters, and so he knew it and they knew it.
They know it and really resent it. That's part of the reason that people were really upset yesterday is on Mondays. So they feel like they've really been taken for granted by Donald Trump, that he'll go to them when he needs that kind of bolstering.
But then nobody can be happy in America, even the even the anti abortion crowd that got rov Wade overturned by Trump.
I think you got to cut the guy some slack.
He delivered to the right the thing that they've been gunning for for fifty years.
You sound like, yeah, there you go. I mean from their perspectives like, come on, what do you want from this guy?
He obviously is personally pro completely opposed to everything you guys believe in, like culturally, but he's doing it anyway, just cynically, So just ride that.
No, I agree with that position completely.
Although it's going to get ritten right in the ground right Like the effect that this is having on Republicans, it's interesting to think what kind of Republican party you'd have if the court just decided not to do that. You'd have probably ten twenty extra Republics in the House. They probably control the Senate right now and maybe control the Center for the next fifty years.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that's an interesting question because I feel like the benefits have been pretty marginal to people like olisa slot Can, and like there are just some races where like, okay, clearly women were super motivated. The pattern of turnout looks like it was here. But I think it's a lot of Republicans have had this interesting position like this needs to hardcore, like anti abortion people like myself have said like this
is you're not going to solve this problem. Rodrer had a good post on this Isessuary you're not going to solve this problem at the ballot box at this point. All you're going to do is have catastrophic losses on every other policy issue. If you force an issue at the ballot box, that's going to lose time and again because the culture is not anywhere near the anti abortion
movements position on it, So like what's the wisdom? But on that side, you get immense pressure from people in the pro life movement who are against this incrementalism as like it, and so that's I mean, it's it's a smaller and smaller wing as time goes by, But like people in the anti abortion movement actually are facing pressure from their right, even like hardcore people from their right.
That is like, and again it's understandable if you believe that ending in life after conception is murder, it's understandable why people would be against the incrementalism. But politics of the possible, I mean, it's just there's really no path and.
Correct people wrong.
They often would make parallels to the abolition or the anti slavery movement absolutely, which just was a fundamental misreading of everything, but like it had the same moral force to those particular people who were involved in it. But they what they didn't understand is that there is a day after you overturn rows.
And so if you've got this gorilla.
Which is different than the Civil War and emancipation, now, well we don't need to go into reconstruction and Jim.
Crow and all of that, but there's a day after row.
And so they run this gorilla campaign to take a minority position and make it the law for the majority by taking over the courts. But then in the decision they kind of didn't have the guts to go all the way. Like Alido in the decision says, the Constitution is silent on the question of abortion, and therefore it needs to go back to the states, to the states,
and it could even go to Congress. So now you you but you recognize that you're a minority position and you had to run a gorilla campaign to ban it. Now you've thrown it up to the public for them to vote on.
The public's not with you.
And now you're Roger like, oh, maybe voting isn't the way to do this. Let's go back to the course. Well you just did. What else is there there's I mean, there's like he's saying, wage a cultural war persuade people.
But okay, good luck with that.
Yeah, but that's really the only route. I mean, that's the only way to do it. And it's it's not a you know, it's it's definitely not a one that's looking great. But Sager pointed this out yesterday on Twitter. Basically, he's like, listen, the whole the message of the pro life movement, my entire life was let's kick it back to the States, and you know that's and now they're saying exactly the opposite.
Of that to the point you just made not like that.
But what I think is interesting about that is, yes, the Republican Party said that the pro life movement itself as a whole has Yeah, because again, there are a lot of students of a lot of like deep students of John Brown and the abolitionist movement in the pro life movement, and that take that comparison really seriously do see it as a civil rights issue, and in that case,
incrementalism to a lot of people looks ridiculous. So again, there's just plenty of people in the Republican Party who are not logically intellectually consistent in their positions on abortion. And I feel like that. I'm very curious about Kerry Lake,
who spent most of her life as a Democrat. I'm very curious as to if she ever thought some of that stuff through, because from Republican politicians, a lot of the pro life talking points are cynical, and you know, they're necessary in primaries, and then when push comes to shove, it's like, well do I really Usually not, because they're electoral consequences that don't jive with the logically consistent position, right.
And basically, if you're trying to enforce minority position on a country that still has some democratic mechanisms in place, you can't.
Do it's nice.
You either have to be kind of have dictatorial power, or like you said, you have to have a cultural revolution where everybody just where you win over a majority, you persuade a majority of people to.
Agree with you.
But you know, the polling and our global experience suggests I think that's not going to happen. But I would love to see them like try like that. I think to me, that is the appropriate way to do it. Go try to persuade people rather than having the court, you know, come down and tell people what to do. So yesterday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin showed up at Congress and he was protested during his speech, as pretty much everybody is who comes to Congress to talk about anything
touching on the Israel Gaza war. He was accused of facilitating genocide. And so after the protesters left, Center, Tom Cotton engagement in a bit of a back and forth about whether or not there is a genocide going on and whether or not the US and.
Israel are affecting it. There let's listen to his response.
Secretary Austin, thank you for acknowledging in response to Center Wicker that Hamas committed war crimes on October seventh and has been committing them every day since by using human shields. I want to address what the protesters raised earlier, is Israel committing genocide and Gaza. Senator gott And I, we don't have any evidence of genocide being created. So that's a no. Israel's not committing genocide and Gassa, we don't have evidence of that.
What do you make of the You know, he could say yes, he could say the ICJ has said there's a plausible case for genocide.
He could say no. Instead, he said, we don't have evidence for it. What do you make of that?
He said, we don't have evidence for it. And then he also said there's quote no question that there have been quote far too many civilian casualties throughout the Israel Hamas war, and that he is stressed to jo Abgalante that Israel's military must protect civilians. So my basic takeaway of this is it's super characteristic of the Biden administration's attempt to have it both ways, right, like they want to be citing international law in one case and then
shirking it in another. And I know a lot of people are familiar with the definition of genocide at this point, the UN accept a definition, the ICC definition. I'm just going to read it again because I think it's worth talking about in the context of the exchange. In the so they say genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial, or religious group. So in whole or in part a national ethnical, racial, or religious group.
And the reason I bring that up is because again it shows how the Biden administration wants to have it both ways on international law. And that's I think this definition of genocide, which was adopted in the aftermath of World War Two, is lacking. I think if you are destroying quote in part, a national group, basically anything that Israel did after October seventh would have been categorized as
genocide in whole a national group. When you have an Ethno state and another Ethno state, there's just no way to have that battle. I'm not saying it's right. The
way is real prosecuted the war. I don't agree with that at all, But I also don't think that this definition of genocide has stood the test of time because it's just I mean, there's almost no way to prosecute a war after October seventh, or to respond after October seventh, which even Hamas expected what happened and not fall into that definition.
Because it really depends on the definition of the legal definition of In part right, because you know, Hamas killed several hundred Israeli civilians on October seventh, does that count as in part?
Legal experts generally say no, that's not what we mean.
We had one on the show.
In Part right, and he was saying no.
He was saying no because in October seventh, right, he was saying Hamas may have the intent, but they don't have the capability, whereas Israel has the capability. And that is an understandable distinction. But yes, that question of in part is huge.
And so said Ericott at the State Department, asked a really good question which goes to this where he did not obviously get a really good answer. But the question is one to sit with, which is is there a definition of genocide that would allow Bosnia and Rwanda to apply.
But not Palestine.
Oh, that's interesting.
Because the US is comfortable with saying this was this was a genocide in Rwanda, this is a genocide in Bosnia.
The International Court.
Of Justice, everybody around the world is comfortable saying, right, well, the Wigers.
He also mentioned Rohina.
I believe because the Wigers you don't have the you have the cultural destruction, a cultural genocide, but you don't have the kind of mass death that you had in Rwanda, the Rohina and in Bosnia. And also that one is contested more more so than the than you know at the international level Bosnia Rwanda, but.
A lot of people that embraced that one would.
Exactly exactly like you'd have, you know, right, ask Jack Sullivan or Blincoln exactly right, They're gonna leave at that one.
It's just so, it's it's and it's typical. I mean, we talked last week about this quote that came across an Oliver Norse memoir recently where he said, you know, Israel, Britain, they were all selling arms to Iran. The thing that really disappointed me. And I know saronic obviously coming from Oliver North, but in his memoir he says, the thing that really disappointed me is basically the United States was like lecturing everybody to not do it right while doing it.
Reminds me of this famous Chomsky interview where he's asked what's the difference between counter terrorism and terrorism and he says terrorism is when they do it. The counter terrorism
is when we do it. So, speaking of terrorism, if we can put up the third element here Gozen's returned to their neighborhood of Conunis over the last couple of days, now that the IDF has withdrawn, to find it unrecognizable the way the Associated Press lead says, stunned Palestinians found their home city unrecognizable Monday as they filtered in to estavage what they could from the vast destruction left by Israeli troops who withdrew from Southern Gaz's con units a
day earlier after months of fight and bombardment, and the scenes out the scenes are utterly dystopian. Uh and we and you don't know, you know, how many people are still buried under this this rubble Uh. Families who who've returned back can't even kind of figure out which block is theirs anymore because it's just so completely flattened and
rubble strewn. The reporter sees them by one plastic red flower that they that helps him identify, like our apartment was over here, and the mom puts that, puts that in a bag as as they're headed back to who knows where. And as the Associated Press points out in this article, this is what Rafa would look like if if who you know moves forward with with that, with that coming invasion, and he has said it's they now have a date, you know that it's it's going to happen.
There's been reports that when the Israelis and the Americans met, the Israeli suggested that they're going to buy tents, hundreds of thousands, you know, tents for hundreds of thousands of people that they're going to move kind of somewhere else.
They've already bought forty thousand and.
Yeah, they're are already trying to purchase forty thousand. And the Americans asked, well, okay, that's that's one thing, but you've got what about food, what about sewage treatment?
You know, what about the water, like, what about the other.
Things that you know, one point three million people would need to survive And that that was kind of that was kind of brushed off. Going to the question of whether or not there's any evidence of genocide. It's one thing to say that there that Okay, we haven't come to a final conclusion that there're you know, one hundred percent certainty that genocide is happening. As Lloyd Austins had to say, there's no evidence denies the actual evidence that
we do have on the ground. And one of those and we can go to this next element is before the CNN put together an interesting investigation into the flower massacre of late late February.
This was one of.
The turning points I think for a lot of you know, global global opinion. The US had purchased enough flower to feed millions you know, to create millions of meals. And for about a month, Isra was keeping this flower out, not letting it into, not letting into Gaza. Finally, a Connecticut based kind of charity was able to contract with a couple of trucks and work with the IDF, which
escorted it in with tanks. And the very first day that this flower that had been waiting outside for so long came in, the idea starts opening fire.
And this is what the CNN investigation.
Finds IDEAF initially said, actually, we never fired, and then later said we fired warning shots, and then they said we fired at quote unquote suspects. Cianna has obtained a bunch of different videos from Palestinians who were there, who were filming at the time that this happened, that showed that their time line is a lie, that they fire, that they started firing at people who were at the.
Checkpoint, and to me, if.
You add everything else together, the fact that they had been keeping this out for so long and it had only let it in under intense pressure, and then you learn from this reporting that they did open fire on people waiting for them and then did lie about it.
And it did then lead to.
What they wanted, which was the rest of the flower not getting in, which then did lead to what they also have said publicly that they wanted, which is depriving Palestinians of food. It's it's kind of one more deliberate act. And so that that's why I say that there is evidence. Whether or not that Lloyd Austin wants to say it's conclusive evidence is a different question.
But there's evidence.
But this is Netnyahu's version of the Biden problem, and that he has people saying, you know, yes, use food as a weapon of war. In what case throughout human history has food not been used as a weapon? In what case throughout human history are people feeding the nation that they are at war with. Well, it's kind of what we decided to do after the horrors of World War Two. It's kind of how everyone came to the
table and said, you can't let that happen again. So if you agreed to those standards of war, then yes, But there are people in net Yah who's right saying
why are we doing this? This food is going to be used to bolster the people who are trying to kill us, And so net Yahoo again has to kind of try and have it both ways and not say outright that they you know, there's a position in the Israeli government, and there are factions in the Israeli government that don't want to feed Palestinians because it's it's not conducive to flattening Gaza, it's not conducive to their definition of winning the war, which is still, by the way,
completely unclear. The Biden administration, which to a point that you and Crystal and and Tager often make, is essential to the prosecution of this war from Israel's position, is not even cued in on what the date is. That Yahoo is not telling them the date of this invasion of Rafa, probably because of leaking concerns, intelligence sharing concerns. But that just tells you how how fraught the relationship is right now, or if it.
Even exists, or if it's a bluff throughout the exactly.
You know.
Hamas reported earlier this week on its on its various public channels that that in one day, in three different engagements, thirteen IDF at least thirteen IDF soldiers had been had been killed in combat. Yesterday, they posted some some video confirming that that had in fact happened.
These kind of setbacks are lining up.
With the IDF announcing that it's withdrawing from these significant areas of southern Gaza. So in some ways it might just be public facing bluster from that Yahoo that that actually a ground invade is not something that the IDF thinks is kind of advantageous at this point when it's also continuing to threaten and be threatened by Asbilla up
in the north. Plus we have waiting in the wings the Iranian response to Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which was a massive breaking of international norms, which brings us to our next segment on another massive breaking of international norms which seems to perhaps triggered, you know, by Israel getting a green light to go ahead and attack as consulate and Damascus may have led to Ecuador believing that it could just smash its way into the
Mexican embassy in Keto and drag out the former Vice President will have kind of harrowing footage of that up next, and will also be joined by Ecuadorian for Foreign Minister Gilby Longs.
Stick around for that.
People may remember this wild footage from back in January out of Ecuador. We can roll up this first vo here. This was a group of gangs. Gang leader was broken
out of prison in Ecuador. The climax of this wild incenti that you're looking at here is these gang members taking over a TV station live on air, holding people hostage, and really putting an exclamation mark on what had become an extraordinary kind of devolution in Ecuador from one of the safest countries in South America to basically what is drifting towards a narco state run by kind of US
back gangs at this point. Now that brings us to just last Thursday, that there was this remarkable moment on the international stage where you had Ecuadorian forces burst into the Mexican embassy. So this footage was released yesterday by Mexico. These are kind of basically Ecuadorian stormtroopers here outside of the embassy, burst busting their way in here.
They're looking for the former vice president.
They run into embassy staff as you see here, top officials. They are throwing, throwing, throwing old diplomats down, down onto the down, onto the ground, uh and and dragging out uh the former vice president who had been formally offered asylum by the Mexican government. It's it's hard to describe a greater breach of international norms other than perhaps an
airstrike on an embassy has happened in Damascus quite recently. Now, uh, the US took two days to respond with a very modest statement where they where they condemned, where they didn't condemn. They the headline on their statement was events at the embassy of Mexico in Ecuador.
Then these of the.
United States condemns any violation of the of the Vienna Conveys on diplomatic relations, so just generally condemning, but they never go one to specifically condemn what had just happened. This is forty eight hours earlier, bear in mindset. And then they write, Mexico and Ecuador are crucial partners of the United States, and we place a high value on our relations with both countries. We encourage the two countries to resolve their differences in accord with international norms, so
really taking a hands off approach there. They continued to be under pressure to say something about what their US backed government had done in Keto, and so Jake Sullivan yesterday came out at the White House Press briefing, and this is how he addressed it.
Finally, I also want to take a moment before going to your questions to address the events of April fifth in Quito, Ecuador. We condemned this violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations, including the use of force against embassy officials. We've reviewed the security camera footage from the
Mexican embassy and believe these actions were wrong. The Ecuadorian government district guarded its obligations under international law as a host state to respect the inviolability of diplomatic missions and jeopardize the foundation of basic diplomatic norms and relationships.
The backdrop of all of this is quite interesting if we can put up this fourth veo here. This is former National Assemblyman Ronnie Aliaga, who you're looking at here, who has created a huge stir in Ecuador over the past several weeks by releasing text messages between him and Diana Salazar, who was the US backed Attorney General in Ecuador. It was Salazar who issued the arrest warrant against the former vice president and before Daniel Niboa issued the order
to carry it out inside the embassy. And what Aliaga has been saying is that the text messages between him and her confirm that she and the US ambassador have been working hand in glove on various prosecutions and and political interventions over the past several years, and that Salasar is effectively kind of the US's closest ally inside Ecuador
and is being groomed, being groomed for the presidency. What we can add to this, I've spoken to the former National Assemblyman for several hours over the past couple of weeks and he and he passed on to me we can put this up on the screen here, a forensic analysis of his of his two phones, because there's a lot of speculation in Ecuador that he is making this entire thing up, so he sent his He basically allowed a Miami based firm to have access to his his
phones and they confirmed that in fact, these text messages between him and the number that appears to belong to Salas are are in fact accurate.
So to kind of give us more.
Background on all of this is the former Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Giomi Long Giomilan, is joining us from like much of the government of Rafael Korea of exile, and so, first of all, Foreign Minister Long, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks very much for the invitation. I'm not formerly in exile, but I certainly.
Don't live in Ecuador right now, unlike many of my former colleagues who are in exile who enjoy political asylum in a number of countries, actually Mexico being one, which we'll discuss with you, Argentina also, but also Belgium, where former President Correa himself has been granted political asylum.
It's not my case, but I don't I don't, I don't even ever go about them.
Would you feel safe going back to Ecuador.
At this point or do you think that the kind of persecution of your party is so broad that there might be some risk.
Yeah, I mean I've been going back to Ecuador. I've been.
I went back in the most recent elections in October twenty twenty three. I was also there in August twenty twenty three. I've been going back regularly, and I have family in Ecuadors, so I do go back.
But and it was.
Better for a while, it's gotten significantly worse now. Again, there was allal a little bit, but yeah, I mean, for a few years I did not go back, and it has been unsafe, largely speaking for well for Ecuadorans because of the general security situation in Ecuador, but also for obviously the political left. Yeah, there are lots. I mean, the deep state is very active and very noticeable if you've been part of the Gorrega government at some point in time.
Yeah, yeah, So tell us about Hoorge Glass, the former vice president who was dragged out of the Mexican embassy. You know what was, what's behind, what's behind these charges, and what do we know about his safety because as I understand it, the Americans privately did finally tell the Ecuadorian government that he ought not to be harmed while in prison.
We'll see you know how effective that is.
Yeah.
So the story of persecution necro is a long and complicated one which I'm not going to go into many details a belt, but this censed them. The big pivotal moment is when Lenny Moreno becomes president in twenty seventeen, elected on a continuity ticket after Correa.
He had been a former vice president of Korea.
Then he betrays that and does a U, turn sides with the Trump administration, does all the things that many of US know about, you know, throws Assange out of the London embassy, brings Pompeo and Mike Pence Taquito, and then signs loads of deals, including an IMF deal, grants an an airstrip in the Galapagus to the Pentagon in South comm And so I really realigns geopolitically within this spield of the United States and within this field of the Trump administration.
Right.
And then he organizes a referend in twenty eighteen, which is the big problem till this day. So I'm just going to say quick word about this, the referen And while he was still popular, a few months later he would have lost it, and he ended his term as the most unpopular president in Ecuadorian history. This is Lenin Modno. But when he had held referendum, he was still in his honeymoon and supported by the media, managed to pass
this referendum. And there were a few questions. One of them was to bar reelections so that Korea could never be president again. But the other crucial question was to do an overhaul of the judiciary, if you like, to purge the judiciary.
The government morena government.
I actually called it a decorrealization if you like, this a Spanish term, but the dec corea with the president the Ecuadorian states, and so you have to get rid, purge all the Correista elements of the Ecuadorian state and actally includes the judiciary.
And then he.
Managed to name all the series of new very direhard anti Korea judges who then started the persecution. And this was a persecution that was essentially carried out in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty in part against fortge Glass, who
ended up in jail. He did he purchaed six years in jail, and another one a big case involving several people, including President Correa himself, who got an eight year jail sentence, but because he was already living abroad in Belgium, the Belgium government, seeing that he was the actual sentence says Correa was guilty of psychic influence over others to commit crimes. Right,
this is actually in the sentence. So the Belgium government eventually gave Korea a political asylum based on the fact that there was a clear case of political persecution.
Interpol also denied several arrests read alerts.
They're called for the arrest of Korea, and so internationally the case crumbled, if you like, but domestically in Ecuador they doubled down on this, and there is an arrest warrant for Korea for several other people and Glass, because he was in jail, they managed to start. As soon as he was free, they managed to start a new case, which is even more ludicrous than the other is this essentially has to do with the reconstruction funds after the
earthquake of twenty sixteen. Ecuador had terrible worth Coak in twenty sixteen, and Glass was as vice president, was in charge of the reconstruction, and they're saying he use those funds not for reconstruction, which okay, he headed a committee and those funds were actually used for economic dynamism, you know, to stimulate the growth and so on and so.
Forth, so that's not strictly reconstruction.
So they're not even accusing him of stealing money using them, of not using the funds for reconstruction but for something else, which.
Was also public policy. So the whole case is a sham.
So he saw that it was a new sham, and so he sought asylum in the Mexican embassy there would be in a number of Ecuador and to form a correac collaborators former minutes and so on and so forth seeking asylum in a Mexican embassy. Over the last few years, several of them would give granted safe passage in during the previous administrations to enjoy their political asylum as the technical term, you know, to be able to reach Mexico
and enjoy their political asylum there. But this time under Noboa, ECUADORI refused to grant the safe passage and in fact, as we saw this weekend, quite dramatically storm the embassy, which is a massive violation. We could talk about this of Article twenty two of the nineteen sixty one Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which is really the ground flow of international law, right, it is the convention that establishes before any other agreement on international law is made. What
you know, how we're going to interact between states? What are essential rules of the game of diplomacy. You know, you have an embassy in my country, I have one in yours. We can't touch those. It's kind of common sense. Everybody knows that. You know, anybody's watched the kind of you know, an action movie knows that you don't storm the embassy, right, it's pretty common sense. But they violated that, and it's one of the few times that's ever been
done in Latin American history. So it's very traumatic and right now, I could always very isolated.
So actually on that, I know Ryan has questions about Vienna, but I also wanted to ask for people in the States trying to like put these puzzle pieces together. This question of why is Amlo involved to this degree, and obviously the big picture context about crime and cartels and COVID and poverty and all of that sort of comes together, and Amilo's relationship with Korea and with the sort of
exiled from her Korea allies. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe what's in it for Amlo, why Amlo and Mexico are involved to the degree that they're involved, and maybe how that speaks to that big picture question of Noboha and Buclea and a lot of Latin American politics kind of in general.
Yeah, that's actually a great question. I mean, it's Amlo,
but it's also Mexico. Mexico has a long history of being this sort of land for asylum seat, so we played a key role in the nineteen fifty four Karakas Convention on Asylum, which is sort of a piece of international law that Latin Americans are quite proud of, Latin American diplomats are quite proud of, because it was a precursor law in international law that Latin Americans drafted in the inter American system to protect asylum seekers, and it was key in a number of ways to establish the
rules what the rules of political asylum are.
So Mexico played a big role in that.
But then in the sixties, seventies and early eighties, in the sort of heyday of military dictatorship, particularly in the Southern Code, Mexico was the land of exile or political asylum of the opponents that were being persecuted by all these military Cold War US backed largely military regimes. So Mexico became famous as a sort of safe haven. It never did have the military regimes that other countries in Latin America had, and so Mexico's kind of got this
kind of prestige. There's also something called the Estrada doctrine, which is a doctrine of a former foreign minutes to Mexico that has a big impact on the doctrine of Mexican foreign policy, but the foreign policy of other Latin
American states. So there's a whole sort of Mexican I will say, almost the institutional culture of international law and asylum law, which is symbolic here, and it kind of had been a little bit abandoned in the last ten twenty years in Mexico, you know, after joining NAFTA stopped sort of being seen like this, and AMLO really insisted on bringing back this sort of age old tradition of
Mexico being a land of asylum. And when you had during the Trump years this kind of conservative backlash in Latin America, including coups like in Bolivia, like where did people seek refuge? Where did people hide? You know, people who had been part of Evo Morales's cabinet. So they
went to the Mexican embassy. I actually they went to the Mexican and the Spanish embassy in the Bolivian case, and in Ecuador, when Moreno started persecuting the left, they're same, they went to the Mexican embassy, and AMLO eventually granted people asylum, and a number of people asylum. Right now, Mexico is the place where there is the greatest number of Ecuadorian refugees. There is some in Argentina, has just said. President Corprea himself is in Belgium, but lots of people,
lots of former ministers are in Mexico. So Glass went to the Mexican embassy. This seemed to be the logical sort of place to go to. And yeah, I think it speaks of two things, so answering a question, One is Mexican tradition. The other is Amlo, who's kind of on the political left, so there may be some sympathies there, but I think it's more of a political left that wanted to revive this age old Mexican tradition right and to go back to the estrata doctrine I've just mentioned.
And the other element is, of course the geopolitical context, with since twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, a sort of right wood shift in the hemisphere which is less aggressive now because Bolsonado's not there anymore, and have been a few victories for the left in Colours and Chile elsewhere, but there was fifteen twenty sixteen a big pendudu shift to the right and an authoritarian right which persecuted people, which meant there were suddenly, just as you had in the
sixties and seventies, Mexico playing that role again.
And let me ask you about these charges that have been leveled by Ronnie Aliaga in his conversation with me and also in these videos that have gone viral inside Ecuador. One of the charges he made is related to the assassination of Fernando Vievisensi via Essensio. People will remember, probably we covered this. This was the presidential candidate, kind of anti corruption crusader who was assassinated out right after a rally as he's walking to his car. People probably remember
seeing that footage. What Aliaga says is that Diana Styles Are the Attorney General, told him that she had dinner.
She had a dinner with the US ambassador, and the US ambassador told her that they had three field offices working on this because Viavisensio was a high level kind of US informer US asset uh and that they were putting out a five million dollar reward for any information leading to his killing, and that they knew their investigation had already uncovered the fact that it was the Los Lobos gang that was behind his assassination, these are Narco traffickers,
but that Correa's party was surging in the elections, the first round was coming in two weeks, and that it would not be good to get that information out because the time the Ecuadorian media was blaming Correa and Correa's party for this, for this assassination.
So it's better to you know, allow that to play out.
Rather than give a gift to the left, you know, heading into the election. Niboa does end up then winning a very tight election in the second round against Correa's party. So what do you make of these allegations from Aliaga and are they how seriously are they being taken.
In So these allegations which are just coming out, and you know, it seems they seem to be certified by this by this US.
Based verification, you know it verification.
Outfit, which is going to be very important because he's going to have the proof that this is legitimate. Uh, These they're going to I mean only just starting to play out now, and because of what's just happened in the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, this kind of news cycle
that is focused on that. But I think once the story is out and once it's it hits the mainstream press, including outside Ecuador, it's going to have a huge impact because they confirm a lot of our suspicions and a lot of the accusations that were leveled at Salas R back then, and I've been leveled at Salas are back. So that's the sort of equivalent of the attorney general
in Ecuador. FI scale can always say in Ecuador, the prosecutor general, if you like, who did not prosecute and has did not accelerate investigation before the elections, as you just said, because it would have deflected attention or accusations away from Cosmo and Kraismo was ahead in the power and she's been the arch persecutor of Coraismo and the left in Ecuador in the last few years.
So it's extremely serious.
But it would mean that the prosecutor general, the attorney general would would have acted in a politicized way, would have decided to not investigate a crime and who the authors of that crime are, or at least delay it for political purposes so that you know, Coraismo would get that, you know, the the yeah, I would get accused of this crime during elections, and bearing in mind that Bavisensio was an arch opponent of coraismo, sort of one of those kind of very yeah, I mean, sort of played
the role of a whistleblower, you know, and sort of a very you know on the media, constantly sort of throwing accusations pretty much against everybody. He was that kind of character, and he was we always suspected supported by the United States. We're now going to see whether there's any more evidence for this, but this was kind of vox popular, right. It was the rumor everywhere in the
political circles that censor was essentially a US agent. Whether that's exactly true or order, whether he was supported in some way or another, we're going to find out. And then when he was murdered, when he was assassinated in something which really hurt Ecuador and democracy and the ecuador elections, right because he was a presidential candidate, and this is the first time in contemporary history that you have a presidential candidate that's murdered in Ecuador. I mean, he wouldn't
have won the elections. It didn't change the outcome. While it did in a way, but it wouldn't It's not as if it was leading the polls. He was depending on different polls, in fourth, fifth place, sixth place, whatever.
But you know, it was still traumatic, was you know, a crucial sort of Yeah.
It was a political well known politician in Ecuador was running for the presidency. He was murdered, and there are lots of suspicions at the time that his murder was politically motivated in order to hurt Karismo.
That because he was such sort of an art.
Critic of Charismo, because he was, you know, constantly throwing accusations of Coarismo.
The natural conclusion of that.
Would be that it was Corraismo that had him murdered, which so you see after his murder, which was on the ninth of August, I believe yes, and the actually of August, you see between the ninth and twentieth of August, a decline of the leading candidacy of the Cordista candidate, the left wing candidate, and she, you know, Luisa Gonsiles lost probably eight seven, eight nine whatever points.
She might have.
Made it without the need for a runoff, without the assassination, did recuperate a few. It's right towards the end, when it became clearer and clearer that this was not a you know that there were there was more and more evidence showing that it was a sort of deep state narco plot that had nothing to do with Goraismo. So I mean, yeah, we I think it significantly changed the results of the elections.
We don't know what would have happened.
It's very difficult to establish counter factual here, but certainly it's very very serious. If judicial authorities in Ecuador decided not to investigate this crime, or to delay the investigation of the crime in order to prejudice a candidacy, it would have been it was a massive judicial wrongdoing and you know, intervention in the in the electoral process, in democracy essentially, And if the US supported this, if the State Department or it's US representatives in Ecuador supported this,
it is extremely serious. And it's appears from the preliminary information that we have that the Prosecutor General, in these chats with a former member of Congress, Roniel Jaga, is saying that she was backed, supported, encouraged by US diplomats to do this.
And yeah, that does that does indeed, that does indeed appear to be what the chats say. And as I've said, the Miami based forensic firm confirms that these chats are authentic. There was for for people who are confused about why that would be needed. Uh, there's this app called Confeede used down in South America, which you can you can pay a little extra to get to get to get it so that as soon as you press the button, the message goes away.
You read it and boom, it's gone.
So people in that said, there's no way he has these because they were communicating via confide. And as he showed me, he always carries two phones, so he would film himself reading the message, and so he has the film of all those messages, and so he sent he sent basically the metadata and the guts of all both of those phones to the Miami based firm to confirm that his story actually does line up that that is
what he did. Will continue to follow the story because, as you said, the US involvement here is extraordinarily you know, profound and crucial and the result has been basically a collapsing of the of the state and society of Ecuador. But gil Me look looking forward to have you on again and we'll continue to follow this.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure all right, up up next, major surveillance reforms in Congress, voting today and tomorrow.
Stick around for that.
All right, Well, it sounds like the same old story over and over again, and that's because basically it is the House of Representatives is in a state of chaos on the press appress of getting rid of the Speaker of the House. Right now, once again little Rinson repeat going on, but this time it's over an inch in an issue that has real bipartisan support against Section seven oh two. This has become a flash point in the House Freedom Caucuses battle with Speaker Mike Johnson, who they
accused rightfully of working with Democrats. Now, from Mike Johnson's perspective, he would say, who am I supposed to work with? I have a one vote margin here in the House of Representatives. My majority is slim one vote, so we kind of have to be at the table with Democrats. But the Freedom Caucus believes rightfully again that he's made a lot of promises about not doing omnibus bill, about not funding the war Ukraine, and then seems to be
moving closer to Democrats on the issue. So Marjorie Taylor Green actually released a letter she sent to Mike Johnson's basically, I think well characterized as an airing of grievances. Ryan, It sure seems like an airing of grievances. In fact, the Hill outright called it an airing of grievances against Mike Johnson. Yes, yes, exactly happy and you can actually she tweeted out the full letter, which I'm sure Mike
Johnson was very happy about. That's D two. It's a it's a long letter, and she goes through seven points essentially and walks through things that Mike Johnson says and seems to be renegging on. She also talked to CNN about her plans just for this week, So there's a real question here if Mike Johnson survives the week. And again section seven zero two hugely important part of all
all of this. But let's listen to Marjorie Taylor Green in this interview with CNN talk about what happened after she released that letter and sent it to Mike Johnson.
So you sent this letter out to your college this morning.
What kind of response have you got?
Mostly support, It's been pretty incredible. Everyone's flying into town today this so.
I haven't spoken with.
Everyone, but most of the members I've talked to agree with what I've said, they may not come out and publicly say it. Many are relieved I've said it, and I've even heard within the ranks of leadership there's agreement there.
So there's agreement for members of the readership with a.
Letter with much of what I said.
The letter. Ryan's laughing over it made me laugh. It's very It reminds me of Trump being like many people are saying that I wrote the greatest letter.
Yeah, like that.
Meting with the guys, like all my friends are just out of the picture here having an amazing time.
They're standing out a frame. You know, we're all having a blast.
We're all going to overthrow the speaker.
So Matt Gad's last night around eight pm on his podcast said, if Speaker Johnson is unwilling to fix Fiza, we are left wondering what he is indeed willing to fix. Now. Marjorie Taylor Green is not a member of the House Freedom of Caucus anymore. She's sort of Freedom Caucus adjacent. They kicked her out. They're having all kinds of internal battles. You can go watch our long interview with Freedom Coccus German Bob Good that we did late last year.
Useful idiot.
Yeah, he called Marjor Taylor Green. He told us that Marjori Tailler Green was a useful idiot. So go ahead and watch that if you need a primer on all the Freedom Caucus dynamics at the moment. But they are all in alignment on this question of seven oh two, which is becoming again. This is one of the things in the push and poll that Mike Johnson has with the Freedom Caucus type Republicans. Marjor Tayler Green has already filed that motion to vacate. That's what got rid of
Kevin McCarthy. It's what Nancy Pelosi herself got rid of after she watched Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan use it to get rid of John Bayner. She said nope. But then Kevin McCarthy made a promise to the Freedom Caucus to bring it back if they elected him speaker. They elected him speaker, then used the motion of Va Kate to get rid of him. Marjorie Taylor Green is now doing the same thing to Mike Johnson, but hasn't actually forced the vote on getting rid of Mike Johnson yet.
She could do that basically at any moment. You know that that's not parliamentarily accurate, accurate, but it could basically happen any day if she has enough support to force that vote on getting rid of Mike Johnson. And if Mike Johnson does not come to the table on FISA reform, that's going to be a huge problem for him. That
could lead to getting rid of the Speaker of the House. Now, Brian and I would love to see section seven h two reformed finally, because this is I mean, people who care about government surveillance going back years, this has been one of these central problems, one of the biggest sources of abuse. Trump tweeted recently true social recently recently that FISA was abused against him.
That is, he tweeted last night, kill PIZA. It was illegally used against me and many others. They spied on my campaign.
DJT.
It's funny to say someone who is like upset saying kill PISA because FISA came out of the Church Committee era to like protect people against government surveillance. But because the civil state is so powerful, FISA as this protective measure is abused.
So people are trying to interpret well what does this mean about the details of this ongoing seven zero two fight, And a lot of people are interpreting it as he's with the Matt Gates side, which I think is a totally fair reading of it.
And so this is a live fight.
So the House Rules Committee produced a rule last night that will be voted on on the floor later today unless he pulls it, which is as he's done before.
Gates has said he's against the rule with a one vote margin.
If Democrats don't join, that means it could the rule could go down. There are basically three key things that they're fighting over in seven oh two. The main one, you could call the back door search loophole, which is seven oh two allows the NSA to basically spy on any foreign person outside of American soil. So they then use that authority to gobble up basically the entire world's communications.
Within the entire world's communications, you obviously have hundreds of millions of Americans communications.
So what the NSA says is, well.
We legally acquired all of this data and all these communications, so now we can search it and we can search it for Americans because we acquired it legally.
Right, We don't need a warrant.
Because we already we already had the legal authority to pick this stuff up. It's like, if you get a warrant to search a home and you find something that's a different crime than the one you're looking for or a different person, you're allowed to use that.
So they're trying to kind of shoehorn it into that, but.
That doesn't even make sense because that would be like you would be like going into a different house.
Yes, actually they didn't have.
A warrant to go into a different house.
None of it. None of it makes sense. And so but the courts have upheld it.
And so what civil liberties advocates have been trying to do for years is to close this back door search loophole. And so that's a that's a key live fight right now. The second one is the data broker loophole, which probably people are probably pretty familiar with, which is that the US is not allowed, you know, to collect American data without a warrant, you can't do it. And so aside from the back door search loophole, what they have is a data broker loophole.
Private companies are allowed to collect all this data.
So they go out then and they buy up the data and then they search it that way. And this this would this amendment would say you can't do that. It's called the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which passed unanimously through the Judiciary Committee with the support
of WHO Representative Mike Johnson at the time. Mike Johnson has now made a change in the rule last night that will make it impossible for there to be a vote on the bill that he the amendment that he claims to support the bill, he claims the support the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act.
And so Mike.
Johnson is currently screwing everybody on closing the data broker loophole. Then the third one is what Mike Johnson's done. He has turned over a lot of the bill to the Intelligence Committee. This is Republican Mike Turner and Democrat Jim Hymes, who were absolutely just in lockstep with the intelligence.
Community and the Biden administration.
Like Mike, they were out a couple you may have seen this couple weeks or a couple of months ago.
They were out there saying they leaked this news.
About how the Russians were using nukes in space and therefore we need to hurry up and give more spying authorities to the government, like it's been bad faith from start to finish. One of the provisions that they are putting into this so called reform and that they're saying is a narrowing would actually allow the US to spy on any American business if it has some connection, some
foreign connection. And so what civil liberties folks pointed out was, so you can just walk into Starbucks then, and without a warrant, you can hit their router because there are Starbucks everywhere around the world. A lot of these kind of landlord firms own properties all over the world, so you could so that basically all these landlords you can search them. And you can imagine why this would be valuable information to the FBI. Did this person go to
this Starbucks? What about this person that lives in this building?
For months?
Mike Turner and Jim Himes said that people were just fear mongering and lying and that the bill wouldn't actually do this. So the new language that came out last night says that all of these authorities on businesses remain in this new bill, but there are carve outs for food service and for landlords, which is an admission that the critics were correct. And what it also means then anything there are like four carveouts that they list in there.
Anything not mentioned there would then be subject to this warrantless spying, like whether it's a bowling alley or something. Hey, they don't serve enough food, you know, and that the pizza that's spinning underneath that land that doesn't count as food.
That's cardboard. So therefore we as.
The FBI NSA, we can go in and we can scoop up all of this data.
Here we laugh, but they will sink to know.
Also, it's not food. It is cardboard. So you have to be like, all right, fair enough, they're serving cardboard. I don't know, but what if you eat the cardboard?
Does that mean food? That's why you got to go That's why you got to go to the courts here.
So basically, what started out as reform could end up with an actual expansion of surveillance authority. And it's all up to Mike and who his whole career twenty eighteen, he voted for the toughest surveillance reform. His whole career, he has been a surveillance.
You know critic. Yeah, he's been with the Freedom Caucus on everything.
Yep.
Now that he's in power, the question is can he stand up to the intelligence community or not?
And I think that goes back to the way Matt Gates put it. He said, if he won't, he's unwilling to fix FISA. We are left wondering what he is indeed willing to fix. And that coming from Matt Gates, someone obviously who Kevin McCarthy just yesterday said I am not Speaker of the House right now because one member didn't was upset about an ethics complaint about whether he had sex with the seventeen year old girl. And McCarthy said, I don't know if he did it, but that's what
this was all about. The point is, Matt Gates, that was a hair trigger because the majority is so small and the motion of a kate just requires one member. It's already been filed in this case. And so where you have that sense of betrayal that Mike Johnson his friends, with many of those Freedom Caucus guys who could be easily persuaded by this argument. Granted, where else do they go? You know who else is going to be Speaker at
that point, and it doesn't serve their purposes. I think a lot of them ultimately aren't happy about how everything has gone post McCarthy. And you know it's easy to get to laugh at that and be like, yeah, no kidding, well, yes, no kidding. So all that is to say, Mike Lee, here's a good tweet from Mike Lee. This is D five. Mike Lee has this point that Ryan just made Speaker
Johnson and Jeffries Minority Leader Jefferies. I came Jeffries voted for a Five's a seven oh two weren't requirement back in twenty eighteen, and then he said, why do the Intel Bros. Trademarket to tell House leadership what to do? This is also D six. This is a tweet from an expert on seven oh two at the Brennan Center, So from the left surveillance, anti surveillance experts from the left laying out exactly what Ryan just said. And I would encourage everyone to go check out this thread. It's
called RISA. That's the version of the bill that has this ridiculous permanent reauthorization basically embedded into it. Such a familiar tactic to a lot of people ryan coming with the label of reform and actually having a backdoor either reauthorization or a permanent codification of these types of these
types of rules. Now, let's roll D four just so people can get a taste of how doggedly the Biden administration House Republicans and Senate members and Senate Democrats that are so tied to Section seven o two because they get these briefings, they go into the you know, they go into the secure briefing center, get this terrifying information from the FBI, and then Russian space nukes. Russian space nukes, They're coming for everyone.
I don't even go to space anymore after hearing that.
Yeah, it's too dangerous. So anyway, let's listen to Jake Selban.
The administration strongly supports the bipartisan bill whose text is now with the Rules Committee, to reauthorize this Essential Intelligence Authority and other files of provisions before they would expire
on April nineteenth. If we lost seven oh two, we would lose vital insight into precisely the threats Americans expect us in government to identify, encounter terrorist threats to the homeland, ventanyl supply chains, bringing deadly drugs into American communities, hostile governments, recruitment of spies in our midst transnational repression by authoritarian regimes, penetrations of our critical infrastructure adversaries, attempts to illicitly acquire
sensitive dual use and military commodities and technology, ransomware attacks against major American companies and nonprofits, Russian war crimes.
And more.
My absolute favorite part of that is when it's actually not bad strategically messaging, when he's saying, we need seven or two to do what the people expect us to do.
Yeah, And Russian war crimes. They can't investigate Russian war crimes without this story. All that's a lie. All that's a complete lie. They have the authority to do overseas searches.
And they can even continue their investigations.
They're doing this fear mongering over the authorities expiring on April nineteenth, But the authorities are like, everyone that's stamped is good for a year, so it's actually good for well into twenty twenty five. So all of it is lying, All of it is fear mongering. What should what do you think? What should people root for? At this point, I'd say voting the rule down later today the House floor and forcing Mike Johnson to at least allow a
vote on the fourth Amendment is not for sale. At least allow vote.
Look. Oh oh, and there's one other thing that they've done here.
They and Mike Turner didn't appear to realize this, and the Rules Committee hearing last night, they put two provisions in that specifically grant new protections for members of Congress when it comes to surveillance that do not apply to anybody else.
So it's it's the.
Can't foil them, can't surveil them.
They get amazing healthcare and a cool pension, and so that one of it would be one of them is like they get noticed, you know, they get noticed, and you need different authorities. Like basically it sets members of Congress apart in a way that they hadn't been before.
It has been used against them, and it comes from Yes.
A member of Congress was spied on like a year ago or two years ago or so. It was a kind of rank and file Republican who had been really supportive of like five authorities.
Right, I forget, I forget who exactly it was.
But as a result of that, they're like Okay, fine, we'll we'll stop surveilling members of Congress without going through these these hoops, rather than what you would hope Congress would demand is actual reform for all American citizens.
Yeah, I mean, it's just so ridiculous, and it's a great example of why so many people are upset with Mike Johnson, but also how the kind of DC blob feels the public. Time and again, it's plainly unconstitutional. If they want it to be constitutional, they should make that case as to why we should amend the Constitution to allow them to do that.
And Marjorie Taylor Green's list of grievances was mostly.
Abortion related, Green New Deal, climate change trands, stuff like.
It was a four page list.
Hopefully people like Gates can channel her into a seven oh two direction.
Oh, they absolutely are, Yeah, I mean they're absolutely yeah. Margor Tayler Green's.
Got if you got this club, you might as well wield it for something useful.
Well.
Yeah, And it comes down to again, if you're not all of those grievances from Marjorie Taylor Green, it was basically about Mike Johnson saying all of these things before he became s talking a really big game about what's wrong with Republican leadership in DC, you know, voting by or ruling by omnibus. That's packed with all of these handouts to the left special interests via nonprofit funding and
grants and all of that. But what a lot of people see, and we just talked about this, but it's worth emphasizing what a lot of people see in that is this is the Mike Johnson like, this is the central This is one that we all agree on. You've agreed with us on this for years seven oh two. This was used as a weapon against Donald Trump politically. It is one of the most glaring and egregious things. And if you're flipping on this, we can't trust you
on anything else. And Matt Gates basically came out and said that last night.
So that's that's.
Totally on the table in these conversations about the motion of vacate, no question about it. So stay tuned. We'll see what happens by the end of the week. I think Johnson, I don't think they have anywhere to go. They learned that after McCarthy, so I don't think they'll they'll vacate Johnson. But that's totally up in the air could happen.
Yeah, call your member of Congress, tell them not to do this.
Get rid of seven oh two.
Yeah, Form seven oh two whatever.
Get rid of.
What they want to do is a stupid rule.
Down, Yes, vote the rule down. All right. Let's talk about Norfolk Southern, which has Yesterday it was announced that Norfolk Southern reached what could be the largest settlement in the history of railroads in the United States over the train derailment in East Palestine. We can go put the first element up on the screen here, six hundred million dollars to residents and businesses in East Palestine, Ohio and some I think it's like within a ten mile radius,
something to that extent. So on Tuesday, the lead attorneys representing the victims of Norfolk Southern announced the Atlanta based company had agreed in principle to a six hundred million dollar class action lawsuit settlement. It does, though still in the to be approved by a US District Court judge
in Youngstown. I'm reading now from the Canton repository. Now, based on our research and settlements are often confidential, but this looks significantly larger than any other derailment settlement that we're aware of in the United States, said Jane Conroy of Simons Tanley Conroy, one of the lead attorneys, in a zoom interview with the Canton Repository yesterday. Although Ryan, I want to put this next element up on the
screen as well. This is actually a tweet reacting to the settlement by Aaron Brockovich, who is quoting one of Julia Roberts's big lines, obviously based on her own life in the movie. Aaron Brockovich quote, before you come back here with another lay mass offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, mister Walker, or what you might expect someone to pay you for your uterism, miss Stanchez. And then Aaron Brockovich added, the
money never makes them whole. That's a I think a really apt way to put it. Looking at the sixth dread million dollars settlement class action lawsuit that is going to be spread across many many people in East Palestine, many many businesses in East Palestine, and the money never could make you whole.
Yeah, And there's still open questions about uh criminal guilt here like there have there there have not been prosecutions yet. There there are important questions that investigators need to be asking about. Uh, you know, in particular, you know, what did the company know when they did the controlled demolition?
Did how was it was that actually necessary? Did what information did they have?
Uh?
Did they did?
They did they willingly, you know, create an environmental catastrophe in order to just get the trains moving a little bit quicker.
Uh.
You know they they have claimed that they really had no choice, but there the evidence does not seem to be lining up in that direction. And you know, this does not admit any any guilt. So you know, hopefully, you know, prosecutors are still looking at this, you know, if you know, if if history.
Is any guide, they're not.
But you know, you've got jd Vance, You've got Shared Brown, You've got you know, politicians from both parties who continue to put pressure on Norfolk Southern Yet the jade Vans and Shared Brown's real safety reform. You know, we haven't seen that, you know, we've we've seen that get bottled up. So you know, they it's good that people are going to get some compensation, but systemically it looks like so far the culprits are getting away with it.
Yeah, that's a really important point that bill, the JD Vance Bill, has gone basically nowhere in Congress because of opposition to people who you take money from the industry, are close with the industry. That's a real uphill battle. Now. As the attorney said, Norfolk Southern actually settled quicker than what was expected and right, and you made this quick yeah yeah, and looks like victims could potentially get money by the end of the year, which is I mean,
that is fast as these things go. But the other important point that you made, Ran is that they're not admitting any guilt, so no liability, no fault admitted in
this settlement. But they're also still facing a lawsuit that was filed by the Ohio Attorney General for environmental damages that resulted after the derailment, and Yost has said Dave Yos the Age has said he wouldn't settle the suit quote without a detailed understanding of what happened, who is responsible, and how we avoid other communities like East Palestine from
being victims to this type of incident. Also worth noting, as The New York Times does, that the National Transportation Safety Board is continuing to investigate the incident, hasn't released its own report into what happened. So there's plenty more in all of this to come for getting to the bottom of actually what happened. Now a little bit more the
details of the settlement. The lawyer said that it would provide payment to residents and businesses in East Palestine and also the affected surrounding communities within a twenty mile radius, pending the court approval that we mentioned earlier. Now East Palatine alone is almost five thousand people and they would
all be eligible for payment from the settlement. Then it also has a voluntary program that would compensate individuals within a ten mile radius for past, present, and future personal injuries that result from chemical exposure at Norfolk. Southern highlighted their contributions to the community, which again like they've already poured more than one hundred million dollars into different infrastructure.
You know they've done community They say they've done two million dollars for community directive projects, four point three million to upgrades drinking water infrastructure, five hundred thousand dollars for an economic development grant, and that huge one hundred and four million for community assistance to communities around East Palestine including Ohio and Pennsylvania twenty five million dollars included in that for regional safety training improvements to their city park,
direct payments to residents twenty one million for that, and then nine million dollars to local first responders. So just the cost of doing business, I guess for Norfolk Southern until Congress acts and steps in.
Here, right, it's the it's the right.
They seven hundred million dollars.
Using the money that they're saving by you know, reducing the number of workers that they pay and keeping their pay low.
Yeah, seven hundred million dollar accidents so far, you can you can put a price tag on it.
Yeah.
Indeed, until Congress does anything, this is basically what you're stuck with. But I thought that Aaron Brockovich quote was poignant. The money never makes anyone hole these some people's homes, it's their community. It's just unbelievable, but believable that Norfolk Southern settled so quickly, given I think what we will
continue to find out about their liability. Let's move on to this extremely buzzy viral story that The Free Press published yesterday from a current, at least as of right now, employee of National Public Radio. Right at least as of the time the op ed was published. Is Ury Berliner, who has worked for NPR for more than twenty five years.
For more than twenty years, I think he said twenty five years, penned an article sort of blowing the whistle on the internal ideological bias at NPR, which again people will laugh at because it seems so obvious. But he does have kind of an interesting quote when he writes about Actually he acknowledges that in this article for the Free Press, we can put the first element up on the screen that's a picture of him, and the headline is I've bet at an NPR for twenty five years.
Here's how we lost America's trust. He does cite in fact polling that shows NPR it was celebrated internally by NPR. This was one of my favorite parts of his article.
But the poll.
Let me just read from him. He says, if ever, our audience insights team sent an email proudly announcing that we had a higher trustworthy score, that's a CNN or the New York Times. But the research from the Harris poll is hardly reassuring. It found that three and ten audience members familiar with NPR said, they associate MPR with the characteristic quote trustworthy. That's what NPR was internally celebrating, because it was higher than the trustworthiness of The New
York at times. But he also does write into that question of like NPR sort of a punchline in conservative circles, like, of course, you know, the NPR tote bag crowd is something that everybody makes a joke about. Of course NPR is liberal, he says. If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh. It's always been this way,
he writes, but it hasn't. Back in twenty eleven, although NPR's audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large, twenty six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, twenty three percent as middle of the road, and thirty seven percent as liberal.
By twenty twenty three, the picture was completely different. Only eleven percent describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative, twenty one percent as middle of the road, and sixty seven percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren't just losing conservatives, we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals. He goes on to complain about coverage of the pandemic of the lab leak of the Hunter
Biden laptop, of Russiagate. He talks about how often NPR would interview Adam Shift but then Shift, but then how quickly Russiagate faded from NPR's coverage after the Muller report
came out with basically no Maya Kalpa. He also has a really interesting section about how NPR's union has pushed for affinity groups, as he calls them to allow or to require NPR management to tackle this is his word DEI issues in the coverage, and that's a particularly interesting one where you bring labor into this question of ideological bents and newsrooms. I don't know what you make of that, Ryan, and I don't know what you make of this whole article. I'm curious.
It is an interesting phenomenon in that.
Know, the traditional role of unions has been to fight for better job protections, wages, benefits, general workplace issues, but to be kind of ideological, ideologically and politically agnostic in newsrooms. The last five six years you have seen a trend where staff unions have argued much more around editorial content, which is kind of which is an interesting development and
an interesting way to think about unions. He also said that he felt like NPR was kind of too too supportive of the Palestinian cause.
Oh you found a tweet, actually an interesting tweet for you.
Yeah, so in a couple Actually, z squirrel flagged a couple of these that Twitter account.
So one from October twenty twenty.
Three, it's about a Barack Revied reported that there was going to be an event in New York called the Antifada fund Raver and so somebody else, somebody.
Else sounds like just such a great time.
So somebody else then posted, uh, one hopes at one hopes a lot of FBI and NYPD types will be in attendance, also press taking pictures and getting names. Opportunities like this are hard to come by. Yuri Berliner retweeted that, so no, which is you know, you can be like, look, I don't think there should be an anti fat A fundraiver,
Like that's that's one thing. To say that there ought to be FBI and NYPD surveillance of people who are outside of it is is in contradiction with Berliner's claim that he's like anti censorship and like, you know, pro free speech, and it's published in a what does she call her news outlet, free press?
They Wise newsletter.
Yeah, I mean, but Barry Wise would have you know eagerly. You know, that's exact same position.
In fact, I mean it speaks.
To a broader problem with like the Bill Ackman sort of contingency on the Center that has been sort of very critical of Harvard, and I think rightfully highlighting a double standard. But some of those same people are in favor of restrictions or will have inflated definitions of anti Semitism that will broadly sweep speech into the category of
hate I think in ways that are objectionable. When, for example, talking about as he does here, pro trans advocacy groups briefed their newsroom and asked them not to use the term biological sex. MPR brought them in as part of this DEI push that is broadly swept into this category of hate speech sometimes and that's wrong, but it's not consistent.
Yeah, I do think newsrooms should not newsrooms, I think should make their own judgments and should not be taking guidance from advocacy groups one way or another. On you know, it's fine to like, obviously you should talk to everybody. That's what reporters do. They go up and talk to people.
But I and I actually think so. One of the things he complains about was that this database that was listing the kind of rais and gender of the guests that were on air, And I actually kind of disagree with him on that one, because if you let you know, if you are just blindly booking guests, and let's say you're a white guy and most of your friends are white guys, like you're going to end up not through any kind of conscious bias, you're just gonna be booking
endless white guys. And that is a disservice from my perspective, to your audience, because you're you're cutting out a lot of interesting perspective by keeping this really tight circle.
And so what even accidentally.
Actually right, Yeah, And so what a database does is after a couple of months, you look at it and you're like, oh, we've had like thirty guests and like twenty eight of them are white guys.
Two of them were white women.
Like, maybe we need to make a more conscious effort to not just call the people that we know.
Yeah, I think that's if that's what's happening, as opposed to like if there are internal quota systems, because the.
Way I'm interpreting the quota system should be come.
On the quota session.
Yet believe h Look, come on.
I think it's yeah. I feel like you can make that internal effort to include genuinely diverse voices, whether that's race, sex, ideology, which I.
Know NPR not doing so great on that.
Yet not doing so great on that all the time. Although, like I said, I was listening to Nancy Master an interesting interview with them on the arizon A Supreme Court thing just yesterday, so I think they still try. But whether they're actually capable of that is a different question. Because this is one of the biggest problems in media right now, is the idea that people who for example,
support Donald Trump. Nancy Mace huge Donald Trump supporter, but she's a little different because she has this different perspective on abortion, and that's what they were interviewing her about. But people who support Donald Trump, for example, I don't know if you were still at HuffPo when they have post when they did the asterisk thing with Donald Trump,
donald Trump as a racist bigot. So if you extend that to Donald Trump supporters, that means they're necessarily supporting racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. Which is not the case for why a lot of people vote for Donald Trump. If you have that sort of categorization and say this isn't ideological, it's like joy Reads saying we want more Republicans on our network. We want more List Cheney, more Adam Kinsinger on our network,
but not Ronald McDaniel. That's probably the biggest problem with like ideological diversity is that it's not even seen as a lack of ideological diversity in some newsrooms because they categorize people who support roughly half of the country who voted in twenty twenty voted for Donald Trump. So if you categorize them as supporters of perpetuators of racism, sexism, migatry in that sort of direct sense, then you're not
going to think it makes sense to interview them. I'm not going to interview you know, strom Thurman on this this You know that would have been a mistake back then. It's a mistake now we can't repeat it.
It does feel like NPR in recent years has taken on a more kind of democratic feel activist. Yeah, it's like they really do feel like a lot of the assumptions that the standard Democrat makes about the world are the assumptions that the NPR is also making about the world. And the Russia Gate situation, I think is a good example of that and the way that they handled Trump as well.
Like I was listening to an interview with Scott.
Walker a couple of months ago, and basically every single question they asked Scott Walker was about January sixth, then like was election stolen?
Yeah?
It's like all right, Like and come on in PR, is there anything else you can Is there anything else you want.
To talk about here?
Like it's twenty twenty four, now move, let's you've got Scott Walker, like ask him some other questions like what labor anything?
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot that could be asked.
And then like why is Then then they'll say why is Donald Trump obsessed with this?
It's like, yes, you're the one that stops.
Talking about one hundred percent? And you know, I was listening to NPR. I just looked this up and was obviously on March twenty first, because that's the date the story was published. But I was listening to a segment on the Murphy versus Missouri case, and they were talking to Barbara McQuade, who's former US attorney for Eastern District Michigan. If you watch MSNBC, you have seen her all of the time, and the conversation it was on point was out rageous on free speech and the press and the
First Amendment. It was like to hear journalist talking about that case with a former prosecutor in the way that they were, which is basically terrifying, but basically saying, like the First Amendment, you know, the government has to police dangerous speech, et cetera. Just like operating on that presumption and acting as though anybody who questioned that was either a victim of right wing disinformation, which has been a charge that Matt Taibi has been hit with and Glenn
Greenwald has been hit with. I mean, it's just so disturbing to see that baked into the presumption again from like a news outlet that's not supposed to be super far to the left. It's funded by taxpayers to some extent, like it's National Public Radio. It's just unfortunate. And part of the reason I want to do this segment is that I feel like a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for NPR, like they grew up listening
to NPR, even across socioeconomic divides. It's just in the past it was kind of a consensus outlet, like a lot of people listen to it. They might have disagreed with it. Conservatives definitely disagreed with it, but it's convenience listen to.
And there's each Each local station is so important because you know, I think a city is really enriched by having a local public radio station that then feeds up to the national one. And I think we are enriched as a nation as as like a single people to have, you know, one place that everybody kind of trusts.
Yeah, as you're sitting in traffic frustrated.
Yes, I completely agree with that. Before we wrap the show today, RN, I just want to say that seven hundred million dollars from Norfolk Southern I just quickly looked it up. They had almost two billion in stock buybacks in twenty three, so seven hundred million dollars basically six hundred million in the settlement more than one hundred million so far in voluntary payments to East Palestine for infrastructure
cleanup and all of that. So a company that has a round two billion dollars in stock buybacks in a year, it's a seven hundred million dollar fine. Essentially, it's the cost.
Of doing business.
Well, that does it for us. On today's editional counterpoints.
Ed move bark to all who celebrate.
I'm going to a feast later, but I feel like I didn't earn it because I did zero fasting.
You really, I mean, you did not earn it at all.
I'm going to go. It's not just a feeling.
You really didn't earn it.
But I'm gonna go anyway. There's just food on the table. I'm gonna be there.
There you go, There you go. Well, we'll be back next week with more counterpoints. Make sure that you subscribe to the premium version at breaking points dot com because we do have some really cool stuff coming down the pipeline. Actually, I don't want to give anybody a date yet, but sooner than you might even think, you're just within the next several weeks, So stay tuned everyone, We've got some fun stuff coming up.
See that, see you that