Cold Zone Media.
This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today, joined by Mia Wong and James Stout. This episode, we are covering the week of March twenty fifth to April.
First, and so we're all gonna do silly things that aren't really news. No, we're not going to do it when I love it when outlets do that.
This comes out Friday, This comes out Friday, it's over. It's done.
Normal Fish of April Day for all this French people out there now.
With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, I know everyone's gonna get tired of election news, but there is some very important voting that needs to happen in these next few weeks, because it could happen here. Another show called Behind the Bastards and James's excellent series Migrating to America have been nominated for Webby Awards. You know the Emmys. Yeah, they're like those, except they're.
For the Internet.
But they're just as serious, more serious. Some people are saying the Internet's obviously is more real than television.
No one watches TV anymore.
Yeah, it's like the Emmy's people who want boom is people are saying.
So this is. This is obviously very exciting and voting lasts until April sixteenth, m There will be links in the show notes to vote for the three nominations that we have here at Coolson Media. Migrain to America is nominated for the Limited Series and Specials Podcast Documentary category. Find the Bastards is the podcast features for experimental and Innovation and it Could Happen Here is also nominated under
the limited Series category under News and Politics. It's kind of confusing to navigate the website because there's just so many categories, but those three links will be there below, and we will continue to be talking about what is arguably the most important election of our lifetimes in these next few weeks.
Yeah, Pokemon, go to those links and vote for us.
Even if you see that you know we might be ahead, stay in line, you cannot leave. We will not let trump Land by ms now come on steal our spot as number one. So stop the steal, do not let trump Land win. Vote it could happen here April sixteenth up until the sixteenth.
Mm hmm. Very often vote early, foot off, vote with your spary man address.
Look, vote vote very early, vote often. The great slogan of my of my home state of Illinois.
Everyone take this liberal direct action very seriously. Let's start with some actual news. Getting serious here. Christy Nomes, husband was outed as what I'm going to call a sissy cross dresser with an interest in quote unquote bimboth occasion. Gnome as governor, signed a joint state letter attacking trans writes there's so much gendered angst among these conservatives projection, etca, et cetera. Representatives for Nome released a statement after this
news dropped. Quote Missnome, which is interesting. Quote Missnome is devastated. The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at this time.
Yeah cool.
I think I think we need to we need to expand the right to arm bears to the right to arm dogs. This is my final statement on this matter.
Yeah, it's not a great month for the Nomes. After she joined this Shield of America's task force, which so far has existed for less than a month and already bombed the wrong country once.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
In other important news, four hundred and thirteen thousand, seven hundred and ninety three KitKat bars were stolen in transit from Italy to Poland.
Okay, when you get that statistic, is that four hundred and thirteen, seven hundred and ninety three four finger bars or is that one hundred thousand and you're counting each finger separately.
No, it's each packaged bar, including some of the new limited edition Formula one and Chunky bars.
Oh, that's been a thing in the UK for like twenty years, Kitkatch.
This is a new version. This is a new version, according to a press release from KitKat. Okay, So if you want to argue with KitKat.
I think what you're seeing is is called cool Britannia. It's a phenomenon by which British culture is slowly taken over the world.
This is twelve tons of KitKat bars that were stolen. Their whereabouts are currently unknown. An on duty Secret Service agent assigned to Joe Biden shot himself while at the Philadelphia airport last week. Look, the lines are bad, but come on, it's not that that this was a negligick discharge. While the agent was traveling through the airport in an unmarked car. Jill Biden was not in the imedate area
at the time of the shooting. Last weekend, Trump signed an executive order to start paying TSA agents as the Senate and House failed to agree on a DHS funding bill. Congress has adjourned for two weeks as the shutdown continues to set new records for the longest in any federal agency's history. Quick update here, literally as we were recording, House Republicans caved and agreed to the Senate bill to fund DHS except for ICE and CBP, which Republicans will
be trying to fund later in a reconciliation bill. But as of Wednesday afternoon, it looks like Congress has finally reached a funding package for the rest of DHS. Politico has reported that acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has been hospitalized at least twice for stress related issues. Oh my god, while working to implement Trump's immigration policy.
I think it's specifically like because they're shouting him for not hitting the targets.
Right, because Stephen Miller has been calling lions, yelling at him, quote unquote, yelling about not hitting certain immigration targets yes, and Trump has yet to endorse still still yet to endorse anyone in the Texas run off between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton. Early reports indicated Trump would back corn In the incumbent, but recently Paxton has been seen meeting with Trump at Mora Lago and what have been reported as quote unquote positive meetings.
A Russian oil tanker has dogged in Cuba after the United States allowed it to break the blockade on the island. As we reported last week, it's been a massive shortage of oil in Cuba. This will alleviate that slightly.
Yeah.
A US marine, probably former US Marine now if not very shortly to be former US marine, has been charged with federal offensive after allegedly selling millions of rounds of ammunition, including one which isn't normally available for civilian purchase, and javelins in Arizona. Javelin yeah, yeah, Just for those those who are not familiar javelin, I'm not talking about like a spear here, I'm talking about a guided anti tank missile.
Oh shit.
Yeah, who was he trying to sell it to?
So he selled them to two people who acted as brokers are two unindicted co conspirators, and then they seld them to other people and an undercover agent was able to purchase some of the ammunition. Guy's name is Andrew paul A Marius. He was indicted by grand jury this week. He was an ammunition tech at Pendleton. But he brought them to Arizona to sell. And at this time, about two million rounds are not recovered. Great, it's not clear
if there are still javelins in circulation. Basically, they don't know where the javelins are. They lost, they recovered a javelin, they don't know if they would cover all the.
Java so put potentially there are just anti tank rockets out there.
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, they're with the Kitkats. That's it's a joint operation.
Maybe that's how they stop that large Kitcat truck they hit hit the vehicle with javel in. The Yeah, it's one of those growth operations. You know, you get one javelin, you strike a KitKat vehicle, you sell the Kitcats. Now you got two javelins. You hit the mars bar vehicle. Right, this is capitalism in action.
Hmm.
And then let's let's return to Arizona where normal things happen. Also in Arizona, a grand jury has indicted a man for material support for a foreign terrorist organization after he allegedly sold weapons that he intended to provide to the cjn D and CDs and cartels and cart A lot So, two of the larger Mexican cartels. Right, these are two groups that were listed as fdos by the Trump administration very early on last year. Lawrence Gray, sixty five was
a federal firearms licensee. He owned a shop called Grips by Larry. He sold fancy grips for nineteen elevens. He was already facing a raft of weapons charges after selling a fifty caliber barrett A semi auto belfed and of course a thirty eight Super nineteen eleven pistol to a
confidential informant. The thirty eight Super nineteen eleven pistol. Well, the reason I say, of course, is because any time people get busted for illegal weapons sales in the Southwest, there always seems to be a thirty eight Super nineteen eleven involved. That they're very much like a status gun in organized crime in Mexico because certain calibers are less available there. Thirty eight Super is pretty most like uniquely
associated with that market. Like it always seemed to that pops up in busts and he was selling fancy grips, some of which had symbology, which sometimes is used by organized crime groups in Mexico. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen a material support for terrorism charge for one of these cartels who were recently designated as ftos,
so that was interesting to me. Finally, Israel has passed a law allowing the death penalty for murder that it uses a phrase quote with the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel. It appears to be a binary system of punishment.
Right.
It seems that the death penalty is only going to pertain to Palestinian people here. Yeah, it's worth noting that the Palatinians is the West Bank tried in military courts and they face a very high conviction rate. Often people will admit, I think we can safety say that they admit under duress in conditions it would not generally be considered applicable with justice.
Right.
This is I mean, this is an apart our legal system on top of everything else. Right, Israel previously haven't had the death penalty. Other than for certain war crimes, which is and of itself quite amusing given the stuff we will talk about later in this very episode.
One of the really bleak things about this is, oh, God, Ben Vier, who's been who's the Minister of National Security, the unbelievably unhinged right winger who's been campaigning for this law, has been going around with a bunch of his parliamentary factions wearing yellow noose pins.
Yeah, this is their thing.
And in support of this. So it's really truly cannot be clearer what this is about.
Yeah, No, that's there, like their version of the market, I guess, like the branding of their movement is is this news pin?
Yeah, well it's it's.
It's it's it's it's specifically, it's the thing that they've replaced the like the ribbon they were wearing for the hostages has now just been replaced.
With the noose with the news. Yeah, where you discus Jesus Christ.
There is one more little thing I'd like to mention. There was a Daily Mail article that went viral, Oh the best news coming from the Daily Mail that carried the headline quote bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did not match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson. God. So this article is reporting on emotion filed by the defense, characterizing findings that are still yet to be fully resolved from the ATF. This does not mean that a different
gun was used. What it means is that the ATF was maybe unable to positively match the bullet fragments to the gun, which does not mean that this was a negative match. This did not come from that gun, but that the fragments could not be positively linked to the gun against his emotion filed by the defense doing what they need to do, which is legally defend this man, like that is that is their job? Yeah, and that
is what they are doing. The characterization of this motion by the Daily Mail is designed to drive a clickbait and it's being used to encourage this sort of conspiracy around the charliekirk shooting, that there was this like other currently unknown shooter, possibly foreign ties. That it's a very very popular thing right now on the internet.
The grassy meal theory of Charlie kirkshit.
Yes, that basically like a Masad agent where was hiding somewhere? And yeah, and Tyler Robinson is a Patsy Tyler Robinson obviously innocent until proven guilty. This is going to get settled in court. But the characterization of the early findings by the ATF through the Daily Mail was a bit misleading.
Yeah, they daily fail.
And also I think it's worth mentioning that like this kind of bullet matching stuff is just as a forensic science, and this is true of a lot of the sort of forensic sciences that are used in used in courts. Like I think Robert has talked on Behind the Bastard's about like a bunch of like the fire pattern stuff. This is kind of in the same category as that, in that it's not very good even.
To begin with.
And so what we have here is a bad mischaracterization of a report of like an incomplete analysis from a not very good piece of forensic technology that's being used to do conspiracy because it makes money.
Yeah, we will certainly follow this case as it actually riches trial, as there will be.
Many interesting things that come out to the course of that trial.
All right, So let's begin by talking about immigration with this. Brad Land more or less broke this right on his social media accounts. The United States Department of Justice, via the United States Attorneys Obviously in New York, has admitted that it was misguided by ICE attorneys in asserting that they could detain migrants in immigration court. There was a memo right, an ICE guidance memo that they relied on. The memo they now say should have applied to other courts,
but not to the Executive Office of Immigration Review. The declaration came in a New York court suit filed by the ACLU on behalf of advocacy groups which had challenged at courthouse arrests. That's been happening for about a year now, as I'm sure most people are aware. In the filing, the USDJ said quote this error, however, was not caused by a lack of diligence and care by the undersigned attorneys. The undersigned was specifically informed by ICE at the twenty
twenty five ICE guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests. In addition, we discussed and obtained the approval of assigned ICE Council before filing every brief in this case and making any oral representations to the court and the plaintiffs. We also transmitted copies of the Court's orders transcript to the September second, twenty twenty five oral argument and plaintiff's filings to ICE
Council throughout its litigation. Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error. So what you've got there is a US attorney basically saying, like, not my fault, ICE attorney's fault. Relatively unusual statement.
Right.
Obviously, we've seen them attempts to kind of split the executive branch before in these legal filings. Right, we saw we saw this happen in some of those cases in Minnesota, and then the judge rejected that.
Right.
The ACLU, in a letter of response, noted the wide reaching consequences here, and it's asked for fourteen days to consider what to do next and file in motion the memo in question. Right, This ICE guidance memo said the quote civil immigration enforcement actions in or near court houses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted aliens alien brackets s IS or will be
present in a specific location. It said those were permissible. Right. DHS, however, has said that there will not be a change in their policy going forward. It's unlikely that they will stop until they are told by a court to do so. Right, So what it seems here is that the ICE attorney has for some reason reconsidered, perhaps because of this ongoing case in New York, what they had said there, and now attempted to walk back something that they have been
doing for a year. This will not change the fact that people who have probably been arrested in those courthouses. I have no doubt many of them have already been deported from the United States. Right, many more of them will have suffered material damage if they have not been deported, because they will have been detained in horrific conditions. Right, We've seen more photos today from inside immigration and attention. Immigration detention has always been horrific. It continues to be horrific.
We can't make those people whole again in a meaningful way. But what it means going forward we will keep reporting. Another deportation story. I want to talk about a deportation flight on Monday landed in Mianma. The flight also stopped in Thailand, and it is the fifth such deportation flight that I'm aware of. I know of two that were announced. These have not been previously reported, but in March of twenty twenty five. At the time was a state administration council.
The Mianmar military dictatorship is going through the process of changing its clothes and pretending to be a civilian government right now, that doesn't matter for this story. In the second of March twenty twenty five, the illegitimate government of Myanmar announced that it had received two individual deporties, one on each flight. In April and May of that year, they received more, so we now believe that twenty two
people had been deported up to this Monday. More people, it appears from this flight, have been deported on Monday. The last deportation flight resulted in the deporties being detained and tortured by miaan Mar's brutal military intelligence. The flight was a bordered jet owned by Journey Aviation and it
returned via Sydney to the United States of America. The United States has been trying to counsel the temporary protected status for Burmese people for some time, but even with a TPS, it's worth noting that people, some people have been convicted of crimes and for other exceptions, can still be deported the hunter said in a press release last year, quote, the MEANMAGU meant is cooperating with the relevant US federal entities in verifying and accepting deportees to Mianma. This and
some other things a Trump administration have done. They've tried to characterize it a de facto recognition of their right to rule the country. Yeah, very clearly, the reason that they're talking about these deportations is because they're flexing that. Hey, the US government is talking to us downstream effects. I think the world is nargely not taking that seriously. But nonetheless they are using that, whether it's for external internal signaling.
The last time has happened according to me Ama now the deporties were taken straight to the on Tarpi Interrogation Center, and last time it was mostly ethnically Koren or Chin people. So these are not people. It's a majority ethnicity, right, The majority ethnicity, the ethnicity that comprises most of the armed forces is or certainly most of the high ranks
of the armed forces are Bama people. If people want to listen to more about me and Ma, Robert and I have made two very extensive series about that, we will link to talking of torture. Here are some advertisements which are like torture for your ears.
Some people actually like torture.
Just to clarify Garrison, I don't think this is the kind that people like.
Some people might like those ads. There is a huge industry of watching vintage advertising on YouTube, just like like edits together of like old ads. People love that stuff. Weird, weird nostalgic capitalism. Brain.
It is funny to look at the old ads. When I was doing my archival research, I'd find like nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties ads and you're like, oh, what you're selling is drugs, but so true.
So true.
Yeah, it's like the two kinds of early nineteen hundreds ads are drugs and you should buy this because it has a swastika on it.
So yeah, it's just like some form of racism in marketing.
Well, what's theayed racist in like nineteen oh five? I mean kind of yeah.
And guys, it's a British simple originally, guys, it's fine.
Let's return to our name's sake and discuss two executive orders. As the voting restriction bill dubbed the Save America Act, continues to stall in Congress. Trump's attempted to take matters into his own hands by signing a new executive order quote ensuring Citizenship of Verification and Integrity in federal elections.
This order directs DHS, USCIS and the Social Security Administration to create a quote state citizenship list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of eighteen at the time of an upcoming federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject state unquote. And this citizenship list will then be used to compare
to state voter rules. The list will be derived from quote Federal citizenship and Naturalization records, Social Security Administration records, the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements data, and other relevant federal databases.
Unquote.
James, do you want to talk about this idea of having like a list of citizens, because this is I think something we've we've mentioned before. How there to this point hasn't really been like a single list of US citizens.
Yeah, because you can obtain United States citizenships through a number of means, right, Yeah, So these would exist in different agencies, and generally there has been like a hostility, a well founded like hostility to to this kind of overarching government like in out list, right, not least because they will screw it up monumentally.
That could have devastating consequences in a fact, not just your ability to vote, but as we have seen through the as to your vice enforcement, your ability to remain in the United States.
Yeah, yeah, and just every part of everyday life, right, Yeah, not at least to add that, like one of the one of the ways you can obtain United States citizenship is through being in a world tribal citizen. I don't know if that consulting tribal citizenship, world don't.
There was nothing about that in the in the order.
I legitimately do not think the people who are pushing this understand that that's a thing.
Yeah, they don't think about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not a group of people who they care about.
Right. Earlier today, during the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship, which which Trump attended for ninety minutes and then and then left because he wasn't happy with the way I was going, Gorsich asked the Seasons Solicitor General if he thinks Native Americans are birthright citizens under their test, to which these listener General replied, ah, I think so, and then said I'll have to think that through. Oh my fucking god. He later indicated that they probably would.
But this just shows that they aren't really like thinking about all these sorts of things. It's not necessarily like, in that case, trying to be intentionally harmful. It shows just that they're not even like thinking about these sorts of things that could have really really devastating effects if implemented. Yeah, yeah, which is like an odd part of the Trump administration has like not everything bad they're doing is necessarily has every single specific implementation.
Pathway in mind.
Yeah, but when implemented is like still is still devastating to people's lives.
I want to say one thing about the birthright citizenship thing. Josh Chafitz, who's a professor of law at Georgetown Law Law in Politics, had a very good point about this, which I think is worth making, which is like, part of what's going on here is that the trumpministration is trying to carve out like a specific thing called birthright citizenship. That's like a thing that you get if you have two immigrant parents. But birthright citizenship is a citizenship that
every single person in the US has. Yeah, it's everyone's there's no there's no distinction. There's not like a different kind of citizenship you get if you have two immigrant parents versus if you have like parents that were like born in the US. Right, Like it's all one thing. Every single person in the United States has the same kind of citizenship. But the moment you start trying to like hack apart different people citizenship right, you try to you try.
To like you know, like like make there be like.
Classes of of how you're a citizen through like this whole birthright citizenship complaint that they're doing right, and to be like, oh, well, just these people who were like born to immigrants are birthright citizens right. That's one of the ways you start getting into these like fucking hideous issues of like okay, are people with tribal membership like you know, residencies like citizens right. It's like all of the stuff is like downstream with this effect to like cut citizenship apart.
That needs to just be.
Resisted, like from the fundamental thing of there is not a different category of people called look like birthright citizens that's every single person in the US.
Yeah, unless they naturalized, right, unless you're a naturalized citizen.
Yeah, and what's' naturalized? Yeah yeah, And even then you're still just a citizen.
Then you become a citizen, you just go into the citizen bucket as well.
Then you are now citizens.
Yeah yeah, And the moment you cut that apart, like it's terrible, terrible things happen.
Yeah, twenty twenty four and made the episode as Robert and Sophie in which we discuss potential at tax on citizenship and potential ways of Trump, and we get into the birth right citizenship and the we get into where it comes from and the fact that this is not an issue about which there has been legal debate. You will now see articles being like the debate about birth
right citizenship. That is, people pulling things out of their ass to create two sides on an issue which has been settled for quite literally decades, if not centuries.
No, yeah, I will probably.
Trying to do something else on birth right citizenship. The reason I haven't done a lot is because there isn't a great deal to say. Yeah, like, birth right citizenship is a thing in the United States that has been a thing in the United States for a very long time.
It's just in the constitution just says that since that, Yeah, there are some people who want to take it away, and it's specifically like we did that after we ended chattel slavery, right like for a very good reason. Yeah, and pushing back on the things we did after we ended chattel slavery is bad actually, But yeah, I will maybe I'll do another episode because I know we've picked up a lot of new listeners since then.
Now, Trump's new executive Order on citizenship verification for elections also states, quote, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish procedures to allow individuals to access their individual records, as well as to update or correct them in advance of elections. Unquote unclear how this is going to work, if it even is going to work. It's still not clear that this executive order will actually be implemented as written because
of potential constitutional violations. But you know, this would be in an attempt to address some of the some of the pretty big issues that we're saying about someone maybe a citizen and not show up as a citizen in these databases for a number of reasons, whether it's because they were naturalized or even in some cases where granted citizenship through one of their parents after being in the sole legal custody of that parent, who is a US
citizen before this individual is eighteen. This is called the Childhood Citizenship Act of two thousand, which makes a permanent resident become a citizen if they're living with a US citizen parent and things like that. Citizenship kind of rolls over from permanent residency without ever actually having to become naturalized, and getting that added to any kind of database doesn't really happen by itself. You have to then apply for
proof of citizenship like a passport or a certificate. So there's all these sorts of weird instances where someone is a citizen but it may not show up in these sorts of records, including social security records.
Yeah, I should just clarify that, like, not all tribal members are necessarily US citizens, but tribal membership document sometimes be used, like Garrison was saying, right, as a way to prove United States citizenship. It's just more than one hundred years now since the Indian Citizenship Act of nineteen twenty four, Right, there may still be people alive today who were made citizens by that act but would not have any particular documentation that's personal to them to show that.
The executive order also writes that the Attorney General will investigate and prosecute state officials, local officials, individuals, and public or private entities who issue federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote, or aid an a bet the printing, production, shipment, or distribution of ballots to those ineligible to vote.
That's what we call a chilling effect.
The second half of the order takes on vote by mail by instructing the Postmaster General to initiate a proposed rule making that requires states to submit lists of voters who will be provided mail in or absen zee ballots at least sixty days before an election, and that the USPS shall not transmit any ballots for anyone not on
this state citizenship list. Now, all of this is intended to take effect before the midterm elections, with the DHS instructed to establish the infrastructure necessary to compile, maintain, and transmit the state citizenship list within ninety days. Though this executive order may very well be blocked by courts for being an unconstitutional breach of presidential power, the followut of this will be determined in the next few weeks as
states and legal entities prepare lawsuits. Let's talk about one other executive order. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that a key section of the executive order quote ending taxpayer subsitization of biased media, is unconstitutional. In this order, Trump instructed all federal agencies to cut funding to PBS and NPR.
The judge in this case wrote that the President can criticize reporting from such outlets and fund programs that promote specific perspectives and impose limits on funchal grants, but under the First Amendment, the government cannot use the power of the purse to quote, punish or suppress disfavored expression by others, writing that both the Supreme Court and the DC Circuit Court have repeatedly observed that one quote may not deny a benefit to a person on the basis that infringes
his constitutionally protected freedom of speech, even if he has no entitlement to that benefit unquote. The judge rights that the Executive order quote does not define or regulate the content of government speech or ensure compliance with the federal program, nor does it set neutral and germane criteria that apply to all applicants for a federal grant.
Program.
Instead, it singles out to two speakers and on the basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs. It does so, moreover, without regard to whether the federal funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems which serve as the technological backbone of public radio and television, to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones, to support the Emergency broadcast system, or to produce distribute music,
children's or other educational programming or documentaries unquote. Now, besides setting a good legal precedent, this ruling won't have much in terms of immediate effects because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was dissolved last month after being defunded by the Republican controlled Congress. That's not being reversed, but this ruling could make it less difficult for PBS and NPR to receive money in the future, either from Congress or some federal agencies.
What's that sound, Oh? No, someone desecrating the legacy of the clash by singing there were a song with different lyrics.
Jazzy jasp.
Seriously, though, I'm still angry to be fair to buy entrance music. The class desecrated themselves by making that song.
Yeah, with the moment they released that song. Yeah, Joe Strummer cried when they played that a song during Desert Storm, and if he was alive today he would be crying again.
Yeah.
So, okay, we actually do have tariff news. Was the first tariff news in a while. But when we last spoke about the Supreme Court nullifying the Liberation Day terroiffs and a significant chunk of the tariffs that Trump had been putting into effect, we said that there wasn't a plan really to get tariffree funds out and that it really hadn't been addressed other than by dissenting Supreme Court members. We are sort of starting to see what that looks
like after a series of rulings from trade courts. Right now, it is a fiasco. So the government has set up a portal through which you can get relief now after it after it was sort of forced to by the court. The implementation of this has been delayed several times because the government didn't have time to actually get it out. A bunch of the portal is not built yet. The government is claiming that it is going to take more time to build a whole bunch of it.
Yeah, I bet.
Now this is a catastrophe because they're they're dealing with about one hundred and a bit over one hundred and sixty six billion dollars of tariff money.
But they have to pay back plus interest.
It's interest, that's funny.
Yeah, plus interest. This is the whole thing. Right, they have to do interest on all of this, which is a nightmare.
It's the interest of crewing while they bungle setting up this quest based site or whatever.
Yeah, it's still going every second. The interesting thing is ticking on this.
So I'm going to quote here from Bloomberg Brandon Lord, executive director of the Trade Program's Directory of the Customers Agency, who are the people who are sort of running all this is also part of why it's such a disaster because there's like seventeen different agencies that are like working on this, right, So some of it's like the Trade Program rector like at the Customs Agency, but there's also just there's different parts of the Customs and Customs and
Border Patrol that's dealing with all of this stuff. Quote wrote that more than twenty six thousand importers who paid one hundred and twenty billion dollars. In the challenge, terrorists were registered to receive electronic refunds. So far, the government has said that payments could take up to forty five days to review. I would bet that it takes longer than that, because again, the portal hasn't.
Been written, hasn't been like made yet. But partnerspate are still being built.
I'm sure those doge guys are on.
I'm sure the.
Everest thing up running in no time. I'm sure they vibe code their way to a perfectly functioning portal.
It's gonna be so good. And again I kind of ouside how much fatastrophe this is. The government has said in court that they're portals set up for two thirds of the Bundy, right, there's still another third that they're like, yeah, I don't know, we're working on it. Who knows when it's gonna happen. So there's just again like a third of hundred sixty six billion dollars that they don't even.
Plan to refund. Amazing.
Now, now this is not even the messiest part of this, right.
There's a very good piece in the conversation from Peter R. Krabb, who's the professor of Finance and Economics at Northwestern Nazarene and University, and also Alis and Graham Larson, who's assistant professor of criminal Justice at the same university, and they point out that it's not actually as simple as okay, you have a you have a item on your balance sheet that is the tariff payments for these companies because for example, you know, okay, so if you were doing
like FedEx, for example, they use right, FedEx has like a number right because they just they passed the cost directly on to the consumers. However, Costco didn't do that. Costco shifted the cost around internally. So it's actually very complicated for them to figure out how much money they like the paid on these terrafts because it was read
a bunch of around a whole bunch of stuff. They also like changed the way that they were structuring deliveries and stuff internally, and there were so there are a whole bunch of different lawsuits from these companies to try to get their tariff money back because a lot of these were going on before the actual formal refund process was started. So this is like this is another rolling catastrophe.
There's also consumer lawsuits of consumers people who bought shit who want refunds for the teriffs because they were forced
to pay the costs of it. Now, because this is the United States of America, there's another layer of this, which is there are a whole bunch of companies where there are there are these investment firms who have come in and said, hey, we will buy the rights to your tariff money for a fraction of the money, and we will guarantee that you get this money now, and then we will pay ourselves with the tariff money that we got back.
So now you have investment firms who are buying up pools of this tariff money.
And I bet, from spending a bunch of time last week in the trenches of the two thousand and eight financial collapse, Mollie, I bet they're gonna start selling security.
He's fixed off of these pools of tariff money.
So this, oh my head ache.
This is great. What's what I gotta say on the tariffy on? Oh, it's so good.
Well, I'm just excited to receive my refund from all of the Jay fashion I ordered from Japan, which I'm sure I'll be personally receiving thanks to this.
Hey, you know, Here's here's the thing. Here's the thing.
The one truly beautiful part of the US legal system is that you can sue someone for twenty dollars of damages. That number has never been changed. It is the one truly beautiful part of the United States of America is that you, Garrison David almost certainly could sue the government for that money.
That's funny. Yeah, I'm not doing that shit.
Go too which work.
No, the GoFundMe link for Garrison's constitutional lawyer.
If if someone takes a forty dollars bill from you, you can go fucking sue them in car.
That's funny, It's beautiful.
Just tag Garrison at I write okayybsky dot app yeah, and then just say hi, I am a constitutional lawyer. I would like to represent you in court. Read the twenty dollars thank you?
Yes.
Oh and by the way, by the way, the one last thing I want to notice, on a somewhat serious note, is that this entire catastrophe is just for one specific set of authority that Trump was using to put terriffs into place. There are a whole bunch of other ones that he's been doing now that will also get challenged that will have their own refund processes where we will go through this.
Entire mess again with different things.
So it's great, great things happening for international trade as we yeah, increase the price of fucking oil to like two hundred dollars a barrel, and I don't know, finally get our Calvin and Hobbes eight dollars gasoline.
It's great. Long live the cycler. Yeah.
The national price of gasoleene is now at four bucks, I think.
And that's why they call him the affordability President.
Uh huh, yes, and wee checks on the egg prices though, because that's how we do things now.
Expensive a shit, expensive shit, James, Yeah, not cheap.
Let me divert new listeners to are a famous Chickens episode circa twenty twenty three and which they can learn more about keeping poultry at home. Talking of catastrophes, I would like to continue to talk about the war on Iran. The President truthed this week that he was prepared to attack desalination and power plants in Iran if the state
did not comply with his demands. Jesus in his truth, he said, I will skip remarking on capitalization as his house style, because as well as these were Carfan Hour, the United States of America is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military
operations in Iran. Great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal that's not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormu Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude a lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Khag Island. Probably all this is sick desalinization plants, which we have
purposely not yet touched. This will be a retribution for our many soldiers and for others that Iran has butchered and killed over the old regime's forty seven year reign of terror. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump, as a reporter NBC pointed out targeting civilian infrastructure, it is a war crime.
Their international law, Striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited. Why is the President threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the US military. How do you square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US does not target civilian Look.
The President has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal or else. The United States Armed Forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination, and the President is not afraid to use them. That's not what I said, Garrett. And you're saying the word potential for a reason because I'm sure sure some experts are telling you that in
your ear to try to ask me that question. Of course, this administration in the United States Armedforces will always act within the confines of the law. But with respect to achieving the full objectives of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump is going to move forward unabated, and he expects the Iranian regime to make a deal with the administration.
It should be noted that Iran has said that it is not negotiating directly with the United States, then negotiating to a third party. What is largely missing from this discussion is that Israel has been doing this stuff already. Obviously, Israel has not limited its war crimes to its bombing of Iran. Right it has been on a war crimes freeze for several years, and that is an extension of a war crime speed that he has been arguably on
for several decades. Yeah, Israel attacked to desalinate some plant on the seventh of March. Very briefly, the Israeli press attempted to report that the UAE had done this. The UAE had to issue a statement essentially saying like, we would never attack the people of Iran, while we disagree with the state of Iran, while that you've been like outwhoked by the UAE, but them saying like it's no way to attack the Iranian regime to force Iranian people
to die for lack of water. It is a perfectly reasonable and just statement.
Right.
Officially, both the IDF and the US government have denied this strike, but the combination of like several factors, including this incredibly rapid disinformation campaign, strongly point to this being an IDF joint Yeah.
Also who else, Like what what are you too? Bobbed it? Like you what are you going to do?
Lately? Yeah, there have been there have been attempt to several attempts over the last month to to to suggest that like other Golf states, have done things when when they're politically inconvenient. This, as far as I'm concerned, very very likely to be an IDF situation. This point is something that we've talked about for more than a month now, but I just want to make it really clear that the US and Israel very clearly have very different goals
in it run. I think that sometimes we see this this very puerile analysis has taken hold on the left in the United States right, which suggests that Israel is entirely driving the bus here, that they cajoled the United States into doing this war and they're telling the United States what to do, when and where and how. I think that's a very juvenile way of understanding this. Hawks in the United States have wanted war with Iran for decades.
Trump talked about it in his first term. Trump also still clearly harbors resentment for Obama quote unquote getting bin Laden and wants a sort of similar commander in chief win. His confidence was significantly bolstered after the Venezuela operation, and he thought he could affect a regime change here quickly and then extract tribute from a client's day, as he appears to be doing from Delsea and Venezuela now right,
this has not worked so far in Iran. Israel, on the other hand, has continued with his own campaign, which is an extension of what we have seen it doing in Gaza, what we are seeing it doing in Lebanon, which seems to be to cripple any state in the region, any population in the region that opposes it. Right, but it genuinely seems that its goal here is to leave itself sort of the only functioning quality in the region and to destroy any other armed actor with very little
concern for the loss of innocent life. The United States in the last week has lost signific aviation resources after Iranian ballistic missiles struck and air based into Saudi Arabia. They damaged at least one E three A wax aircraft and then a handful of KT one thirty five air to wear refueling aircraft. This is not in a significant loss. This is half a billion dollars of aviation wiped out in a single strike. And these are not aeroplanes that the United States has a large number of.
Right.
Iran also hit a cuated tanker this week. A drone seem to have hit it off the coast of Dubai. It caught fire, there was potential for an oil spill, but what I'm seeing at the time where according this is has not been once so far, Yeah exactly. I mean every war is an ecological disaster, but this one could re a particularly remarkable one. And then I just do briefly want to mention the economic impacts of course, like it will be very hard to be living on
this planet right now and not noticee economic impacts. But the Republic of the Marshall Islands has declared the state of emergency and begun fuel rationing that the strictly limiting the use of government vehicles. I have reached out to the government to presidency. You can hear my reporting from Republican the Martial Islands, including an interview with the then
president in twenty twenty three. That's another series that we've made here on it could happen here that I'm going to see if we can get someone from the RMI on for an interview, because I think some of these small island nations right where everything has to be shipped in the cost of fuel can make things extremely difficult for people just trying to eke out an existence. There in a place that the United States nuked despite never raising the word and anger against us.
Finally, our last few stories this episode starting with a Tale of Two Bombing Plots, American classic, truly the American tradition that just won't die. My brother and sister have been indicted after allegedly planting and improvised explicit device outside of McDill Air Force Space in Tampa, Florida, on March tenth,
before fleeing to China two days later. After planting the bomb, the brother allegedly alerted officials by calling nine to one to one, but the explosive went undiscovered for nearly a week.
It did not detonate. Huh.
The sister was arrested after returning from China, and she's charged with evidence tampering and being an accessory after the fact. Prosecutors alleged that she helped clean and sell the car used to plant the bomb and asked chat GPT how to obtain a Chinese visa and transfer properties in her brother's name, and searched for Chinese schools for her brother to attend. Her brother is still suspected to be in China.
Look, I am stunned that these people didn't accidentally blow themselves up.
Well, the reason why is because it's actually very hard to build a bomb.
Yeah, oh yeah, I guess. I guess.
Well, because when you're trying to build a bomb, there's three outcomes, right, there's one you failed to build a bomb to you either succeed to build a bomb, or fail to build a bomb and it blows you up, or you successfully build a bomb.
As sets, building a bomb.
Is like that the hardest, and it's you're pretty likely to blow yourself up or fail to build a bomb.
So I guess, I guess I never got.
To the threshold a bomb building where it would blow themselves up because they just didn't produce it viable device.
In this next bombing plot, the suspect did actually construct what could be considered a bomb. Oh good Lord, that could have been used in what's being reported on as an assassination plot. Last Thursday, a New Jersey man, Alexander Heifler was arrested as a part of a plot to firebomb the home of pro Palestinian activists nerden Kiswani Jesus Christ.
Alexander Heiffler is a member of the JDL six one three Brotherhood, a new offshoot of the terrorist group the Jewish Defense League, which has been active at Palestine protests in New York the past few years. This is a Zionist extremist group that has been designated in the past
by the FBI as extremist group. According to the criminal complaint, Heifler was in a group video call with an undercover officer last February in which he asked about receiving training quote for how to use the instruments that were not knives, guns, or crossbows for quote unquote self defense. That's an odd, odd phrasing in the complaint, cross not okay.
Things that aren't those things not okay.
Great things happening here, and Heifler later specifically mentioned that he was looking for somewhere to throw molotovs oh boy. The undercover sent Heifler a message via an encrypted messaging application stating, Hey, let's talk about that in person. Don't say that on here. Heifler responded, don't use the M word. Copy that the M word, apparently being molotov. Incredible operational security happening year. The next day, the two met in person.
Heifler told the undercover that molotovs were easy to make, and they discussed targeting the home of pro Palestinian activist ner Dean Kiswani. Heifler talked about needing to obtain fake license plates and told the undercover that he had an escape plan to flee the country. At the end of April, Mayor Zoramumdani clarified online that Heifler intended to flee to Israel.
Great to quote Heifler in their criminal complaint quote, I'm thinking, like, if we wanted to go after Kiswani, we have Kiswani's address, so it's like that that would be easier if you'd be more comfortable with that. Drive down to Kiswani's home, middle of April, no IDs, no phones in and out unquote Great. A few weeks later they met up again
and drove to Kiswani's home to conduct surveillance. Heifler told the undercover that he had done tests with a molotov and a DNA kit from a pharmacy, and because his DNA showed up on the test, they should wear gloves during the attack. A real genius at work.
Oh my god.
The plan was to build twelve molotovs and throw several at the home and two at cars parked outside. Heifler mentioned having an address they could hide out before he would then flee to Israel. On March twenty sixth, they met at Heifler's home to start making the molotovs, and after the assembly, law enforcement searched the home and Heifler was arrested and has since been charged with unlawful possession and making of a destructive device.
Great stuff. I very glad they didn't pull this off. And also, Jesus Christ.
You know something like this. It is interesting that this was a joint with the FBI, that the current FBI was was doing like a sort of sting operation like this with the Jewish Defense League. Is interesting. That is that is something that I think people may not have expected. The undercover was part of the further of this plan in some ways. I don't know. We don't know if this guy would have done this exact attack if not
planned with the undercover. But this guy was very, very clearly willing and able to hurt and possibly kill this pro Palestinian activist, a very prominent one at that. Lastly, let's talk about Pink News and the Idaho bathroom bill.
Oh my fucking god. Yeah.
So earlier this week I released an episode and an accompanying article online on what I've dubbed the trans panic clickbait economy. My reporting goes through a series of misleading viral claims about the attacks on trans people from the Trump administration and Red States that have been recently flooding the zone and overwhelming the senses with an endless stream
of forecast to doom. These viral claims are usually based on some irresponsible reporting designed to drive in an engagement rather than inform about the very real dangerous trans people are facing. This kind of clickbait treats every horrific potentiality as an inevitable eventuality, undermining our capacity to accurately assess
risk and effectively dedicate resources to oppose pressing threats. One of the key outlets profiting from the panic clickbaita economy right now has been Pink News in LGBTQ news outlet, which we learned last month is pivoting to a quote unquote reporter free newsroom.
Incredible and just We're one of the most Aurelian things I've ever heard.
Just holy fuck, just just on a base level of like just oh my reporter free newsgroup.
Because of this change, one of the journalists there I've already quit, with four others possibly being laid off shortly. The sort of editorial department of pink News is now being taken over by their social media content creation wing and some of like the editorial staff, which are repackaging press releases and stealing the work of other journalists, including some other journalists who may be engaging in this sort
of misleading reporting attempting to drive their own engagement. Then pink News is using that framing to drive their own engagement. That's why this sort of panic economy is a whole economy. It feeds on itself now. On March thirtieth, Pink News published an article that went viral online that claimed Kentucky was quote to pass a bill that would declare trans people mentally ill unquote, as well as prohibiting trans people
from teaching in schools. But a report from an actual Kentucky based journalist named Olivia Croft for the outlet Queer Kentucky clarified that no such bill was going to pass. The push for a bill declaring trans people as mentally ill was by a single Republican state senator named Gex Williams Jesus Christ. So yeah, pause there, Deax Williams and Gex could not even accomplish the first step in the legislative process, getting the set in committee assignment for this
prospective bill. Gex then tried to turn his failed bill into a floor amendment slapped onto a separate bill that was expected to pass, but such an amendment still requires a vote on approval separate from the vote to pass
the bill itself. Olivia Croth reported that this amendment does not have such support from other legislators and that Gex was expected to withdraw his amendment for breaking Senate rules on piggybacking failed bills onto different bills as an amendment, And even if this amendment somehow got through, the bill would then need to be sent back to the state House for approval and would spark a huge fight that the legislature does not have time for because the legislative
season is now wrapping up. So after this article from pink news was fact checked by this really good journalist doing doing important reporting in Kentucky, pink News then deleted this article and the viral posts plugging it. But any corrections to this false story do not spread nearly as
far as the initial panic inducing claim. And like that's crucial here because the night that this article went out on pink News, literally my entire feed was full of dozens and dozens and dozens people all quote tweeting this pink News story. And the fact check and the fact that pink News deleted this is not going to get
spread in that same way now. Misleading stories like this distract from the very real attacks Republicans are waging in Red states, one of which one of a few was on Monday, the governor of Idaho signed a new bill into law that criminalizes trans people using the bathroom that matches their gender, including bathrooms in private businesses. A first defense would be a misdemeanor with punishable by up to
a year in prison. Second offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. And this would be prison housed based on quote unquote biological sex at birth, which leads to abuse of trans inmates. This is the most extreme bathroom but that this nation has seen so far, the most restrictive affecting private businesses, and this is sort of very very intense criminal punishment.
Yeah, and it's also worth noting in ways there are very plea trans people are also just criminalized at an extremely high rate, and these felony charges would count for
Idaho's three strikes law, which is a fucking nightmare. This and we also got the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday which applies a significantly stricter level of scrutiny to any ban on conversion therapy, which is probably going to end up killing a whole bunch of conversion therapy bans across the country, which, by the way, eight to one ruling, so a bunch of liberal justices also fucking agreed with this. Yeah,
I like that shit is like actually happening. And then meanwhile we have this like haddock slop bullshit that people are using to get money, and it's incredibly frustrated.
Yeah, it makes it harder to actually evaluate the news as it's happening and trust certain news from certain sources, because we all know that these attacks are real, Like, there are real attacks going on that are really bad, but we do need to focus on the ones that actually are real. As opposed to a single state Senator's amendment to a bill which is never going to pass,
taking up all of the oxygen one night. Meanwhile, literally that same day, a bill like this Idaho bathroom bill is being signed by the governor.
Yeah.
Well, on that note, I think that does it for us here at it could happen here.
Put a transgirl on your couch, I guess, especially also now trans people from Idaho who are going to be fleeing and presumably believe very large numbers.
And great and good.
We reported the news.
We reported the news.
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zone Media, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.