Also media speaking of things that are on fire America. All right, I did my job, Garrison.
What are we doing?
Who are we?
This is?
It could happen here.
Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, their prombling world, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today, joined by James Stout and Robert Evans.
Yep.
This episode recovering the week of May sixth through May thirteenth. Yep, James, some small news items to open us up.
My little grab bag of news stories.
Yeah.
The United Kingdom parachute drop supplies and medical personnel into Tristan d'acunha last weekend to respond to the huntavirus outbreak. A man had got off the cruise ship when the outbreak began in April and returned to Tristan Tacuna, where he resides. I think the cruise ship stopped Tristan da Cuna this weekend. British paratroopers from the Path Find a platoon tandem jumped a doctor and a nurse onto the island, along with supplies, including oxygen, which was criticulally low on
the island. The patient had reported symptoms two weeks after disembarking the cruise ship, and they'd spent that time on the island, and therefore there's a fairly high chance that that they've interacted with other people. Right, the island has no air strip. They was such a low supply of oxygen that there obviously wasn't time for a boat to get to Tristan Pacuna. So the UK conducted this fairly, I mean extremely You'm sure this is the first time
the UK has ever done it. The island has a populaced around two hundred and twenty people and only two medical professionals who are obviously exhausted after delivering care to this person who's on oxygen for several weeks. Yeah, so they jumped a couple more in there. Fairly audacious response to the hunt virus. Secondly, and I think we can also agree of equally important Japanese snack food, Giant Cowbi is switching to black and white packaging for its Oh.
No, Garrison is loading a gun right now.
This is a significant portion of my daily diet.
Yeah, Garrison won't be able to make it through this. One is going on hunger strike.
They are wiring a crew detonator together. It looks like.
I'm going to join Oran put an end to this madness.
That is. This is because ingredients use for the ink on its normal colorful packages are hard to come by thanks to the war with a run and thanks. Yeah. So if you want, if you've got one of those little stickers that says I did that, and you've got a packet of black and white crisps, now you can combine the two.
And your black and white laimash hips.
Yeah. Yeah. The one thing that gave us joy is gone. The Nigerian military has once again carried out an air strike on a market, killing at least one hundred civilians. Going to anasty International, The air strike on the Tumfo market is the second in a month to hit a market. The Nigerian military claims the area was to hide out for bandits, but it has yet to acknowledge the civilian
death toll. Government in this area is more or less like only present through its ability to project force like this, and I've seen interviews with local suggesting the town was under the control of non state groups previously. People remember, the Nigerian government has suggested that anyone doing business with the people at targeting is also a legitimate target, which is how it has justified dropping bombs on crowded markets. Like this, CNN is claiming that the CIA facilitated a
car bomb in Sinaloa. The article seems to have sources in or very familiar with the operations of Ground Branch. It also alleges that the US government employees who were killed in the car crash last month were members of Ground Branch. More than the fact of this story, it doesn't shock me that the CIA is killing people in weird ways in different countries. Now, that is one of
the things that they do. That's like the CIA's job. Yeah, the fact that CNN has a source that is leaking Ground Branch operations, that is not usual for someone in the CIA to be talking to someone at CNN. Well, these operations are ongoing, right, and like, yeah, operations in Mexico are exceptionally high risk for these kinds of folks. Like in twenty twelve, some Mexican federal cops open fire on US government employees, presumably not acting on behalf of
the federal government. Right, Obviously, it puts this mission at risk, which isn't already a high risk thing. But the fact that somebody has felt the need to leak this CNN is pretty remarkable.
Speaking of potential CIA leaks, former director of the National Counter Terrorisment Center, Joe Kent claimed on X the Everything app that before the President launched the war in Iran, quote, the US intel community, including CIA, was an agreement that Iran wasn't developing a nucular weapon and that Iran would target US bass in the region and shut down the straight of hornor news if they were.
Attacked by Israel and the US en quote.
The Supreme Court extended access to remote prescription at melt delivery of the abortion pill with pristone until Thursday, May fourteenth, which is the day this episode releases.
The night this episode releases.
Around Thursday, they're expected to make a shadow docket ruling on whether Louisiana's ban on mail order abortion pills can go into effect as the case continues through a lower court. A golden statue of President Trump was unveiled at a Trump resort in Miami last week. The statue was blessed by evangelical pastor Mike Burns, who said, quote, let me be clear, this is not a golden calf unquote.
God, it's so hard. I like you, you went through everything.
You just like the little parade of horrors like you do every week, and then you just drop that that there's there's a priest blessing a golden statue, pastor, pastor, sorry, you're right, pastor. And I know that like they that he had dressed in the moment, like the whole golden cat thing of it all, which just funnier that like he knew I gotta say something like I gotta make a comment.
That's what got me that he felt that he needed to address the golden cough in the room.
Really genuinely funny.
My, this is not a golden calf shirt.
Has a lot of people ask few questions already answered by the shirt.
Oh fuck, it's great, but yeah, grim stuff.
Yep So.
A natural survey of one thousand Americans by News God and YouGov suggests that about half of people in the United States surveyed think each of the attempts on Donald Trump's life was staged or they're not sure if it was real. For the White House Correspondent dinner attempt and the Butler Pennsylvania attempts, twenty four percent of those surveyed
thought the attempts were staged. Thirty two percent were not sure in the White House Correspondents Dinner attempt, and twenty nine percent for the Butler Pennsylvania event.
It's more than half if you add them up, and I'm convinced.
Super funny.
I'll quote from the report here. Of the twelve percent of Americans who said all three attempts were staged, fifty five percent were Democrats, thirty eight percent were Independents, at seven percent were Republicans.
According to the report, really interested in that seven percent, Yeah, what are they getting out of that?
I don't.
Like, what way do they think?
It was just like, hell, yeah, we're owning the Libs, we're staging. We did look at us go.
I think it may just be like, well, I voted for Trump because I wanted my taxes to be lower.
But I know he thinks that.
Yeah, this is obviously worrying, and this, this trend is something we've been talking about for years. At this point is why I've been kind of such a such a hard ass about the about like the liberal conspiracism that is growing.
I don't even find it worrying anymore. Garrison. I find it liberating that we're finally.
Look at that.
We're finally free from the shackles of truth. Yeah, everyone's everyone's down on the muck together. Nobody's nobody's standing pretty anymore. Everybody's just wallowing like a filthy pig and shit.
That it's pretty much the status of the Yeah, the US news market right now.
Yeah, I'm fine with it.
God, it's fucking bleak. It's so bleak. Like I just I don't want to address like the factual elements of each thing because there's no point, right, But like.
No, we we should all know that's useless by now, right, Yeah, just have we not gotten to a place free of that? Yeah?
Yeah, I know, I uh, I already don't know what to say about that.
I mean, there are like real issues here. A conspiratorial base can be more easily recruited into reactionary thought, right, this is the idea of the cultic mill. You and we can see a version of this happening with certain portions of the left.
Might engage with people like Tucker Carlson or Margie Taylor Mareen right now.
But for me, kind of the biggest issue with this is that it's a refusal to understand or accept the particular moment that you find yourself with them, like a resistance to the self realization that you are living through
history and that people are active agents in history. It's an ahistorical rejection of the fact that some people may look at some of the actions that someone like Trump is doing, whether regarding Ice or the war with Ron, and then choose to act in response, or in the case of the Butler shooting, the result of social disintegration or underregulation manifesting as someone's violent, nihilistic expression, similar to
the mindset of like a school shooter. My last issue relates kind of to the second issue, Like the ahistorical element, how these false flag shooting conspiracy theories also prescribe Trump too much power by not just turning him into this like invincible god, but then also assuming that, like the US deep State is capable and competent enough to stage major world events like this like brainwash and groom patsies into doing these shootings, and like this also obviously removes
the agency and the clearly defined history other people that do these own shootings, right. It rejects this Like like I said, this relates to the second thing. It rejects or refuses to understand the moment that you're living in and that people actually are active agents of history. And like the people that do these shootings have their own family and their own friends, They have their own history that we
can show and prove. And assuming that all this is like fake, that like the government has like manufactured this or somehow like turned someone who's an army kind of liberal suddenly into like doing a shooting, or has like fake this backstory. Right, it gives the government so much power, Right, it assumes that the government has power like a magical wizard that totally controls reality.
Yeah.
Anyway, for our first main story today, let's talk about Turning Point USA. But first, on Sunday night in Seattle, a nineteen year old transgender girl was murdered. She was a student at University of Washington and was found with stab wounds in the laundry room of an off campus apartment that she lived in. No suspect has yet been identified. While horrific in and of itself, Turning Point USA was scheduled to hold an anti trans debate event just days
later at the very campus this trans student attended. This event was going to be hosted by a far right anti trans lobbyist and influencer named Chloe Cole, a teen transitioner who subsequently de transitioned a few years later following an acid trip and then conversion to Christianity.
Many such cases.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
Yeah, most normal Christian d transitioner.
Yeah.
She made an appearance at Trump's last State of the Union address when the president talked about restricting gender affirming care minors. After the murder in Seattle, Cole and TPUSA continued plugging their anti trans event online, prompting students to plan a protest to quote unquote shut the event down, calling to bring quote flags, drums, or anything to make
noise unquote. Then on Tuesday, the National Turning Point USA organization decided to cancel the event, according to University Washington spokesperson Victor Balta. Later that night, Tuesday night, Chloe Cole announced the event was postponed because quote Antifa has assembled a local militia in their own words unquote.
Oh that's that's alarming. A militia.
Now.
I was not able to find an instance of Antifa claiming to have assembled a quote unquote militia.
Really, no photos of the militia, the documentation of the militia.
Nor was this language, this this this claim of a militia in their own words, nor was this language included in right wing reporting of the planned protest.
I cannot find a so horse fist.
I really looked like I went through Fox articles, Post Millennial articles. There was nothing about Antifa using the word militia. No one, no, no counter, no protester that I could find was using the word militia now. Chloe Cole also claimed that they were quote explicit threats on my life and that the protest caused a quote level of attention. Our security team and the local PD are frankly unprepared for unquote.
She shared an.
Article from the Canadian far right outlet The Post Millennial documenting threats against the TPUSA event. Threats like one Twitter user in Canada saying that people should shut down the event, like Milo Unopolis's Berkeley campus event in twenty seventeen, writing quote, make them hurt for scheduling this. One other Twitter post with two likes read quote Luckily the bricks in Red
Square are easy to grab this time of year. Okay, that's the evidence that Andy No used to claim that quote, far left extremists are urging their comrades to carry out deadly violence on two posts, just those two posts. That was That was the post that Chloe Cole was sharing via this post Millennial article, that that was the evidence for these deadly threats. Now, I do think it's worth
reiterating that to these people. They also believe that just calling someone a fascist constitutes a threat of violence, right. This is something they've been repeating a lot since the death of Charlie Kurk, that just calling someone a fascist constitutes a deadly threat. In Chloe Cole's video announcing that the TPUSA event was, in her words, postponed, she said that after charlie'ssassination, quote speaking on a university campus in
twenty twenty six can come with deadly consequences. But towards the end of the video, she stressed that quote this is not a win for antifa because truth will always win. I am not afraid of Antifa, and that a quote ragtag group of wanna be revolutionaries on cross sex hormones won't scare her. The enemy is both strong and weak.
Yeah, yeah, good for her.
Yeah, okay, Yeah, that's how these people work now.
While I was watching Chloe Cole's video, something sprank to mind. Last week, the White House released a new counter terrorism strategy that named three major threat groups the country is currently facing Narco terrorists and transnational gangs, legacy Islamist terrorists, and violent left wing extremists, including anarchists and anti fascists.
The document says that counter terrorism activities will quote prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti American, radically pro transgender, and anarchist unquote. I did a full episode about this with Robert earlier this week, if you want to check that out.
Yep.
But the left wing, transgender, anarchist, ANTIFA stuff mix up just a handful of sentences in a sixteen page document which is mostly focused on Islamic terrorism, cartels and complaining about the Biden administration. For a TLDR, there's nothing new in this counter terrorism document pertaining to the left that wasn't already in National Security Presidential Memorandum number seven. It does not grant any new powers nor designate trans people
as terrorists. Like NSMP seven. It essentially states that being quote unquote extremely pro transgender can be a motivating factor in carrying out terroristic violence or threats. Since last October, joint terrorism task forces across the country had been directed to investigate Antifa aligned groups and individuals quote engaged in
acts of political violence and intimidation. This new document is just describing things that are already happening while building Trump's justification for military strikes on suspected drug boats in the Western Hemisphere, regime change in Venezuela, and the ongoing war in the Middle East. But in the wake of this new strategy being released, I wonder if tpusa's canceling of the event and Chloe Cole's language and the announcement might also be designed to coax Trump's Feds into going after
radical transgender ANTIFA terrorists. Whether that may be individuals who possibly sent threats online that I just couldn't see or just made semi questionable posts on Twitter dot com, or who simply spread the protest flyer online, or the protest organizers themselves. Yeah, I think that is something to keep in mind. This new counter terrorist strategy. It mostly serves
as a chilling effect for speech and for organizing. Like I said, it doesn't actually grant new powers, but it can scare people into thinking that the Trump administration is designating a whole class of people as terrorists and stuff like this, you know protests, right, that is one thing that they can investigate. Your threats online, that is something that they can investigate, right. That is, that is what they are actually looking into. They're not just investigating random
and trans people as terrorists. They will be looking into you know, threats or questionable posts made on social media, right, those are the things they actually can look into. And I think some of Chloe Cole's language about the quote unquote deadly threats she received stuff like that could be used bunch up administration as a pretext to investigate people.
Yeah, whether or.
Not those threats even were real.
Right, I did not see anything that I think constitutes a deadly threat based on the post millennials reporting, but her saying that might be enough for a local FBI field office to want to investigate you know, student activists at this university.
Right, right, Yeah, I think that makes sense.
So That's what I wanted to talk about here.
This is by far the thing I'm seeing people freak out about the most right now is like overall the idea that like they've just declared it, you know, terrorism of violence, terrorism to be trans or to be anarchist, or to be you know, any of the things like anti capitalist mentioned in that in that document, And what I'm actually seeing on the ground so far is very much the same kind of prosecutions that they've been doing and the same kinds of like messaging that they've been making.
And I think that, like, you're right on the money, this is something to pay attention to, Like does this get a response? Is there an actual like investigation. Do we wind up see someone get indicted for a Twitter post or you know, if someone made a threat that we're not privy to, do they get indicted for that, like, or do we see something that does look more like a witch hunt where they're going after like a protest organizer. That'll tell us a lot about kind of what's coming
in the immediate future. But right now, I don't see anything different than what they've been doing, which is kind of like incompetently and haphazardly flailing at everything, sort of vaguely lefty.
Yeah, And you know, I think including this in a document like the Counter Terrism strategy you know, also serves as a chilling effect. Right, this is this is to scare people into not doing anything, right, That is a part of their strategy.
Yep.
But you know they have investigated people for making death threats four years right, the Biden administration and their FBI is.
Able to make death threats. By the way, if their actual death threats, that is illegal.
The FBI under Biden investigatives top cop City. The charges against the protesters at Prairie Land started. That the investigation started before ns MP seven was even you know released, Right, this is not new, but it is something to to keep an eye on to see if they're if their scope is actually changing.
Right, you know what else is changing in scope? Our sponsors.
Are they not really no same ship? Yeah, and we are back and we are back to talking about the war in Ran. So I want to start off with President Trump's extremely vocal criticism of curtish groups. One can assume in Iran that it doesn't necessarily seem that his criticism is limited to curtiss groups in Iran. Let's play the clip.
The level of ferocity for protests. You know, the people are watching that they want to go out on the streets. They have no weapons. They have no guns. We thought the Courage were going to give us weapons, but the Courads disappointed us.
The Courage take, take, take, and they have a great reputation in Congress. Congress is Oh, they fight so hard. They fight hard when they get paid. So I'm very disappointed in the Curds. But they were given I said.
It wasn't going to work. By the way, I just have to say it. I disagree with what they did.
They gave it.
I said, they'll never get there, and I was right. I like to be right in this case.
Too bad.
But we said some guns with ammunition, and they were supposed to be delivered, but they kept it. I said, they're going to keep it.
But what do I know.
I've only been doniced.
What do I know?
Yeah, fascinating his Diacuda asking him about this.
Thank you so much, mister president.
Mister President, yesterday, you said you gave the Kurds arms, but they took it for themselves. US military officials says that the Kurds have noticived ony arms and the critics police the parties are denying to sing any army.
It's wrong, and the.
Officials the officials of wrong.
Yes, yeah, well there's the Kurds. Could be so many things, like they just said that officials. I'm assuming the KDP and the p u K is either referring to. But that's just like the two big parties in Iraq, which isn't even all of the Kurdish parties in Iraq, Like, yeah, not to mention all of the different armed groups in the But I have no idea who he sent guns to, and I don't know that he does, yeah, or if he did, he seems pretty confident that he did.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is like the opposite of Iran contra, with the president saying like, get these sent them guns.
I'm running guns.
I was running guns, and everyone else is like, we have no fucking clue what he's talking about.
Yeah, so I'm guessing this refers to his previous theory that they had supplied guns to Iranian Courtish groups in January. It's the time when they were large scale protests in Iran that those Iranian Courtish groups were expected to deliver to presumably Persian protesters, presumably in large cities such as Tehran. The Jerusalem Post has reported that Trump himself personally vetoed this exact plan in January after receiving pressure from Turkey
to do so. There were some mind backs to January, but small arms, we've said before, would not really have tipped the balance here. Aram's army police besiege the IGC as we've seen since February, can survive assault from the US and Israel. It's not going to be toppled by a bunch of people with aks. They would have bombed the whole cities, so they had to. We covered this at a time in our episode about it with Gudayen, but most of the Curdish groups I've spoken to don't
have responses at this time. But the PAK that's the Kurdistan Freedom Party sent me this comment regarding the protests in January.
Quote.
From the end of December twenty twenty five through approximately January twentieth, twenty twenty six, the Iranian regime committed an unprecedented massacre across the Ilam, Kamanchan and Lauristan. The mobilized hashtal Chaby militias into Persian cities and deployed a massive military presence into our territories. In order to defend our citizens, we targeted the outposts and military bases where these forces were stationed. We confirmed that, yes, we carried out these operations.
So what they're confirming there is that they carried our operations, not where the weapons came from. That we saw those operations in January. Pull at Yan put at Yan famous, but I guess for being a founding member of the epigae or of fuendecard n SDF commander. He's also an author and the politician did make a statement which I thought was interesting. I'm going to read it at least
a good amount of it because I think it's worth it. Quote, the Kurds are not mercenaries, Kurdish blood is not cheap, and the lives of Kurdish youth are not for sale. The Kurds are fighting for their freedom, dignity, and political rights, not to serve the temporary agendas of regional or international powers without any clear outcome for the Kurdish people themselves.
At the same time, the Curds have repeatedly shown their willingness to cooperate in fighting terrorism, extremism, and instability in the Middle East. Kurdish force has played a central role in the defeat of ISIS and contributed greatly to regional security, but cooperation must be based on mutual respect, clarity, and long term political understanding. I do not know the actuity of the recent claims regarding weapons are literally sent to
protesters inside i Ran. If such operations truly just died, then the American side should clearly explain which group, force, or individuals received those weapons. A nation of tens of minutes of people should not be collectively accused of vague and unverified statements. Yeah, it's pretty good.
It sounds reasonable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds like a really reasonable thing.
Yeah, it does seem that Trump has some personal animus against the Kurds.
I wonder if what he's referring to is that, like a year or so ago, the last time they sent over more weapons. If he sent some message more recently being like, hey, could you send some of those guns that we already gave you over to rebels in Iran? And they were like no, no, what do you mean?
And he's pissed. I wonder if that's what he's pissed about.
Yeah, it's so hard for me to say. Is he talking about the SDF. Is he talking about groups in southern Kurdistan that they did. Yeah, he asked him to like pass them alone. I have never seen large numbers of Americans supplied weapons among the Rogilati groups.
Now, although they do. Some of their aks come from the US. If you look at like what's center, a bunch of and like body armor, a lot of like what the SDF like the armor they have came from Americans.
Yeah, yeah, and with their like highest speed SDF guys you'll see like m fhors but even like night vision like yat the anti terror forces and the SDF you'll see. But like on on the Iranian side, I have not seen that. And it's He's repeated this several times ever quite a long period of time. It seems to be something he genuinely believes, but I have seen no evidence
aside from his claims, to support it. It doesn't matter, but it does matter in the sense that Trump clearly is personally mad at Kurdish groups and does not seem to be interested in supporting their aspirations for autonomy, which is disappointing. But I guess I don't know why. Maybe because he feels that he alone to take credit for the defeat of the Islamic State, like I can't. I can't quite work out what to cause this, other than maybe he perceives them to have slighted him by not
giving weapons that we don't know anything about. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the broader situation in Iran. I don't want to make this like true social review. I know I've read Trump's truth in the past. I have reached a point where I can't do that anymore.
That's fair.
Yeah, Like I can't. People are dying, right, they bombed a girls school, Like this is serious and horrible, and it's really hard to bring the gravity that needs to be brought to this and also read out the absolutely bonker stuff that gets posted. And Trump described a missile strike on Iran as a love tap. Yeah, this past week. So I'm just not gonna not gonna do that this week. I am going to say that both sides have repeatedly and openly violated the ceasefire, which Trump describes to reporters
and dr Oz as being on quote massive life support. Meanwhile, Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Ghalibath has said quote around forces are ready to deliver a well deserved response to any aggression mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results. The whole world has already figured this out. We have prepared for all options. They will be surprised. This comes as Trump calls Iran's peace demands quote a
piece of garbage and quote a stupid proposal. Iranian demands allegedly included an end to Israeli aggression in Lebanon and sovereignty over straight at Hommus. Trump has also alleged that they walked back an agreement to surrender and rich Ranian. We've also found that Iran has retained a large number
of their missiles and their launch capacity. This week, It's also been reported by Jim Laporter, who is one of the few people still doing decer reporting at CBS, that Pakistan has provided safe haven for Iranian aircraft, shielding them from US strikes. Allegedly, some civilian aircraft also sheltered in Afghanistan, but then had to be moved when Pakistan began bombing Afghanistan in March. Iran has friends everywhere.
I guess.
The United States sent a ballistic missile submarine to Gibraltar this week. These O higher class submarines provide the survivable element of the nuclear triad, or the most survival element of the nuclear triad.
You can't strike a nuclear submarine before it gets a chance to strike. It's it's basically impossible.
Yeah, that's that's the reason that they exist.
Yeah, guarantees that you will get to do your thing.
Yeah, for mutually assured destruction reasons. It's not super normal to announce their presence in places I don't think, but the Navy did this week.
Yeah, I mean it can't be. It depends on like the situation depending is a little weird.
Yes, yeah, yeah. The Pentagon seems to be planning to rename the war in Iran Operation Sledgehammer. This seems to be an attempt at end run around the nineteen seventy three war Howars revolution. They claimed already where we spoke about this last week, the claiming epic fury is over now and that this is a new and distinct operation. In a congressional hearing, Hexseth denied that they needed an authorized use of military force. Let's play the clip.
It doesn't appear that hostilities have ended, and so the question to you is whether or not the administration has has considered or had intended to seek an authorization of use of military force from the Congress.
Senator, our view is that should the President make the decision to recommence.
That we would have all the authorities necessary to do so.
Do you think that it would be helpful to the president if it was made clear that, in fact, the Congress did allow did provide an AUMF I think the president our you is that he has all the authorities he needs under Article two to execute.
Thanks, Chairman, that's more or less heigth'st saying they don't need Congress, which is great.
Yeah.
Heccess face pointed questioning from the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees, he repeatedly batted away questions about munitions depletion and suggested that it wasn't appropriate to answer them in public on the record like this, Oh, I'm sure. He also did not directly confront the cost of the war, which is now approaching thirty billion, instead saying, quote, what is the
cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon? And the fact that this president has been willing to make a historic and courageous choice to confront that it comes with cost, and we recognize that kind of an exercise in an evasion on excess part there, apart from his pretty emphatic statement that he didn't think that they needed any permission from Congress to continue with this war. So we will be back next week to keep you updated on what might be operations sledgehammer.
Great great stuff, very exciting.
So on May twelfth, twenty twenty six, the former mayor of Arcadia, California, Eileen Wang, pled guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and is being sentenced in the near future for being an unregistered agent of a foreign government. People have taken this news normally the foreign government is China.
I did a.
Quick little bit of googling before coming around here and found some fun headlines.
One of them in.
The Lion California mayor pleads guilty to serving Communist China. And that article was written by John Ransom, who's a senior contributor at The Lion and also has written for The Epic Times, which itself is like the agent of a foreign power effective. Yeah, the WCBM had a headline this Democrat mayor just came clean about working for Communist China.
She could come clean clean.
She pled guilty and for that, you know, and then from the House Committee. On China's website, Mulinar warns of CCP influence after California mayor charged in foreign influence plot. These charges highlight the very real threat of the Chinese Communist Party's attempts to influence are free and open society. Well, it denies freedom and liberty for the Chinese people. The CCP is actively working to subvert our institutions and divide
us against one another. In this case, an elected mayor acted at the direction of CCP handlers, coordinated with Chinese intelligence linked individuals, and used a local news platform to spread CCP propaganda. And so let's talk about that.
How much of this is true, right, yeah, I.
Mean technically, yeah, Like that's that's kind of what happened, except for the part where they were like coordinating to drive Americans apart from each other and create unrest and whatnot. That's not what the purpose of this thing that Eileen
got wrapped up in was. She and her former fiance, a fellow named Sun who got sentenced before she did Mike's son, are accused of basically having run like content farms at the behest of Chinese government officials, like they were putting out articles on the alleged genocide in Zinjang, denying like the Chinese government had done anything wrong there there was any genocide at all in the region, and
so it's kind of like propaganda stuff like that. They were serving as like a fire hose of propaganda, per the Justice Department. In June of twenty twenty one, a PRC official contacted Wang and other individuals via the we chat encryptid messaging application with pre written news articles, including a PRC official written essay in the Los Angeles Times that stated China's stance on the Zinjang issue. There is no genocide in Zinjang. There is no such thing as
forced labor in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumors due to fame China Joy's enjaying safety and stability, weaken local economy and suppress China's development. Minutes later, when posted the article on her own website and responded to the PRC official with a link to the article on her website, the others in the group did the same. The PRC official responded, so fast, thank you everyone.
And this is bad.
Genocide denials bad. The spreading slop content on behalf of a foreign government is like bad. It is important to note that this is not like spying or sabotage in any meaningful way. She's not acting to like try to
damage the United States. She's acting as like an unregistered pr agent for the Chinese government, or at least that's what she had done up to this point in her life, and like everything that she was doing was legal if she had disclosed who she was working for, which I think is also an important thing to note because shit like this happens all the time, and in the media, like we all see, there's tons of content that is the result one way or the other of some government's
influence op and for the majority of the time when it happens, nobody gets tripped up, you know, either because they have friends in power or because they don't quite cross a line. And I Leen and her friends were not very savvy about what they were doing, but they were also not operating on a very large level, like
this is not a big operation. One of the notes in this charging document is that Eileen sent this Chinese government official at screenshot showing that the article had been viewed fifteen one and twenty eight times through her site, which is like not, we're not talking like big deal influence ops here. We're not talking like sweeping powers over like public opinion. Now, perhaps that's what they hoped Eileen
would kind of rise to over time. She didn't seem to be like a kind of rising star in local government in southern California. She got endorsed by some prominent Democratic Party officials, and she was still in touch with her Chinese government handlers at this time. This whole period in which she's like being charged for working as an agent of the Chinese government, it's like twenty twenty through at least twenty twenty two.
So yeah, this is like, you.
Know, a bad thing, and it's good that this got found out and that she's not continuing to be the mayor of Arcadia.
But also, this is.
Not like the scary thing that the right wing press is making it out to you. She was not here to like subvert the US so that it could be invaded or destroyed. She was there to try to stop people on the internet from being mean to the Chinese government. Like that was the primary use that they had with her. It's just not that like actually scariest story or anything. It's just the kind of thing that happens. This lady happened to become mayor of a small down basically, which is wild.
It's crazy that that happened. But like this is going on all the time.
Yeah, I think, I yeah, people have lost their minds about this one in a way that like.
It's a perfect California city, like it's a southern California town, and she's the government female spy.
Like a course of course.
There's a lot of stuff.
Back when Eric Swalwell was still a relevant human being, there was some attacks on him for associating with a quote unquote Chinese female spy like man ten years ago, and that was like one of the lines of attack against him. Sure because like someone someone he had like relations with in like twenty fourteen what was alleged or found to be a working as a spy for the
Chinese government. It's interesting that they're doing this type of stuff at like the exact same time that Trump just got just like it is like arriving in China.
Yeah right now, Yeah, it's really great timing.
Yeah, curious timing there.
But I'm guessing she took them leave. This had been a period of some time, right, like her fiance.
Yeah yeah, yeah, because first first her former fiance got busted, and then she was like, I.
Didn't do anything wrong, and then it became clear that she very much hadh right.
So there was this was like a thing that, yeah, this has been going on for a little while. It just sort of once she pled guilty, then you could do the article like California mayor pleads guilty to working.
For the Chinese government.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, just funny timing. Yeah, speaking of timing, here are some ads. Great, yay, Okay, we are back for one of our last main stories. Let's talk about Virginia and the redistricting efforts. Last week, in a four to three ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court blocked the voter approved redistricting map that passed in April with almost fifty two percent of the vote. The court found the process used to advance the referendum violated the
state constitution. According to Virginia's constantation, the legislature has to vote twice to pass any proposed constitutional amendment before it gets put on the ballot for Virginia voters, but these two General Assembly votes must be separated by a state General election. The first General Assembly vote for this redistricting amendment passed in October twenty twenty five, before the November general election, and the second vote to approve the referendum
happened next January, so a few months ago. The Republican challengers to the new voting map argued that because early voting had already begun, the General Assembly's first vote in October did not actually occur before a general election, and that was the grounds the State Supreme Court used to
block the voter approved amendment. The four judge majority ruled the intervening election requirement was violated because the general election quote began on September nineteenth, twenty twenty five, and just ended on election day, November fourth.
Yeah, I feel like you're kind of outside the spirit of what they were going for with that one.
But no, this on the face sounds quite absurd.
It's one of those things that's technically correct, but at the same time.
Well, and there's some complicating factors because of Trump's own attempts to restrict early voting or deem early voting like not constitutionally like appealpriate, or like it defies the federal government's definition of the word election. And so now you have some groups in Virginia who are trying to pass this amendment, Democrat groups who are using kind of.
Similar rhetoric as Trump.
We'll get to that in a sec So Justice de Arthur Helsey wrote to the majority opinion, saying, quote, this violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void. Early Virginia voters unknowingly forfeited their constitutionally protected opportunity to vote for or against delegates who favor or disfavor amending the constitution by not anticipating a legislative vote on a constitutional amendment four days
before the last day of voting, unquote. So the court said that the reason why they have this to vote requirement across two different general assemblies is to give voters enough time to not just support or not support a constitutional amendment on the ballot, but then also vote for state lawmakers who will either approve or not approve the constitutional amendment in the legislature itself. Right, So that's what
they're saying. It's like this, this process of having these two votes is to ensure that voters have a say both in who they put into office as well as on the ballot, and they're saying that this process was violated because early voting had already commenced by the time that the legislature acts actually voted on this proposed amendment.
Chief Justice Cleo. Powell wrote in the dissent that the majority quote broadened the meaning of the word election as used in the Virginia Constitution, to include the early voting period. This is in direct conflict with how both Virginia and federal law define an election. By extending elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia beyond a single day, the majority's formulation would directly conflict with the federal mandate that elections for
federal officials be held on a single day quote. So under the Supreme Court of Virginia's new ruling, the district map drawn in twenty twenty one must be used for the upcoming election this November. The midterms, the new map would have won Democrats four more House seats, but considering this ruling by the state Supreme Court, Dems are now eight seats down in the national redistricting battle, which the latest gutting of the Voting Rights Act will only make worse.
Yeah.
Over this past weekend, Virginia Democrats Hakim Jeffries and Governor Abigail Spanberger held discussions on what to do about this ruling. The New York Times reported that Virginia Democrats expressed determination to win two or three of the Republican held seats even with the current map, but also discussed a few long shot options to change the ruling or push forward
the map anyway. One of the more extreme measures debated was the possibility of replacing the entire Virginia Supreme Court by lowering the mandatory retirement age from seventy five to fifty four and then having a new court rehear the case.
Sounds great, let's do it in between now and Novem.
So it seems the Democrats decided against this path ultimately in part because the State Department of Elections deadline for congressional maps is May twelfth, which is a day before we're recording.
Yeah, they kind of ran out of time on this.
It's also unclear if they really would have had the bravery to pull such a an extreme maneuver. Right, something that may be the correct thing to do, and maybe something they should just do anyway if they have the
power to fully replace their Supreme Court. Why not, Because the Democrats are currently in a majority of control of the state legislature right now, why not do this anyway to a certain extent, Also, Abigail Scanberger can only serve one term, so you know you're not going to lose much political capital by pulling a kind of insane move like this. But it's not going to happen at least
right now. Yeah, nope, Virginia State Senate majority leader Scott Sortiville told The New Republic quote, as a practical matter, the move would not be capable of being implemented given
the time frame now. Despite that May twelfth deadline, On Monday, Virginia Attorney General J Jones and Democratic state lawmakers filed an emergency appeal asking the US Supreme Court to put the state Supreme Court order on hold for the upcoming midterm election, arguing that the state court based their ruling on misreading the federal definition of election and by adopting its own definition, the State Supreme Court infringed on the
state Legislature's power to regulate federal elections quote by forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified. The Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their
right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts. This case will be initially decided by Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles the emergency appeals from states covered by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the US Supreme Court may argue that they don't have the authority to intervene because the Virginia Supreme Court ruling cites state law, not federal law.
And The New Republic also reported that state Senate Majority Leader Scott Saureville confirmed that even if the Supreme Court gives them a good ruling, that ruling could be unlikely to impact this upcoming election cycle due to this May twelfth deadline.
I guess it's just what we're saying that, like the nature of this midterm will be very important for the way you get to vote in America going forward.
Yeah, I mean, they're they're pulling out all the stops, like they're throwing any kind of plausible deniability in the trash, because this is the get it the lose it moment for the right, you know, Like that's very much how they're looking at this.
Yeah, this is a locking in forever.
We'll see. Yeah.
A few years ago, Ohio pushed through unconstitutional maps, but maps that were deemed unconstitutional by by state courts. One federal court did authorize them to use these maps in like an interim period, and they're still using them. And in a piece by the Nation, they mentioned this option was said that they would need to have the backing of the state Board of Electors, and Virginia might not have that. There's lots of people on the Democratic side that are much more rule followy than a lot of
the Republicans as we have seen now. Virginia may be able to still pass this redistricting map in the future by spreading out the process over a bigger period of time to not create this confusion about the early voting period. But the map will not be able to go into effect before the midterms, but it still may be able to go into effect in the future. I do think it's also worth noting that the same day that Virginia
filed this appeal, with the Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court also paved the way for Alabama to eliminate one of two majority black districts before the midterm elections by overturning a lower court order that blocked the use of a report public impacked map from twenty twenty three. So the Supreme Court is currently weighing in on not exactly the same but similar similar things in other states.
That was because it was basically pointy twy s Louisiana ruling and saying like, we've ruled on this.
Yes, this is right.
This was following the Louisiana ruling.
Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. PANO great videos Democratic Process Voting Rights Act Ooh.
So, there's an increasing movement in the United States, both at the state and the federal level to repeal gas taxes. So in the United States, there's federal gas taxes that that everybody pays. The current federal gas tax rate is about eighteen point three cents per gallon for gasoline and gas a hall, which is the actual official name of fuel mixed with unleaded gas that's like unleaded and ethanol together, is actually just called gas a hall.
Okay, I never knew that what yes, love, Yeah.
They couldn't think of anything better. And then twenty four point three cents per gallon for diesel fuel.
Right. And then some states have their their own like Oregon has its own like gas.
Taxes California centy does at both levels.
Like the federal gas tax is there in short because it helps to pay for the roads, right, like that, that's why we need a federal gas tax is because it funds what's called the Highway Trust Fund or the HTF, which is a big part of what keeps our interstate infrastructure functional. And then state level gas taxes are often also like supporting like state local roads.
Right. And so Trump has.
Talked about temporarily repealing the gas tax for like a couple of months. There have been Democratic proposals that are very similar. Graham Platner, who's about to be a congressman from Maine, it's a Democratic nominee. Yeah, who's currently the nominee but is almost certainly going to win.
Yeah, Well, the presumptive nominee, i think.
Has expressed support for ending the gas tax outright. And his basic plan was something like, you have wealthy corporations pay the money that the gas tax is currently going to and you put that burden onto corporations instead of people. And it's not uncommon, by the way, for the gas tax to be temporarily repealed. During the early months of the most recent escalation of the Russian invasion into Ukraine and the Biden administration back in twenty twenty two, Biden
temporarily paused the federal gas tax. Right, So this is the thing that happens. It's just always a bad idea because it's the reason why you see people in the left and right make suggestions like this repeal state or federal gas taxes is because it's really easy. It's an easy way to say, like, I'm looking out for you. I'm trying to take care of regular people. Gas is too darn expensive already. We've got to do everything we
can to make your life easier. The problem is the Highway Trust Fund, which is absolutely critical for our roads being functional, is already always running at a deficit. Twenty four it was a deficit of about thirteen billion dollars. The main reason for this is that, like transportation, infrastructure is aging every single year and falling behind, and at the same time that gas tax is not like peg to inflation or anything. So it has not been keeping
pace with the actual needs of the Trust Fund. So anyway, we're already in a really bad situation with the HTF. Every time we pause these taxes, it gets much worse. And I'm worried right now that as reasonable it may sound and say something like well, we should just have the rich pay for that, you're never going to have any kind of like move that does both of those
things at once. They're going to start by repealing the gas tax and then they'll never get around to replacing it with anything, and then the roads will just be bad forever. I think this is a bad idea, and I think you should be a little wary of politicians doing this because it's an e way to get a win. But that said, damn near everybody is, so how wary can you actually be. It's just a really irresponsible, bad idea that has a lot of bipartisan support.
Yeah.
Really, Ever since the no tax on tips thing, there's there's been this wave of of you know, people have called this like slopulist policies or like things that are that are that are you know, populist in framing, but have certain like economic problems or or get dispersed in weird ways, you know, as me has talked about some specifics around the no tax on tips policy, But there's there's there's been like a wave of these you know, small targeted tax cuts on on on various little things
to kind of lift lift the financial burden that Americans are facing, you know, the better ones, you know, ones like like like Platinum Strategy, which has a part of his plan increasing taxes on billionaires and oil corporations. But these words of taxes are just like little band aid solutions and that are almost like consolation prizes for not being able to raise the corporate tax rate or income
tax brackets. Right, And it's it's like we're adopting these consolation taxes for this presumed impossibility of just actually raising taxes to the level of you know, if you look at the United States in like the nineteen fifties, super super high, super high level of the taxes that actually
funded social services. And one thing that could be frustrating about these these sorts of more like sloppulist tax angles is, you know, it undermines the vital role of taxes to actually fund social services.
Yep.
Now, should more of those taxes be funded by corporations and billionaires? Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, but I think that should be the focus rather than these little itty bitty kind of you know, cutting away at the corners of like small, small targeted taxes that are that are again like used used as like you know, consolation prizes, rather than actually addressing the pretty significant you know, tax reforms that need to happen in this country.
And it's it's just dangerous because it acts as if what the gas tax is there the fund is optional, is not like necessary, like, well, we don't really need this, so we'll pause this whenever like things get bad because we don't need them, but we you do, like our society is reliant upon the maintenance of that fund, and we shouldn't act like it's.
Yeah, this is very frustrating to me.
Yeah, you can see why the gas tax in particulars appealing right now. Right now, Yes, people are struggling, like it is literally seven dollars a gallon in pods of California.
Oh, it's fucking nuts.
Like people who like a lot of people who struggle to make it are really struggling to make it now, Yeah, why our society is set up, means it's very hard for people to exist without a car. So you're like, yes, the populist appeal is obvious, and.
As is always the case with this sort of thing, the fact that it has an appeal is based on ignorance because when roads are poorly maintained, it hosts regular people huge amounts of money, and the damage it does to their car far more than the gas tax costs. This has been established. This is not like I think we have to wonder about. There have been studies into this, like you pay more money when the roads are bad because your car gets fucked up.
Yeah, And it's reasonable for people to say, well, a country has enough money, can't we unfunck the roads and yes, not charge me a lot of money. Unfortunately, we just spent thirty billion fucking invading Iran, so no we can't.
Yeah, you have to not do some of the other things that we're doing.
Yeah, that it's not up for grabs in the current political atmosphere, right, and even your dure like mainstream Democrats, Yeah, aren't going to ride for that.
No, I mean it requires pressure against mainstream Democrats and obviously the Republican establishment as well, right, Like part of Platner's plan is a fifty percent per barrel windfall tax on big oil profits, which.
Would be significant.
But there will be a lot of pushback against this, including among the democratic establishment, and that might require getting rid of a whole bunch of these democratic establishment figures who are currently occupying seats of power.
Yeah. Yeah, well everyone think about that.
On that hopeful note.
That note where can people send us a news related tips, James.
They can do that by emailing who Zone tips at proton dot me. If you want to keep it a little bit more encrypted, you can do it from a proton email address so it doesn't bother you. Go ahead and send it. If you have a marketing email, you can not send it. Trying not to be so rude to the marketing people.
No, I think part of part of those anarchists that left being and streamers threats might be against the marketing corporations. If James keeps a keeps threatening again at the end of.
This episode to prison, I'll just blog I'm not advocating violence. I'm just gonna blog your email. Okay, Well, well, I will make sure that we never hear from you again. It won't just be me blocking it all of us Here at cool zone.
Media, we reported the news. You 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 coolzonmedia dot com, 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 listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.