In this searing episode, Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down the shocking ICE raids in Chicago, complete with Blackhawks, power cutoffs, and mass detentions. They explore how these actions reveal the rise of a domestic military force and the breakdown between state and federal power. The hosts also examine Stephen Miller’s latest propaganda, GOP claims about Jack Smith’s “surveillance,” and the disturbing corporate capture of media as Barry Weiss takes over CBS News.
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I'm just, I'm just you, well, we were doing, we we were doing the the rundown before we started going.
And it's just like the amount of antipathy that I have for these people.
Right.
No, no, no.
Because this is what we do.
This is what we this is what I did.
Well, I sort of decided to do with my life 10 years ago.
This is what you and I have decided to do.
This is what we have decided to focus on.
And it's just, I hate these motherfuckers.
Right.
I mean, especially because it puts us in a situation where we have to choose which thing to talk about first.
Wonderful.
What a great choice that we have to make.
Anybody anyway, everybody, a reminder before we talk about these awful motherfuckers, which you have to, because otherwise you're just letting them run around all willy-nilly, do whatever they want to do.
So we have to do it.
A reminder, head over to Patreon.com slash my Craig Podcast Podcast, support the show, gain access to the weekender edition on Fridays, and also the Discord, live events, emergency podcasts, all that good stuff.
Patreon.com slash Mutt Greg Podcast.
Nick, um in your backyard, where you're from, Chicago, Illinois, things are escalating in a hurry.
Uh last week, apparently, uh over 300 federal agents flew Blackhawks over an apartment building, repelled down, shut the power off, detained every single person in the apartment building to arrest.
They say the worst of the worst, God knows what even is going on.
Meanwhile, they gassed an elementary school because why not?
We're seeing one video after another of residents showing up and fighting them.
Thank God.
But on the heels of all that, Governor J.B. Pritzker has announced that Donald Trump has informed him he's going to send over 400 National Guard members from the state of Texas without any authorization.
Um, this is a big giant mess.
And when we started talking about the Trump regime going into Chicago, we said we thought that this might be one of those flashpoints where this thing might start to grow and get really, really ugly.
There is the main problem, of course, with the fascist regime, and then there are some other cascading problems that I'm going to talk about in just a moment.
But how's this feel to you?
This is your hometown.
This is your home turf.
This shit is going down.
It's escalating, it's getting worse.
And now we have this new component of Trump getting ready to send in all these guardsmen from Texas.
You know, I mean, what's encouraging is that there are some clips out there that show like the sort of crowds chasing ice away and harassing them into like leaving and lose for them.
You know, or they're they're profiling people and grabbing people, and then they kind of end up maybe letting the one guy go and leaving.
And I think we need to develop something even more uh robust than that.
Now, obviously it can't be violent, but we need to figure out as citizens ways to have more uh agency in that where we can figure out ways that you can harass them enough where they're going to leave.
And I'm not saying anybody should be violent with this, but it's like if we can figure out more ways of that, then that would be great.
The problem also is that ICE clearly is not uh trained properly.
They have no idea, just like we're worried about National Guard going in and trying to be police without that kind of trading.
ICE clearly does not have any training in what they need to be doing.
Um, and it's frightening because people are dying, uh officially dying in a number of ways, either in detention uh or in the midst of trying to detain people.
Uh they're throwing tear gas in the middle of you know, uh traffic jams.
Like that's what they're up to now, you know.
That that's what's going on here.
Um, and uh it's going to get worse.
I mean, we saw somebody, you know, this supposedly a civilian pull the gun on one of them, and they're they're pulling guns on everybody and smiling about it, you know.
So I if we only had a uh uh an operating department of justice that understood what their job is supposed to be, they would be hauled in front of if we had a Congress that was supposed to be doing what they were supposed to be doing.
People would be hauled up in front of Congress and explaining themselves in a hurry, and it's not happening.
First of all, these people need to go to jail.
Yeah, there's no other way to put it.
The the people who are committing these offenses, they need to go to jail.
There's a larger conversation.
You kind of broached into it, the idea of violence.
That's a conversation for a different day.
What this requires, what it Legitimizes, that's a that's a different conversation for a different day.
I think what we're seeing here, and then we'll get into the larger systemic implications in just a moment.
Nick, them repelling down from a black hawk and shutting down the power in an apartment building and detaining all the citizens.
To make this clear, this is the training that Donald Trump was talking about.
They are learning how to be a domestic military that can take out entire buildings and blocks.
And that type of stuff, it's not going to just be limited to Chicago.
The reason why they're carrying out ops like this is to learn how to carry out ops like this.
And to go from, you know, just randomly stopping people or showing up at a farm and just rounding people up or hearing someone speak Spanish and then disappearing them.
All of those things are awful.
They're all absolutely terrible, and they are not above board and they they should suffer consequences for all these things.
This is an escalation into the next step of this thing, which is dealing with a domestic fascistic military.
And to watch this take place and then start to see the other things break down.
And I want to talk about those in just a second.
Basically, what we're dealing with right now, I want to make it very, very clear.
And this is something we've talked about, but I don't think it's been said explicitly.
Liberal democracy was set up in a very specific way in order to curtail things like this.
Like, I'm not telling you the founders were perfect.
They were so far from perfect.
That doesn't even factor into it.
But the system that we have been living in is the exact opposite of what this is.
You know, there are there have been crimes committed against the people, there have been so many abuses committed against the people.
It hasn't worked perfectly, but this is in the exact opposite contrarian position to what liberal democracy was intended to be.
Not that it always worked that way, but this right here is the exact opposite of what it was intended to be.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of facets to this that make it even worse.
Um, the first one is, and by the way, like, how is it how do I people have any kind of uh know how to repel out of a black hawk helicopter into doing it?
Oh, they've been training for this.
They've been good boys, they've been training for it.
Like so it's probably like DHS and Christy Nome was involved.
But and the point of that is I know what it looked like because I saw a video.
Do you know where I saw this video, Jared?
I saw this on Christy Gnome's feed.
They have a professional video uh crew with them filming this stuff and editing these videos showing them doing this.
That's what's even crazy about that.
I saw this thing where you can see the black hawks, you see them propelling it coming out and whatever and bringing people out.
They're celebrating this as an example of a propaganda.
That's what's really horrible about all this stuff.
It's not even like they're doing this because you know, they found suppose they had 37 people they arrested and they found two people who were quote unquote gang members, but uh it's not there's no proof that they're like trained to Aragua gang members that they're looking for.
Um, you know what's even worse is I saw uh some reporting that indicated that uh the person who owns the building is who's called the ice people in.
Like because remember, how do they target that building, right?
You know how many buildings there are in Chicago, uh apartment buildings?
A couple.
Yeah.
That are just like that, right?
How did they pick this one?
And I gotta tell you, there's compelling, I mean, the facts are that this guy uh was a slum lord and was not keeping this building up, and they were treating the people who are living there like absolute uh, you know, uh terrible, uh terrible conditions, and was also in the process of uh going bankrupt and being foreclosed upon.
I gotta tell you, a building like that in a neighborhood like that is more valuable when there's nobody living in it.
Sure.
And so you know those are two, those are all facts, right?
If you want to put them together, it's up to you.
But imagine that that's what's going on here is that this guy now needs to sell this building and going under, and he needs to get it uh cleared.
He'll just call ice on them and knowing that they'll clear it out, and then you know, build he'll get a better deal uh on the on the building.
That's how horrible and despicable this could very well be.
That's the ugliness of it, is how many people are going to use this developing apparatus as a way to, you know, get some money in their pocket.
Like, you know, it goes back to what we were saying about how they were going to try and turn the immigrant class into not just a subordinate class, but like an even lower, You know, sort of exploitative class, which is like, oh, you have somebody on your crew who says, hey, you're not actually paying me the money that you promised me.
You call ICE and they come along and they take care of it.
So it the capitalist part of this is absolutely important.
And what you brought up in terms of content, a reminder of what we were talking about last week when we were going over the whole military kerfuffle bullshit parade.
What was that, Nick?
It was the fact that these people, they're not serious people, they're doing serious things because they're podcasters, they're TV personalities, they're content creators.
And so they're doing things, and and really, if you sit down and look at it, there's a natural line from some bullshit like Mr. Beast, you know, putting someone in a house on fire back to the days where people are making content that you know gets clicks and likes and all of that.
It is the capitalist work ethic and incentive structure that creates this in the first place.
And the next thing you know, you suddenly have a group that is learning how to be a domestic super military force.
And now all of these things that were put in place to not make this happen.
First of all, the idea that Trump is going to use state national guardsmen against states, which has already happened, but is now going to happen again on a larger level because of what's happening happening with Pritzker.
You now have a larger problem, Nick, which is as ICE is doing this, as they're harassing people, as they're brutalizing people, as they are going in and disappearing people, the state police are there.
And the state police are supposed to answer to the governor of the state, and they're not.
So Pritzker's just like, you know, the people need to take videos of this, and that's the way we'll take care of it.
Meanwhile, the question is Pritzker could go ahead and mobilize the Illinois National Guard in order to stand up against ICE and his own state police.
And Nick, uh, you might have seen this, and the people listening might have seen this for years.
We've had all these so-called constitutional sheriffs around the country, right?
Who have just been like running their own areas however they want without any sort of oversight or consequence, right?
Um, some people what was his name?
Sheriff Joe or Powell, oh, whatever the hell his name is.
Guys like that were around for a long time.
And what did that do?
It started to crack the checks and balances that were supposed to be in place, right?
And later on, unfortunately, based on another story, we're gonna have to bring up, you know, January 20th or January 6th again.
Here we have another situation where a governor is literally looking at a constitutional crisis.
I don't know that I don't think that Pritzker is going to mobilize the state national guard in order to stand against ICE and his own state police.
But I can tell you, sure as shit, you're not supposed to be in situations like this.
Right.
You're not supposed to be in moments where this chain of command and the checks and balances come into play.
And if you look at the major cities and you look at the ones that are being attacked, and you know, Portland, thank God they just had a stay with a judge, God knows if that'll last, things are cracking up.
That's the point here is that we're starting to see that the fishers aren't just fishers, they're actually cracking the edifice of what has been in place.
Well, I think that distilled distills it in a really great way because well, like for instance, when the federal judge blocks uh Oregon, Oregon um uh National Guard from going in, then the end around for the Trump administration is like, oh, we'll just take him from California.
Yeah, he didn't figure that one out, or she didn't figure that one out.
And it's like it's childlike in that notion because that one got denied by the judge faster than the first one.
And here we have, you know, Texas going into Illinois.
Um, at some point, the worry will have to be that there will be National Guard troops who will refuse to do this as they recognize that it's not constitutional or they're in they're getting played as pawns in the middle of all this stuff.
So the bigger issue I see, and it even goes back to what like Newsom's trying to do right now on this there's a single ballot coming out soon uh about redistricting in California, is that the Democrats are going to try and play fair.
So, like, you know, like would Pritzker, you know, go against any kind of norms or whatever to try and stand up for a state.
Like, no, he is going to follow the rule of law to give him the moral superiority and all this, but it you can't win in that situation when you have another party that will violate every one of those things in a heartbeat.
And that's the worry.
So, you know, Newsom, rather than just push it through and force the legislation to do the redistricting, he's gonna put on a ballot that might not pass.
And then that might destroy any kind of hopes he had on the national stage when it'd be a humiliating for him.
So, you know, it it's really frustrating to see.
And again, I can't am I advocating for lawlessness and violating the constitution.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say at that point because one party is doing it and they're getting away with it.
And that is the cycle that always ends up happening when you have this authoritarian slide.
Is eventually it's some all these rules are made up.
It's Tinkerbell.
Tinkerbell doesn't exist if people don't believe in Tinkerbell.
So liberal democracy doesn't exist if the people don't play by the rules that have been set out.
And they haven't played by the rules for a very long time.
And every time somebody's like, oh, Trump this, Trump that.
I'm like, the 2000 election was stolen.
Right.
I don't know what to, I don't know what to say to people.
This has been going on for so long.
And it's it's the equivalent of you're doing an unhealthy behavior and eventually there's an unhealthy outcome.
And so now we've reached, we're literally talking about whether or not a governor of a state can even keep his own state police under control.
The largest city in the state at this point has been not only invaded by the federal government, it's been taken over by the federal government.
So a gov So the Chicago PD, they they got gassed by ICE.
The Chicago PD is getting gassed every single day.
So you start looking at this, and and as a person who analyzes this, not just the history of it and not just the day-by-day things, Nick, watching it, it's like watching a dam.
You know what I mean?
And like you see a crack in the dam, you're like, hey, I think somebody should take care of it.
Oh, there's a lot of cracks in the dam.
Oh, all of a sudden the pressure is building on this thing.
And we've had moments like this.
Like, even the discussion that we're having, it makes me think about the integration of schools in the South.
When JFK said, fuck it, we're gonna, we're gonna take those students in.
Right.
And I don't care if the governor stands in the way, we're going to make sure that those students get to class.
The question now is, is there going to, and by the way, I'm not going to sit here and mythologize JFK.
I'm not going to tell you he was the greatest president of all time.
What he did there was brave.
And so now you have the question are is anybody going to stand up and do something like that again?
And I don't know that Pritzker is.
I haven't seen anything so far that tells me that he will.
I think that he said the right things.
But somebody at some point or another is going to have to risk making these things a flash point because they're already flashpoints, period.
I mean, I mean, the movie version is ICE is in mass and the phalanx coming down the street to do some big raid.
And around the corner sets Pritzker in front of them to stop him, right?
And they're like, get the hell out of our way, we're going to do this.
He goes, Yeah, I'm not the only one here.
And then maybe the Chicago PD winds up behind him, like in revenge of the nerds or something like that.
And the guy from the deli joins and a neighbor joint.
Yeah.
Exactly.
That's like, you know, I keep saying that they need some much more of a public confrontational image to be able to do something about this.
And again, I what else is it going to do?
Because here's the thing.
How close do we get to a civil war if you're going to absolutely actually have different law enforcement agencies fighting each other?
That's what we're talking about.
But last week, when we talked about the possibility of a military coup suddenly, you know, breaching its head.
Like if you actually take that to its logical conclusion, not everybody in the military is on the same page.
All of a sudden you have some people who are going to take orders, some people who won't.
Some people want to do this, some people don't.
That's how this thing breaks down.
Is that like you you take a look at it, and all of a sudden the things they're supposed to work in place with each other is like an uh I'm sorry about all the analogies.
It's like an engine that breaks, and all of a sudden the parts that used to be in place start rubbing against each other and they start breaking down.
And so what you just brought up a second ago, the idea that Pritzker would be the guy who stands up and does this.
He's asking citizens to go out and document this.
Have you seen a video of ICE manhandling somebody who's videotaping them?
Absolutely, you have.
Yeah.
So now all of a sudden, we're asking regular people, and I've seen the video, you've seen the video of where ice is getting ready to disappear, somebody, and like people come out and they're like, we're not letting this happen.
And they actually get physical with ice.
Uh, there was another one I just saw, I can't remember where I saw it.
There were workers up on a Roof and the neighborhood showed up and said, No, you're not going to do this and actually flattened the tires.
So if this is going to be a thing where the leaders who need to be out in front of this aren't going to do it, then that means the people are going to do it.
And I've seen so much bravery from Angelinos.
I mean, what Chicagoans are doing right now is incredible.
The Portland people are showing up in ways that are like incredibly brave.
So if that's what's going to end up happening, then you're not going to have that friction between the different powers that need to come to a head, you're going to have state power and people.
And you know, I keep talking about organizing and I keep talking about collective action.
I still think that's important.
I still think people need to tell ICE to get the fuck out of their neighborhoods.
And I'm so in awe of the bravery of these people.
But if you're just allowing that to be the main friction, then that's not going to turn out well.
Somebody has to step up somewhere.
Right.
And it's worth bringing this up.
I wanted to play a soundbite from uh non-fred of the breakdown, Steve, uh Fred of the Pod, Stephen Miller.
Enemy of the pod, Stephen Miller.
Yes.
Um, because you have to understand what they're trying to do to rally the people on their side, which again, there's this notion um that because somebody might not be here, there are undocumented immigrants in this country that they are criminals and they don't have any rights and are they deserve to be treated any way they want to be, they that the ice wants to treat them, right?
Like that's sort of it's deserved.
Um ignore due process, ignore, you know, uh innocent liberal guilt, any of those things.
So here is how Stephen Miller is categorizing it, and you have to imagine that as he's saying this, there is a significant part of the country that is nodding their head alongside when they want to hear it.
Do you have any idea how much of ICE's workforce and resources have had to be reprioritized?
How much of the joint terrorism task force's resources have had to be reprioritized to fight these domestic terrorists?
Do you have any idea how many resources are suited you keep trying to terrorists?
But isn't that hyperbolic to call them terrorists?
What is they they know?
If anything, I'm understating the severity of the situation.
What issue was more central in 2024 than turning back the border invasion?
And since the day we came in, ICE officers have been subjected to a nonstop campaign of physical violence and harassment every single day.
And outside the Portland field office in particular, every night, they come, they assemble, they fight, they try to impede movement, they physically attack for what purpose?
Because we had an election, Boris.
We had one.
What's the purpose?
To use actual physical violence to change the result of the election to say you cannot turn back the border invasion.
Oh, God.
Well, he kind of sounds like a mix between like Kate Hepburn and um uh Ethel Merman, don't you think?
He sucks.
Oh my god, who sucks?
And by the way, I I I just we talk about this, but sometimes it needs to be said.
Donald Trump is not well.
Donald Trump has no idea what the hell is going on.
Donald Trump is off in Donald Trump la la land, period.
He is a mad king and he is falling apart and decomposing in front of our eyes.
The fact that a rat like Stephen Miller could figure out that he could have so much sway, like this walking, talking cesspool that he could some, I mean, he's in charge of the possible war against Venezuela, Nick.
He's in charge of all of this shit.
Like to watch him and and what is he saying?
The idea that trying to stop a paramilitary force from like taking people and and and God doing God knows what to them, that that's trying to change the results of an election.
By the way, if they're worse than domestic terrorists, Nick, it it uh just uh and because I know that everyone knows this, but sometimes you have to break it down.
Let's go back to 1994, Nick.
You are standing outside of the Alfred P. Mora building, right?
And Timothy McVay comes out with the rental truck and he's standing there.
Are you within your philosophical rights?
Is it the right thing to do to kill him before he blows up the building?
Before he blows up the building.
Um, I mean, I suppose if that was clear that's what's gonna happen, then yeah, you gotta probably get to the Okay.
So if these people are not just domestic terrorists, they're actually worse than domestic terrorists.
Then what is rhetorically Being said.
And by the way, Nick, this is just a couple of weeks after these assholes had the temerity to say that rhetoric is what led to Charlie Kirk dying.
And that rhetoric was what was leading to all this violence.
And now they're literally saying that the people they're dealing with are not just domestic terrorists.
It's actually worse than that.
So yes, it is setting up the idea of extermination.
And the rhetorical idea that's being pushed here is not only that they have the right to do this by any and all means, but on top of that, anybody who speaks out against it literally can be, and and we we've seen this.
Like the domestic terrorist list is growing by the day.
Right.
Growing by the day.
Anybody who questions this shit is now being put into this list.
So what does that say?
That literally is here's a group of people who deserve to live, and here are a group of people who deserve to die.
Right.
I mean, it I it's like they watch that Tom Cruise movie, the premature arresting, what's it called?
Um minority report.
Minority report where they're gonna try and arrest people before they they commit these crimes because they're building up this whole thing.
And you're gonna hear the word insurrectionists a lot now.
Sure.
Or people who are simply protesting and exercising their First Amendment rights.
And what I think what ends up being missed uh by a lot of the right when they rail against, you know, protests is why are they protesting?
What could possibly make people, everyday ordinary citizens that upset that they are willing to risk their health to go and and make their point in front of uh ice and you know at night in Portland where put these these um uh ice people are just knocking them down and injuring them and then arresting them for doing nothing, right?
We I've seen six or seven of these uh things where they're they're sitting there and they're protesting.
At some point after 30, 40 seconds, they decide, okay, we're just gonna arrest them, throw them down, potentially injure them and then take them away.
Um, but then no one ever wants to reflect at all on the fact that, like, here's this do you don't you think if I stopped patrolling streets in Portland that they would stop protesting?
I mean, there have been there have been protests that haven't caused any problems in Portland for years.
It is a hotbed of protest, but it hasn't caused any problems.
There have been flare-ups the same way there have been flare-ups anywhere else.
But yes, ice being there and federal troops being there, it absolutely exacerbates the problem.
Right.
And they want that.
That's the problem.
They want that's why I have to be worried about calling for anything other than like what you mentioned, they took the air out of the tires and they were intimidating the ice agents.
I mean, listen, we can't deny that there were shots fired.
And I suppose in Dallas it was it was at the ICE Asians, they fucking miss and I don't know that.
I I don't know that for sure.
We don't know.
Okay, whatever that is.
Uh, because that's what they're trumping, right?
They're they're they're trumping that where look how look how dangerous it is to be an ice person, right?
They're under a siege.
I haven't seen any evidence of anybody doxing an ice person.
You know, they always have the mask on, you don't even know who they are necessarily a lot of the time.
And yet uh like that's what they're hiding behind.
And I don't I don't buy that either.
Uh you know, I I'm not so sure that that's an issue as much either.
So, but if they ever have a you know a figure like how can we solve this?
What if we really want to solve it would be let's change the policies.
Let's stop being so uh draconian in these measures.
Let's get better training for these people.
Like that would actually do something.
I I don't know the training's gonna figure it out.
I don't know how else to say this.
And and I'm not meaning to bring the podcast to a screeching halt.
I I think this is I think this is something for us to talk about, not necessarily at length right now, but I think it's important, which is I think that we're reaching an inflection point.
I I think we're reaching the point where I don't think reform is the answer.
I I I don't know what I I can't completely articulate this now, but it feels to me like something is about to happen, like something really big and and triggering is about to happen.
And I don't think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to be organized.
I don't think it's going to be entirely focused.
One of the reasons I say that, Nick, is because people who are being abused do not like react rationally, you know, like you hear those stories about people who have been abused for years and then they suddenly snap.
I don't think that what is about to happen is going to be easy or simple or clean.
And on top of that, like liberal democracy being challenged this way, and the normal avenues like not being there and not even having an opposition party to represent people, like those types of things, it feels right now like This thing is is heating up in a hurry.
And it feels like we're heading towards something that is not going to be simple or organized or clean.
I I think that's true.
I think because you know, the No Kings protest is coming up in a week and a half or a couple weeks.
And it's it's been planned, it's going to be measured, it's going to be all you know organized in that sense.
That's not probably the place we're going to end up seeing a lot of things.
I I agree.
I think it's going to erupt organically out of something that no one has planned.
And again, it's so it's so frustrating to even hear, you know, what they're characterizing people like in Portland is like it's some sort of sorrow-spacked, you know, um, paid uh uh agitators, whatever.
By the way, we know we both had seen, and we now have both seen um the movie from Paul Thomas Anderson.
And what not to really ruin it, it's just part of the thing is at some point you do see that they uh the authorities are the ones who instigate more of a riot during a protest by you know having a plant in the crowd.
Um the person I was with turned to me and said, Do you think that's that that's something that's real?
Like that would happen.
And I'm like, it would have happened before for sure.
Absolutely, right?
And by the way, it's what the right argues uh about January 6th, right?
They're saying that they instigated it, you know, for the you know to incriminate them, uh just like you know, if on the left side.
So um, you know, that's a that's another worry is that they're gonna end up doing it that way.
And it's gonna be instigated by uh ICE or by the uh administration.
Well, speaking of January 6th, Nick, we got to talk about this uh breaking story.
It happened right before we got ready to record.
Um Cash Patel and Dan Bongino uh hurried off to Congress in order to brief all the Republican senators and Congress people, telling them, oh my God, special investigator Jack Smith surveilled GOP senators and GOP members uh during his investigation of the attempted overthrow of uh the 2020 election.
Um I mean, Nick, this I I have to imagine that this is a huge story, and then he needs to be prosecuted.
And also, I'm I'm glad they took this seriously and that you know they handled it in in like a real timely manner as the emergency that it was.
Uh I mean, it's almost a dozen Republican senators.
And you know, it's funny, they're using this.
So I asked you in the text before we started recording, I said, you know, how long did you think that they've had this piece of paper that shows that he had from the very beginning that they got in that office?
Right.
And so this is what they'll do, they'll backpocket this stuff and wait until they need it as a distraction for something else, and then just continue to throw it out there.
So Jack Smith will definitely be uh uh investigated and you know, and he's not in the country anymore.
Uh, I don't know what the extradition laws are gonna end up being if they try and charge him with a crime.
Um I I don't know.
I I bet you Jack Smith might even show up if they want to, you know, uh question him.
Well, I mean, you know, this is where it's going.
Also, we're probably a day or two away from a James Comey perp walk at this point.
I mean, like one person was already fired for refusing to do it, they definitely definitely want it.
It's political retribution, but I'll go ahead and and and say in historical precedent.
I'll just say if you think that the FBI hasn't surveilled members of Congress before, and and under one particular director of the FBI that there wasn't a lot of extra legal surveillance.
If you believe that, I don't know what to tell you.
If you want to abolish the FBI and we talk about the need to reform the FBI, absolutely, I'm on board to talk about that.
But Jack Smith's entire job was to talk about the conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election.
And guess who helped to over try and overthrow the 2020 election?
Members of the Republican Party.
And what did he surveil?
Who were they talking to, and when were they talking to them?
Which last time I checked, if you're trying to figure out a conspiracy, those are actually some important things to figure out is who was talking to who.
And by the way, was somebody in the White House basically in the middle of that thing.
And we know that they were.
We we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were.
And so looking at this, it is so offensive that this is what's happening.
If you want to have a conversation about the FBI and the powers and what it does and what it shouldn't do, I'm I'm all here for this, but this is an absolute absurdity and affront to common sense and intelligence.
And just to make clear, you were referring to the longest tenured uh FBI director.
I was talking about the long, the first and the longest tenured.
Yeah, and who had a predilection for uh female.
He he had a predilection for surveilling everybody and trying to control Washington, DC in every way, shape, and form.
Well, fair enough.
I stuck what I said in there really now.
Uh And remember the the number uh or the people that they did surveil were all people who had pledged to uh deny uh certification, which is like a big, you know, red flash.
And then when you're looking back on this to figure out, okay, uh, if they were part of willing to do that and not certify the results of the election, well, uh, were they in contact with the people that were planning this insurrection?
Uh it's certainly worthy.
And I get to have I have a spoiler for you, Nick, they were right.
Well, beyond the show, remember Holly is giving him the fist pump, he's excited.
This is going along as way Wales is supposed to, until he was like, maybe he got out of the Capitol a little later than he meant to, and so that's why he was kind of running and looked panicked.
But um, this I can get I can guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt that uh Jack Smith had every T cross, every I dotted for, you know, because again, if if you were going to dare look into it, it's probably more like location monitoring, like where they were.
I don't I don't know if it was necessarily trying to get, you know, monitor their phone calls, but even let's say what's vague, we don't really know what it was, but uh there's no way that he's doing that uh, you know, going off the reservation to do that and going rogue.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
No, yeah, Jack, Jack Smith, and actually the problem with Jack Smith and everybody else involved in all this is that they were just so like dead set on carrying out like you know, everything by the letter of the law.
I mean, that that's one of the reasons why we ended up in this problem in the first place is because they they they were overly cautious and conservative.
And that's what I said earlier, right?
Like that they're gonna play by the rules against the team that's not gonna play.
That's not playing by the rules.
And then, by the way, feeling better about themselves because they play it didn't just play by the rules, they went above and beyond the rules, like in terms of like conservative nature of this thing and not wanting to, you know, seem inappropriate.
And what does it get them, Nick?
What's he get anybody?
Like every single one of these things, whether it's Merrick Garland or you know, Comey is Comey, fuck him, or Jack Smith or Robert Mueller or any of these people, like where does he get them?
Where does he get the Democratic Party?
They they basically have shown up.
You keep saying, like playing a team that doesn't play with the rules.
Nick, it's the equivalent of showing up and playing a team that is all corked their bats and they're all steroided up.
And on top of that, like an umpire calls them out and they're like, I was safe.
And that's that.
Like there it's literally playing a game to lose and then making yourself feel better afterwards by saying, Well, we played the right way.
And meanwhile, like you lose everything and vulnerable people are thrown under the bus.
Well, well, since this is the theme of the show, how we're kind of using other metaphors and other things to connect.
Uh, and we'll give them, we'll give people a glimpse into like what the weekender would be, because I'm gonna take a little bit of left turn here for a second.
And then again, don't forget, if you want access to that, then you can always go to you know uh patreon.com slash monkeypodcast to check it out because we do have a little bit more of a free form discussion.
So I'll do that and give you a glimpse of what that would be like because uh you're familiar with Star Trek, right, Jared?
Sure.
So Captain Kirk has been celebrated in the canon this whole time because he was able to pass a test that all captains have to pass, uh, which is a no-win situation, right?
But the only way he passed that was because he went in, snuck in and programmed the computers the night before to give him one way to solve it.
And for all this time in America, he is celebrated, right?
Ingenuity.
But what did he really do?
He fucking broke the rules, he cheated.
But think about how how ingrained that is in America that's not pointed out that way.
And it's treated like it's something we you know, they just we should be patting on the back for.
And I kind of feel like that's where the right is tapping into as well.
Don't you think that's what it is?
It's into ingenuity, just like Trump had said he was smart for not paying taxes in that uh fateful debate against Hillary Clinton.
And it's that same idea now where it was like that's that's what he's doing to rally support behind them.
What has happened?
And by the way, like America has always been not just an individualistic society, it's been a scoff loss society.
It's basically the the people who get to the top are the people who cheat.
And as that has happened, people have gotten excited about.
I mean, like there's like you there's like a saying it's around like stock cars.
If you're not cheating, you're not trying.
Right.
And and the entire thing is like if you actually look at fascists breaking liberal democracy, like they're admired because they have the guts to say these limits can't hold me back.
That's the entire thing here.
And what they are now showing, and by the way, Steven Miller, That that what he said going back to that, I think is really important, which is the idea that trying to stop them from doing whatever they wanted to do is trying to invalidate an election, which is, you know, we we won this election, and therefore we deserve to do whatever it is we want to do.
They do not see the constitution as a limitation.
They do not see liberal democracy as a limitation.
And so they're going for it.
And so you look at all that, I mean, like seriously, like going after Jack Smith like this, like somebody who like took his job seriously and like tried to investigate this stuff, like going after him is just more proof that they just don't give a shit about like anything.
They don't give a shit about precedent, they don't give a shit about the law, they don't give a shit about anything.
And I say that again because I know that there are people from the Democratic Party who listen to this show.
So I I don't know what to tell you.
If you are going to bed at night and resting easily because you feel like you did everything that you could, and meanwhile, people are going to die and rights are going to be taken away and and all of liberal democracy is going to be eroded and smashed.
You're not ready for this.
You're not, you you're not made of the sterner stuff.
I'm not telling people to go out and cheat.
I'm not telling people to go out and break the law.
I'm telling people to take that seriously.
Because if you're going to play people who don't care about any of those things, and they've made it abundantly clear for over a decade now, really going back to 2000, they've made it clear for uh a quarter of a century now that they're playing a completely different game.
If you're not up to that, if you're not going to at least acknowledge it, and by the way, we're we're not gonna talk about it in depth.
Watching Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries and the Democratic Party react to the government shutdown, weak sauce doesn't even begin to cover.
These people are not up to it.
These people do not have the stomach for it, they do not have the disposition for it, they do not have the will for it.
And if you're not going to do that, do us all a favor and step to the side because you can't play in this game any longer.
I mean, basically what you're calling for is LBJ to come back from the grave and party, right?
Because, you know, he didn't get the Civil Rights Act passed with uh flowers and roses, uh, you know, having he did not, and by the way, I mean, you know, Abraham Lincoln did not get the amendment passed, you know, shaking hands.
Like I mean, like it really, it really is a serious situation.
Um, Nick, last thing before we get out of here, we gotta talk about this.
We'd be remiss if we didn't.
Um, Paramount Skydance has completed a buyout of the free press, one of the most bullshit publications that the internet has ever seen for 15 million dollars and has named Barry Weiss as head of CBS News.
That's right.
CBS News, one of the hallmarks of American journalism, is now in charge, is now now has Barry Weiss in charge of it.
Uh, I have several thoughts about this.
What what what are your reactions to this?
Absolutely disturbing news.
I mean, um, what intellectually disingenuous um, you know, she makes uh the person that runs the libs of TikTok account uh looks like uh Robert Armuro, Robert Armor, Edward Armoral.
Edwards like you know what I mean.
Her sound sane.
Um, and it's frustrating because I know people who are would probably even say they're somewhat toward the center who like maybe are even like listen to Barry Weiss and think, oh wow, insightful, um, when it's completely manipulative and you know, bought out, you know, probably and influenced by a lot of uh, you know, major propaganda stuff.
So um it's just power power for the course, I guess.
And maybe it's the notion that, you know, hey, you can you can make a lot of money off of the right wing propaganda, and that's the only thing I can explain it with.
Well, and and this is there are two things I want to say about this before we get out of here.
First thing first, I talk about the overden window all the time.
And for people, I've I've I got I've gotten an email before it says what's the overdone window.
The overdone window is what is considered normal, and it moves and it shifts.
And the overdone window has moved so far to the right that Barry Weiss has become the center.
And and that's and and they forced it to happen.
Like that is like her taking charge of CBS news is now considered something acceptable.
That she somehow or another is a rational voice in all of this, even though all of the dumb shit that she said and all of the pain that she has caused.
But there's a larger thing here, Nick, which is Larry Ellison, who is in charge of Paramount, and also Oracle, Which is about to take over the American TikTok version, uh, the the version American version of TikTok, which is gonna look over the data and the algorithm and all of that stuff.
If you look at what's happening right now, it's not just that they made a mistake with Barry Weiss.
It's the fact that as the fascist takeover of liberal democracy is taking place, corporations are completing their monopolies.
And guess what?
Corporations are on board with this.
They see the move towards the right as part and parcel of their own economic and political interest.
And so what you're seeing right now is what happens when you have monopolies.
And when you have monopolies, they're able to change these things.
And it's not just TikTok and CBS.
We're seeing it across the board, Nick.
Basically, all of the major corporations, all of the major monopolies that control the news media that controls media, that controls basically everything, is getting on board with the fascistic takeover of the United States of America.
And I thought the internet was supposed to, you know, break up monopolies and give everyone a voice and have it.
Nope.
Nope.
We're gonna go right back to cable.
Basically, streaming is gonna just turn into the cable again.
It's gonna turn into TV.
No, it's 100%.
It's just cable.
No, I mean that that's exactly right.
It's gonna turn into originally what the radio was like, where we're cashed, we can't skip any commercials or whatever, we're listening to all these integrations.
So I I wish I if only we could live in a society where you know a much more progressive ideology was more lucrative, I suppose is the answer, right?
Well, I mean, it would be considering the mass majority of Americans are either progressive or progressive curious.
So it's not even actually about like profit in terms of popularity, it's forcing a change of opinion, which is why all of this is taking place.
Right.
And if the government isn't gonna get involved in like business, then yes, you can totally survive and thrive in a society where you can be remembered for a long time all these corporations wanted to appear liberal and they can progress it, right?
It was it was lucrative.
But once they start cracking down and threatening, you know, all sorts of manifest sanctions and and taxes and licenses and all that thing, but all the things that should never be thrown out there in terms of what Trump is saying, yeah, then you're gonna you're gonna turn them really fast, right?
Well, they didn't want any of that.
That's the whole point, is that they weren't actually progressive.
They were symbolically progressive as a way to advertise to people.
That's it.
They were they were taking advantage of what they saw as a trend, and then the moment they could be themselves, they were themselves.
Right.
But I would take that.
I'd almost take that.
The transparent uh, you know, whatever, because it there's some possibility that that wouldn't continue to keep the upward progression and the march toward where we're going.
I I don't think we were actually marching towards where it seemed we were going.
I thought there was the illusion of it while all of this built up.
I want to go back to the illusion, Jared.
Well, I you want to go back into the matrix.
Yeah, just fool me.
Uh, I want to go back to a I know this isn't stake, but I taste the stake.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
I want to go back to when, you know, where I thought we were.
I'm sorry, you can't, I'm sorry, man.
You can't go back.
Yeah.
Uh like I said before, like, you know, the MADA crowd, they don't seem to have reflection.
They don't sort of think deeply about these things.
They could stare at the wall for like an hour and just be like, huh.
I wish I part of me does have the I I admire that.
I wish I would not have self-reflection.
I wish I would not try and be thinking of ways to make people's lives better or my bet life better, or how these things can work.
I I I wish I didn't have to do that.
It's a burden.
And yet we persist.
And yet we persist.
And that is why we're here.
My God, I hate these motherfuckers.
All right.
This was an angry episode of the Munk Rights Podcast.
We'll be back with the weekender on Friday.
Reminder, head over to Patreon.com slash Monk Rick Podcast in order to gain access to that and also support the show.
Tons of other extra content, community features, stuff like that.
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