WTW75: Decades of Anti-woke Propaganda Has All Been to Get Us Here
To this administration and this moment. Today we discuss how Harmeet Dhillon plans to not just ruin the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ, but to actively point it in reverse. Lydia breaks it down for us, and along the way we learn about so many things we didn't appreciate enough while we had them. DOJ's Fulton County Jail Investigation, November 2024 Dhillon's piece in Hillsdale College's Imprimis Publication, August 2022 **If you enjoy our work, please consider leaving a 5-star review! You can always email questions, comments, and leads to lydia@seriouspod.com.** Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!
What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, everything, everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
I'm Thomas.
That's Lydia.
How are you doing?
Oh man, I... I need a new way to start shows.
Yeah, I think you need to stop asking how we're doing.
Yeah, can we just do like a resistance-like greeting?
Meter.
Or no, just like, you know, like if you're two spies meeting up in the wild or whatever, you know what I mean?
You just be like, I don't know what they'd say, but there'd probably be something.
It wouldn't be like, hey, buddy, how you doing?
What's up?
Yeah.
How are you feeling about the fascism?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's bad.
It's bad.
But I'm glad today we're doing something the same but different in that there are so many confirmation hearings that I wish we had time to go through.
Oh my God, so many.
And they're so important.
A bunch today.
A bunch today.
Yeah.
I can't believe how much they're throwing at us.
Yeah.
But I think you had the brilliant idea of instead of being behind the curve and reporting on those, which I still want to, you're going to tell us about one that's coming up and somebody that's – I haven't heard much about this person at all.
Oh, man.
Buckle up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who are we going to be talking about today?
We are going to be talking about Harmeet Dillon, who has been nominated to be the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
An incredibly important division.
And we're going to talk a bit about what that looked like in the previous administration and what it's bound to look like if she is confirmed.
Yeah.
And, you know, this is where there's woke and the soul of the show still is debunking anti-woke conspiracy stuff.
But I think this is important because this is the goal of all their stuff.
This has been the goal.
It's been to take out, to wind back the clock on civil rights.
That has always been the goal of every anti-woke conspiracy theory.
That's always been the goal.
Every single time.
Whether someone was participating in it unknowingly or just with that bias harbored in their hearts that they think it's gone too far.
It's all gone too far.
All this, the consideration of other people.
Of non-white people, of non-men.
That's all gone too far, and we need to rip it back.
And this person is going to be in charge of the Civil Rights Division of...
Yeah.
Yeah, so that's going to be one of the many ground zeroes, grounds zero of this.
So can't wait to find out who this person is.
And they're not white, which is even more fun.
That's even more fun.
Child of immigrants.
All right.
Well, we'll get to it after this break.
Hey, please support the show.
Patreon.com slash wherethereswoke.
It feels like it's more important now than ever.
I know I say that every time, but we really appreciate the people who are supporting.
You're making this happen.
Not enough people are doing this work, and we aren't even doing enough of it, and we need to do more of it.
And for that, we need your support.
Oh, yeah.
Thank you for giving it to us.
Here's an example.
New York Times headline, Dissecting the Meaning of RFK Jr.'s Tie.
With birds on it.
That's how they covered his confirmation hearing.
Cute.
Cool.
All right.
Well, after this break, we'll get to it.
Before we dig into Harmeet Dillon specifically, I want to talk a little bit about what happened like immediately post-inauguration with the Civil Rights Division because they are essentially leaderless right now.
Pam Bondi is nominated as Attorney General.
She's still been going through the confirmation process.
And of course, the Assistant Attorney Generals are also not appointed either.
They have to wait for the confirmation process.
Harmeet Dillon hasn't even been scheduled yet for confirmation hearings because they have a lot they're trying to get through as quickly as possible.
You know, she's just kind of waiting on the sidelines kind of thing.
But almost immediately after Trump was inaugurated, a memo was sent to the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from the DOJ's chief of staff, the new chief of staff, Chad Mizell.
And it was directing them to freeze the pursuit of any new cases, indictments, or settlements.
They later clarified because all of these memos have been vague and confusing and...
I don't know what I can do at work right now.
We saw that with the funding freeze.
So they had to clarify that, yes, you are allowed to continue work on cases that have already been filed as long as the judge that's overseeing it allows it.
So they had to go and seek.
That confirmation that these cases would be moving forward under that judge.
There was a second memo that was released shortly after that was freezing consent decrees.
So we talked about, you know, freezing any new cases, indictments, or settlements.
And then the second memo is specifically saying, okay, these consent decrees that you are entering into, and those are agreements with local governments to address things like flawed police practices, for example.
So a couple of these things were almost approved, but had not yet been finally approved.
So now these are frozen.
So the consent decree with Louisville, Kentucky regarding how they handled the Breonna Taylor incident.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
So it's sort of like the settlement, essentially?
Kind of.
Yeah, it's basically saying like, you know, the police in Louisville, Kentucky are under a consent decree with the DOJ in which they need to pursue the following things to address the issues that they had.
Minneapolis, same thing.
After George Floyd, the DOJ pursued a consent decree with the Minneapolis Police Department, and neither of those have final approval, so those are both on hold.
Well, okay, here's the only thing, though.
Even if they were approved, could Trump just unwind them anyway?
Could Trump just say, no more consent decree?
This is kind of an opening arguments question, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, I guess...
Theoretically, yes, but it depends on, I guess, how far along in the consent decree they were to...
Well, consent decree might just be an ongoing practice.
It is, but if the police department is expected to, like, if they're going to initiate new policies, procedures, training, you know, if they're down the line on those things, I don't know how proactive they would be in, like...
Rolling all that back, necessarily.
Have you considered that some of those who burn crosses are the same?
Yeah, I know.
I know.
And joined forces.
I always forget the...
So they probably would wind it back.
But yeah, point taken.
I mean, it definitely would be harder.
But yeah, like, I didn't even...
This is one of those many, many components of this damage that we don't even think of.
Like, it's just there's so much.
There's so many ways that they're ruining things.
And consent decrees over just out and out, like, police murder, you know?
It's like they're going to wind all that back.
They have absolutely no shame.
They will wind it all back.
One more example of a consent decree that was being pursued that will now no longer be pursued was the condition of the Fulton County Jail.
That investigation released their findings in November, and I read it, and it's horrific.
They found that the conditions at Fulton County Jail in Georgia violated the 8th and 14th Amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
There are like really awful examples of things that they share in that, like things that really need to be addressed and fixed immediately.
And I'll link the report in the show notes if anyone wants to check it out.
But for sure, content warning, there are descriptions of things that are pretty bad.
So how unusual is this freeze?
Well, Damon Hewitt is the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under law.
And he said that this is beyond unusual.
Quote, it's unprecedented.
We've never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration.
This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried.
This is more than just a changing course of philosophy.
This is exactly what most people in the civil rights community feared.
A Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights, literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.
So let's talk about who sent out this memo.
I mentioned his name, Chad Mizell, that he's, you know, just chief of staff for the DOJ right now.
He's Stephen Miller's buddy.
Of course, right?
He served in the previous Trump administration.
I'm going to debunk you.
Stephen Miller cannot have friends.
It's not possible.
That's fair.
Maybe I should come up with a new way to describe him.
It's like they're just in the same place.
They both are disgusting near each other.
That's it.
There's no friendship.
Oh, it gets worse.
So he served in the previous Trump administration as general counsel for Department of Homeland Security.
He helped develop and defend the border security and deportation policies, along with Stephen Miller.
When Trump announced his appointment on Truth Social, he referred to him as a MAGA warrior.
So this is someone who is very, very intense.
He is also married to Judge Catherine Kimball Mizell.
A judge?
Yep.
District judge with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
A federal judge?
Yep.
God damn.
Appointed at 33 years old.
It's a lifetime appointment.
Oh my God.
The ABA had rated her not qualified.
Fuck this.
Quote, since her admission to the bar, Ms. Mizell has not tried a case, civil or criminal.
Holy crap.
As lead or co-counsel.
The Democrats ended up boycotting the Judiciary Committee.
As lead or co-counsel.
Yeah.
She's never been to a trial.
Yeah.
Never seen it.
And she's a judge.
You know, it's not that easy to be a judge.
Like, it really is not.
God.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
She is responsible for striking down the CDC's federal mask mandate on airplanes and public transportation.
Oh, wow.
So she's been there since, like, what, beginning of Trump administration?
Like towards the end of the Trump administration.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she had clerked for, surprise, surprise, Clarence Thomas from 2018 to 2019. She's been a Federalist Society member since 2012. And she also was behind.
She was eight.
Yeah.
And she was also behind a ruling that said that prohibiting.
Firearms in post offices is unconstitutional.
Siding Bruin for that.
Sure.
Yeah.
And Chad Mazzell, so he is not the person who's going to be making, like, all the calls at the top.
I wanted to talk about him because this is the structure of the administration supporting the people at the top.
The issues run deep in the DOJ as a result.
But let's switch and talk about Harmeet Dillon.
Right now, Kathleen Wolfe is the acting supervisor while we wait for Dillon to go through the confirmation process.
But I want to talk a little bit about her background, first of all, and then we'll get into a little bit for her vision of the Civil Rights Division for the DOJ. So Harmeet Dillon was born in India and moved to the U.S. with her family as a child.
She attended Dartmouth College and received her bachelor's in classical studies.
She has been conservative her whole life, essentially.
She was the editor for a conservative paper at Dartmouth and felt that the school was discriminating against its conservative students in favor of its liberal students.
So there were a lot of articles related to that.
She got her JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and then had a clerkship on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
She actually worked with the ACLU following 9-11.
And this is like the one thing that the GOP like kind of goes after her about.
Everything else is, like, perfect from their perspective.
But she does get some flack for having worked with the ACLU. But given her background, she was advocating for...
in the wake of 9/11.
You would think that somebody who was on the front lines of some of that stuff would be able to apply the discrimination and harassment that's occurring. - She's now trying to get a job with the people who did that.
- Yeah. - Absolutely the people who would have harassed a Sikh person. - And after she left the ACLU, she founded her own firm in 2006.
So this is the Dillon Law Group, and we're gonna be talking about them quite a bit And then after, you know, several years or a decade of working for her own firm, she also then started a nonprofit called the Center for American Liberty.
And their mission is to create a nationwide network of attorneys to, quote, zealously advocate for individual liberty and to combat illegal discrimination.
Wonder how that's exactly being applied.
She ran for the RNC chairperson in 2023 against Ronna McDaniel because she felt that the party organization needed to be more Trump-friendly, but she lost.
And she was also the co-chairwoman of Lawyers for Trump.
So she's Trump through and through.
Another, like, strong loyalist.
With Dillon Law Group, let's talk about some of the clients that she had.
I think you're going to recognize several of these.
Berkeley College Republicans and Young America's Foundation.
For the Milo thing?
Against UC Berkeley.
No.
For Ann Coulter.
Ann Coulter.
Yeah.
It was one of those two.
Yep.
Berkeley canceled Ann Coulter's speech citing security reasons and she represented the Berkeley College Republicans and Young America's Foundation.
They settled in December 2018. And she said because of the settlement, this forced...
She also represented James Damore.
Oh, my God.
Versus Google in August of 2017. Unbelievable.
That case was actually dismissed because he had no fucking case given the nature of his employment while he had mandatory arbitration.
So the lawsuit was dismissed as a result of that.
And he was removed from the case.
The case has been continuing without him.
But she recently.
Yeah, she recently lost an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board.
So I don't know exactly if that means it's just dead now.
Probably, because I don't know why you would keep bothering, especially with the broligarchy, right?
Also, yeah, you won tech.
Yeah, you guys figured it out.
You won.
Andy Ngo versus Antifa.
Oh, my God.
Versus Antifa?
Yes.
Yes.
June 2020, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of Andy Ngo for $900,000 in damages.
The name defendants of that lawsuit were Rose City Antifa and several name defendants.
Oh, okay.
So they did have someone to actually pin it up.
Yeah, they did.
And what sucks is...
Because I know he won one of these fucking things.
So, kind of.
Yeah.
So, basically, conservative media framed this as victory for no, three defendants found responsible for assault and battery, etc.
But those three were ones that did not show up to the hearing despite being summoned.
So, he won by default.
He didn't win on merits.
He won by default.
The two people who did attend were found not guilty by a jury.
Well, that's interesting.
That's something we might want to cover at some point in more detail.
Yeah, exactly.
The conservative spin of that, of course, is that Andy Ngo was vindicated.
She represents Chloe Cole, detransitioner versus Kaiser.
That lawsuit was filed February 2023. So she's very deep in the anti-trans movement.
And she also represented Tucker Carlson when he was going up against a Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg, in 2023 regarding gender discrimination and represented the Tucker Carlson side of that.
Yeah.
So she's been very involved with those kind of culture war cases, but she was also very...
She's like the lawyer that all the criminals in the wire use.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
During the COVID pandemic, the Dillon Law Group is based out of San Francisco.
And so she filed a ton of lawsuits against California, more than a dozen within like two months.
And obviously, her firm took Paycheck Protection Program money.
Sure, sure.
Between $150,000 to $350,000, it was reported.
And it was through a small Wisconsin bank that only...
It only has five branches within Wisconsin, and the Dillon Law Group practices law in a number of states.
Wisconsin is not one of them.
So there were some questions about, oh, I wonder why, like, it was via the Hiawatha National Bank that they received their...
So we know her background.
We know how she's approached some of these culture war issues, how she approached COVID. You know, she was against masking.
She said it did nothing.
She also, because she's out of San Francisco, she went on Tucker Carlson during the election, like during the campaign.
I think it was like October.
And it's very long, so we're not going to play it.
But maybe I'll link to it if people want to.
I'm not mad enough.
I'm not mad enough, yeah.
But she went on Tucker Carlson to basically do like a takedown of Kamala Harris.
And she would know because she's also in San Francisco.
Sure.
And their paths had crossed, you know, in a variety of circles.
And a big chunk of that interview with Tucker Carlson is talking about how Kamala Harris and Willie Brown and how that paved the way for Kamala Harris's future.
What was that again?
That they had a relationship.
Oh, I know.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
But let's now talk about, okay, we know where she's at, culture war, COVID, her background, and the conservative, Trump-loving position that she has been in for a very long time.
So it's probably no surprise that what we can expect with her at the helm of the Civil Rights Division is not good.
There is a speech that she delivered that was then reprinted in the Hillsdale College's imprimis publication in August of 2022. I'll link to that as well because that's worth reading.
And it's titled The Politicization of the Department of Justice.
And I'm just going to read one little bit of it because here are the three examples she hones in on to show that the DOJ was politicized.
It's homes in on.
No, it can be either.
It can be either.
Home and hone.
If you're homing in, you're homing in.
Honing.
You can hone something, but you don't hone in on it.
Okay.
Unless it's one of those where they've made irregardless correct as well.
No.
Home in means to move towards a target, while hone in means to improve or refine something.
Yeah, but only because people used it wrong.
I don't know if I agree with that.
Someone write in and tell me.
I always say that because this is when I said wrong forever.
I actually still say it wrong, but I just remember it from time to time.
She said in this piece, let me discuss three recent examples that illustrate the threats we face from a politicized DOJ. And the DOJ's efforts to undermine election integrity and chill-free speech.
And she goes into details for all of those.
But I thought it was funny that when we discussed Project Veritas on OA, you brought that up as an example.
I was like, oh, I'm going to be talking about that a little bit, too.
Here's an example of how they've been unfairly attacked by the DOJ. Yeah, their shit is so deceptive, it's illegal sometimes.
Yeah.
Let's hear it directly from her, though.
So if you want to pull up the clip I sent you, this was a speech at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest, which just happened about a month ago, and she lays out her vision.
I can't talk about what I hope to do with the guidance of my two bosses, President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, but I can tell you my vision, I think it's out there, of what civil rights is in this country.
I've spent my life fighting for the free speech rights of American citizens, dating back from my college years to today.
Parental rights are civil rights in the United States.
There we go.
Anti-trans stuff.
What about my right to give my kids the power of trans medicine?
Children have rights in the United States to be free from predatory adults who seek to shape them in unnatural ways.
Voting rights and the right for each of you to have your vote be counted equally and fairly and once and everybody else is the same way, those are civil rights in these great United States.
I've always fought for those rights.
And there's so many others.
The right to free and fair access to education and housing and the rights of the disabled.
These are all important.
What?
I know her mirror version of all of them except that one.
I hope and pray that I'll be able to...
Oh, is that from the like, well, you see, people with disabilities, they can't be made to wear masks because it's so hard to wear masks.
Maybe that's the one.
There's always some bizarro world version of all these.
So how does this compare to Project 2025's vision?
Because as we know...
That is the plan.
Project 2025 is the plan.
And Russell Vogt, one of the architects of Project 2025, is expected to be part of this administration.
His confirmation hearing has already happened, and now we're just kind of waiting.
But in Project 2025, the way that they framed how the civil rights division of the DOJ needs to be reimagined is that they want to formally and forever eliminate resolution agreements and consent decrees.
They say that those are administrative remedies and that civil rights laws should be enforced via the courts.
This will result in things not being fixed.
I mean, ultimately.
Police departments and Fulton County Jail with the city and everything, or the county rather, in Georgia is because that is going to be the most efficient and effective way to bring about change.
If you have to go down this litigation route, you know, that's going to take forever.
That's going to take so long, so long.
And in the meantime, a lot of people will suffer.
In Project 2025, they also say that DEIA is a problem, so diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and that they want to use the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice to go after DEIA as violating civil rights.
D-E-I-A. Yeah, A is the accessibility.
Oh, cool.
That itself is a violation of civil rights because it's violating the civil rights of cis white men, I guess.
They want to stop civil rights data collection, and they would also potentially prosecute private employers if they chose to continue their DEI programs.
Oh, my God.
They specifically say in the section on civil rights division that they should spend the first year.
Under the next administration, using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and legal requirements.
That's pretty scary to me.
State and local governments, colleges, corporations, like, geez louise.
Yeah.
Freedom.
Yeah.
They also want to move election-related offenses from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division, which is a little interesting, too.
Hey, anything they do there, if we get back in power, let's keep it.
Yeah.
But for real stuff.
Yeah.
And then they cite within the Project 2025 mandate for leadership that the reason why the Civil Rights Division needs to, like, review everything that's been done is because here's an egregious example is what they call it.
Using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the FACE Act, to harass pro-life demonstrators while not pursuing similar investigations of shocking acts of violence committed against pro-life pregnancy resource centers.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they cite in particular a couple of cases, and one of them is Matthew Connolly.
And they say, you know, that he was arrested in front of his young children at his house and treated so horribly, et cetera, et cetera.
But I'd But I looked at the complaint from the DOJ when they pursued this arrest.
He had violated this act 19 different times over years.
He was arrested at least eight times in four different states.
He also explicitly said that he had no regrets.
He would continue to do this.
Is this a white guy?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure they made every effort to make it completely comfortable for him to be arrested for breaking the law 400 times.
Yeah, he basically went into Planned Parenthood, went into the patient care facilities in the back, even though they were saying you cannot be there.
He took over a bathroom and would not leave.
It's like a giant dump.
Yeah.
He left roses, which is like their calling card, I guess, for this particular organization.
What?
It's like called like the Red Rose.
He left roses?
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
Like it's, you know, meant to intimidate.
Yeah, Red Rose Rescue is the name of this organization.
They kind of leave roses there too, as like their calling card, as well as like pamphlets, you know, trying to get people to change their mind.
And he would not respond to police, to the people working at Planned Parenthood.
They were all very concerned.
They ended up evacuating the entire building because they didn't know.
Like, do you have weapons?
Do you have an explosive?
Hey, people at abortion clinics have been shot for providing health care.
Yeah, yeah.
And eventually, they ended up having to call the SWAT team to get him to leave.
They tried to use the SWAT team to encourage him to leave.
He still wouldn't.
They had to break down the door.
The fucking caucasity of just breaking a lot, giving a SWAT team called on you.
Yeah.
And then still, it's just like this very comfortable arrest, you know, and then complaining about it.
I'm being discriminated against for violating the law, repeatedly scaring, terrorizing, being a terrorist, essentially.
Yeah, 44 appointments at that one location had to be rescheduled as a result.
They had to close for the entire day.
They had to search the premises for any potential issues.
And then...
Honestly, none of this even matters because Trump won.
So obviously all of this has been dropped.
Wow, really?
Yeah.
There have been several people who were convicted of violating the FACE Act.
They just were pardoned.
Oh, my God.
Yep.
Some pretty, you know, egregious things.
Oh, this is the woman who had, like, fetuses in her bedroom or whatever.
What the hell was that?
I keep seeing that headline.
I don't know what it exactly means, but it sounds creepy.
Yep, yep.
So this is a group of, I think, like five different folks who were pardoned.
in violation of the FACE Act.
And the House is also looking at legislation to repeal the FACE Act, of course, because we have no power.
So that might be likely.
But that was Project 2025's example of how the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is being politicized and weaponized and going after, you know, these poor folks that, you know, are just exercising their freedom of speech.
Yeah, to terrorize people and have the SWAT team called on them.
I know, I know.
So, who is Harmeet Dillon replacing?
Just to make us feel even sadder.
Sorry.
A pretty incredible person named Kristen Clark.
She was the first Black woman to lead the division.
Her parents immigrated from Jamaica to Brooklyn, and she was the only girl to join the boys' wrestling team when she was in high school.
I thought that was really cool.
She graduated from Harvard in 1997, got her JD from Columbia Law in 2000, worked as a trial attorney right after college, right after law school, in the civil rights division, and then served as a federal prosecutor, worked on voting rights, hate crimes, human trafficking.
Those were kind of her areas of specialty.
She ended up joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 2006. Served as the director of the Civil Rights Bureau for the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman.
She was appointed the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who we heard from.
She argued in Shelby County v.
Holder in District Court, opened an investigation into the Boy Scouts ban on openly gay adults in 2015 while she was in New York, and secured an agreement just later that year, months after she opened up that investigation, and it ended up applying nationally, where they would no longer ban gay adults from...
Serving as, you know, scout leaders and volunteer roles and things like that.
So she was doing like civil rights stuff?
Yeah.
In the civil rights position?
Yes.
Wow, that's interesting.
When she was nominated, she was supported by law enforcement organizations, Jewish organizations, DOJ alumni across the aisle, Republican, Democrat, corporate law firms, Fortune 500 companies, hate crime survivors.
A lot of support when she was nominated.
And then four days later, Tucker Carlson aired a segment that pulled up a letter she wrote to the Harvard Crimson.
And again, remember, she graduated from Harvard.
Like when she was in Harvard?
Yeah, when she graduated from Harvard in 1997. So we're talking about the mid-90s.
And she wrote this letter, and they said, claiming that blacks had superior physical and mental abilities due to their higher levels of melanin.
This was a satirical statement about biological essentialism that was being talked about constantly because of the bell curve and Charles Murray and saying that black people are not as smart as white people.
And so she tried to turn it on its head a little bit and said that because, you know.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
What she said was fighting one ridiculous, absurd, racist theory with another ridiculous, absurd theory.
That impacted a little bit her path to confirmation, but she was confirmed 51 to 48. Ted Cruz was really, really upset about this.
51 to 48. Yeah.
That's closer than the complete...
Loser, unqualified people like Peg Seth and other people.
Like this actual qualified person.
But because they are black and because of some propaganda that Tucker Carlson did.
Yeah, when she was like 20, she wrote that article.
It doesn't even matter.
It sounds like it was a fine thing.
Yeah.
So things are not looking good with Harmeet Dillon leading the Civil Rights Division.
There is some fight.
Against her nomination, but I'm not hopeful about it.
I think that all of these nominees are just going to end up getting through.
Yeah, I think there's no way.
If we're barely fighting back RFK fucking junior, this person is actually on paper qualified for the job, I would say.
Yeah, she's a lawyer.
Yeah, that helps.
Yeah, and she's actually dealt with these issues.
She's been on the wrong side of them.
Yeah.
But she's dealt with these issues.
So, I mean, yeah, I don't think there's a chance in hell that she doesn't get confirmed, but it's good to know about this.
And it's also good to learn about how many things are being broken because we forget.
We make progress and then we forget and we treat it.
We take it for granted.
We treat it as Democrats never did anything except look at all these things they did that now we're like, oh, shit, this is all going away.
It's good to learn more about that.
Yeah.
I just want to, like, spotlight a couple of the organizations that are fighting back against this nomination.
The first one that I want to call out is the Legal Defense Fund that was founded in 1940 under Thurgood Marshall.
And their statement says, The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division touches the lives of nearly every American, safeguarding such fundamental rights as the right to vote and enforcing federal laws that protect individuals from discrimination.
The responsibility of leading this division requires someone with a firm allegiance to the rule of law and the principles of equal protection and justice for all.
Harmeet Dillon is not that person.
I thought that was pretty strong.
And then the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
This organization was founded in 1950 by a kind of like cross-cultural group of people.
A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Arnold Aronson from the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.
This group of people lobbied for and won the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1960, 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 68.
And they were a key organization that helped to put together the March on Washington for jobs and freedoms.
So this is an organization at the forefront of civil rights for as long as people have been fighting for civil rights.
And they said, as the coalition that fought for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, that created the division.
Civil Rights Division.
And the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent laws that expanded its powers of protection.
We are alarmed at the direction this administration is taking that puts real people's lives, livelihoods, education, and more at risk.
The nomination of Harmeet Dillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country.
So I'm just going to take those words with me and feel invigorated by them and keep screaming out into the internet.
So at least we can, you know, keep an eye on these crazy people.
But anytime I can find stuff to share, I will.
I know that they had taken down the January 6th database pretty quickly, but that was archived by some other folks.
And so people are sharing the link to the archive specifically.
So that continues to get sunlight, you know, some of these reports that they've put together in the past.
Want to make sure that people have access to those, that they continue to get sunlight.
And yeah, I don't know.
It's not great.
It's what they told us they would do.
It's what we've been worried about.
It is.
It's everything that they told us they would do.
It's everything that we have been trying to warn people about.
And now it's happening.
And then people are like, wait a minute.
We don't like all these horrible things.
We just like saying the Democrats never did anything for anybody, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
And, you know, with the crash that happened between the American Airlines flight and the military helicopter and Trump going after DEI and having someone lead the civil rights division who is going to do whatever Trump wants, I am concerned there is no protection for those with the crash that happened between the American Airlines flight and the military helicopter and Trump going after DEI and having someone lead the civil rights division who is going to
Because of they're considered to be a DEI hire, for example, that the DOJ is not going to be on their side because the DOJ is going to be just doing Trump's bidding, essentially, and going after the enemies that he has decided are the enemies.
but I want to say it again more clearly, just in light of everything that's happening and blaming DEI for everything and all that.
But like in the first Trump term, everyone was like, hey, get out of there.
Don't support this.
You're enabling.
Now it is.
It couldn't be more opposite.
Like if you are in any position, the federal government in anything.
Please stay there.
Stay there and take up space and slow things down and continue to try to do the right thing to the extent you can, to the extent you can risk it.
We actually need that.
We are in a whole different era, a whole different ballgame.
Just stay.
Stay and fight, please.
Do everything you can.
Did you see that the Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism is going around a bit?
And I had seen a librarian share something that they did, you know, kind of like tongue-in-cheek.
It had to do with complying with the Patriot Act back in the early 2000s.
And they said that they had someone on the organizational structure that was the lead for Patriot Act requests.
And it was always like the person who just left working for the library.
So then they could be like, oh, we were having turnover with our staff.
It's going to take some time for us to answer your request.
And then they just never would.
They just kept changing it to whoever just left would be the new Patriot Act lead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Find things like that.
If you've been offered the buyout, it's not going to happen.
Yeah, that's bullshit.
Don't believe that.
Stay and fight.
Find ways to get in it from the inside.
And we'll be here on the outside trying to do our part, too.
Man, Harmeet Dillon, whether it's Vivek Ramaswamy, Clarence Thomas, you know, it's all these folks who are helping people who don't like them.
JD Vance and his wife.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know?
Dave Rubin and his husband, when they adopt kids and then his entire audience is like, you shouldn't have kids because you're a freak of nature.
You know, like, why can't you wake up and see that you're helping the bad guys?
You're helping the people who will, they will not, they will inevitably turn on you.
And in the meantime, they get to use you.
Yeah.
They use you to harm other non-white, non-male people.
And then it'll be your turn.
And it's just like, it's so frustrating that that happens.
Yeah.
And I don't put any more blame on them at all.
It's not, I don't blame them more.
The people responsible are the villains responsible.
But it does suck to see them under the delusion that they're going to be like in the good graces forever.
They're just not.
I don't know if anyone feels invigorated or just sad, but I don't know.
I get moments of feeling invigorated, and so I'm just going to—when those happen, I'm going to lean into them.
Yeah, I think the real key here is calling attention to the things we had that were good that nobody noticed.
And I say nobody.
Broadly, white America didn't really notice, probably.
You know, like, there are so many things.
All the good things that have been done—it doesn't mean— Democrats always did great things, but all the good things that have ever happened in government are Democrats, like for the last several decades.
And it's so much better to have people who are very imperfectly trying to sort of do the right thing than Nazis who actively want to ruin everything.
Like, it's just, it's not a close comparison.
It's something we need to consider and bear in mind.
And not just in your overall vote, in how you talk about the entire situation.
And how you talk about your different choices for candidates.
You know, when people say things like, it's not enough to just be a Democrat.
Yeah, it is.
It actually is.
You're incorrect.
It is enough to just be a Democrat.
Is that all they should strive for?
No, of course not.
But that is enough.
But in this day and age.
You are making a choice between poison and not poison.
And you're looking at the not poison and being like, it's not enough that it's just not poison.
Well, actually it is, because the poison kills you.
The not poison, we'll see.
Maybe it's a healthy breakfast, or maybe it's something that's also harmful long-term in a different way, but it's not poison, and that's enough.
I've been shouting about this since 2016, and it's just frustrating that we still can't see it.
It's not an attack on your leftist politics that I pretty much share.
It's not.
It's an acknowledgement of reality.
It's not just leftists.
There's a lot of people in the center who just have this overall feeling of like, I think there are a lot of people who have just absorbed the cultural message that...
Everybody's corrupt and nothing matters.
And they've accumulated this very difficult to argue with semi-conspiratorial feeling that everybody's out to get them in the government.
Like all politicians are corrupt and out to get them.
And, you know, and like they are just not engaging or voting.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's not all Trump supporters.
Yeah, it's people who are opting out because they just think that no difference can be made.
But here's an example of the things being dialed back, being ruined, essentially, by Harmeet Dillon in a few weeks or whatever, that is a sign of those were good things.
Those were very good things.
Those were things that stopped horrible racists from doing racist stuff.
These are important.
These things are important.
God, the harassment of people just trying to get healthcare, abortion clinics, like just freeing, just pardoning people who were essentially terrorists.
Well, and the literal terrorists of January 6th, to not even talk about that.
But like, it's just...
I think that's the message that I'm getting from this most of all, because I don't think we can do anything about Harmeet Dillon.
I just don't.
We're barely doing anything about the people who are 10 times less qualified or infinitely less qualified in the case of RFK. And so I think what I'm taking from this is just an appreciation of what we had and remembering it to both build it back and to speak more accurately about the state of things in the future.
Yeah, great points.
And now I want to tell you about egg corns.
Egg corns?
What?
Eggcorn is a word for an alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of more and more of its elements, creating a new phrase which is plausible when used in the same context.
So, baited breath, B-A-I-T-E-D, when the real phrase was B-A-T-E-D, baited breath.
Beck and call, as in beck and call instead of beck and call.
Let's see.
EX-Patriot instead of expatriate.
The feeble position.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
And I will not say that hone in is that bad, but it is that.
Hone in was heard instead of home in, but it's gone on long enough that people say home in.
50-50 hindsight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks so much for listening, everyone.
Lots more coming your way.
We are busy and I have a feeling of like, I don't want to stop working on this stuff, even though we're always doing that.
It's so bad right now and it's such a crucial time.
So thank you for being with us and for supporting us and we're working hard for you.
