Navigated to Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #30 - Transcript

Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #30

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

This is It Could Happen Here Executive Disorder, our weekly news gaest covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, what it means for you.

I'm Garrison Davis.

This episode, I'm joined by Robert Evans, j I'm Stout and Sophie Lichtermann.

Maybe maybe Sophie will decide to comment on some of this important, important news we have today.

Speaker 3

To bless us, and maybe Robert will decide to forgive you for jumping into giving the title of this show and not letting me say electile dysfunction or something like that.

We no, I have not gotten over living.

Let's talk about a pedophile.

It's time for your Friday pedophile Update.

Yeah, we call it the FREEO file minutes.

Speaker 2

I don't like that.

Speaker 4

It is free to callos SO.

Speaker 3

On August fifteenth, twenty twenty five, at eight thirty six Anno Meridian that means in the morning, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Office of Public Information put up a press release with the title eight child sex Predators arrested during undercover operation.

Now, this was a report on a multi agency operation going after child sex predators that was headed by the Nevada Internet Crimes Against Children or ICY the AC Organization, which is a joint operation that involves a mix of There's some detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan to Police, there's some folks from the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force, and then I guess the ICAC has its own task force.

I've never heard of this group before, but there's there's a number of other law enforcement agents involved, including North Las Vegas Police Henderson Police who actually posted declaration of arrest for the person that we'll be talking about.

That's the Henderson, Nevada Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Nevada Attorney General's office.

This was your standard sting to try and catch people who are attempting to have sex with kids, where you have undercover agents who are online.

In this case, they were using an app called Pure and on WhatsApp.

It looks like, as a general rule, these guys met the person that they thought was a minor on Pure and then took the conversation to WhatsApp to plan for an in person meeting where they then they you know, the whole what's that guy who used to do the TV show where he would bust pedophiles and there were some ethical problems with Chris Hansen.

They'd have their Chris Hansen moment, right, No familiar with this, Oh man, it didn't go well.

So the story that people have been hearing and that kind of went viral out of this is that one of these eight people arrested was tom Ardiam Alexandrovitch, who was a high ranking cybersecurity official.

He was the director of one of the divisions of Israel's top cybersecurity agency.

So you know, inn Israeli government official working in cybersecurity is one of the guys arrested.

He was in town in Las Vegas for the black Hat convention, which is like a hacking convention, and like a lot of hacking conventions, over time, it has turned from a bunch of guys who do not like the Feds to just Feds, right, Like, I think that that's why the guy guy from israel cybersecurity agency is at this thing, hitten on so fed allegedly fifteen year olds.

So this guy is arrested and then he posts bail at ten grand and he flies back to Israel, which gets a lot of people in an uproar.

Obviously, anything involving officials of the Israeli government is receiving heightened scrutiny right now, what with the genocide, and also for a long time, there's a lot of evidence of special treatment being given to agents of the government of Israel by the United States government, and so people are like, is that what's going on here?

Because this seems pretty fucked up.

And I guess the first thing I should say is that it doesn't seem like he's being treated differently from anyone else in this sting.

This is per statements made by the local government and by the Attorney General's office.

This is the standard bail amount for this crime.

And when people post bail for this crime, which is the standard amount of ten grand, there aren't conditions usually on the bail, which means it would not be standard to stop him from traveling or returning home.

He's due to return to the United States in several weeks for the court proceedings to go on.

So the short answer to this seems to be that, like, no, this is just kind of how the system works, and that might not be great, But he doesn't seem to have been given special treatment because he was an official of the Israeli government.

Now, does that mean that that's going to prove to be what happens in the long run.

No, because, among other things, he might just not come back to the US, and if the Israeli government is a party to that, and like there isn't any kind of like action taken to like force him to return to go through the legal process, then I'd say, yeah, there's something to be particularly upset about here.

But I think the broader thing to maybe be upset about here is that guys can get caught for this and then have a no condition bail that allows them to flee the country, which might be a flaw in the system.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

I'm a big innocent until proven guilty guy.

I'm a big reasonable bail guy.

But I'm also a big I don't know man.

Maybe if the agent of a foreign government gets caught trying to fuck a child, they shouldn't be able to fly back home.

Speaker 4

Immediately after they bail out.

Speaker 1

I don't know.

Speaker 4

To seems that it's a reasonable objection.

Speaker 3

Yeah, So you know, this is a classic case of you've got the story what actually happened here, got how it's interpreted online, and then you've got how it's being interpreted online by the stupidest person on the world, on the planet, in the planet, and in that planet that didn't work.

Speaker 4

Oh it'd be good if he was, wouldn't it in the molten cools?

Speaker 3

Yeah, that would be nice.

You've got how the story is being interpreted by particularly bad journalists.

Let's say that that's the nice way to put it.

And I'm talking about Michael Tracy.

If you're not familiar with Michael Tracy.

He is ostensibly a leftist and anti authoritarian.

Speaker 4

He's the kind of guy.

Speaker 3

Who just sort of reflexibly if the US is involved, whatever is the worst case scenario for the US doing something is what's happening.

During the invasion of Ukraine, he alleged that the US was sending troops into Ukraine.

I think because he saw some guys outside of an embassy in Poland, some American soldier for.

Speaker 4

The marine details and some of the marine detail.

It was like, we're getting ready to invade.

That did not happen.

Speaker 3

Now, Michael Tracy has a sub stack of course cases, and he published an article titled was an Israeli pedophile really allowed to flee the United States?

And I can't tell.

He starts with like a whole paragraph about Jeffrey Epstein, and I can't actually tell what his stance is on this, And I don't really want he's talking about how people are eager to prove him wrong about Jeffrey Epstein.

I have no desire to know what this guy thinks about Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 2

Well, this is probably a Jeffrey Epstein was a secret massad agent type thing.

Speaker 3

Well, except for his whole argument here is that there's people are being incredibly unreasonable to think that this guy is guilty or to think that he probably did anything wrong.

And the reason Michael Tracy suggests that Tom Alexandrovitch probably didn't do anything wrong is that the terms of the app Pure, which is where the authorities say he first got in contact with the officer pretending to be a child, requires you to be eighteen years or older.

And in this substack to post the terms of service to be like, see, there is even what appears to be a rig the risk age verification process.

To ensure that no minor gains access to the app, government issued documents must be submitted to ensure that only persons at least eighteen years of old are allowed on the app.

And he's like, does this mean the government was faking documents?

Was pretending to be a child to this app?

Speaker 4

Yet that's what they were doing, Well, they were pretending to be a triild Jeremary, Yeah, that's probably what they were doing.

Speaker 3

And the other thing what's really funny about this is like, that's his whole point is that the app requires them to be eighteen, so it's you know, the authorities must have been doing something fucked up and lying to the app for this to have happened at all.

And this is just an example of Michael Tracy not reading the declaration of arrest, which he links in his article, because the declaration of arrest does say that, yes, this person got in contact with the undercover agent bearing the peer up and then the same sentence says and later WhatsApp with phone number dot dot dot and says that on WhatsApp, this is where they talked about the person in this case being a minor, and this is where they set up like to arrange a meeting.

This is lee cybersecurity official was going to take them to circ the slay and had them bring a condom like That's all in the declaration of arrest.

Now, obviously Alexandrovitch maintains his innocence, maintains he thought this person was eighteen all the entire time.

All I've got here is the declaration of arrest.

I don't have hard evidence, but per the source that Michael Tracy cites, like this is not just happening on pure This is as is often the case, by the way, when pedophiles go after kids, they meet them on whatever app and then take them to a second digital location, right, Like, that's just the way these things work.

And that's really all I have to say about this.

You know this, This is the kind of I mean, maybe keep an eye on this in case this guy doesn't go back and the Israeli government does hide him.

But it's entirely possible that this will go the way court cases and this sort of thing are supposed to go.

There's one other funny thing, considering this guy is a high ranking Israeli cybersecurity official.

There's just like a list of you know, statements about like what Alexandrovitch said to detectives when he was being interrogated, you know this stuff like Alexander Alexandrovitch stated he did not know the numbers for the Israeli government.

Alexandrovitch stated his family was an israel Alexandrovitch stated it was important he get numbers for his flight, and then Alexandrovitch stated his phone does not have a password but uses his right thumb print.

Speaker 2

No a biometric user, cybersecurity expert for the government.

Speaker 4

They're not sending the best people.

Speaker 3

Oh my god, your fucking thumb print, dude, Your fucking thumb print.

Speaker 4

Okay, yeah, it's just famous most secure possible access code.

Speaker 3

Anyway, that's all I've got for peta Friday tune in next week we'll have another pedophile for you.

I'm sure of it.

Oh yeah, here's ads.

All right, we're back, and it is a pedophile free will.

We can't guarantee that, I suppose, but we are hoping petera free zone from here on it.

Talking of things which are incontrovertibly crimes, Israel has deliberately murdered for Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza.

Among them was an us Are Sharif, a prominent correspondent for the network in Gaza.

The IDF also killed correspondent Mohammed karka, cameraman Ibrahim Zaya, and driver in cameraman Mohammad Nofal Al Jazeera has named all of these people.

The strike also killed two freelancers.

One of them was mom And Aliwa and al Sharif's nephew, who was a student studying journalism for weeks before the liberate and pre meditated war crime to war crime under a Roman statute and also a violation of the Geneva Conventions because journalists are also civilians the idea of engaged in manufacturing consent for the strike.

They did this three unit that nine to seven two magazine has reported on called the quote legitimization cell.

You're always doing great when you have a unit called the legitimization cell.

Yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 4

It's pretty fucked to quote from the piece which are link below.

It has been a signed to identify guy as a based journalist.

It could betray us undercover her mass operatives in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel's killing of reporters.

You should read this article like it goes through instances whether they have a very clear confirmation bias right, And the case of al Sharifhys is a pretty good example of how ridiculous this can be.

They released this document, they tweeted it actually claiming he was in her mask from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen.

The document clearly wasn't original document, Like it was a PDF done up with like a navy blue background and stuff.

It's laughable to think that they like captured this pdf somehow.

It just doesn't line up.

Even if we take that to be true, right, that he had been a member of her mask till twenty seventeen.

That was eight years ago.

Like, isn't the whole point of the thing that they're saying that they want people to stop being in hamas, like killing them because they want did that and I don't believe them.

It still doesn't make sense right.

They've done this in other cases with other Juras, specifically other Al Jazeera journalists.

In July this year, the CPJA that's a committee to Protect Journalists if you're not familiar, warned that they were worried about an attack on al Scherif due to the increasingly detached from reality smear campaign being pursued against him by IDA spokesman a Vice Adray.

For example, on the twentieth July, Adray accused him of being quote part of a quote false harmass campaign on starvation as he played footage of al Cherif crying after seeing a woman collapse from hunger on camera.

Speaking about the campaign, al Cherif said it is not only a media threat or an image destruction.

It is a real life threat.

He said it's in his interview with CPJA, He also said, I live with the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment, my family is also in danger and his nephew was killed with him right in the air strike.

When I think about like, I have colleagues I've worked with through are Palestinian who work in Gaza, right.

I remember twenty twenty three October tenth, twenty twenty three, I was in Syria, in Rajaba specifically, and I was sitting in a t shop because the Wi Fi and my hotel was nonexistent, and I wanted to check in on my friends, right who worked there.

And I remember this guy helping me translate one of these videos in which you see a dead person in the blue press vest, right, and I was concerned that it might be someone I've worked with before, so I was trying to work out it with them, and he was saying in his video.

At the funeral, people were saying that another journalist would take up the dead journalist camera and the flag jacket and keep reporting, which is very touching for me.

But journalists and Gaza have been targeted by the IDF for a very long time, and this is one of many examples, and it's disgusting and reprehensible.

That's about all I have to say on it should we turn to immigration for something.

Colleague despondent and said, yeah, all right.

USCIS US Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued a new guidance material to instruct offices in cases where they can use their discretion to look at whether the person has quote endorsed, promoted, or supported, or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organization or group, including those who support or promote anti American ideologies and activities, anti Semitic terrorism from skipping a bit here, and anti Semitic ideologies.

This discretion can be used in extension of stay cases, change of status cases, reinstatement or f or M non immigrant status, and certain employment authorization requests, they say in the memo.

The USCIS Policy Manual also lists other instances where discretion could be used.

These include TPS, Temporary protected status, humanitarian parole partition to classify an alien as a fiancee of a US citizen, asylum and refugee status.

So I looked up what the quote anti American activities were.

There's a footnote right.

The footnote links to iron A three one three a Immigration Naturalization Act.

Most of the anti American activities are things which already had a bar to naturalization, and most of those pertain directly to being a member of the Communist Party, like a literal card carrying member of the literal Communist Party right capital C, Capital P.

The USO had a bar on naturalization for people who are members of the Communist Party for some time.

I believe they still have a bar on naturalization for people who were members of the Nazi Party pre visa waiver I should say not actually a visa when people from Europe were coming to the United States, you'd have to answer a short questionnaire.

One of the questions was about whether you or anyone related to you had been a member of the Nazi Party.

I remember like once being some German people in Europe and they were telling me they'd had to answer this question entering the United States.

So the anti American activities is one that's been getting the most attention, but it does specifically footnote to the communist stuff, which is again something that has been US policy for a while.

What I'm more worried about is stuff about anti Semitic terrorism.

Speaker 2

Yeah, because that means one, you've shared a pro Palestine post on social.

Speaker 4

Media, Yeah you say genocide bad.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that can mean so many things that as we've already seen, like we've seen some of this stuff already be enforced.

This is new guidance material, but we've seen reports coming from people trying to enter the country, you're trying to get visas that show that this is happening for like months ever since, like you know, like March, I started to see a lot of stuff regarding either pro Palestinian statements or like posts or campus protests that sort of stuff.

Speaker 4

Yeah, the f visa I mentioned there is it's a non immigrant student visa right for full time students.

So like that is the one where we've seen students have to turn over as social media handles, a social media can't be locked.

It's very easy to see how these two things line up.

Yeah, and as a guest said, like people, they have always been able to use their discretion.

This is just guidance on how they should use it, but they have been using it for some time.

The administration has also moved the goalpost for naturalization.

So naturalization is becoming a citizen of the United States.

Right, there is a requirement that people who naturalize as citizens have quote good moral character.

Previously, the way they did this was there were bars for certain crimes right murdered genocide, something called aggravated felony, which is something that only exists in immigration law.

Going forward, they're changing to, I guess, a more holistic idea of what a good moral character might be.

I'm going to quote again.

Going forward, USCIS offices must account for an alien to positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct in evaluating whether or not an alien has met the requirement for establishing GMC.

That's a good moral character.

The officer must take a holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming the rights and responsibilities of United States citizenship.

Speaker 2

The worthy What does that mean?

You have to prove to an officer that you're a good person.

Speaker 3

Yeah, how so, yes, by the officer's definition, I'm assuming.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is guys for like discretionary enforcement.

So I don't like the word holistic here.

Speaker 4

I don't.

Yeah.

They is literally asking him to take into account everything they know about this person and then just make a call.

Is this someone you want to have as your neighbor, you know, like, I don't know what the oh I mean, I can guess how this might manifested.

It's worth noting that as DHS goes, USCIS officers tend to be the least right wing right CBP and I, so the much higher proportion of people who like, for instance, they had some issues with getting people vaccinated and CBP that kind of stuff right, indicators that people might be sort of down this conser piracy pipeline.

We also learned this week that Todd Blanche directed federal cops to arrest Mayor rasp Baraka outside of a detention center in New Jersey in May.

We noticed because of body cam footage.

We don't have the footage, but the footage is reported on in court documents, and the footage a DHS official says, quote, we are resting the mayor right now, per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.

Anyone that gets in our way, I need you guys to give me a perimeter so I can cuff him.

So that the agent talked on the phone and then gave this statement.

Right, So, it seems that the deputy ag there with the one who gave the order to arrest rasp Baraka right, Ice has also arrested a cop.

This is our little moment of like a harp pond cup violence, top pond cup violence.

Yeah.

John Luke Evans was a reserve officer for the Old Orchard Beach Police Department in Maine.

The police chief of Orchard Beach, who's called elist Chard, said that the department had used e Verify to check if he could work legally, right, which is the thing that you are supposed to do.

He Verify.

It's a database run by the Department of Homeland Security.

I think it's also in combination with another department that allows you to verify if somebody can work legally in the United States.

Right.

Tritian McLaughlin characterized this as reckless, which is weird because the hs who she's speaking on behalf of other ones who put that information into the database.

It's possible that someone entered at something in wrong at some point, right, someone put in a wrong number, they switched an O for a zero, or something like that.

This came to light because Evans attempted to make a firearm purchase and he filled out his forty four to seventy three and the eighty f then notified Ice that a non citizen who wasn't eligible for firearms ownership had attempted to purchase a firearm, and that was how Ice came to detain him.

He is being allowed to leave the USA Volunteers.

He's not being deported, he's not being charged with the attempting to make the firearm purchase, which he could be charged with, and the City of Orchard Beach has going pretty hard in his defense.

They've released some elements of personnel file, but none of them that pertained to his immigration status.

They're sticking by their claim that they believe he was eligible to work in the USA, ISA claiming I guess DHS now claiming that his visa expired in twenty twenty three, which was years before he began working at the police department.

He was a seasonal reserve officer and he had been working since earlier this year.

Speaker 2

Before we go on break, I want to do a quick update on the Texas Democrats who fled the state to delay or prevent the gerrymandering.

And after their two week walkout, the Texas House has now reached quorum once again and a vote on the new redistricting map, which would add five Republican congressional seats.

Is slated for Wednesday, August twentieth, which is the day that we are recording.

After Democrats returned to the capital from their walkout, they were subjected to twenty four to seven surveillance by the Texas Department of Public Safety, and in order to leave the House chamber, they had to sign what the Democrats are calling quote unquote permission slips, agreeing to surveillance in their just everyday life.

Speaker 1

Is that why?

I think it was a collier slept at her.

Speaker 2

Desk one person's I think a state senator refused to sign the slip and stayed.

Speaker 4

In the Capitol overnight.

Speaker 2

Fair enough, The Texas House Minority Leader Jeen Wu made a statement saying, quote, we killed the corrupt special session, was stood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this extential fight for fair representation, reshaping the entire twenty twenty six landscape.

Unquote.

There's a very celebratory tone here, which is slightly odd to me because this vote is still probably going through.

Speaker 4

Yeah, they kind of lose, this.

Speaker 2

Is going to get voted in.

Yeah, Now who has said that the Democrats are going to challenge the redistricting maps in court even if they are able to pass through this House vote.

And as we know, the courts are the last bastion for democracy and will save us all.

We suspected that this whole walkout is more performative than anything else and would not actually lead to than killing this map.

And instead of remaining out of the state longer for a like undeterminate amount of time, possibly until November, they have returned and quorum is in the chamber.

Speaker 3

So yeah, it's it's like, it's not nothing, but it's like the next just it's one step up from nothing.

Speaker 2

It's the most democrat thing to do.

Speaker 1

Yes, yeah, but why why only do half of what was necessary?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Sophie, you you're asking this question because you didn't grow up in Texas.

Speaker 1

I went to the Democratic National Convention.

I understand the half effort.

Speaker 4

Here's the reality.

Speaker 3

Texas Democratic Party exists to disappoint you.

Speaker 4

That's why, that's why all this is happening.

Speaker 1

I just feel like the entire Texas Democratic Party is just like a Bedo O'Rourke.

H Like, not literally, but the concept of Beto O'Rourke.

Speaker 4

Yeah, not wrong.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's all it's all there.

Never never put your faith in Texas and any part of Texas and you'll be disappointed less.

I've been telling people this for a long time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's like the second thing you told me.

Speaker 3

Every year.

Democrats in other parts of the country every couple of years get like excited.

It's the Charlie Brown syndrom where they're like, oh my god, Texas might be about to flip or something otherwise, good Ted Ted Cruz is going to get forced out.

We're finally going to have something good happen in Texas politics.

And every time, every time that football gets pulled away.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so it's it's feels not great that the minority leaders kind of patting themselves on the back for taking basically a two week vacation to Illinoising California and then returning and having this go through.

So, I don't know, we'll see this develops.

The California is promising to do their own redistricting to equal out the amount of like map changes, both adding five more seats for the respective parties.

Speaker 1

It's annoying.

Speaker 2

It's just annoying.

It's just annoying.

Speaker 4

Like a nice piece of performance.

So I guess you know what else is annoying things.

Speaker 2

That I don't think they're annoying at all.

I value each and every advertiser.

Speaker 4

Garrison actually personally vets all of our advertisers, so you can reach out to them.

Speaker 3

No, no, no, I agree, this is canon.

Now, if you're ever unhappy with an advertiser, find Garrison's personal phone number and and hit him up.

Speaker 1

No no, no, no, oh god, time to go into blocking spree.

Speaker 2

All right, we are back Putin.

I guess puts a guy.

Speaker 1

That That's actually how I would describe the meeting between a Trump and Putin and Alaska Putin.

Speaker 2

I guess, yeah, that's pretty much how it went.

They had, they had a little meeting.

Speaker 1

There are some insane conspiracy theories that he sent a body double.

Speaker 4

Oh wow.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, it's one of my favorite things.

Speaker 2

There's always insane conspiracy theories supported.

Speaker 1

From BBC News actually, which I find funny.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I'm glad that BBCs is on the is on the pulse of of theories spreading online.

Speaker 4

Yeah yeah, no.

Speaker 3

And and people are just now figuring out again that whenever world leaders travel to foreign countries for summits.

At this level, they take their poop back with them And yeah, I saw an article being like, is it true, did Putin really take his poop back?

And yes, they all do because they don't want it to get analyzed to find evidence of health issues.

Like the president has his poop taken home every time you go overseas.

Speaker 4

This is just the way things are.

Speaker 2

Frankly, I think if we're able to get the Putin poop, you can make a clone of put and then that could be the body show we use it.

Yeah, yeah, stuff that like the fifties of CIA still existed, as they still.

Speaker 4

Had the juice.

Speaker 3

It'd be a lot more fun.

Speaker 2

You would be doing in that really unethical human cloning project where you have this like shambling like undead corpse of that we can profim Christ.

But that's basically how the meeting went.

Speaker 5

Sorry for derailing my bad, no, because the meeting is kind of enough burger.

At this point, there was reports that Putin basically ranted to Trump about how Ukraine's always has been a part of Russia and the meeting didn't really go anywhere.

Putin ignored a question on if he would quote stop killing civilians, so Yeah, that's basically how the whole how the whole debacle went.

And I think it's really indicative that like a day or two after this happened, Trump had the Zelensky meeting two point zero in the White House, which went much better than the previous Zelensky meeting, and Trump was a lot more friendly with silenskily this time around.

Speaker 3

Apparently Zelensky has been going around other European leaders getting advice on how to like talk with it Trump.

Speaker 2

Yeah, he gave him, gave him a letter which which Trump Trump really appreciates and likes.

The uh started by thanking uh, thanking the first Lady for a letter as well.

So there's always like little polite gestures that Trump really enjoys.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 4

He likes to be like honored and venerated.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so indulged in that war of a fairly a fairly spiffy all black suits.

I liked it.

It's a good it was a good suit.

So it's but it is it is very indicative if you look at like how the last Selenski meeting went and then after Trump was around putin for like a few hours, how how how Trump's mood was noticeably different around Zelenski this time around, So we'll see.

I don't think we're gonna have any conclusion to the conflict in Ukraine anytime soon based on how these two meetings went.

There was there was reporting that they were trying to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, though that has since been denied.

It sits this constant like back and forth, like like it has been the past, like two four years.

Speaker 3

But Trump is going to bring an end to the war.

He's the peace president, kind of get a Nobel Prize.

Speaker 2

Yeah, did you know that Trump's ended six wars?

Six, seven, six or seven?

Wow?

Speaker 4

Wow, it's I love it.

Speaker 3

I love it when you can't keep track of how many wars you ended.

Speaker 2

I got one other story I would like to discuss.

I'm sure James will have some comments on this as well, on a series of unfortunate ICE actions, including the first instant that I'm aware of where federal agents have shot their firearms during an enforcement operation at least as of the Trump administration two point zero.

On Saturday morning, August sixteenth, in San Bernardino, a family was pulled over by massed federal agents in what DHS has since claimed was a quote unquote targeted enforcement operation.

As Customs and Border Protection approached the vehicle, the family inside stread of recording on their cell phones and asked for identification.

When the family refused to roll down the windows of the car, federal agents smashed windows on both sides of the vehicle and reached inside.

At this point, the driver pulled the car forward, and federal agents shot at the vehicle three times before the car sped away.

I'll play the video here for posterity.

Speaker 4

Yeah, do you want what do you want?

Speaker 2

Identification?

You can't do So those three pops at the end were the three gunshots.

Speaker 4

Yeah, this is a wild one.

Speaker 2

The driver told NBC Los Angeles, quote, I had to protect my life and my family unquote.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it's worth noting.

I guess these agents like the more uniform than some.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they have badges visible on plate carriers.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 2

They did not establish much communication between themselves and the family as they approached the vehicle.

There's a lot of like yelling back and forth.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

You can hear the man telling his son they don't open it.

Yeah.

Speaker 2

The father is telling his kids in the car not to roll down the windows, not to open the doors as the federal agents asked for the car to be opened, and then they initiate force.

The man here has lived in the US for twenty three years and does not have legal status as to adult sons who are in the vehicle are both US citizens, according to Javier Hernandez, the executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, who has spoken about this incident on behalf of the family to local press.

DHS gave a statement to NBC Los Angeles.

Quote, in the course of the incident, the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two Customs of Voter Protection officers with his vehicle on quote, saying that because the driver tried to quoteunquote run down the agents, a CPB officer was forced to quote discharge his firearm in self defense unquote.

So that is the justification that they are using, is that this vehicle was moving in the direction of office and officers acted in self defense by shooting at the car.

Speaker 4

That doesn't seem to line up with the video that we just saw.

Speaker 2

No, the cell phone footage from inside does not show officers being hit by the vehicle.

It could be the case that you can see that one of the officers reaching into the car.

You can see if the car was pulling away, his arm may have the door.

Like the officers are standing next to the car in the video, it's not clear that there's any officers placed in front of the vehicle.

Speaker 4

So yeah, his foot could have got run over.

Maybe if he's like leaning standing there close to the.

Speaker 2

Car, the car may have bumped officers.

It does not appear like this man I was trying to quote unquote run over the police.

Speaker 4

In fact, he was driving away from them.

Yes.

Speaker 2

The family says that the federal agents refused to identify themselves and did not provide a judicial warrant that DHS has refused to answer whether agents had warrants, and after the shooting, the driver called the San Bernardino Police Department to report that massman pulled his car over, broke windows, and shot at him and his family.

Police came to his house and spoke with the driver, but did not arrest the man because California police cannot legally assist federal agents with immigration enforcement, according to a statement from the police department, DHS made a statement criticizing the police for not taking the driver into custody.

Quote.

This reckless decision came despite the subject's outright refusal to comply, and his wounding of two federal officers has yet another tragic example of California's pro sanctuary policies that shield criminals instead of protecting communities.

En quote, this is.

Speaker 3

What we're calling wounding.

Speaker 2

Huh.

Speaker 4

Yes.

Speaker 2

The severity of the two officers alleged woundings has not been specified.

Police later returned to the home along with ICE and Homeland security investigations, but the family did not let them enter as they did not have a warrant, though police made one non immigration related arrest outside of the home as community members rallied to other in support of the family.

As of two days ago, the DHS has said that quote the suspect remains at large.

Speaker 4

Christ This is a needless escalation that put people in danger.

Speaker 3

Like, yeah, what else is there to say?

Though, Like it's bullshit.

This is not an excuse to discharge a weapon.

This isn't count as wounding.

These people should never been pulled over in the first place.

But you know what we are where we are, this is the way ice works.

Speaker 4

Yeah, then this will probably happen again.

I guess, like, I'm mildly surprised if Sam Benardino police did not detain the man on suspicion of assaulting a federal agent, which is something that they could detain him for.

It's not immigration crime.

Yeah, and that is an extremely broad defense, and one doesn't have to know the person's a federal agent, for example.

Speaker 2

So I guess, like where, We'll see how this develops.

Yeah, it's still unclear what's going to happened to this man.

Yeah, I'll check for an update next week.

A few days before, on Thursday, August fourteenth, a man fleeing in ice rate at a home depot in Monrovia, California, was hit and killed while attempting to cross the two to ten freeway on foot.

Local activists say that during the same raid, ice hit someone in the leg with one of their vehicles and that person was taken into custody.

Speaker 4

This is tragic, right, Yeah.

The reckless use of vehicles in LA was remarkable, and I've covered a good deal of protests and a good deal of places.

The use of vehicles in an extremely dangerous way by police was notable.

When I was out there covering the protests.

I think it was in June.

It was something that in certainly was very concerning to me.

So it would not shock me if people had been hit by an ICE vehicle.

But yeah, this is a tragedy.

And again and like, because the stakes are taking everything in someone's life away from them, we're going to see this happen more often.

Speaker 2

Right, No, it can cause people to do brash, run safe things like attempt to cross the busy freeway.

Speaker 4

Yeah, the two tens are very busy freeway always.

Speaker 2

Now, it's extremely tragic.

Speaker 4

Yeah, this is yeah, really sad.

So Ed Sauce reporting that a student out of California, Benjamin Guerrero Kruth, who had just turned eighteen, just begind a senior year of high school, was detained by immigration authorities from walking his dog.

One of his former teachers visited him and mentioned that he had overheard He had told her that he had overheard ICE agent talking about receiving a fifteen hundred dollar bounty for making his arrest.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Well, like in some promotional videos from DHS and ICE, they've been boasting about bonuses not only for signing on for this recruitment ry that they're doing, but also like cash bonuses for immigrants getting arrested and deported.

And there's been multiple clips of of of of agents like talking about this or like you know, talking about I wonder how much of a bonus we're going to get for these batch of arrests.

So this is this has been something noticed in multiple states.

I've heard of this in Florida, and this sounds like it's in California.

Speaker 4

You said, yeah, California.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, So this is this is a pattern, and it's not even very glorified bounty hunting, because it's not really glorified but essentially essentially bounty hunting.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that might be why we're seeing some of these like insane arrests right of people who would never normally expect to see.

Speaker 1

We reported the news there.

Speaker 2

We reported the news.

We reported the news.

It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 1

For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can now find sources for It could Happen here and listened directly in episode descriptions.

Speaker 4

Thanks for listening.

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