Some More News - Even More News: Cops Sure Seem To Like Beating Up College Students

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Hi. On today's episode, journalist Molly Conger joins Katy and Cody to talk about the student-led protest movement, the hypocrisy of the "free speech" brigade, and the speed with which police descended on college campuses. 0:00 - Intro1:30 – Holidays5:02 - America's Low Point7:22 - Cases Molly is following12:53 - College protests for Palestine40:02 - "Free Speech" & Gaza48:25 - TikTok Ban54:09 - Sotomayor on immunity Go to https://ground.news/SMN to stay fully informed. Subscribe through our link for up to 40% off unlimited access this month only. Hungryroot is your partner in healthy living. It’s the easiest way to get fresh, high-quality groceries and simple, healthy recipes delivered to your door. Right now, Hungryroot is offering Some More News viewers 40% off your first delivery and free veggies for life at https://Hungryroot.com/MORENEWS.  Babbel’s quick 10-minute lessons are hand-crafted by over 200 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as 3 weeks. Here's a special (limited time) deal for our viewers. Right now get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription - but only for our viewers - at https://Babbel.com/MORENEWS. Rules and restrictions may apply. Check out our MERCH STORE: https://shop.somemorenews.com   SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229   Spotify:...

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast My name is Katie stole. Hello Katie. Welcome to us. How you doing? I'm cool. How are you? I'm great. My name is Cody. I'm the first and only host of this show. That is so fucking offensive. I know. I know. As soon as I said it, I was like. How dare you? How dare you? I'm sorry.

First and only apology from me. It's OK. I'm going to forgive you because we've got a great guest today. I guess that we haven't had on for a long time since January six. Apparently a freelance journalist who documents goings on in Charlottesville, Virginia. If you haven't guessed by this intro or the title of the episode, it's Molly Conger. Hello. Hi. Hey, guys. Great to be here. Thank you for joining us.

In the wake of an attempted overthrow of the US government this time. Yeah. Other awful things to discuss today. Different bad context. But we're glad to have you. Time is such a weird thing. Lately we've been having people on that it feels,

that it shocks me that it's been so long since the last time we've had them on, which is a testament to Jonathan being a great producer and booking guests for us. But we're glad to see you. We have a lot to get to today, but first and foremost are the holidays. What are we celebrating today? What are we selling? Great question, Molly. Friday,

April 26th is remember Your First Kiss Day. Okay. Okay. I'm remembering it. Yeah, let's all pause, I guess, real quick and remember those. Pour one out for our first kisses. Does anybody have a good first kiss story? Well, I'm remembering it. Okay. I've remembered it. Do we have to share? Is it share your first kiss day too? Yeah, I'm having my remembrance privately. Yeah, I thought we were remembered it. We have to share. Is it share your first kiss day too? Yeah, I'm having my remembrance privately. Yeah, I thought it was remembering it. I didn't know this is a public display.

All right, go for it. And it was in at the end of freshman year of high school, at the last day, Robbie Bleep had his first party, not to be considered confused with Robbie Bleep's second, third and fourth party. But Robbie Bleep had a really nice house and I didn't particularly like Jim, but we were in a hammock and I was nervous and he kissed me and then he kind of became my boyfriend for the summer. But I only saw him once and then I broke up with him before

school started. And then he eventually dated one of my dear friends for like two years. Oh young love Young love that was my first kiss. I'll remember your first kiss from now on on this holiday. Thank you and Robbie Jim bleep at Robbie bleeps first party So they're brothers. So you probably brother Yeah, oh we party at the bleeps. Oh, they're those that classic he's Robbie's brother? The Bleep Brothers. Oh, we party at the Bleep's! Oh, they're that classic comedy duo that we all know.

I want to look up Robbie Bleep. What's he doing these days? I don't think we should do that right now. Okay, no one else wants to share their first kiss, I guess. I mean, standard. Kissed. In a hammock at Robbie Bleep's first party? Yeah, exactly. Saturday, April 27th is National Day of Puppetry. It's Wormbow Day. It's Wormbow Day.

Excellent. Sad news for all of our listeners during and Jonathan, you weren't there for this for the end plate of this episode coming out next week about George Soros. I kind of tossed Wormbow to the side and his eye fell off. Oh, no, that happened. I'm going to glue back on. It's fine. It'll be fine. But here is Cody's abusive. Here's his little pupil. Oh, my goodness. I know.

We can just glue it. Yeah, it'll glue back. It was glued on originally. Molly, we have a puppet named Wormbow. That's a big part of our show. Well, where is he? Why isn't he on camera right now? Well, Cody threw him and maimed his eyeball. He does look horrifying without that. I put it back on.

Why? Why are you? Haven't you glued it on yet? That would have been the first thing I did. Give him an eye patch. It'll be fine. He'll. I mean, the other we have to. We have two warm bows anyway, but his eye will be glued back on and he will be able to speak.

Yesterday, when I suggested we bring out the other warm bow, you were horrified. Well, yeah, I'm not going to bring out the other warm bow to play warm bow. They're not the same. It's a different guy, Katie. I mean, warm bows are obviously very important. He has a body double. He's wearing a tie. Exactly. He's the prime minister of this podcast. Basically. Yeah. I mean, he's the CEO of the company now. Do not just throw around terms like that because he listens.

He will learn that term and he will start to use it. He will start to use it. And unfortunately, now he thinks he's prime minister of the podcast. Which he kind of is. He absolutely is. Now we're going to ask you some questions. Well, this isn't a question. Well, OK, so the last time you were here was January 6th.

That you were here for January 6th. And I think we can all agree it's gotten much better since then. We took care of it. Yeah, I think America's been on a really positive trajectory since then. We solved problems, we all moved on. Democracy is safe.

We reached our low point and then just have been floating up and up and up and up ever since. I always thought that, I mean, that's a fun joke and I'm just going to disregard it. I don't know that there exists a low point. We're always looking for it. I think that's what's so beautiful about America, right? We're always searching for the lowest point we can find.

Having to have a war to get to your slavery seems pretty low. That was one of one of the lower ones. That was a low one in terms of a modern low point. Do you think we'll know it when it happens? Because I think I just keep thinking that I felt it and then it's not the low point because I feel like whatever date it is, January 6th, 2025, depending on how things go. There's a different low.

Honestly, like either way, like there's gonna be, like I feel like even if, well, we'll see if, we'll discuss this later if Joe Biden shoots Donald Trump with a gun and he's not running against him. But if Trump wins or loses, I feel like that date is going to be a pretty rough one. No established conditions where no matter how the election goes, there will be people who don't believe it and people who want to violently change the outcome.

It's not going to be good. Go ahead and book you for our show the week of January 6, 2025. Just going to get ahead of it right now. Put a pin in you for that. Thank you. I appreciate the optimism that, you know, we'll all still be podcasting. We'll be, you know. I'm optimistic.

I'm more optimistic than everyone else that podcasting will exist still in eight and a half months. Well, you know, so we'll all have free access to the Internet and everything will be safe. Exactly. I don't know how else I'll make money if we that short period of time that it goes on Musk's TikTok, which I assume he will buy. Oh, does he have to cash for that kind of purchase? He can fake it. Yeah. Molly, here's an actual question for you.

So what what cases are you currently following in the Charlottesville court system? Is there anything interesting going on in your work right now? Oh, absolutely. I know that there is because you already know a well-prepared host. Yeah, because it's been a full year now since they started unsealing the indictments against the torch marchers. So it's been seven years since the torch march on August 11th, 2017. But in Virginia, there's no statute of limitation on felonies. So we have a new, the prosecutor at the time declined to bring charges against the torch

marchers. Our new prosecutor took his time getting to it. But now we're a year into some of those cases working their way through the system And so what they were charged with was burning an object with intent to intimidate It's sort of a modern iteration of an old Klan law, right? Like a cross burning type situation, but it doesn't have to be a cross it can be any object So the the prosecutor's argument is that the torch constitutes a burning object So we've got I mean that was the implication of the entire march.

Right. Right. I mean, it was... I think it's clear to anyone who sees the video that, like, the flame was a show of force. Yeah, a physical show of force and also a symbolic show of force, and that's their... they knew what they were doing. And I think once you are trying to light people on fire by swinging lit torches at them, that's a burning object with an intent to intimidate,

but I guess the courts will decide. And it's so hard to know what the courts will decide these days. You really can't count on it anymore, you really can't. So we've got about close to a dozen of those cases working their way through. Some guys have already pled guilty, nobody's actually gone to trial yet. The first case to go to trial should be in June. So I guess

we'll see how it shakes out from there. It takes so long. Oh, it takes forever. It takes forever. On purpose, right? I think usually, you know, the state wants to drag things out to make it more painful. But in this case, it's the defendants filing a bunch of procedural motions to sort of drag this out. A lot of these guys are not anyone you've ever heard of. One of them certainly is. It's Thomas Rousseau, the leader of Patriot Front.

He's set for trial in November. So that'll be a really normal time, I think, for everyone. Yeah, not a lot of large seismic things going on in that. No, no, I think the first half of November will be really normal for all of us. Yeah, and especially him. Are there people in any of the prominent photos and videos from Charlottesville that we've all seen that have still not been identified? Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely, there are. I mean, people are still making ideas to this day. People are working hard on it. Respect that. I think the most prominent un-idead actor is a guy that people refer to as sunglasses. I'm sure you've seen the photos in the video of the beating of Deandre Harris, the young black man who was beaten nearly to death in the parking lot of the police station while the police just stood there and watched. A couple of guys were quickly ID'd, arrested, caught, charged, convicted, did their time. I think almost all but one of them are out already. They served their time. But one of the assailants has never been identified. It's a young

white man with a military haircut, white polo shirt, sunglasses on, which is why they call him sunglasses. No ID on sunglasses, which is remarkable, honestly. Yeah. Like somebody knows who that guy is and that he committed a felony assault. Presumably he was there with people too. But, and then another guy that participated in the assault that was never ID'd, the people call Redbeard.

He's like a big ruddy guy with a red beard I mean somebody is his neighbor somebody is his mom his cousin his ex-girlfriend ex-girlfriends Come forward with tips. Come on ex-girlfriends. Where are you? Stop sleeping on red beard or sunglasses, dude Hello my beautiful baby bear, it's Cody also a bear just. Just kidding. I am human. Boy, I really got you. Look at you. Disgraceful. Don't get tricked again by going to Ground News, a sponsor that we, the bears at Some More News, specifically picked to do ads for. These ads that you're listening to right now.

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Roar! That's how I say goodbye. We should talk about some news, because there's lots of it. Jonathan, set us up. What started last week at Columbia University in New York City has now become a nationwide phenomenon with students at college campuses across the US setting up solidarity encampments to protest continued support of Israeli military action in Gaza

to demand that their schools divest from any programs in Israel. Their position is one that is kind of the majority position in the United States, that they don't support Israel's continued military action in Gaza. But the media has largely framed the protests as threatening to Jewish students in the local communities. Many campuses have now dispatched police to break up these encampments.

You can go online and see many videos of campus cops, of city cops beating up students, moving tents out of the way. This is all for setting up encampments, tents in grassy areas, in quad areas in front of the library on campuses. And that's what's going on as we're recording. One effect of this yesterday, at least, event, a lot more people are out today. Yep, that's what happens. In protest for the actual purpose of the protest, but also in protest of what they did yesterday. Tons of people out that maybe wouldn't have come out were it not for the violent response to it, which is wholly unsurprising. And we were talking before you joined us today, Molly. Man, this whole situation fucking sucks.

There are so many stronger words I could use, but the repression of free speech just results in more anger, that all they're doing is amplifying the tension here and making things more volatile. I think Streisand affected themselves, right? Yeah. It's very, very funny. I mean, it's not funny, but...

Well, right. You could argue that some of the New York media made a much bigger deal about the Columbia protests than maybe they should have since college students setting up tents somewhere is not necessarily national news. Are you suggesting that people of the National Review and maybe like a Jonathan Chait type might be writing about college campuses way too much? No, I think they should do it more if it inspires mass protests. That's true.

That's actually a good point. I think they tried to frame this right away as anti-Semitic protests. And then John Fetterman jumped on board, and the White House jumped on board saying, this is abhorrent. Not to say that there haven't been any signs that no one has heard anything that might have been anti-Semitic at these protests.

That's not what I'm saying. But the organizers of the protests, especially at Columbia, the first one, have been very clear about what the guidelines are. They've been very clear that they've disavowed anti-Semititic statements that have taken place outside of the Columbia campus. They've been very clear that people inside the Gaza Solidarity encampment are not to talk with or respond to people who might come in to agitate. Like a Gavin Mcginnis type? Right. Who's there to bother people?

Yes, exactly. So I definitely think that the national media in their attempt to mock college students and then cops in their attempts to beat up college students. Yeah, have definitely spread this movement. Seems to have come together to support the movement that they do not want. You know, Elon Omar's daughter was one of the was at Columbia, right? Last week, she was one of the first students expelled, expelled. And so that's kind of what also launched this to, you know, a fervor. I mean, it's just.

It's fucking wild, man. And yet, John, one of the things we talked about also before we started recording, I don't want to dismiss that some students might feel have seen messages that make them feel unsafe at some point on campus or around. But there's also so many Jewish students that have been vocally supportive and saying that they do not feel unsafe. I mean, there's the cedar that was being shared at the, you know, protest a couple of nights ago.

There's that image that's been floating around. But like Cody, you know, we had this conversation and you're right that that can become the distracting through line to distract from the actual conversation as to why people are there, the bigger picture here. The reality of this protest is like, it's not, the protest has a very specific purpose, and it's not that.

And I think it's important to be concrete in our definitions, right? You know, some people feel unsafe, some people are perceiving anti-Semitism. Are these people unsafe? Have they been made unsafe? Or do they just not like what they are seeing? Are they seeing outright anti-Semitism? Or are they conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Israel protest with anti-Semitism?

I'm not saying both things aren't occurring, but by and large the anti-Semitism that people are talking about is criticism of the state of Israel. And you can't seed ground to that definition of the word, or the word doesn't mean anything anymore. Right? Right. That's the thing, like, is even like there are these, you know, isolated incidents or these moments of people feeling safe for these instances of anti-Semitism, but they are being

used to describe the protest as a whole. Like Netanyahu came out yesterday, he's like, these are anti-Semitic protests. So we got you. We got to take care of them. And it's like, wait, we get that fuck out of here. We talking about. Yeah, we just gave you $95 billion or whatever it is. Shut the hell up.

Like you got you got yours. But like there, you know, I think didn't Greenblatt. Yeah. Said yesterday, President of the Anti-Defamation League, Iran has their military proxies like Hezbollah, and Iran has their campus proxies like these groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace.

That is the result of the sort of cynical use of these moments to be like, well, this discredits the entire movement and the entire protest. And that's like what they functionally do. And to be clear, this protest specifically is asking the university to divest from, you know, investments that are profiting by Israel's war efforts.

And that's pretty specific and not unreasonable. Like, and again, it is like most people share this general view. And it's very concrete, like so often the criticism of protests, especially protests against Israel in the last few months, people are saying, well, you're taking to the streets of the US. What do you want anyone to do about it? What can this possibly accomplish? What is your ceasefire resolution in the city council accomplished for the people of Gaza? Well, these protests do have a very specific concrete goal and it's divestment. That is not symbolic. It's not performative. That is a literal actual concrete action

that these universities can take. They can say, we will not profit from arms manufacturing. We will not profit from the apartheid thing that is real. Which it should be anyway. Why are you investing in Lockheed Martin in the first place? Unbelievable. I mean, believable, but like. I don't know.

Like when I was in college, I did not think about this stuff. That's why I'm always very impressed by this. Because when I was in college, I would have walked by and been like, huh, I wonder what's going on. I'm going to go to Taco Bell or something. I was not aware. And there was stuff going on. You were in the way of Bobby Bleep's party.

Oh, well, listen, you know me. I was going, yeah. But like, so I'm always very like impressed by people who have the wherewithal to do this at such a young age. But also, had you told me, oh, yeah, your school is profiting off of arms manufacturing. So what do you wait? What do you like? I feel like even back then, I would have said, stop, don't don't do that.

Stop doing that. Right. Like it's the kind of thing like it's like, don't do that. Wait, we have to have a protest to make you not do that. It seems like we shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't do that. Exactly. No, I was looking this morning at some newspaper archives from the 80s. Just trying to find some context for myself for this. Right. Like, you know, you're seeing these encampments pop up. That's not a coincidence, right?

That's not random. It's not something they invented. This is in keeping with tradition. Like in the eighties, there were these college protests where they set up shanty towns on the quads at colleges across the country to protest apartheid. And not just to protest apartheid, but specifically to ask colleges to divest from apartheid.

Did it work? It did. It did. I wasn't expecting you to say that. Yes. Yes, it did. So I found some articles from 1985. I mean, obviously it didn't work everywhere.

It didn't work every time. It wasn't universal. But this wave of protests in the mid 80s in the midst of all of this violence on campus, you know, hundreds of students arrested at mass, students being physically dragged from their campus buildings and beaten by cops in the street. Just like we're seeing today. You know, in 1985, two dozen colleges and universities had responded to these protests by divesting from apartheid. It did work. Oh, you mean the cops weren't nice to them back then? It's remarkable. And so these photos, you know, they're't nice to them back then? It's remarkable.

I mean, some of these photos, you know, they're they're grainy and black and white because I'm looking at newspaper archives. But those photos could have been taken today, right? Like a college student at Berkeley in a choke hold with three cops sitting on his chest, like that could have been taken today. We didn't learn anything. No, we never do. That's one of the things that's been really bumming me out.

This like a real bummer that I've been thinking about in a lot of different topics. But again, this week with this, it's like, man, we do not learn damn thing ever. It's so cyclical and it's not that long ago. People have been sharing. Someone's tweet, meme, whatever, about reminder. Students are all student protests are always on the right side of history. Like we never look back on our student. The people that behave like goons are goons, you know, they're on the wrong side of history.

The civil rights movement, you know, it's just. Is that but does that tweet have a community note on it about like Germany in the 30s or something? I'm going to say, no, protesting reesegregation. But that's a really good point. But you know what I'm saying? But the protests, the protests where cops are beating the shit out of people in the streets have one thing in common.

History vindicated those protesters. Yeah. And you'll have politicians, democratic politicians tying themselves in knots to point at the civil rights protests, the ones you're talking about in the 80s. Well, these were all good, but what's happening now is bad. And to try to come up with a reason why these ones are somehow bad. Because it's safe for me to celebrate a battle that was already won. I can pretend that I would have agreed with them because history already

proved the right. Oh, exactly. That's just always the case. You can celebrate victories in the past, and you condemn struggles in the present. And that's the safe position you can take. Politicians voting for, you know, to increase funding to the police while you know, putting up their MLK memes twice a year. Right. And while say like claiming that we defunded the police.

People are still saying that they're still saying that. I know I can't seem to whenever it comes up. I want to lose my mind. Apparently, we're not doing a good job beating the shit out of these fucking kids. I shared this with Cody yesterday and you'd already seen it, but I want to bring it up here now. This post does the same person's post that you saw. It's the same post. Yeah. So, OK, Jeff Marlstein, I'm not bleeping out your name Marlstein.

Amazing. Something odd about OK, so it's a picture of all the green tents on the lawn, I guess, at Columbia University. And they're the same green tent. Something odd about a lot of them are the same green tent. Some of them are not all the same green, but a lot of them are. Something odd about those campus tent encampments, almost all the tents are identical, but a lot of them are something odd about those campus tent encampments. Almost all the tents are identical, same design, same size, same fresh out of the box appearance, which suggests that rather than an organic process whereby students would bring a variety

of individual tents, someone or some Has supplied them and organized the event. I think it would be instructive if we can determine who that someone is, because rather than spontaneous demonstrations, these are choreographed events by hidden actors, and the students, sincere though they may be, are merely manipulated props. Right, because lots of people who live in New York City

own a lot of camping supplies. You would expect them to bring around. That was my first thought, was like, how many students do you know have their variety of camping gear? Or is it more likely that they bought the cheapest one on Amazon and they bought several with pooled funds? Or on campus, they're all on the same campus. They went to the fucking store and like got the same tent. You know what probably happened is that there are whatever student organization, there is obviously someone that's like whatever the specific organization is.

They started a crowd fund and everybody donated ten dollars and they bought 50 fucking tents. You it's absolute these guys are going to dox and they bought 50 fucking tents. You absolute combining bulls. These guys are going to dox the CEO of Big Five Sporting Goods and be like, you're the man behind it. You are organizing. It's so funny because I see posts about like this a lot. And it's so funny because they always

use these words that they should be able to look at and realize what they're saying. Almost all the tense are identical. Almost is a pretty important word there. Rather than organic process, someone or some organization, wow, an organization helped organize something. The word organization is there. And rather than spontaneous demonstrations,

these are choreographed events. Like there's like nothing can happen before a thing. Like, oh, we're going to do that. We're going to do this protest. Let's organize is like not a process that this person has thought would happen or has ever happened in any sort of protest. Like even like I imagine they think that like Rosa Parks was just like one day. Like, you know what? Today's the day instead of like a instead of like a process and a plan.

And like, I don't know, the whole like the idea that like students can't organize anything is absurd. Yeah. Which is it? You know, was it last week we get the news that DeRay McKesson is personally responsible for organizing a protest? Or are people not capable of organizing protests? I don't know. There's just lots of jumping through hoops. It takes away from their agency too, right?

The idea that if anyone organized this, it must have been some sort of shadowy foreign state entity. You know, 22 year olds aren't capable of coming together in a group and leading a decision together. They're merely manipulated props. It's these are voting. These are adults. They're young adults. And they understand the value of buying in bulk. Exactly.

It's called financial responsibility. When they see it, it's called frugality. OK, it's not a conspiracy. Yeah. Guy's name, I forget already. Murmelstein, there's's probably perhaps even a specific thought about keeping it the same color, too. You know, exactly. There's so many reasons for this other than they're being tricked into thinking this is something they should do. Nobody could buy 10 matching 10s except for the state of Iran.

Yeah, so this is what I was kind of getting it to is that I have. I don't have a screenshot of this, but I have seen shared. Somewhere goatsy, just asking the question basically saying Iran is funding stuff like proxies. It's oh, yeah. Well, no, it's the it's that Greenblatt quote of these pizza parties are clearly funded by the Ayatollah. Yeah. I guess the League of Extraordinary Defamation

is that organization now. I mean, just like, you know, you can find things on a college campus to be a little bit cringy without saying, like, there's a show. For sure. There's pizza parties. There's drum circles, there's guest speakers, there's art forums, there's all kinds of stuff. That's when the cops showed up. That's when they showed up for the art forum during the art part, like in the evening, they like waited for the fucking pizza party in the art show.

So ridiculous. Or who was it? It was that it was that that Olly London freak posted a video of some students at Columbia doing step dancing, you know, like there's no music because the beat is the music, but they were doing on grass. I guess you couldn't really hear it. And he was like, I'm doing some sort of strange silent dance, some sort of ritual. It's like, have you, you've never met a black person. It's so like, babe, that's dancing.

They're just like everything, anything normal that happens. They're always like, this is the humiliation ritual that the elite want you to do, or like whatever it is. Like, no. But go outside. You're in college, go outside. It's a protest. Protests are a combination of a lot of things.

Yes, there's a lot of anger and a lot of high emotion. There's signs, there's marching. There also are drum circles and events and speeches. And it's a whole thing and It's such a weird and to your point earlier Molly I want to highlight this because it is very frustrating to see a certain type of Lib centrist kind of Personality be so down on these protests for these brand new reasons when normally they're down in the protest to like what you're talking about, like with a climate change protest, we'll stop disrupting traffic or like stop doing this.

Like you need to have you need to have a plan or like a course of action, an actionable goal or like like some like be more productive or like we know when when people throw paint on or like paint on paintings. Soup on a painting. The soup stuff that happens these days that everyone's so mad about. Whenever that happens, they're like, no, do something like do a real protest. They're doing it. Why are you mad?

Right, because this is a direct one to one. They want action from the university, financial action, and so they are financially disrupting the operation of that university for their goal It's a direct one-to-one. It's really confusing. It's not confusing But it has to be confusing for it to be bad, right? like they have to confuse the issue and muddy things up to make it seem like this is actually just like Fake people who don't really believe what they're doing who are being paid by some shadowy figure to be anti-Semitic. Like that is the that is the narrative.

And they have a direct personal stake in it, right? Like they are taking on life ruining debt to give money to this institution that is in turn profiting off of a genocide. I think it's very fair for them to want to do something about that. Very, very fair. This is an expensive. No, they're all privileged. Sorry. Oh, right. they're all privileged. Like, Brianna Lose.

Brianna Lose. I don't want to talk about Brianna. If you are privileged, no, we're not going to do that. But if you are privileged, and like, oh, look at these privileged, pampered little students and they'll protest. Then good for them for risking it. Exactly, good for them. That's the reaction that should be there,

instead of like, therefore, the protest is fake and doesn't matter. And we should beat them all up. Not everyone at any university is necessarily from a privileged background. But even then, like with everything to lose your whole life ahead of you, you know, you could lose your scholarship. You could be sold by your family. You could go to jail. You could be killed by a fucking cop. You know, you could if any of these kids want to be lawyers,

they're probably not going to pass a character in fitness test if they've been arrested in a protest. Like they're risking everything with a flag. We're risking everything. We should not be, you know, tut tutting them like, oh, you know, these pretty privileged kids. Yeah, good. Good for them. The ones with the most the ones with the most privilege should risk it.

Yes, I also saw it's funny because like there's like all these levels of like dismissing it, just like dismiss the whole it's funny because like there's like all these levels of like dismissing it. Just like dismiss the whole thing, frame it like this, frame it like this, any way to make it seem like not worth anything. And like even then of like, OK, they're doing this. I saw this fucking Dean Phillips, if anyone even remembers that guy's name. I cannot believe that's a name that was OK. Go ahead. I know.

But like, you know, name that was OK. Go ahead. I know. But like you were. But he was tweeting. He's like, imagine this energy on things like homelessness or or or climate change or something. It's like, so you're never fucking happy. Like, wait, he's a congressman. He's a congressman. He tried to pretend to run for president. OK, but so like, where's the energy then? Do you know?

I know. Right. Yeah. He can't. His energy is in tweeting about how we need a president of the White House who listened to you two as a kid. Wait, I did not make that up. He did tweet that. I promise you. I know. You too.

Yeah. The band. I mean, we all we all were forced to. It was put on our on our iPods. They made us. They made us. We didn't want to listen to you, too. Was he saying that he thinks the students should do this kind of protest action about those things or something else? Imagine if college students put as much energy into protecting reproductive rights and reducing poverty, homelessness, crime, and other injustices

in America. My okay. So now so the Board of Regents at their college can overturn the Supreme Court. Is that what you say? We need to divest from the Supreme Court if they're not going to protect our reproductive rights. How else? Columbia University should be giving free abortions. It's like if they were doing that, he would be like, what good is this going to do? Shut up, students. Like there's no there's no winning. So if they were protesting about that, yeah, he would not like their protesting about that or the way they're doing it or setting up tents.

That's the problem. That's what civil disobedience about this. That's what gets you arrested. So it's like, if it's not that, what else do you want them to do? They're doing this because this is their leverage. This is what they can do. You dunce. They want them. They want them to like intern in their office and like, you know,

the little fucking lanyard and like vote for Biden, I guess. Like, you know, that's all I want them to vote for the guy who's currently the president. I mean, can you imagine how bad it would be if a president let something like this happen? We have to keep voting for Joe Biden. We need to. We have to keep. We've got no other choice. Which I'm going to selectively point out this selectively edited clip of Joe Biden yesterday at a speech saying four more years and then saying the word pause because it said to pause for four

more years on the filibrom. No, he didn't. Yes, he did. He did. He sure did. He Ron Burgundy'd it? He did. He said four more years, pause.

And then he sort of paused for a little bit. No, you know that his heart's really in it. Just a little treat. I just wanted to give everybody a little treat. We just blew right past break time. That's okay. Take a break. Pause.

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Or else I'll be forced to trap you in a steel drum. Don't make me do that. Do not make me do that. Unpause ads over. We love ads. Don't we folks? Wait, if you pause for the ads, but then you unpause, then the ads are going to start playing because you paused right before the ads. We paused.

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Hey, Google, if you're listening, do not pause. Is that all three play? Google's Iris. Oh, yeah. I hope it works for some of you. Play. Play the replacements any song. Yeah, but there's there are so many flavors of bad faith, right? It's like, well, you know, you're not protesting correctly. You're not protesting for the right thing. You're not protesting the right time.

They just don't want every time it's. Yes, they just don't. There's never a good time. Well, now't want every time. It's yes, they just don't. It's not a good. There's never a good time. Well, now just this whole idea campuses aren't safe for free speech and all that, you know, that whole line of thing. Except until kids actually young adults. Sorry. Excuse me. Start. They're not children.

I call everybody that's younger than me, but I don't mean it to be infantilizing teenagers. There's still a lot of we're not children. I call everybody that's younger than me a kid, but I don't mean it to be infantilizing. Teenagers, there's still a lot of we're still teenagers. Some of them are teenagers. Some of them can drink legally. I mean, when you see somebody who's, you know, 20 years old getting beaten by a riot cop, like I'm old enough now that that does look like a kid to me. It does, I know. It hurts.

They are kids. They're adults, they're voters, but like, oh god, they're kids. Your brain's still forming, but they're kids. But these are also not. I don't mean that dismissive. Obviously, we've all looked at seeing the youths being very energized and impressive for a while now. Like the I am blown away and also sometimes like you guys take on so much so young.

But this is Columbia University. Other protests at USC at Berkeley, like, like prestigious schools where we're training the best, the the brightest young minds. Right. And yet they can't for themselves. Allegedly. And I actually don't even mean that. I don't think that people need to go. The brightest young minds are not necessarily at school. They frame it right right like I'm saying that these are overachiever students that have are

Excellent have excelled in some way or another and been accepted to an impressive I'm quoting University and Yet, they also don't have their own agency in the if we're to have they have enough You know, they're responsible enough to sign on the dotted line for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of loans But they're just they just don't know enough to know if it's right or wrong to do a genocide They events like this are just really laid bare just like the constant contradictions with So much of our discourse about these kinds of issues

with so much of our discourse about these kinds of issues. We're like, but you said this a week ago about this other thing, and you're saying this now. Like, I mean, even like looking at all the people like Elon Musk and people just being like, yeah, we got to like Abbott, all those tweets about like, we got to we got to take care of these protesters. Well, you're the Free Speech Brigade. What are you doing? You can't do this and get away with it, apparently. But like, you can't do this and get away with it. It turns out it was never really about free speech, right? Like, how many how many op eds have we endured in the last two years alone about campus free speech, right? About conservative students are being silenced. They're not invited to any parties just because they said maybe we should bring slavery back. They're being silenced. And it's like, okay, like, you're unpopular. People don't want to sit next to you in class because you have problems with the age of consent or whatever. But these kids are being beaten and tased and tear gas and arrested. So who's free speech

is really in jeopardy here? Yeah, it's, um, I went back and sorry, I went back and like skimmed through a few of those like 2021, like there's a chilling thing going on in college campuses right now. And there's one, and I don't wanna like, you know, single out people, but there's one by this. Go for it, we'll bleep it.

Just bleep out the last name, is it Robbie? Blast that nerd. No, it was Emma Bleep in the New York Times and she wrote like, I came to whatever school to... Oh, that was here. That was the UVA one, right? Yes, that was UVA. And she's like, what I found and said was self-censorship and people are afraid to express

themselves. But right now, people are not afraid to express themselves, whether they're part of the campus protests or against them coming out. I just don't understand. We had this whole conversation. We were forced to have this entire years-long conversation by the New York Times and the Atlantic and the New Yorker or whatever. We were saying, oh, they don't actually care about this. This, this is just because they want because they want Ben Shapiro to show up

and say something. No one was silencing those kids, those conservative libertarian little freaks who were saying like, oh, I'm being silenced on campus. Like no one did. Their professors were not flunking them. They were not being abused or kicked out of class. Like they were not being harmed. They just weren't being celebrated. So they said, like, I'm being silenced. What they meant was I am not being harmed. They just weren't being celebrated. So when they said, like, I'm being silenced, what they meant was I am not being fedded.

Right. I'm being criticized and ignored. You're being so brave. Like, they weren't being silenced. They just didn't get the attention that they crave. Just they've got an un very unpopular opinion. That's the nicest way to put it. Right. But the free speech, the free speech crisis on campus right now is that probably someone's way to put it. Right, but the free speech crisis on campus right now is that probably someone's going

to get fucking killed. Yeah, it's really fucked up actually. I also, this isn't for our listeners because I'm pretty sure they all just generally agree. But just like with stuff like this happens and like you see like, you know, LAPD getting involved yesterday and things like that. You're like, just urging any of these again, like these like centrist lib pundits just like urging them like, just imagine if the president was the other guy and this exact thing was happening exactly this like there Like, there's no change in anything except that the president is the other guy.

How do you feel about what's going on? And I think we all know the answer to that. It's just very frustrating to see these things happen over and over and over and go like, but if the other guy did this, you'd be fucking furious right now. And same thing with what's going on in Gaza, where it's like, just imagine if it weren't your guy behind behind the desk.

And imagine all of this this outrage and fury right now in the American media. And and we've been talking about this for a long time now, just here today. Meanwhile, two mass graves were discovered this week at two hospitals. And right before we started recording, I got physically nauseous reading how 20 people in one of these graves. It seems were buried alive. And that's the real distraction all of this from the fucking atrocity that's happening. I mean, I feel like. Don't worry.

Israel is going to investigate it and we're going to get the information from them. What? I don't know if I buy the distraction narrative, right? I think you have to you. You can't focus on one over the other. You know, they exist in the same context, right? These students are trying to squeeze some of the money back out of that machine. I don't mean that the protests are. I mean that we're all talking about free speech and

students being puppeted. And meanwhile, more every day, there's more atrocities. You're correct. I do not mean to suggest that the protests are themselves. Well, there's stuff there's stuff around it that distracts from the protest, which is there to bring focus. Yeah. The cops that are beating these students, especially down in Georgia, you know, at the Emory protests, a lot of those cops trained with the IDF. Right. Like, you know, cops, Cop City is, you know, in partnership with the IDF. They have this exchange program where they learn oppression tactics and they bring them back home. So it is.

I think more clear than ever that, you know, our fates are intertwined and we have to, we have to get out of this arrangement. And Biden just keeps signifying there's nothing that we will always be supporting Israel. We will always be protecting Israel. And you know, his camp is worried about the youth vote in November. Like I would behave differently if I were worried about the youth. No, you should beat him up. Would you ban TikTok? I ban TikTok and beat him up.

Would you ban TikTok and beat him up? Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk about TikTok? That's how Iran is reaching our high schoolers. Right. That's how they're being. Through tents and. Well, have you seen the latest dance trend? It's just subliminal messages. Oh, the wild.

It's so wild to me. This is another thing of the TikTok ban. Just this boogie man of China, which I don't know. I'm more afraid of that. We've talked about this before where this is first the story. I'm more afraid of all the websites that take all my data every fucking day. Elon Musk having it, and TikTok personally. I don't know what you guys are doing on TikTok.

I really like, there's this wiener dog named Biscuit that has a collection of shoes. He has a lot of different shoes. And so there's all these different videos of Biscuit wearing really fresh outfits and new kicks. So I don't know. Well, I don't know what you guys are doing today. That's what I'm looking at.

Similar things. I'm not really on it. I just like, yeah, I see TikToks posted on x.com. Right. There's all this like hand-reading about like, oh, you know, the Chinese Communist Party is influencing our youth. I was like, oh, did they buy biscuit, those new crocs? Because I don't understand what we're talking about.

Are they influencing Jose Monkey, who finds out what dairy queen you're at in Indiana? Like, are they using the geo data? Like, I know exactly where you are. You're at this roundabout here in Oregon. Like, okay, like hope they enjoy it. I mean, if we're geolocating people at Dairy Queens, that is a threat to national security because that puts Chuck Grassley in grave danger.

I would not. I would not film myself anywhere being like, find me. I find it uncomfortable. But I watch other people get found on Google Earth. Going on with before what we have some a few more minutes here. What is going on with the TikTok situation? He signed it. Well, it's not a ban. It's just like it will be.

It's an effectively a ban if certain actions are taken. If they don't sell it. Which is like, yeah, like splitting hairs. But yeah, ByteDance has 12 months to sell TikTok or the app will be banned from app stores. I'm sure no one stands to profit hugely from this. That's probably not part of this at all. No, not at all. No.

It's like, I don't know. I don't know what China does with our shit, but like, do you think that they can't get our information in other ways? Like. I mean, I updated the software on my television yesterday. Like, I have fucking smart TV. I'm ruining my life.

Like, it sends notifications to my phone, then I need to update my TV software. There's no boundaries at all with our appliances. I had to agree to the agreements in order to watch my programs. And I was like, yeah, you know, we're just sending all of your data to this third party company about like when you're pausing it and like how loud your TV is like, it's your data is everywhere. Your data is everywhere. You can't get around it.

Every website I go to, I have to accept or reject. And there's there's LH2 like that, like that kind of data. I'm like, I don't care, but I do care. Like, I don't want you to know when I pause stuff. And I know that doesn't matter. Like, that's not like my private information. But also, yeah, it is. But why do you need to know?

Yeah. Yeah. But there's also like we were just it's not like we don't care, but there's nothing we can do about it And so like last week AT&T is like we regret that your social security number has been Compromised in a and it's like look there's been maybe 20 Giant data dumps on the dark web where all of my information is So the only comfort is that they've got yours and yours and yours and everyone's as well So the chances that they're getting it.

Right, the credit reporting bureau had a breach, right? So it's like you have against my will forced me to participate in the credit reporting process non-consensually and then you sold my social security number? Yeah. Yeah. Like, come on. I hope that freecreditreport.com guy is like on a beach somewhere. Yeah, he's living it up.

Like, I don't blame him for taking the money for 10,000 commercials in the 2000s. And it's all right. Three songs and get out of there. Yeah, I don't either. I love this tidbit that you included, Jonathan. Meanwhile, the Biden 2024 campaign remains on TikTok in an effort to reach the younger voters that they're alienating. Well, they got to have a place to post videos of them beating the shit out of those young people.

Otherwise, how are they gonna know how to vote? They do have on that page, it's like, it'll be like Biden, you know, slam dunks on Trump or something, like Dark Brandon drags Trump. And it's, or President Biden cooks Trump for selling $60. So fucking cringe. It is. It feels like. It's as cringe as any college student at a drum circle.

But I think it's like because I do believe I'm sure the people they hired to do this like know what they're doing or on TikTok and understand everything. But I just think it's very hard to make speeches from Biden feel effortless on TikTok. So yeah, I mean, no more years pause, like that epic clap back to the teleprompter from Biden, like, but then on TikTok, he's gonna do a bit with it, right? They'll get him on and he'll say four more years. Pause. No, really, pause the video so you can do it, right? They'll get him on and he'll say four more years. Pause. No, really. Pause the video so you can do it.

Look, right? They'll try to effortlessly weave it in. It's funny, cause I'm confused a lot. Do you get it? It's just not inspiring. I just. Meanwhile, the other guy is like falling asleep and like. Farting through his trial.

Farts through the trial. And having his lawyer argue, can we button this up with this Sotomayor question? Oh, please. It's not good. I mean, it's not good, but I would also pause it. It's fucking amazing. Well, here, let me set this up for you, Cody.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today from Trump lawyers about why he should have immunity from all this stuff. I think this one's specifically about the DC, in DC, the federal, I tried to overturn the election thing. Of course, they're probably going to do a quote unquote middle ground where they're not going to say he gets total immunity, but they're going to send it back to a lower court, which kicks the can down the road so that it happens after the election so that if he wins, he doesn't have to face any problems. Anyway, Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump's lawyer, she's like, well, what if the president believes his political opponent is corrupt and orders the military to assassinate them? Does that count as an official

act that he would have immunity for? And Trump's lawyer is like, well, that could be an official act. It depends. It is possible that the president can find his opponent corrupt and murder the opponent. So you're right. I've been right this whole time. Biden should kill Trump. No, no, no. Joe Biden should shoot Donald Trump dead with a gun. I didn't say he should kill him. He should shoot him dead with a gun.

I think he needs to hire somebody to assassinate him is what it is. Technically what they're saying, technically what they're saying. But I feel like with this argument, you could go even further and say he could do. He could personally do it. Right. Like it is the name of the Secret Service agent that comes to your house after this. I'm just saying I'm just saying that Joe Biden can possibly, according to Trump's lawyer, legally shoot Donald Trump dead with a gun. It's like, look, and look, Joe Biden is probably going to lose the election and he's hella

fucking old, so he doesn't have that many more years left. What do you have to lose here? They probably wouldn't even send him to prison. He's so old. Exactly. No, that's what I'm saying. It's not going to be four more years for you. You got maybe like two and a half years back.

So like just shoot Donald Trump with a gun. So take a big swing for the rest of us. You have immunity. Do you care about this country, Joe Biden? Should we bleep a lot of that? Or? I mean, I think you're just repeating the legal arguments that were made today before the Supreme Court of the United States. We're just pointing out.

I'm just talking about the news. Which in fairness, they were skeptical about that argument. OK, well. Amy Coney Barrett was not sold that Trump, I guess, in this case, would be able to shoot his political opponents. OK, well, addendum. Skeptically, Joe Biden could shoot Donald Trump dead with a gun. But don't we already have some pretty solid rules about like the military can't just assassinate US citizens, right?

Like I'm pretty sure that's already like kind of off the table. But what if that US citizen is corrupt? But what this argument presupposes is... What if you come by the spot? What if you come by the spot? This feels like a good spot to wrap things up. I've got the perfect one in this article. It's one of my favorite quotes. Molly, you're wonderful. And you are booked for January 6th.

Oh, God. Emergency recording, even if everything's fine, nothing happens. Michelle Obama wins. That's it. I hope we have a better January 6th this time. I do too. I wish that for all of us. Although I will say in the context of, you know, watching all these crowd control munitions get shot off today, I want to say, I've said it before, I'll say it again. I've been to a lot of protests where the crowd control munitions come out. The only time I have ever seen them used correctly, where you fire them at an upward angle and not into the crowd, the only time I've ever seen a crowd control munition

shot off properly was at January 6th. Yeah. They were firing at people's heads. That's what I thought you were gonna say. Just something to think about. That's interesting. Also, I think it was, you made a point yesterday, today, Molly, about the non-lethal methods

at these protests. Right, so they call them less than lethals, but that's the wrong name. They are less lethal. They can still kill you if you fire them at someone's face, head, or throat. They can and do kill people. They blind people.

Millions of dollars were paid out in settlements in 2020 to like a dozen people that were blinded. They are not non-lethal weapons. If somebody is pointing a bean bag launcher, a pepper ball, a rubber bullet launcher at you, don't think it won't hurt. Don't think it can't permanently maim you or kill you. Yeah.

God, do you remember in 2020, during the uprising in Portland, that photograph that went around, a guy who is, thank God, wearing a helmet, a smoke grenade was launched at the back of his head and it lodged in his helmet. Like it still broke the skin. Like he had to go to the hospital, he had an injury, he had a brain injury, but it was lodged all the way in his helmet.

It's not a non-lethal weapon. It sounds pretty lethal to me if he hadn't been wearing that helmet. What a depressing- Sorry, I just wanted to- Guys, we had like a kind of a high note to end it on and we brought it down. We brought the vibe down. But I'm gonna bring it back up Opportunities until you tell our listeners where they can find you and support your work All you think you can find me on the rapidly decaying social media website Twitter comm at socialist dog mom

You can read my newsletter the devil's advocates on ghost I am occasionally filling in as a guest host on It Could Happen Here on Cool Zone Media. And I'm out here posting. Out there. Post a good fight. I don't know. You're all over. You're working really hard.

And thank you for taking the time to join us. This was a good conversation. Yeah, thanks for having me. When we picked this date, I was really hoping that the news this week would be more fun. Yeah. There were a few days where we were like, I guess it's appropriate. It's nice to hope, but it's.

Maybe there'll be some really funny news this week, but there wasn't. Only that Trump and Biden can kill each other, apparently. Depending on who's president. I mean, it'd be amazing for ratings. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's be amazing for ratings. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's going to be... It would be.

It would be a huge news day. Big TV year. All right. We're out of here. All right. Okay. But hey, I'm going to say this with sincerity because I mean it. Okay.

Everybody at home. Yeah. And everybody here too. Uh-huh. We love you very much. Mm-hmm. Much. We love you very much. Mm-hmm, much. Globally, humans are facing massive problems that are widely ignored by governments and the media. Like personal space invaders.

I had it with these couples that sit on the same side of the booth. Yak mouths. Stupid stick figure bumper stickers. Almond milk. You cannot milk an almond. Hi, I'm Jennifer. And I'm Angie. We call her Pumps, and we're the hosts of I've Had It. Pumps, tell the listener where they can find us.

Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts. Nailed it. See you next Tuesday.