0:05

This Welch's fucking cocktail

0:07

ship is So it's just

0:09

so weird because you can tell like there's

0:11

like a nostalgia play here.

0:13

Yeah, it's like they can

0:15

look exactly like the fucking Welsh's

0:18

ship that I used to drink in,

0:20

like.

0:21

A little fucking weird, Like when

0:23

are they gonna like I feel like we're right around the corner

0:25

from Juicy Juice, Like there's

0:27

gonna be like juicy juice malt liquor.

0:30

Yeah, Capri remember that ship?

0:32

Oh my god. You know if they did

0:34

a fucking Son.

0:36

Destroy with Caprice Son and trans

0:41

Caprice Son vodka bone

0:43

marrow transplant.

0:47

That's what we need. But I mean, like you

0:50

can just tell like they're just sort of using

0:52

these like because the Sunny Delight I think

0:54

was the canary in the coal mine. When Sunny

0:56

d came out with their vodka thing, I was like,

0:59

this is I'm we're pretty

1:01

squeeze. Ites is gonna have to be next?

1:04

And guess what vodka confused gushers?

1:08

I say, Oh, like, I mean do they have

1:10

they probably have CBD gummies that are gushers?

1:13

Right? Oh maybe probably?

1:15

I mean they go even

1:18

the one that I meant to say when I said

1:20

zb I'm hip

1:22

and I do the drugs.

1:25

I mean I remember like in the early

1:27

days of like sort of like weed edibles,

1:29

there would be like the you know, Ganja,

1:32

Nestley, crunch bar, like kind of

1:34

evoking these old brands and stuff like that I

1:36

actually haven't seen. Is

1:38

like very specifically associated

1:42

with little children. Yeah,

1:45

well just like preschool snack time.

1:47

Yeah.

1:47

Their ads were like straight up like a kid who

1:49

couldn't pronounce all their words, being like I

1:52

like grape juice, wepe juice.

1:54

Yeah, they'll be like and you won't be able to talk

1:56

either after you have five of our vodka

1:59

twenty.

1:59

Years Illo, grape

2:01

juice, Way, weep juice, waste

2:05

sit off, grape juice.

2:07

Off that Welch's Vodka

2:09

Transfusion. Hello

2:17

the Internet, and welcome to Season three forty

2:19

three, Episode two of Dark Daily's guys

2:22

production of My Heart Radio. This is the podcast where

2:24

we take a deep dive in New American share Couchesteni's

2:26

Tuesday, June eighteenth, twenty twenty

2:28

four, Happy birthday to my

2:31

wife. Oh okay, no

2:33

time for that.

2:34

Six times we don't have time six eighteen

2:36

three sixes the devil equals

2:38

eighteenth, the eighteenth day of June.

2:40

Okay, you see I'm doing here with the saches breaks

2:43

up into twenty four, which also

2:46

when you turn the sixes upside down or

2:48

not or six is equal rolling in that

2:50

six folk on boom and

2:52

everybody.

2:53

Everybody says riding down anyway.

2:56

It's also national oh, national

2:58

spurs Day, National gold fishing Day. Okay,

3:00

there's a reason we're speaking this fast, folks, don't

3:02

worry, and it's not because run that Biden crank.

3:06

Because yeah, I just got I just got that State

3:08

of the Union good good truck

3:10

and.

3:10

Biden Biden back to get

3:13

us real fucking amps right now.

3:15

Yeah.

3:15

Yeah.

3:16

My name is Jack O'Brien, a here Potato's O'Brien,

3:18

and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host

3:21

mister Miles Bred.

3:22

Yes, sin is Miles Grace.

3:24

We get to speed to like trying to be like Joe Biden doing

3:26

the State of the Union address. It's also the Lord

3:28

of lankersam aka the Showgun with no Gun because I

3:30

got no gun problems.

3:31

Miles Gray faint.

3:33

That was great, Thank you for being

3:36

here, and Miles Gray, we are thrilled

3:38

to be joined by the executive director

3:40

of Civil Rights Corp, which is a

3:43

nonprofit dedicated to fighting systemic injustice.

3:45

Has been a civil rights lawyer, a public defender,

3:48

named twenty sixteen's Trialaler of the Year

3:50

by Public Justice, author of several

3:52

books, the incredibly compelling

3:54

Usual Cruelty, which we've had him on to talk

3:57

about before. He's got one

3:59

coming mate this year. Most

4:01

importantly, a great follow on Twitter

4:03

and all the social media.

4:05

Is just kidding, that's my most important.

4:07

But please welcome back to the show. The brilliant,

4:10

the talented Alec Hurricanzone.

4:14

What's up about you?

4:15

Thanks for having me back.

4:17

Oh, thank you for being here. And the

4:19

reason we're talking like auctioneers is because

4:21

we only have you for forty five minutes, so we wanted

4:23

to get right into it.

4:25

You all sound great, Thank

4:27

you.

4:28

Man, repped up man, trying

4:30

just getting through it, just getting through it.

4:31

Just some people from buying White House and they

4:33

they've got some Daddy's

4:36

little helpers is.

4:37

What they call him.

4:39

No, it's amazing

4:41

to have you back. You know, we usually do search

4:43

history underrated, overrated, but

4:45

I think I think we can just skip that unless

4:48

there's something you desperately want to get off your

4:51

chest that you think is overrated or underrated,

4:53

or something from your search history.

4:55

I don't have anything I'm dying to tell everybody. I don't

4:57

think.

4:58

Okay, okay, good, Then

5:00

we'll ask the questions. We'll ask the

5:02

questions here, Alec. All

5:05

right, So last time we checked in

5:07

with you, there was This

5:10

was a little over a year ago, or

5:12

maybe actually a little less than a year ago, but there

5:14

was a lot of talk in the mainstream media still about

5:17

how crime was up because everyone

5:19

defunded the police. And there's

5:21

been an emerging story that

5:24

crime has been plummeting much much

5:26

less popular story with the mainstream

5:29

media. And I'm pretty

5:31

sure there hasn't been like a corresponding

5:34

like the police were never defunded,

5:37

so like their theory of the case

5:40

seems to have been exposed

5:42

as bullshit. So

5:45

presumably the mainstream media has been flooded

5:47

with articles explaining what they got wrong

5:50

and taking a long hard look at their methodology.

5:54

How are you seeing these latest crime

5:56

statistics where crime has gone down?

5:59

I think it's first to just take

6:01

a step back and understand that whether

6:03

we're talking about last year or the year

6:05

before the year before that. Overall

6:08

levels of police reported crime in this country

6:10

are near historic loves. So even

6:12

when there was all that frenzy about

6:15

retail theft and shoplifting or

6:18

car theft or violent

6:20

crime or robberies, you know,

6:22

we were still at a stage

6:25

in history where all of those things were

6:27

were extraordinarily low

6:30

relative to you know, what they

6:32

were, let's say in the nineties or or

6:34

in the early two thousands. And it's

6:36

also important to understand that when you hear about

6:39

crime statistics in the news, it's

6:42

really only seven

6:44

or so crimes that the police track

6:47

and report to the FBI. And even

6:49

then most people don't understand

6:51

that, Like forty percent of police departments don't even

6:53

report that data to the FBI. So a lot

6:55

of it is just like FBI statistical estimates

6:58

based on the police reporting like a

7:00

few what they call index crimes.

7:02

So what is left out of

7:05

crime statistics, Well, almost

7:07

all the crimes committed by police themselves,

7:09

almost all the crimes committed by jail

7:12

and prison guards, almost all white

7:14

collar crime. Right, So while

7:16

you hear a lot about theft in

7:19

the news and retail theft and shoplifting,

7:21

what don't the police report, and what doesn't

7:23

FBI report when it's talking about crime rates

7:26

tax evasion or wage

7:30

theft. You know, and wage theft is about fifty

7:32

billion dollars a year, So that right there

7:34

is three times all of the crime

7:36

that FBI is reporting is property crime combined.

7:39

And so you just have to understand the way

7:41

the media talks about crime stistics is really

7:43

messed up on like a lot of different levels.

7:45

Yeah, wage theft and tax evasion

7:47

being two crimes that the

7:49

general populace, the readership,

7:51

the intended audience of the mainstream

7:54

media are the victims of Those

7:56

are the ones that get ignored, The

7:58

ones that that's not breathlessly reported,

8:01

are the ones where Procter and Gamble

8:04

is, you know, is the

8:06

victim, and that's that that's

8:09

treated as like the more important

8:11

crime.

8:12

And I think this is really important lesson for

8:14

people, Like you can really mislead

8:17

people by giving them a few anecdotes.

8:19

So for example, if you have like a week of

8:21

news stories, even if the anecdotes you're you're

8:23

giving are true, like you report on seven

8:26

true examples of shoplifting

8:29

from Walgreens every night,

8:31

you give the people the impression that shoplifting is a

8:33

huge problem. It might be increasing even,

8:35

Right. It's kind of like if I

8:37

compiled a video of every

8:40

shot Michael Jordan missed in his career and

8:42

put.

8:42

Them all together.

8:44

Yeah, you could create the impression that Michael

8:47

Jordan is a terrible basketball player just by

8:49

taking all of the shots which he actually did miss

8:51

right, if you don't show the other shots, right,

8:54

And what the news is doing is something very similar.

8:56

It's not showing the public any

8:58

of the tax evasion, or any

9:00

of the wage steps, or any of the pollution violations.

9:02

Right. There's one hundred thousand violations

9:05

that we know about of the Clean Water Act every year.

9:07

It causes enormous death, cancer,

9:09

rotting teeth, children suffering

9:12

from a variety of different preventable illnesses,

9:14

et cetera. Those are not treated

9:16

as urgent. And so there's this, and they're not

9:18

reported on the daily news. And so just

9:21

through through its reporting of anecdote,

9:23

even if those anecdotes are actually

9:26

happening and true, the news can distort

9:28

our much deeper truths

9:31

about like what kinds of activity is

9:33

really harmful to us? And shoplifting

9:35

is a good example, because tax evasion is

9:37

about a trillion dollars a year, so

9:39

that's you know, sixty times

9:42

every property crime the FBI reports

9:44

combined, And yet

9:47

everyone is freaking out of our shoplifting and nobody

9:49

is thinking about tax evasion, right.

9:51

I feel like the shoplifting thing

9:54

is still like vibrating through

9:56

like my childhood neighborhood. Like there are

9:58

people who like lived in the neighborhood I grow u that are

10:00

still harping about like, well, you know, there's

10:02

nothing at CBS anymore because all the shoplifting

10:04

and like we need to have like a neighborhood meeting about

10:07

this. And it's like, dude, this is like

10:09

a two year old conservative take on crime

10:11

that you're like now being like it's happening,

10:14

and we it's the scores of our community

10:16

at the moment. But like, I'm curious for

10:19

this stuff that you're talking about, Like where

10:21

is there like a centralized place where you can see

10:23

like where like DA's or something are reporting

10:26

things like wage theft or like

10:28

in a centralized place so I can be like,

10:30

well, what about this stuff? Or is that more just having

10:32

to be really vigilant about what is actually

10:34

coming out of the courts and things like that.

10:36

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, one of the

10:38

big scandals of our time is

10:40

that the agencies

10:43

who are supposed to be investigating a lot of these

10:45

crimes have been completely decimated.

10:48

So, for example, the federal

10:50

antitrust regulators have

10:52

been completely decimated. They're far fewer

10:54

regulators even looking into whether companies

10:57

are doing price fixing and doing

10:59

all kinds of illegal stuff that drives up the

11:01

costs of goods for consumers, et cetera than

11:03

there were forty years ago. We have fewer people

11:05

investigating that stuff now. And the

11:08

same is true with the so called War on drugs,

11:10

right they shifted a huge percentage

11:12

of federal agents who were working on things

11:14

like white collar crime, fraud,

11:17

corporate fraud, tax of asion, et cetera, and

11:20

they shifted government resources

11:22

toward the drug war. And so there's

11:25

just fewer people actually even looking for

11:27

the crimes that are committed by wealthy people.

11:30

And that means that unfortunately,

11:33

a lot of the crimes that are happening just like aren't

11:36

even brought into the legal system at

11:38

all, and so they're not being reported by prosecutors, not

11:40

being reported by the police at all, and

11:42

so we rely on nonprofit organizations

11:45

really good investigative journalism. Some

11:48

times the government will will itself

11:50

investigate in some ways that shed some

11:53

light on some of these things, and you have to

11:55

cobble it all together.

11:56

Yeah it's yeah, I mean he

11:59

realized just how much of that is just to kind of emphasize

12:02

what, you know, sort of the status

12:04

quo wants to even define as crime. It's

12:06

like, well, don't look at that stuff, because then all

12:09

these other people get caught up in our perception

12:11

of what criminality is, and we're absolutely

12:13

don't want to do that. It's to actually just be like,

12:15

no, no, no, it's the shoplifters. It's these kinds

12:17

of things that are big capital see

12:19

crime that we need to worry about. When yeah, so

12:22

like everyone's saying, these are the ones, like these

12:24

other things are the things that affect

12:26

the everyday person on a much deeper level.

12:28

Were they locked up old spice

12:31

at CBS? Also, we're

12:33

the victims there. I do not want

12:35

to wait fifteen extra seconds to get

12:37

my old spice dewd ran out of the plastic

12:39

case.

12:39

But it embarrassing to say I want.

12:41

To us a victim anyway.

12:43

Yeah, oh yeah,

12:46

we're just gonna pretend you didn't say that, because

12:48

what about acts? And

12:51

it's a combination of acts and old spice.

12:54

I mix it together. It's a home blend.

12:55

The axe is the new, the old spice

12:57

is the old, and that's why I smell great to

13:00

myself. Not everybody agrees, but

13:02

yeah, it's a great how

13:05

what crimes we talk about, what crimes we actually report,

13:08

is a great way to understand what our

13:11

society actually values. And it

13:14

seems like this is yet another

13:16

place where we find out that we value corporations

13:20

and corporate earning more than individual

13:23

human beings and individual human lives.

13:25

But I think it's important to understand that

13:27

the people who tell you that

13:30

they are like tough on crime, law

13:32

and order people, what those people are

13:34

actually meaning by that is

13:38

they are sort of ruthlessly

13:40

punishing some crimes committed

13:42

by some people some of the time and

13:45

gleefully ignoring other

13:47

crimes committed by other people at other

13:49

times. So like in general, when you hear someone

13:52

who's tough on crime and law

13:54

and order, what they mean is like they

13:56

want to enforce a lot of very minor

13:59

crimes against the worst people in our society,

14:01

and they want to create conditions under which

14:04

wealthy people can violate the law with virtual

14:07

impunity. That's what law and order actually

14:09

has meant in the US political system

14:11

for the last fifty years.

14:13

Right right, That kind of

14:15

like what you're talking about sort of remind me another thing you

14:17

posted about about representing these

14:19

kids in Flint and just sort

14:21

of how again another example

14:24

of like just sort of really going after vulnerable

14:26

people in society for other people to make a

14:28

ton of money, where like these kids,

14:30

and how courts have been set up

14:32

to sort of keep children from visiting parents

14:35

that are awaiting trial and things like that. Can

14:37

you talk a little bit about that case and sort of what's happening

14:39

there.

14:40

Yeah, so all over the country over the last

14:42

ten years, and I want to say up front, this happened

14:44

well before the COVID pandemic,

14:47

but you know, over the last ten years

14:49

or so, many hundreds and maybe

14:51

even thousands. It's really hard because it's hard

14:53

to count, but many hundreds

14:56

of jails at least have eliminated

14:58

the ability of children to at their parents.

15:01

And we started getting complaints about this from our

15:03

clients all over the country, saying I'm

15:05

not able to hold my child's hand. We

15:07

got complaints from children saying I want

15:09

to look into my mom's eyes or or

15:12

hug my dad. So we started

15:14

looking into what's going on, and we

15:17

started looking at the contracts that these

15:19

jails are signing. It turned out that

15:22

starting a little over ten years ago, there

15:24

was all these contracts with jail,

15:27

the jails and private

15:30

equity owned multi billion day.

15:36

We have to have a drink because

15:39

they're the scourge of

15:41

this country.

15:43

It's really remarkable. Honestly, when I talked

15:45

to even other people in

15:47

private equity, nobody can quite believe

15:49

what I'm about to tell you. But the

15:53

two largest jail and prison

15:55

telecommunications companies are

15:57

owned by private equity, and

16:00

they've created a situation where sheriffs

16:04

get up what is essentially

16:06

a kickback to ban

16:09

children from visiting their

16:11

parents in jail. How does this work? Well, the theory is

16:14

if you stop kids from having free in

16:16

person visits with their parents, families

16:18

will be so desperate that they'll spend more money

16:21

on phone and video calls into

16:24

the jail. And of course, these companies

16:26

negotiate monopoly contracts with

16:28

each sheriff and each jail to

16:31

charge exorbitant rates per minute for

16:33

phone and video calls.

16:34

So the rates are like those nine

16:37

hundred numbers from the eighties. They're like

16:39

crazy, the amount that they just

16:41

gouge people. That's unbelievable.

16:43

And keep in mind that most people who

16:45

are in jail in the United States are

16:48

awaiting trial. They're not convicted, they're

16:50

presumed innocent. And because

16:53

the United States and the Philippines are the only two

16:55

countries in the world that use a for

16:57

profit commercial money bail industry

17:00

tree to determine who's in jail

17:02

and who's not, in much of the country,

17:04

most of the people that we're talking about in these jails

17:07

are only in jail because they can't pay a

17:09

certain amount of cash bail to get released. It not

17:11

because any judge has

17:13

found them to be dangerous or

17:15

risk of flight or anything like that. So

17:18

we already are taking the poorest

17:20

people in our society, and then

17:22

we're taking the children of the

17:24

poorest people in our society, and we're saying

17:27

to them, we're gonna jail you because you're poor,

17:29

and then we're gonna prevent your children from

17:32

visiting you, and prevent you from visiting your mom

17:34

and your dad for free. And

17:36

if you want to see them or or

17:40

talk to them. You're gonna have to pay

17:42

exorbitant rates to do sort

17:44

of a really really shitty equivalent of

17:47

FaceTime or phone

17:49

call. And you know, it has all these glitches,

17:51

it freezes, it's not private, it's all surveiled

17:53

and recorded. So now we've got these huge databases

17:57

of the faces and voices of

18:00

hundreds of thousands of children across the

18:02

country that can be monetized.

18:05

It can be AI algorithms

18:07

can be trained on these children's faces and voices

18:10

that can then be sold. We don't have a good

18:12

sense of what they're doing with all this, but it's all

18:14

part of a scheme to kind of profit off

18:16

of family separation.

18:18

Yeah, it's like in some places

18:20

too, Like aren't there like sort of like tablets

18:22

that these companies create, So they're

18:24

like, yes, if you want to download music, like

18:26

that's another fee we can collect. Like they've found

18:28

a way to sort of like monetize sort of all

18:30

of this information that goes in and out from

18:33

prisoners.

18:34

And a lot of people don't know that. You

18:36

know, people have heard of private prisons, but what people don't

18:38

realize is public jails and prisons

18:41

everything in them essentially is now

18:43

privatized for profit. So there's

18:45

tablets if you want to if you want to watch

18:48

something or or read

18:50

an email, you have to pay for stamps

18:52

to send an email. A lot of places

18:55

they're not even getting physical mail anymore,

18:57

so you can't even send your mommy or dad a

18:59

card or a letter. They get

19:01

scanned and then and you have to pay to

19:04

review them on your tablet that they give you food,

19:07

toilet paper, soap, medical

19:09

care. You know, you want to see a nurse or a

19:11

doctor, you've got to pay for it.

19:13

Jesus Christ.

19:14

The entire system here

19:17

is, you know, they don't give you blankets.

19:19

It's very very cold. If you want an extra blanket,

19:21

you've got to pay for it. Essentially,

19:24

you know, prisons in jails are huge

19:27

cash cows or local

19:29

state and county governments and for the companies

19:32

that are sort of parasitic on these governments.

19:34

And so we're representing an amazing

19:36

group of children in Michigan

19:39

who are trying to make a very simple

19:41

argument. And that argument is that in

19:44

our society, under our constitution,

19:47

and given our history as a civilization

19:51

and as a country, children

19:53

have the right to hug

19:55

their parents. Children have the right to be around

19:57

their parents. They have the right to hold their hand, they have

20:00

the right to talk to them, and

20:02

if the government wants to take

20:05

away that right, it has to have really good reasons.

20:07

So maybe there are good reasons and in

20:10

any particular case, and but the government

20:13

can't just ban all children from visiting

20:15

their parents, and so exactly,

20:18

and that's what these kids. These kids

20:20

are really courageous and it was a real

20:23

honor. A couple of weeks ago, I was in

20:25

court with my colleagues and we

20:27

were arguing the case against

20:29

the telecom companies and the sheriff, and the courtroom

20:31

was just packed with kids, and

20:34

packed with elderly people too, because you know, another

20:36

sort of silent thing that happens a

20:39

lot in our society is that older

20:41

people who's whose own children

20:43

are incarcerated as adults, who

20:46

depend on their children to take care of them

20:48

in their life, to you know, who are getting

20:50

who may be relatively lonely, who

20:53

may need help navigating whether

20:55

it's how to sign up for health care

20:58

or how to understand things

21:00

that are happening. Like there's a lot of older people too

21:02

who who are really harmed by the inability

21:05

to communicate with their loved ones and they're jailed for a

21:07

few months or for years anyway.

21:09

So there's a lot of older people that showed up too, saying

21:12

we have this right too. It's not just it's

21:14

not just children, it's it's families

21:16

really have the right to communicate

21:18

with each other, and if you're gonna take away

21:21

that right, you better have really good reasons.

21:23

Yeah, it's wild too, Like I

21:25

was just reading that one of the like

21:28

one of the Platinum equity one of these private

21:30

equity firms that is backing another

21:32

one of these telecoms companies that deal

21:34

with prisons eventive. It's like that

21:36

guy who owns that who runs that firm,

21:39

is the guy who owns the Detroit Pistons. And

21:41

it's just wild to see, like how people

21:43

in our society are, like, it's the it's

21:45

the great owner of our beloved basketball

21:47

team who's profiting off of this

21:49

like heinous industry at

21:51

the moment, it's really it's like dystopia.

21:54

It's just like so yeah, and it's just so right in front

21:56

of your face. Yeah yeah, And to

21:58

the idea that it's like, yeah, we're going to commodify

22:01

the desire of families that

22:03

their need to communicate with each other through

22:05

this already already exploitative system that we've

22:07

created to extract even more money

22:09

from people.

22:10

Let's take a quick break and we'll come back. We'll keep talking

22:12

about this. We'll be right back, and

22:25

we're back.

22:26

So yeah, oh yeah, So I was

22:28

just saying, so alec, I know, like there's

22:30

only like a handful of states, right that have actually

22:33

done away with this system where it's like, actually, no, we

22:36

need we can't. This can't be a thing that people

22:38

are profiting off of. Like I know, I think Minnesota

22:40

was maybe one of the more recent states to say, like, we're

22:42

doing away with this system. Is

22:45

this is kind of I'm imagining that is sort of the

22:47

at least that is the path towards

22:49

progress, is for the states to like

22:51

sort of outlaw this practice within their

22:53

own prison systems.

22:55

I think there are a few things at different levels. So

22:58

first of all, people like that owner of the Detroit Pistons

23:01

should not be profiting off of monetizing

23:04

human contact. And it's been alarming,

23:07

honestly to see the silence of the NBA

23:10

and a lot of the players around

23:12

this. I'm not sure how many of the players know about

23:15

it, and that one of the goals here is

23:17

is to you know, make sure that we're

23:19

talking about these issues openly and that

23:21

people should be talking

23:24

about these issues so that we

23:26

can make social decisions collectively about

23:28

what kind of policies we want. And so I

23:30

think to answer your question about what kind of policies

23:33

we want, like you

23:35

know, I think at different levels

23:37

of generality, these policies could be Yes.

23:39

Of course, companies shouldn't

23:42

be profiting off of monopoly

23:44

priced, exorbitant phone

23:46

and video calls for people in jail in prison.

23:49

So there are a lot of cities in particular

23:51

around the country that are starting to make calls free.

23:54

There are some state prison systems that are that are making

23:56

calls free. There's an organization called Worth

23:58

Rises that is leading a lot of that advocacy

24:01

and they're really great. But at a deeper

24:04

level, we have to be asking much

24:06

more difficult questions about how

24:09

did this system of incarceration get

24:11

so big? Right? I mean, this country is putting

24:14

black people in jail cells at six

24:16

times the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid.

24:19

You know, we're jailing all people

24:21

in the US like six times

24:23

more than we did even just fifty years

24:25

ago. And so when you do that, there's a lot of

24:27

opportunity to make money, a lot of people's

24:30

jobs start depending on it. And one

24:33

of the consequences of this is that every

24:35

single year, several million

24:37

kids have a mom or a dad

24:40

or a parent who are

24:42

incarcerated. And as

24:45

a society, we have not reckoned with

24:47

the incredible effects that has

24:50

in the short, medium and long term on

24:53

trauma, on child development,

24:56

on future crime, on future

24:58

economic possibilities, etcetera,

25:00

mental health. And so

25:03

I think a deeper reform is asking

25:06

much more profound questions like why

25:08

are all these families being separated in the first place,

25:11

Are there really good reasons that these

25:13

parents are in jail, that these children are being jailed,

25:16

that these families are being separated, or are there other

25:18

ways that we can address

25:20

underlying problems that actually don't involve

25:22

family separation. So one of our goals with our case

25:25

is not just eliminating the profit hearing

25:27

and allowing free visits, et cetera,

25:29

et cetera, but it's actually thinking about what

25:32

kinds of government policies are better

25:34

for families, are better for public

25:36

health than mass incarceration,

25:39

right.

25:40

Yeah, question we're still wrestling with. Yeah.

25:43

Are we seeing any positive

25:47

like progressive reforms to policing

25:49

and criminal justice around the country

25:51

that you feel kind of

25:53

encouraged by? I know there

25:55

were, you know, some initial ideas

25:58

a Denver program that route

26:00

nine to one one calls to an unarmed response

26:03

team, like when the potential

26:05

offense was not violent. Are you

26:08

what are you hearing that

26:10

is actually kind of giving

26:13

you hope in terms of just reform

26:16

to this horrific

26:18

system.

26:19

I don't want to sugarcoat it. We're at a pretty bleak time

26:21

because both the Democratic Party and Republican

26:24

Party have embraced this

26:26

copaganda kind of fear mongering punishment

26:30

is the answer to everything mantra,

26:33

and so as a result, the environment for

26:35

reform has become

26:39

really poisoned. But I

26:41

think, without being too

26:44

pollyannish, I think there

26:46

are some really incredible things happening

26:48

that are very exciting to me. At least Number

26:50

one, you have to understand the incarceration

26:52

rate has gone down significantly in the last

26:54

ten years. I think we're at a moment where there are a lot

26:57

of people that want to start incarcerating

26:59

more people again. But you know, the incarceration

27:01

rate has gotten down at least ten percent overall,

27:04

So that's a couple hundred thousand people that

27:07

were imprisoned who are

27:09

not now. There's been some

27:11

really profound beneficial

27:14

effects on poor families and black

27:16

families because of that, and we can't,

27:18

you know, we shouldn't gloss over that.

27:21

Even though the rhetoric and the narrative

27:23

is getting a lot worse, and

27:26

the Democrats and President Biden are proposing

27:28

one hundred thousand new police and massive

27:31

increases in police surveillance and border

27:33

patrol and the militarization

27:35

of police, and things are getting relatively

27:38

bleak. But the movement to reduce

27:41

the size and power of punishment bureaucracy

27:44

and the company's profiting off it over the last ten years

27:46

has had some successes. Another success is

27:49

we've seen in a number of places

27:51

reforms to the cash bail system. There

27:54

are you know, cities like Los

27:56

Angeles. There are places

27:59

like Californi, generally Illinois,

28:01

Massachusetts, New Jersey, New

28:04

York is a great example. Dramatic

28:06

increases in pre trial release, reduction

28:09

in the use of cash to determine

28:11

who's incarcerated. And so we are seeing, like, you

28:14

know, hundreds of thousands of people who

28:16

would have been detained because

28:18

they're poor every year in the United States who are

28:20

now being released. And that's another

28:22

thing to be really encouraged by.

28:25

For people who aren't familiar

28:28

with the cash bail system. I mean, the people

28:30

are held because they

28:32

don't have access to money

28:35

like that, that's straight up. You are jailed

28:37

because you're poor in a

28:39

lot of places in the country. And

28:41

there's been a pushback against that. That is

28:44

it sounds like we're seeing some results.

28:47

So that's great.

28:48

Yeah, and there's a lot of propaganda about

28:51

it, right, So we know from

28:53

this is one of the most rigorously studied areas

28:55

in the criminal law. We know that releasing more people

28:58

prior to trial actually reduces crime because

29:00

when you jail people for even a few days or weeks,

29:03

they lose their jobs, they interrupt

29:05

their mental health medication, they

29:07

sometimes lose their kids, they

29:09

lose their housing, and so when you destabilize

29:12

someone's life, you actually make them more likely to commit crime.

29:14

So if you want to reduce crime, you

29:16

actually need to be reducing the

29:18

use of pre trial jailing.

29:21

And so we're seeing that and in some

29:23

of our cases. For example, our case

29:25

challenging the misdemeanor money bail system

29:28

in Houston, Texas has released over one hundred thousand

29:30

people of the lasts for seven years. And researchers

29:32

from around the country and Duke University, University

29:34

of Houston, and other places are studying that University

29:36

of Pennsylvania and what they're showing is remarkable.

29:39

Not only has the county saved tens of millions

29:42

of dollars and the economy has saved hundreds of millions of

29:44

dollars, but crime is

29:46

going down as a result of

29:49

the decision to just

29:51

stop jailing people in low level cases because

29:53

they can't pay one hundred and two hundred bucks.

29:55

Meanwhile, the thing that I feel like i've heard

29:58

is catch and release these li role

30:00

activists DA's are, you

30:02

know, contributing to the a rise in crime.

30:04

So that's great to hear. I just

30:07

wish it was being more widely reported.

30:09

Yeah, it's like climate SciTE denial. There's a whole

30:11

industry for decades that was relatively

30:13

successful, led by the petrochemical

30:16

industry that so

30:18

doubt over policies to reduce

30:21

emissions, and we're seeing the same thing with

30:23

the bail industry, and police and police

30:25

unions and punishment bureaucrats

30:27

generally, because if you dramatically

30:29

reduce the people in incarcerated pre

30:32

trial, you actually do something

30:34

much more profound. You take away

30:36

a lot of the leverage that the system has to

30:38

get people to plead guilty, because most

30:41

of the guilty pleas in this country are caused

30:43

by people being incarcerated and just desperate

30:45

to get out right, so they

30:47

come to court and they're given a deal, like, if you plead

30:49

guilty today, you won't

30:51

investigate your case, you won't get a lawyer

30:54

to fight it. You know, you won't you

30:56

know, get a trial in front of jurors, but

30:59

you will get out up today and you will owe us

31:01

a fine. And this is how the system turns.

31:04

Right.

31:04

But if you can get people out right

31:06

away and they can fight their case, a lot of people

31:09

don't want to plead guilty because it

31:11

turns out that the police

31:13

and prosecutors can't prove a large

31:16

percentage of the cases that they bring, and

31:18

so the people that actually fight their cases have pretty

31:20

good results. We're seeing like if you look at Houston

31:24

what used to be, you know, eighty

31:26

four percent of people pleading guilty

31:28

in the median of three days in

31:30

misdemeanor cases. Now, in those

31:32

same low level misdemeanor cases, only about a

31:34

third of people are getting convicted after they're arrested

31:37

because they're out and they can investigate

31:39

their cases and it turns out like the cops

31:41

didn't have strong evidence against them, or the prosecutor

31:43

can't possibly prosecute all these cases. So I

31:46

think it's just it's important to understand

31:48

that there are kind of downstream consequences

31:51

to things like whether we

31:53

jail people pre trial or not.

31:55

Yeah. Right. And I guess also,

31:57

while we're talking about copaganda

31:59

in that whole the media's role in that. I

32:02

you had a really interesting thread, Like

32:04

I said, we'll have to talk about the New York Times,

32:06

which is one of your favorite topics on Twitter, and one

32:08

of my favorite things to see you tweet about was

32:11

Nicholas Christoph's really

32:13

wacky column about immigration,

32:15

where it's like it's okay when I did it,

32:17

but now I'm thinking maybe

32:20

not so much for other people. And like

32:22

this is kind of on the heels of like you're seeing articles

32:24

about like, yeah, democrats agree that something

32:26

had to happen over at the border. But like, you

32:29

know what, but the asylum thing maybe

32:31

not a great not a great

32:33

moment. This Nicholas christoph like

32:36

column almost makes it feel

32:38

like it's like, hey, liberal, it's okay

32:40

if we're just a little bit racist this

32:42

time, you know, like it's that's okay,

32:45

Like have you I mean, like right

32:47

now, I think it's become such a huge issue talking

32:49

about immigration, especially with the election

32:52

coming up in Biden. You know, whether he's

32:55

moving to the right or just doing what any

32:57

person in power does to maintain the status

32:59

quo, that it completely a different debate or

33:01

observation, But like, how do you see

33:04

this conversation sort of moving given

33:06

that you have people like you know, Christoff

33:08

at the New York Times sort of writing this kind of nonsense

33:11

that just sort of obscures like what

33:13

the issues are and like maybe what America's actual

33:16

role is in changing

33:18

immigration and how to create a little bit more equity

33:20

outside of our own borders.

33:22

Yeah, I mean, I think Christoff is obviously a very

33:24

silly person, but I think it's

33:26

important to you

33:29

know, you can learn a lot by looking at

33:31

what kinds of opinions

33:33

appear in the New York Times. Because the role of the New York

33:35

Times is to get

33:38

educated, wealthy, generally

33:42

liberal minded people who want to think

33:44

of themselves as well informed

33:46

and well meaning, to get them to support

33:48

stuff that is extremely violent

33:51

and contrary to their values and

33:54

contrary to evidence a lot of the time, and

33:57

unjustifiable really, And so there's

34:00

sort of layers and layers of propaganda

34:02

that The Times kind of spews that I try to

34:05

dissect in helpful

34:07

and practical ways on social media and obviously

34:09

in the Copaganda book that I'm publishing

34:11

in a few months. But I think just

34:14

to start with christophin immigration, this

34:17

is an area that has been widely studied. There's

34:19

a really important study that came out

34:21

last year from Oxford in

34:23

the UK which showed

34:26

that when liberal and

34:28

center left political parties adopt

34:32

the rhetoric and

34:34

even the policies of the right wing on

34:37

immigration, they actually

34:39

lose votes, they become less popular,

34:42

they do worse in elections. That's

34:44

a really profound I think it rings

34:46

true, obviously, but they've quantified and

34:49

studied this, and you know, one of the

34:51

things that this means is when you've

34:53

got someone like Biden who who

34:56

is adopting more and more outrageous

34:59

kind of policies and immigration that

35:02

are more and more indistinguishable

35:04

with the far right is advocating. It's

35:06

very disorienting and confusing for a lot of voters.

35:09

And for voters who are persuaded

35:13

by all of that, what the research

35:15

shows is that they're gonna if they're persuaded

35:17

by that and they like that, they're going to vote for the real

35:19

thing, not the political

35:21

party of the person who they think is approximating

35:24

that thing. And also a

35:26

lot of people who would be excited

35:28

about in organizing for Biden

35:31

lose the energy and the momentum to

35:33

fight for him if he

35:36

is trying to be a bad approximation

35:39

of the far right. And

35:41

so this general

35:43

set of studies, which is not just

35:45

studying the US but studies center

35:48

left political parties across Europe, is

35:50

a really important insight and I think it helps

35:53

to explain why the Democrats

35:56

have been so unsuccessful over

35:58

the last couple of tamescades when they

36:01

try to play into the

36:03

underlying mythologies and narratives

36:05

of the far right. So I think it's a really bad strategy

36:07

for the Democrats. If you

36:10

care about Democrats winning, it's a really

36:12

bad strategy to sort of like

36:14

validate the myths

36:16

like immigrants are hurting

36:19

our you know, depressing our wages

36:21

and and costing us jobs

36:23

and all these things.

36:25

Christas say, right, yeah,

36:28

they're actually good for the economy and less

36:30

likely to commit crime than other people.

36:32

But yeah, I digress.

36:34

No, I mean, but like that's the thing, Like, by

36:37

by adopting these policies like Christoph

36:39

Biden others, they they

36:41

validate. They make people think that these

36:44

right wing talking points must be true or

36:46

else why would these self professed liberals

36:48

be doing this. And so it not

36:50

only like makes it harder for people

36:52

to get excited about voting for Biden and

36:55

pushes people towards the right, but it also validates

36:57

the underlying arguments the right

36:59

wing is making in people's minds.

37:01

Yeah, this quote, in particular

37:04

from your kind of thread on

37:06

Christoph you said, for many liberals,

37:09

the destruction wrought by global capitalism,

37:11

it's an equality, it's starvation, it's ecological

37:14

degradation, it's war, it's authoritarian

37:16

corruption, et cetera, is taken as

37:18

a given. Like that feels

37:21

right, Like, it feels like a lot of the so

37:23

called liberal perspectives that

37:26

I hear on social media or

37:28

in the mainstream media.

37:31

They're basically conceding a

37:33

lot of the shit that like far

37:35

right people are saying. So like,

37:37

how are you going to get any

37:41

enthusiasm or energy behind your

37:43

messaging when you're basically like, yeo, they

37:45

what they're saying is basically right, though, like

37:47

we just like are only pretending

37:50

it's not. But like, I don't know,

37:52

It's like I always talk about how they they

37:54

treat idealism and progressivism

37:58

as childish essentially,

38:01

like it feels like their overall strategy.

38:03

I think one of the most powerful forms

38:05

of propaganda is the

38:09

type of propaganda that makes us feel

38:11

like a better world is not possible, right,

38:13

And that's when when you when you can achieve

38:16

hopelessness in a population, you

38:19

can do a lot of things to them. And

38:22

so the theme underlying a lot

38:24

of what Christoph has been writing recently,

38:26

which you know, unfortunately now people

38:29

send me because I've

38:31

written these threats, so I've got to read a lot of this.

38:33

Christ just dropped, Yeah, exactly.

38:36

And you know, it's like watching a

38:39

small child emerge from

38:41

the wilderness having ever been you know, or

38:43

having been raised by right wing wolves.

38:47

He he's just sort of regurgitating

38:49

random quotations and lines

38:51

that don't make any sense. And and

38:54

and I think the core of it all is

38:57

like the world is really messed up.

39:00

Global warming is happening, all

39:02

these other countries have these problems.

39:04

We're going to omit the part about how, you

39:06

know, the role the United States is playing and creating

39:09

those problems. But we're

39:11

not going to even talk about, like what

39:13

might a different set of policies be to

39:15

reduce global inequality, to reduce

39:17

global violence, to reduce global

39:19

starvation, to improve

39:22

the environmental sustainability

39:25

in other parts of the world. We're don't even

39:27

talk about any of those things. What we're going to do is

39:29

we're going to build walls and we're

39:31

going to protect our castle and

39:33

everyone who made it in before you know, November

39:36

seventeenth, you know, two thousand

39:38

and eight, or you know March

39:40

twenty seventh, you know, nineteen ninety four.

39:42

Depending on how how right wing you are, you have different

39:44

ideas of like what counts as a pure American or what

39:47

state? Yeah exactly, yeah, you

39:49

see, now India has and this is not just the

39:51

United States, right, the sort of right wing fascist

39:54

ruling party in India has a new set

39:57

of laws that unless if you're

39:59

Muslim, unless you you entered India

40:02

in this sitey of documents showing that you entered

40:04

prior to a particular day

40:06

in nineteen seventy one, then you're no longer

40:09

considered Indian citizen. You're subject to mass

40:12

detention and deportation,

40:15

even if you and your parents are all born

40:17

in India. The United States is doing something similar,

40:20

and the idea is, you

40:22

know, we have to close off our

40:24

borders rather than work together

40:26

with other people in the world to make the whole world

40:28

better. And inherent in

40:31

this is a deep form of

40:33

not just racism and jingoism,

40:37

but a really powerful

40:39

conception that conservatives

40:42

have as a center of the worldview, and a lot of liberals

40:44

don't want to acknowledge it as being

40:46

very central to their own view as well, but this

40:49

idea that some people's

40:51

lives are worth more than others, and

40:54

that is at the core of US foreign policy,

40:57

and anybody who talks about things

40:59

like open orders, who talks about

41:01

things like, you know, addressing the problems

41:04

of the world holistically, for impoverished

41:06

people and vulnerable people, for

41:08

animals and plants the world over,

41:11

and those people are are ridiculed

41:13

and pillary does sort of naive dreamers

41:16

and impractical people. And I

41:19

think what Christoph is doing here is

41:21

he's giving a lot of liberal

41:23

people permission to

41:26

think and believe those things because someone

41:29

else who says they're liberal is saying them

41:31

right, right. It's more appetizing

41:33

when Christoph uses these words in the New York

41:36

Times, and it is when Trump says something like

41:38

lock them up, build the wall, right.

41:40

Yeah.

41:41

Yeah, it's like kind of the difference like when Trump's in

41:43

office, like the New York Times is like racists

41:45

are people too, and then like when

41:47

Biden's office, When Biden's in office,

41:50

the New York Times like, look, it's okay if we're just

41:52

a little racist as a tree, you know

41:54

what I mean, Because it's always at the end of the day,

41:56

Yeah, it's just about sort of maintaining that sort

41:59

of status quo. And I think because like American

42:01

imperialism is sort of like at the top of that, like

42:04

why why bother to examine what the

42:06

actions are of the United States as it relates to

42:08

like immigration. And I always think, like being

42:10

someone who grew up in la and like all the

42:13

handring about like MS thirteen. I'm

42:15

like, have you gone back a little bit to understand

42:17

where like why we have MS thirteen. It's

42:19

because of the US government's intervention and

42:22

backing, like right wing groups in El Salvador

42:24

during their civil war. Yet we just

42:26

want to treat it like as this thing in a vacuum,

42:28

like, oh my god, these people are coming to our

42:30

borders who we initially deported to then

42:33

create the gang there. But yeah, there's

42:35

just this always not wanting

42:37

to sort of look at again like what the real

42:40

solutions might be because they always

42:42

involve dismantling these power structures

42:45

that again the people and medium

42:47

power are meant to uphold. So yeah,

42:49

it can be very frustrating.

42:50

Well, like I know we're losing you now. I feel like

42:53

we could talk to you for three hours, but where

42:55

can people find you? Follow you? Here?

42:57

More from you.

42:58

I'm on Twitter at quality ALEC.

43:00

Who knows how much longer I'll be there, So

43:03

I do have a newsletter called Alex

43:06

Kopaganda Newsletter. And of course

43:09

our organization is really

43:11

amazing. There's over thirty people

43:13

at the organization doing incredible

43:15

civil rights work. It's called Civil

43:18

Rights Core Corps and

43:20

you can find Civil Rights Core on all the major

43:23

social media places. You can

43:25

find us on our website civil rights core dot

43:27

org. And then at the

43:30

beginning of next year, I'll be out all the new book

43:32

called Copaganda, which talks

43:34

about all this stuff and much more detail.

43:37

Will probably have some kind of a book tour people can

43:39

come to in different cities and just

43:42

deepen the conversation that

43:44

we have about how the

43:46

media talks about

43:49

things like safety and crime and

43:52

justice. And I'm looking forward

43:54

to talking with people all over about

43:56

these important issues because we're entering a period

43:58

of rising authoritarian and this stuff is more

44:00

important than ever.

44:02

Yeah, absolutely, Well, thank

44:04

you for doing the work that you're doing, and thank you

44:06

so much for coming on. And yeah,

44:09

would love to have you back again as soon

44:11

as you have some free time. We

44:13

are miles and I are going to take a quick break

44:15

and then we'll come back to close it out.

44:17

We'll be right back and

44:29

we're back.

44:31

And yeah, wow,

44:33

Alec carrit cat sanis Yeah,

44:36

always super enlightening. Yeah,

44:38

that had a bunch of other things we wanted to get to

44:41

that we didn't have time to, but yeah,

44:44

just that that image of the

44:46

inside of jails right now, where

44:48

like you get your iPad and you get

44:50

your like little media device

44:52

and then they're just like gouging you for

44:55

yeah paid.

44:56

I mean it'll be stuff like,

44:58

oh, you want to listen to us, that's like two dollars

45:01

and thirty cents, Yeah, to

45:03

listen to one song. You know, it's

45:05

just again, but it's also wild

45:08

how how often we observe these

45:10

like again, like all of these things

45:13

we observe and these like these systems

45:15

of oppression, they always eventually

45:17

come for us. And even in this version about like

45:19

nickel and diming prisoners for every

45:22

part of their existence, like you see,

45:24

just bleed into other parts other industries

45:26

where we thought certain things were just like a given

45:28

to us, right where it's like you know, you

45:31

know, like the shitty version is like

45:33

you know, an air travel where it's like, oh, yeah,

45:35

you're back, we have to charge you for your backpack

45:37

now, right. It's like fuck, I thought that's

45:39

part of like the whole thing. But again, they

45:41

found a way to sort of break down

45:44

and you know, find all these smaller

45:46

opportunities to take more and more money from

45:48

people. And of course they're going to start with the most vulnerable

45:50

groups first, that being people

45:53

that are incarcerated. So yeah,

45:55

it's that's sort of

45:57

the pattern like continues to repeat

45:59

all the time. And just like yeah, that that

46:02

that Nicholas Crystal thing is just

46:04

so wild too, because like the whole the

46:06

whole take of that too is sort of

46:08

like, well I benefited.

46:09

He's like, I wouldn't be here if a family didn't.

46:11

You know, what's the word I'm looking

46:13

for, Not endorsed, but like sort of

46:15

support like our bid to immigrate here.

46:17

Yeah, it's like but it's like, I don't know if

46:19

I can say that system still works

46:21

as well, but that's.

46:23

Me and I am

46:26

better somehow for some reason.

46:28

And I'm from Europe. See my

46:30

family was from Europe. And if you notice

46:33

what we're doing, it's mostly people coming from

46:35

the Global South, and that's the

46:38

group that we It's okay if we are even

46:40

more discriminate, discriminatory towards

46:43

but yeah, I mean the New York Times,

46:45

going to New York Times.

46:46

Yeah, it is nice

46:48

to hear some like slightly positive

46:51

news about following incarceration rates

46:53

and you know, so some of the things

46:55

where we're actually making progress on cash bail

46:58

and stuff like that.

46:59

YEA, well, and I think his point

47:01

is I think it was taken well at least

47:03

for me, like to look at it. How there is still there's

47:06

an entire alternate media

47:08

universe built on climate change denial that

47:10

the same thing would exist for anything about

47:12

you know, whether whether or not we can improve

47:16

the sort of human caging

47:18

system we have now or at least obscure

47:20

any progress that's been made that would sort

47:23

of create additional momentum to truly

47:25

have a reckoning with our caarcial system.

47:28

But yeah, it just takes so much more momentum

47:30

to have a reckoning than it does to like

47:32

all the exploitative capitalistic

47:35

things that is driving shareholder

47:38

value aka making wealthy people more

47:40

wealthy. That stuff is the stuff

47:42

that has the momentum,

47:45

and even if you kill

47:47

it, it will pop back up. Like Jason Boorhies,

47:49

you know, that's the stuff you have to like keep

47:52

your eye on to make sure it's dead. Like

47:55

and whereas like good ideas

47:57

require similarly constant

47:59

vigilance just to keep alive in this

48:01

country at least at this point.

48:04

But with people like him, you

48:06

know, out there, I don't know, maybe

48:09

maybe one day there'll be some

48:11

changes.

48:12

Yeah, there's that. Like in that

48:15

I was reading an article about the

48:17

the you know, the telecoms private equity thing,

48:19

and one of these people from this guy Paul

48:21

Wright, who's from the Human Rights Defense

48:23

Center, like to your point, he describes

48:26

it about like even when you try

48:28

and address these things, he said, quote, it's kind of like

48:30

stepping on a balloon. You squeeze it down in

48:32

one place and it just bulges up somewhere else.

48:34

And that's the problem we've got with these companies.

48:37

Problem or solution. It sounds

48:39

like private equity is making cheddar.

48:42

That's what's cool. No, it sounds

48:45

private equity. Uh yeah,

48:47

that might be bad.

48:49

We'll see.

48:49

We'll continue to keep an eye on it.

48:50

Who's going to be like the first like celeb private

48:53

equity apologist the

48:55

first.

48:57

I'm sure like a lot of companies that

48:59

are.

48:59

But I mean in this sense to try and get

49:01

in front of it, Like it's like, well, allow me to

49:03

explain why they're charging money.

49:05

You're like, what the for real?

49:07

Yeah? I do. I do feel like private

49:09

equity knows that they're bad

49:11

guys, which is why like part, like a

49:14

major part of the strategy

49:17

is to be hidden behind like

49:19

fourteen shell companies, you know, yeah,

49:21

and so they're just like, yeah, nothing

49:24

to see here. We did get this endorsement

49:26

from the spaceman Kevin Spacey,

49:29

but we think we're gonna keep our

49:31

powder dry on this one.

49:32

Actually yeah, but

49:34

yeah, I mean it did feel like that thing because even when like the

49:36

Walt, like the sometimes in like those

49:38

Red Lobster articles or other articles.

49:40

Like you started to see like CNB seeming

49:42

like and that's a problem with some of these private equity

49:45

companies like oh, oh, oh,

49:47

well, we're going to be a sacrificial

49:49

lamb, so we can then wash our hands and

49:51

be like we got rid of the bad apple, the tree

49:54

remains.

49:55

That's right, the Red Lobster for

49:57

listeners who haven't listened to every single epis

50:00

So it was undone by, among

50:02

other things, but mainly private equity,

50:04

private equity, Samuel's, j CRWE Toys,

50:07

r us KB Toys. Many

50:09

brands that you friendlies suddenly

50:11

went bankrupt after being you

50:14

know, five years before being incredibly

50:16

successful, and household names

50:19

suddenly go bankrupt. Look

50:21

and see if they got taken over by private equity,

50:23

which is essentially an

50:25

industry of parasitic

50:28

companies that come in charge the company

50:31

just just find ways to extract money

50:34

from consumers, from

50:36

employers, from the companies they take

50:38

over. And then when the companies go bankrupt,

50:40

they're still like it's still.

50:42

Good for them. They still do great.

50:44

Yeah, So anyways, I

50:46

guess I guess that's it. Miles. Where can people

50:49

find you? Follow you all

50:51

that good stuff? And is there a work of media

50:53

that you've been enjoying?

50:54

Find me at Miles of

50:57

Gray on Twitter and Instagram.

51:00

Find you there, thank you, thank you.

51:02

And you can also find Jack

51:04

and I on the basketball Podcastles and Boostis.

51:07

You can find me talking ninety day fiance

51:09

on for twenty Day Fiance

51:12

a tweet. I haven't really been looking

51:15

at the tweets. I was just mostly

51:17

her majesty and I were just finishing Bridgerton.

51:20

Oh yeah, how do we do?

51:22

Yeah? Yeah, it's all right.

51:24

You know, like there are a lot of times I remember

51:27

the first couple of like, oh maybe this could be a storyline, this

51:29

could be but it's it's always just very straightforward,

51:31

like you know, period era romance.

51:35

So yeah,

51:38

if you're a Bridgerton fan, might as well complete

51:40

it. You might as well complete it. There you go.

51:42

But oh, man, but cresta woof

51:45

fucking Cresteda. Man, I don't. I don't know how I feel.

51:47

I don't know if I feel bad for her. I feel like she should

51:49

have really got it worse.

51:50

But hey, yeah, man, I'm

51:52

still trying to make up my mind.

51:54

But cresseda kawper Man, Yeah, victim

51:57

or or a villain? I think most

51:59

pressed that name. Yeah,

52:02

all right.

52:02

You can find me on Twitter

52:04

at Jack Underscore Obrian A

52:07

couple of things I've been enjoying on Twitter.

52:10

Have you seen this video of

52:12

Elon Musk emerging? I think

52:14

wu tang is for the children retweeted

52:17

it, what what are you emerging emerging

52:19

from a chrystalist? No, just emerging at

52:22

it like being announced and then he comes

52:24

out and like it's trying to like, uh

52:27

I I'll link off to it in the

52:29

footnotes. It is Jane

52:32

at Jane ost Underscore

52:34

tweeted he's being called the most

52:36

juiceless man on earth and it

52:39

is a wildly earned

52:41

description of what we're saying. Wait, let me see this

52:43

now. I got to see it.

52:44

We can't.

52:45

I don't, I can't leave it, hang it, send it where put

52:47

it. So

52:49

he emerges, Oh, ship miles

52:56

away yourself?

52:58

What was that? Flying jump? Jack? Just

53:00

what is this?

53:02

He's a marionette? Yeah, he's like doing

53:04

a weird marionette thing. Oh

53:08

my god, we're fucked.

53:12

I can't do it that truly, it's

53:14

so disturbing. Y'all

53:17

have to watch it for yourselves.

53:18

But yeah, he like comes out he does like

53:20

a flying jumping like

53:24

jump what.

53:25

Do you call that?

53:26

Yeah, he doesn't jumping jack flash exactly.

53:28

His shirt lifts up over his belly. Then he lands

53:30

and like does a sort of like.

53:32

I got no string still whole. That's

53:34

like, yeah, that's kind of he's doing like a weird puppet

53:37

rogue puppet dance? Is

53:40

that because he just got his money? Is that what that?

53:42

I think? I think this is older than

53:44

that, But I actually, wow, maybe

53:47

not, maybe maybe it is. Well, maybe he just got his

53:49

money and he's that is how

53:52

he's going to touchdown dance on all of

53:54

their graves.

53:55

Oh wow, someone someone put someone,

53:57

But he's doing an X with his body still

54:00

up. Self righteous dumb ass.

54:04

In response to the person making fun of him. Wow,

54:07

keep it, okay,

54:10

that's cool.

54:11

Wow, Well he should work on a mobility

54:14

man, It's all about mobility. I think you could have got those heels

54:16

further apart, but hey, who am?

54:17

I and Harry Hill tweeted

54:20

a picture of Welsh's grape

54:22

Juice like an old Welsh's grape

54:24

Juice commercial next to the new Welch's

54:27

vodka transfusion drinks,

54:30

and they said the Welsh's grape Juice to Welsh's vodka

54:32

transfusion pipeline is insane, and

54:35

Puck at puck Meat tweeted, pivoting from

54:37

grape juice to alcohol is actually the most

54:39

sane pipeline. It literally happens

54:42

on its own.

54:44

Good point. I don't know if

54:47

I like vodka transfusion.

54:49

Yeah, I don't know why it needs to be transfused.

54:52

I don't know why we need like a medical

54:54

procedure to happen. You could just call

54:56

it vodka.

54:59

Wait, isn't Isn't that like mostly

55:01

a medical term? Yeah,

55:04

they're just trying to be cool like about that, you

55:06

know what I mean. Yeah, I'm like, you know, it's a vodka

55:09

transfusion. I'm like, I don't know, dude, I'm thinking

55:11

blood transfusions.

55:12

Plus, man, I just got a nice transfuse

55:16

from my drinking Yello

55:18

transfusion.

55:19

Yeah, Jesus Woway.

55:23

You can find me

55:25

on Twitter at Jack Underscore. Brian you can find us

55:28

on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist, at the Daily

55:30

Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have

55:32

Facebook fan page and a website, Daily zegis

55:34

dot com where we post our episodes and our

55:37

footnotes where we look off to the information

55:39

that we talked about in today's episode, The Most

55:41

Cursed Celebration You've Ever Seen by Elon Musk.

55:44

We will off so be linking off.

55:45

To that as well as a song

55:47

that we think you might enjoy.

55:50

Myles, what song do you think people might enjoy?

55:53

There's an artist, Jessica Pratt who's a

55:55

fantastic singer songwriter. I

55:58

like, I remember really with her first

56:00

album, like maybe this was like in twenty twelve,

56:03

and then I kind of like would hear about her

56:05

here and there? But then Brian the producer was like, Yo,

56:07

have you heard the new Jessica Pratt album? And I've peeped

56:09

it. She's doing like something. I

56:11

don't know her. This album, as he describes it,

56:13

which is a good description, it's like feels like like

56:16

tracks Nancy Sinatra would have made in her

56:18

heyday but just didn't. And

56:20

it has that sort of style of production and

56:22

her like she has just such an interesting

56:24

voice in the way she uses it is really dope.

56:27

So this is a track from her new album which

56:29

is called Here in the Pitch. This track is called better

56:31

Hate and this one is by Jessica

56:34

Pratt.

56:35

All right, we will link off to that in the footnotes.

56:37

The daily guys to the production of iHeart

56:39

Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio is the iHeartRadio

56:42

Wrap Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite

56:44

shows. That is gonna do it

56:46

for us this morning. We're back this afternoon

56:49

though, to tell you what is trending, and we will

56:51

talk to you all then. Bye bye