We get to listen in on confidential interviews conducted by Sgt. Kevin Steele before his death. Plus, we finally get to see surveillance footage from inside the B8 unit that sheds new light on the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar.
Editor’s note: After this episode first aired on April 2, 2024, CDCR finally located Valentino Rodriguez’s supplemental report about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar that we reference in this episode. Their public records team was initially unable to find it. However, the agency said the report was exempt from disclosure.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
On Election Night 2016, many of us thought we knew who would be the next president of the United States.
We were blindsided when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. Legacy media quickly scrambled to explain what had happened. They ultimately arrived at an explanation: Trump’s voters were racist, xenophobic conspiracy theorists, and possibly even proto-fascists.
That wasn’t quite right.
My guest today, Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, has been on a journey for the past eight years to understand how Trump won the White House in 2016 and how the left fundamentally misunderstood the American working class.She eventually came to the conclusion that the most salient feature of American life is not our political divide. It’s “the class divide that separates the college-educated from the working class.”
Democrats have historically been the party of the working class. But for the better part of the past decade, Democrats have seen their support among working-class voters tumble. Policy wonks and demographic experts kept saying just wait: the future of the Democratic party is a multiethnic, multiracial, working-class coalition. But that didn’t pan out.
Instead, in 2016, Trump carried 54 percent of voters with family incomes of $30,000 to $50,000; 44 percent of voters with family incomes under $50,000; and nearly 40 percent of union workers voted for Trump—the highest for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Meanwhile, in 2022, Democrats had a 15-point deficit among working-class voters but a 14-point advantage among college-educated voters.
In order to understand how and why this happened, Batya decided to spend the last year traveling the country talking to working-class Americans. Who are they? Do they still have a fair shot at the American dream? What do they think about their chances to secure the hallmarks of a middle-class life?
She collected these stories in her new book: Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women. What she found is that for many of them, the American dream felt dead.
Today, Batya discusses who really represents the working class; why she thinks America has broken its contract with the working class; how we reinstate our commitment to them; and what will happen in 2024 if we don’t.
Why do great powers go to war? Why are non-violent, diplomatic options not prioritised? Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Powers Cope with Status Decline (McGill-Queen's Press, 2024) by Dr. Matthieu Grandpierron argues that world leaders react to status decline by going to war, guided by a nostalgic, virile understanding of what it means to be powerful. This nostalgic virility - a system of subjective beliefs about power, bravery, strength, morality, and health - acts as a filter through which leaders articulate glorified interpretations of history and assess their power and their country’s status on the international stage.
In this rigorous study of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Dr. Grandpierron tests the theory of nostalgic virility against the two more common theoretical frameworks of realism and the diversionary theory of war. Consulting thousands of newly declassified government documents at the highest levels of decision making, Dr. Grandpierron examines three specific cases - the early years of the Indochina War (1945-47), the British reconquest of the Falklands in 1982, and the US invasion of Grenada in 1983 - convincingly contending that status-seeking behaviour and nostalgic virility are more relevant in explaining why a leader chooses war and conflict over non-violent, diplomatic options than the dominant frameworks.
Looking to the recent past, Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War considers how this new model can be applied to current conflicts - from the Russian war in Ukraine to Chinese actions in the South China Sea - and provides surprising ways of thinking about the relationship between power, decision makers, and causes of war.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
Ever since the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, astronomers have noticed that something was not right. The orbit of Neptune was being gravitationally influenced by some other, unknown body that was dubbed Planet X.
In 1930, it was thought that this body had been discovered with the discovery of Pluto, but that couldn’t have been the object that was influencing Neptune because it was too small.
The search for this mysterious object has continued to this day, and some astronomers think we are finally close to finding it.
Learn more about the hunt for Planet X, aka Planet 9, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Most criminal defendants can't kill 346 people and expect to get off with a light fine and three years of probation, but most criminal defendants are not The Boeing Company. In today's show, we examine the differences between different kinds of pretrial diversion agreements and why the best ones are reserved for ultra-wealthy defendants like Boeing and Jeffrey Epstein.
We then take a closer look at the DOJ's routine use of deferred prosecution agreements to help our nation's most valued citizens (corporations) avoid the unpleasant inconvenience of facing actual consequences of their actions (killing people), with a special focus on the NPA which recently resolved Boeing's recent deadly fraud involving its 737 MAX.
The Florida Supreme Court delivered bittersweet news to abortion rights advocates on Monday. In one ruling, the court gave voters the chance to enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s constitution by okaying a referendum to appear on the state ballot this November. But in a separate decision, the court also cleared the way for Florida’s six-week abortion ban to take effect in 30 days. Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, explained the ballot initiative that now heads to voters and how the state’s impending six-week abortion ban raises the stakes.
The Israeli military on Monday ended its 14-day siege of Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital. The Gazan Health Ministry estimated that about 3,000 people were inside the hospital when the IDF began its raid. Meanwhile, in Israel over the weekend, thousands in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
And in headlines: A temporary shipping channel opened in the port of Baltimore, former President Donald Trump posted a $175 million dollar bond tied to his civil fraud case in New York, and Iowa defeated LSU and will head to the Final Four of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.
Show Notes:
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In this episode, the Goods from the Woods Boys sit down in a rocketship with comedian Blake Hamilton and blast off to the moon on a root beer drink full of kratom. Rivers reads a 1902 article from the L.A. Times about the dangers of the cocaine content of a drink called "Coca-Cola". We talk about the wackiest conspiracy ever called "Transvestigation" and Sam's recent trip to the doctor's office. "The Sound of Silence" by Disturbed is our JAM OF THE WEEK! Tune in now, y'all. Follow Blake on social media @Blake__Hamilton (two underscores). Follow our show on Twitter @TheGoodsPod. Rivers is @RiversLangley Sam is @SlamHarter Carter is @Carter_Glascock Subscribe on Patreon for HOURS of bonus content! http://patreon.com/TheGoodsPod Pick up a Goods from the Woods t-shirt at: http://prowrestlingtees.com/TheGoodsPod
Tim Murtaugh became a familiar face to many Americans as President Donald Trump’s communications director for his 2020 reelection campaign. As one of Trump’s most visible spokesmen, Murtaugh had a front-row seat to the most-watched campaign in history.
But just a mere four years earlier, Murtaugh found himself in a much different spot. After struggling with alcoholism for years, he was jailed in 2015 for public drunkenness and unsure of his fate. That’s when he decided to give up alcohol and focus on turning his life around.
Murtaugh would go on to work for Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue before joining Trump’s reelection campaign. Today, he’s running his own communications firm. He joined "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about his new book—out today—called “Swing Hard in Case You Hit It: My Escape from Addiction and Shot at Redemption on the Trump Campaign.”
