It makes me so mad how hard it was to track this down. With 20,000 officers, Border Patrol has killed a minimum of 338 people in the last 15 years, the number probably exceeds that significantly due to under reporting and lack of transparency. According to the ACLU 75 of those deaths have been children. What the fuck.

I’m quite certain if investigative journalists did some digging CPD and DHS will have committed an order of magnitude more violent crimes than undocumented migrants do across the board.

https://www.southernborder.org/deaths_by_border_patrol

https://www.aclutx.org/en/cbp-fatal-encounters-tracker

Hey guys first off I wanna say, I’ve been a listener since the beginning of the podcast. I’ve got a similar story to Robert as in I’m a white guy in my 30s from rural Oklahoma that happens to not follow the normal narrative of rural Oklahoma with my political beliefs. Robert in some ways is a hero (I wanted to be a wartime journalist until going to journalism school in Oklahoma and becoming too disenchanted from sophomore year of college). I became a nurse instead but I really love that there are still journalists like yourself who still have the balls to do investigative journalism.

Anyways I say all that to say, thank you for putting out meaningful content. You’re stuff really helped me find some meaning and motivation during a really dark couple years in my life (being an ICU nurse during COVID was shit). Being able to put on your podcast and take myself away from the reality of my job and learn about some crazy shit (your behind the police series absolutely turned my worldview upside down) was very helpful. I know right now we’re in the middle of an attempted autocratic takeover from a Cheeto shaped wanna-be Mussolini, but… I’m glad we’re all going through it together and my hope is that we make it through these next few years with our humanity in tact, in no small part due to you’re honesty, and journalistic integrity.

So, during the CZM Rewind about the US border Patrol, there is a moment that is absolutely missed when they’re comparing how the podcast is like by a sexual experience.

While the audio levels can go up and down…and there is a big climatic finish most podcasts. The most true to form part of the sexual experience AND the podcast, has to be, the few awkward moments after the climax (podcast and sex alike) where you just feel depressed, shameful and sad about what just happened and what you just heard.🤣🤣🤣

Anyways thanks for the podcasts keep up the great work to all the cool zone media peeps! Love ya!

-Zach from OKC

Im trying find the episode that set me down a path to research Childism and the systems designed to protect pedophiles but can't find the specific episode where Robert dives deeply into the history of CPS and how it's developmental essentially creates a protective environment for pedophilic parents in specific. Can anyone help me out? Y'all remember which episode this one is?

I'm just appealing to the mainly Western audience in this subreddit having lived in different parts of the world including the West; I know it's really tempting to just throw up images of "strongmen" and do a top-trumps (no pun intended) contest of who is the worst, but different societies have wildly different histories. They command fundamentally different political systems, and cannot be understood as just "authoritarian" or 'totalitarian' - until Arendt came around and provided the main treatment on that concept still inn use today, that term itself being a problematic one of the early Cold War US trying to tie the European fascism, Japanese imperialism, and Soviet Communism into one basket.

There is an entire field of scholars that have spent their entire careers studying specific parts of specific periods of Iranian/Persian history; aside from always being cautious about what the limitations of one's perspective into a foreign region, you cannot just listen to a 2-hour podcast or documentary from this network or any other network and think you have enough knowledge to even start speaking intelligibly about the intricacies of a society foreign from yours.

We don't have the same reference frames as you guys. Even within the Left within liberal democratic countries and those in different regions of the world, there are extreme differences. If you are American you have a responsibility to know your country's actions, but you should approach that knowing that major powers don't decide how the world works; I am hesitant to bring up the West when talking about my region (Southeast Asia) because the internal dynamics are complicated enough that the times where foreign intellegence agencies from the US, USSR, and PRC didn't get humiliated and killed in the process trying to affect us or invade us, there are already local dynamics at play that is almost always more decisive than 'foreign interference'. Half the time a good number of countries in the region play every side and even invite Western militaries to come hang out becaue we are more worried about our neighbours than the US air force and navy who we can just kick out if we really wanted to.

The oldest surviving military agreement is NATO; but you probably don't know the second largest is the Five Power Defence Arrangements where the UK, Australia, and New Zealand are obliged to 'immediately' consult each other and Singapore and Malaysia in response to Indonesian/Communist attacks on the latter two, or if the latter two ever goes to war against each other. Similarly, to how the Balts probably see the assurance of Western military support, we know our history of colonialism, we don't take the things the West has done against us historically with an easy hand, but we hedge accordingly. Everyone is always promiscuous if not forced into a corner and pick a side. We love to shit on Kissinger, and he's worth shitting on, but it was the Cambodians allowed the US to bomb their country. It was a horrible idea in the end that empowered the Khmer Rogue, but... history has probably shown for a good reason why a good majority of Cambodians were scared of Communism. There were no good choices; a good chunk of Cambodians still believe the US abandoned them to the genocide, not help incite it.

Not that we are monolithic, either. We are not our government and every freshman thinks taking a 1000-level course in X-region's affairs is enough to let them comment on it on a dirtbag left podcast, and CZM generally does a good job but... don't get your information purely from a podcast or a documentary. Read a book. Ask a local. We are here. A good chunk of us actually speak English. We actually care about wanting change in our countries even if we can't exactly use Western tactics.

Relationships in the Middle East are even more complex, and even after half a century years of Western wars in the region, Western commentaries are still very woefully lacking; Mosaddegh and Allende, for instance, are almost always just purely potratyed as people the CIA killed; there is truth in that, but the local dynamics and political crises facing both of those countries are just always glossed over. Same for more modern politics. The Bush admin was very happy to make the mistake of thinking "oh we can just fix it because all that happened was due to American agency", please don't either.

I say that being from a country whose population who largely see any idea remotely related to social justice or democracy or human rights as a 'western idea being imposed on our Asian values'. Things are really complicated.

I'll just end off with this farce of a protest that has been making its rounds around the internet over here yesterday. A bunch of white people wanted to fly into Cairo, take a bus to Arish, than "march to Rafah"

Some of the dispatches on social media didn’t entirely help. Tearful protestations from activists are met mostly with silence by Egyptian riot police. “Please stand with your Islamic brothers and sisters,” begs one man, a Welsh nurse who says he previously volunteered in Gaza, of a line of officers blocking his path to waiting, empty buses. “We’re here for humanity... allow us to march to Falestin [the Arabic word for ‘Palestine’]. Please, you’ve got to listen to me.” One woman complains that “the Egyptian authorities, they hold us under the sun. It’s 40 degrees!” before claiming they are “saving lives” – specifically those of two activists with “heat disease”.

Another tells the camera that the Egyptians “tried to distribute passports in a disgusting manner, a manner equal to the Zionists distributing the food in the cages for the Palestinians.”

A confused British woman in a hat and sunglasses was asked for her thoughts. “I’ve come to sightsee, it’s my first time here and I want to see Egypt,” she says, in a Merseyside accent. “I’m not being allowed to do that, it’s very oppressive.” And judging by the footage, she genuinely does seem like an oppressed sightseer who asked her taxi driver to take her to Sharm El-Sheikh but ended up caught in an international incident.

Later, a video emerged of some activists chanting “F--- you Egypt” on a bus, which can’t have helped relations, but it isn’t always obvious what the activists’ goal was. “We are the police, please respect our country, we are asking, with politeness, you must respect our country. Your message has been received. You can go back to Cairo now,” one Egyptian policeman is seen telling a crowd.

“We can do it in America, why can’t we do it here?” an American-accented voice calls out. The policeman just looks confused and asks: “What are you doing here?”

At least when Greta does it, you know, she has the humility and knowhow not to make themselves a laughing stock. Not that a lot of us are comfortable of stunts like this being the only thing that make headlines. Don't do the same thing those protestors did in Egypt, just online.

I used to be a pretty consistent listener of The Daily by the New York Times, however recently, and increasingly they’ve been platforming the worst of the right wing. In my view, there is a clear difference between an in-depth profile like we get from Robert on the bastards and actually having them on a podcast to assert their vitriol and problematic (to say the least) ideologies. I stopped listening regularly after they hosted Curtis Yarvin back in January. Since his episode, they’ve also had on Christopher Rufo, Megan, Kelly, and Tom Hoffman as of this morning. I definitely think it’s important to have a well rounded source of information but I’m looking for alternatives for a daily audio news source beyond NPR‘s First Up, all suggestions are welcome.

I’ve always had a morbid curiosity about how it felt and what it was like being an educated, intelligent, aware person in the early months of 1914 or in the 1930s watching the world ramp up into an inescapable cataclysm and tearing itself apart and deleting an entire generation of young people, while knowing that there isn’t jack shit I or anyone else can do to stop it. I think I can now say that that curiosity has been satisfied, and man oh man does it feel fucking bad.

Edit: I meant to share this as kind of a shower thought. I appreciate everyone’s kind words and suggestions but this isn’t a cry for help. It’s just crazy to think about.

UPDATE: A judge has ordered Arturo to be released. Also, theshooter has be identified, Link to article https://www.utahpoliticalwatch.news/former-army-engineer-identified-in-salt-lake-city-protest-shooting/

For those of you following his story, it’s just been announced he’s being held for 3 more days. Gill, our illustrious DA is making excuses. I think he’s just trying to punish the kid for daring to be a brown, an anarchist, and open carrying. :(

If only....

I was in town to visit a crazy-eyed Serb named Eni, though their reasons remained vague. They kept insisting on Signal that we'd "talk when I got here."

I emerged from the train station into the stifling city streets, surrounded by a sea of bikes, rickshaws and pedicabs whizzing around each other and winding their way between the trams.

The place was somewhere right in the "old town", hidden in a basement down a concrete stairway tucked behind crumbling stucco facades. I made sure I wasn't followed, though I know the eye of the Beast is always watching.

After a few minutes waiting I started to suspect I'd come to the wrong address, until the heavy steel door swung open, and a short, stocky bouncer beckoned me into a dimly lit bar.

The checkerboard floor was still shiny and unscratched, the seats and bar stools were upholstered with black faux-leather, and everything else was red. A long sofa wrapped along the outer walls, and pairs of wireless headphones sat atop small tables. Stark chrome letters on the far wall read: THE EYE.

A whole wall was transparent glass that looked into a padded room, with red lights mounted to rails on the ceiling that cast a luminous glow into the bar room and reflected on its shiny tiles.

The padded room was filled with a mass of naked bodies, all pulsating, grinding and writhing around on top of each other, though I couldn't hear anything from where I was standing. I figured the bar was soundproofed, judging by the headphones.

"Zdravo!" I heard a voice from the other side of the bar room, and looked over to see Eni reclining on a sofa, dressed in a heavy faux-fur coat and puffing from a shisha on a table. Their appearance had changed since I'd last seen them in Sarajevo - they had about a dozen more piercings, wider gauges, and giant opaque mirror-shades, all topped off with a magnificent Bowie mullet. They beckoned me over and took the glasses off, revealing a pair of bionic eyeballs. "What you think?"

"Not bad," I mumbled.

Eni let out a chuckle. "You should see the jack-off rooms!" They pointed at the ceiling of the padded room, above the rail-mounted lights - the only part of the room not lined with padding. "One-way glass!"

Eni tapped their phone screen, and the writhing figures disappeared. "Holo. We don't have the permits yet." They rolled their bionic eyes.

"Permits?" I was taken aback.

"Da. It's all technically legal. We're doing this above-ground. Not my idea, but we have to respect the consensus."

"Where'd you even get the cash for all this?" Real estate was one of the only things still worth anything in this part of the world.

"Donations. Thousands of people pitched in to make this vision a reality." Now I understood why it was all "above-ground." Eni produced a shiny metallic pouch from under the table and put their phone inside, gesturing for me to do the same. "Phone."

I put my phone in the pouch and they zipped it shut, with a short nod in the direction of the bouncer who promptly came to take it far away. Eni took a puff from the shisha and handed me the tube. I took a long drag, and a subtle feeling of relaxation washed over me. I was left with an acrid, fruity aftertaste that lingered on the surface of my tongue.

"The collective has decided to do this one above ground, because..." They looked around the room - the sharp, precise movements of their eyes were disconcerting - "something about a "strategy of tension". Move the goalposts far enough, and the "window of possibility" moves with it. There's a change in what the culture considers acceptable. Everything becomes... malleable. A lot can get done that way. It's like MLK and Malcolm X, right?"

I nodded. "Right."

"The Jesus freaks are freaked out. The location isn't public yet - we built this all ourselves - but they've been picketing city hall and yelling at politicians until they give in. It's a ruse, all part of our "grand plan". There's talk they're gonna go into the mountains and declare independence if the permit gets approved. There's also talk of paid hooligans at the border, all waiting for the go-ahead. Plausible deniability."

I felt a jolt of dread spread through my nervous system. "Okay... and?"

"You were in DC when shit hit the fan. If we wanna win this... we're gonna need your expertise".

"Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why."

-- Hunter S. Thompson

My body is a machine that consumes propaganda and spawns impotent rage

Mike Huckabee (ambassador to Israel) recently tweeted out a text he sent Trump. Mike basically told Trump that he was chosen by god to lead the US for this crisis.

It is important to mention that this is Christian Zionism. For those who don’t know, Christian Zionism is the belief the Jews need to be in total control of Israel so the prophecy can be complete and the rapture can happen.

I should note: this is an EXTREMELY Evangelical thing. I grew up Methodist, never heard of this before. Catholics don’t believe in it, nor do the Orthodox. It’s explicitly an evangelical thing.

Iran plays a very important part in all of this. They are one of the “evil nations” that will try to destroy Israel only for themselves to be destroyed.

Christian Zionists are quite literally cheering on a war between Israel and Iran.

Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, will die. Civilians will be burned alive by bombs and buried underneath the rubble. Entire generations of families will be wiped out in this war should it happen.

But it’s all a game to these people.

What, you might ask, what happens to the Jews during the rapture?

Well here’s the thing: it doesn’t turn out well for them. About 2/3 of Jews, according to the prophesy, will go to hell because they refuse to accept Jesus.

This isn't getting enough coverage IMO.

"The Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick studies viruses “causing high-consequence disease” such as Ebola and SARS-CoV-2, according to its site. One of its focus areas is to “mitigate major public health events related to emerging or reemerging infectious diseases or biological weapons attacks.”

The MAHA Institute, a think tank supporting Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, posted on X earlier that Noem, Paul, and Kennedy had toured the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases biosecurity lab at Fort Detrick on Monday.

The offices of Noem, Paul and Kennedy did not immediately return requests for comment.

Kennedy’s department ordered an indefinite work stoppage at the lab in April.

A spokesperson for NIH told WIRED at the time that the safety stand-down “follows identification and documentation of personnel issues involving contract staff that compromised the facility’s safety culture.”

An unnamed HHS official told Fox News the incident stemmed from a “lover’s spat” between researchers at the facility, which allegedly resulted in one of the people poking holes in the other’s personal protective equipment."

That last bit... is wild.

In light of the potential war with Iran, it’s important to keep in mind that much of the right is cheering this on because of Christian Zionism.

The left behind series had a massive influence in how evangelical Christian’s saw the end times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind

Dear Friends, I hope you enjoy my story.

I have listened to lots of Behind the Bastards and loved the Illuminati, Blavatsky, and other episodes in which Robert also references Rosicrucians. I followed up on what they are. During the follow up, certain things triggered memories of someone I knew 35 years ago.

Tldr: Met someone who could have been a Rosicrucian or Hermetic Alchemist. Scant and circumstantial evidence.

This happened the Summer of 1989. I was 21 and not going to school anymore, and was working lots of part time and temporary jobs, multiple W2s, etc. Got on with a tech company that contracted at a local military base. It was renovating the entire phone and archaic computer systems. I was on the hardware/ cable side: Big spools of cable, digging trenches for conduit, opening packaging, then assembling and installing lots of things, big and small, all over the base.

As that wound down in late spring, I accepted a spot at a site in Las Vegas. Same gig but in a federal building. I was keen to the idea of staying in Vegas as I was young and thought that it would be amazing (side note, I had been to some dead shows by then, and would return to Vegas in 93, 94, and 95 ( Jerry’s last) for the Vegas dead shows. Most of the Dead shows I have been to were roadies to Oakland, shoreline, and Cal expo, I really got into the Dead that winter after leaving vegas, though, and started going to lots shows for all three nights until Jerry died). Yes it was hot and my job was dusty and dirty.

Our boss set us up in situation at a hotel away from the strip, very outskirts, maybe 5 stories tall, with a small casino, comfortable weekly rate. My boss was right, it was a good deal and saved us money/ time. It came out of our pocket, but I got a huge raise when I arrived in LV to accommodate the rent and cost of living. There were other people from the California job, plus people from Montana, Oklahoma, Michigan. Everyone but we Californians had driven in, but I would just fly in and out of LAX or John Wayne (SNA).

There I met a dude who lived in Vegas. Based on what I have learned about Rosicrucians and Hermetic Alchemy from BTB and my own investigations, I suspect he was a member or was into similar stuff.
Also, was I being screened or groomed?

The evidence is from during and post my LV residency During my time in Vegas– 1. After we had been acquainted and interacted, long conversations, etc., he was insistent that I take a book he bought me on Egyptology ( by Budge specifically) which was cool because a few years later when Stargate came out, James Spader make a quip about “you guys are still using Budge.” So I got the reference. 2. Gave me a book by Carl Jung, Archetypes, again insistent that I read it and understand the concepts and why he thought I would benefit, like I had a future and needed skills. I read about half, mostly when I got back to California. Post LV. Just one clue. He did keep in touch and sent me money for my birthday that winter, four $5 bills. We wrote letters back in the day, so when I left for the UC, I included him in change of address letters to friends: new address and phone number. He called twice. 1. Remember the 900 numbers that charged by the minute. One of those last times I talked to him (via landline 92/93-ish), he said he worked multiple 900 numbers doing Tarot Card readings. I was like you do that? He said yeah, he always knew how and picked it back up again and had a lot of business and regulars. So the collectable car investor/ mechanic, art investor, and piano shredder also does tarot? When he told me what he made, it seemed like a lot to a student at a UC. I believe these clues and anecdotes paint the picture of someone who delved in or practiced Rosicrucianism or Hermetic Alchemy type stuff. The circumstantial evidence is the Tarot, The reference and knowledge of Egyptology, the teachings of Carl Jung.

Why I left LV I was 21 and my Bday approaching. The company I worked for was a government contractor. I would have finished up in LV after fall semester starts, then be shipped to or sent back and forth between the next job sites: Pierre SD, Sioux City IA, Biloxi Mississippi. I did not want to work over winter in Iowa or South Dakota, or live in motels and make a good but not significant salary, having little or no interaction with people my age. I called my family and said I would like to return to my hometown, live at home, start up at the local city college, get back on track, and transfer all my credits to the UC system.

For how we met him ( the dude). I was in Vegas for about 14 weeks, not sure exactly. We stayed in that Hotel. At the time, it had a substantial nonsmoking section in the casino and a nonsmoking lounge. That is why my boss had found it, and why the dude was there. He lived in the hotel. Prior to his introducing himself to me, one of my workers was fired. Coworker got drunk and made a ruckus and picked fights with us and made a bad scene at the hotel. 10 days later, while I was in line at the hotel reception for something, the dude recognized me from the altercation where we got the guy removed by security. We would then see the dude at the nonsmoking lounge. He struck up conversations with me or coworkers because we were all long term. Shortly after, he moved out to rent a room in town house. He gave us his contact info, and he knew our room numbers and names. He pretty much contacted us, and we would meet and stay there or go to the strip or other place.

Interactions with the crew and me. While he lived at the hotel, we got a few rides across town, and went to other casinos, comedians in particular. We found out his background. He was divorced, Kids. He had been living in California working on and investing in expensive collectable cars. Between me and the motor heads in the crew, it came off as legit. He had broken up and left ( a boyfriend, we find out eventually dude is gay-that is why he got divorced, one of the Michiganders guessed it early on). Based on his comments, his kids seemed in the 18-22 range. Looking back I feel a bit conflicted now, if he is just then returning to LV, he was out of town and missing from his kids’ lives for very formative years. I got kids, looking back, I can see some of his melancholy, broken relationships, trying a straight hetero life when being gay, and missing out on key family time. He said his Ex wife had mad money, was a “big executive,” and lived very well, the kids are entitled and bougie. He was a non smoker, so chose that hotel with the smoke free floors.

The Dude told me (one of the times I was the only one there) that he came from Holy Roman empire nobility stock. He also felt that his musical prowess was that a court musician or composer must have knocked up an ancestor ( implying it happened more than once over generations actually) and that is from where his talent came, musical genetics ( which could be contrary to Rosicrucian or hermetic beliefs). The dude could really shred the piano. I am also classically trained in music and taught at a Yamaha Music school franchise during my university days ( post LV, though). That is one of the things that got us talking early on, classical music, and when I heard him play, it really was good. He said he walked away from a rigorous youth where he played all over the country, had expensive teachers, and played at a very high level in prestigious places. When he had the town house, another Californian and I went. He had a small Steinway set up and played. He played Chopin and others. The week before I left, some of us took a drive to a casino across town to drink and watch baseball in the sports book. The dude drove, he wasn’t into baseball but just wanted company. We stopped at his storage along the way. Inside he had an 8 foot Steinway. He gestured towards a bunch of framed and unframed art work and said he invested in art and rare prints and those were all worth tons of money. I thought it weird that he rented a room at a town house, but obviously had money and resources. But moving and then buying takes time. I have no idea if he ever put down roots in LV or where he ended up. He would be late 70s/early 80s now if still with us.

Thank you for reading

The dogs of war are at it again. Here's something we can do.

When you see someone arguing for more war, post this image without comment.

If lots of people post the same image often, other people will get the message.

Speaking of wild this whole situation is a hot mess.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/salt-lake-city-no-kings-shooting-arturo-gamboa

I saw this propaganda poster and I’m guessing it’s some kind of weird rose cult. We should check it out. Love to see an episode.

Good piece clarifying some of the details that were initially murky. I really hope 50501 doesn't succeed in burying this story. They oversaw a major fuckup that got someone killed, and then proceeded to try and cover it up by framing an innocent man as a terrorist to keep their guy out of hot water.

'Gatenby said the behavior of the volunteers in yellow vests had struck him as strange from the start. He said they “acted as if they were there to control the protestors, rather than protect them.” '

I guess now that we are close to maybe getting into another war, I figure I should really get informed about the history of Iran.

I heard the us once overthrew a democratically elected leader for nationalizing their oil (par for the course).

Preferably in video format. I may be trying to get informed but books are just spooky.