Daily Episode 234 - This week in Fascism #39

0:00Hey, Cory here. We've had an influx of new listeners, and so I just want to make sure that if you are new to the podcast, you don't just jump in and start listening to these daily episodes which we've been doing. Please go back and listen to the first at least eight episodes. So you have an idea of what collapses, what it is that Cory is talking about. Also if you've been with us for a while and you're enjoying the content, please join us on Patreon. We would love to see you there. There's a link, as always, in the description. Hello friends, happy Friday. As always, being Friday, I have a list of articles to talk about discussing the rapid rise of fascism in the US. For the structure of today's episode, we're going to start with a series of articles that aren't necessarily tied to any category, just some, I guess, random goings-on and rulings and things in the legal sphere this week. And we'll shift to the end again to talk about categories that we frequent on Fridays, which are elections and what's going on with ICE. Things are starting to escalate in both of those areas as we approach the midterms and

1:02I think they become more and more critical with every passing week. So to start, we're going to go to the new republic.com. Judge tells RFK Jr. to stop using fake AI studies on teen pregnancy. The Department of Health and Human Services cited articles that were entirely made up. A federal judge lit into the Department of Health and Human Services headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for using either AI or fake studies to defend the Trump administration's decision to fund only abstinence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. Quote, while abstinence-only education may well be appropriate for some age groups or communities, the agency has offered no explanation or evidence to support its across the board mandate that only abstinence strategies be pursued. This according to US District Judge Christopher Cooper, he wrote in his opinion, on the topic of body literacy, the notices remarkably reference public health studies that appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited, a hallmark of AI-generated citations. Cooper issued a preliminary injunction pausing an order that has already led to millions

2:06of dollars in grant cuts. It's no surprise and yet it's abhorrent to think that this administration can simply make up facts, try and present them as reality, whether it's using AI or just lying, paying some intern to create something false, to give it a they want, right, to pass some sort of agenda. And of course, as in this case and in most, it's in the pursuit of some sort of hyper-traditional bigoted, harmful policy, glad that in this case the judges are calling it out, but how often is it happening that it's not getting called out? In the New York Times, a judge rules that Trump unlawfully targeted Fordon students who criticized Israel. The ruling was a win for Stanford's student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, and it followed another court victory for students targeted by the Trump administration last year. So you may remember last year in one of these episodes, or probably a couple of these episodes, we talked about this ongoing problem of students being targeted by the Trump administration, who were here on Avisa to gain an education, and were being deported, kicked

3:11out, arrested, simply for having anti-Israel beliefs and communicating those, whether it was in protest or online. Most of these were in support of Gaza and Palestinians in the beginning of Israel's campaign against them. It's taken too long to get this result, and I'm glad that this is the result that came. Here's what the article says about it. The federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students when it sought to deport them for criticizing Israel's war in Gaza. In the 90-page ruling, Judge Noel Wise found that the key legal foundations that the Trump administration had relied on to arrest and deport Fordon students were unconstitutional, because Trump officials had wielded them to target students, who used their freedom of speech to express opinions that the government did not like. Quote in the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders is not a sign of our democracy's fragility, it is evidence of its strength. That strength is diminished when members of our society, citizens and non-citizens alike, must self-censor and behave or suffer the government's retaliation.

4:12This downward spiral is antithetical to our constitution that recognizes our right to speak freely. Here you can simultaneously hate the content of a person's speech and love the country that cherishes the freedom to allow it. Beautifully well said, there's much more to this article if you want to read more about that story. In Intercept, the US has killed 227 civilians in boat strikes during a quote, year of murders. A quote from the article says, the boat strikes are perhaps the most stark testament to the lawlessness of the Trump administration. Top military officers from a secretive command watched a speedboat cut through the waters of the Caribbean Sea early last September, a plane above provided live video of the vessel and the 11 men on board. In the early morning hours, Admiral Frank Bradley sought the council of his top legal advisor Colonel Kara Hamaguchi, then he ordered seal team six operators to attack the packed boat. After the vessel exploded, two helpless survivors pulled themselves onto a fragment of the overturned hole, drifting with the current for roughly 45 minutes. Bradley then the head of the joint special operations command and now the four star chief

5:14of special operations command, again turned to Hamaguchi for guidance. Soon a second missile screamed down, killing the survivors. Two more missiles followed in rapid succession, sinking the remnants of the boat. That strike carried out on September 2nd, 2025, so a year ago, began a campaign of attacks that has never ceased. It's been a year of murders, said a defense official who was horrified by the first strike and has remained so as the US has targeted scores of so-called drug boats in the year since. The Trump administration has normalized murder, the official said, it's absolutely criminal. Now on that strike, specifically the one that I just read about, you may remember us discussing that last year when it occurred as a war crime because it is illegal to strike survivors of a boat strike. If someone is floating in the water as such, they are to be taken prisoner at most, definitely not bombed anew. In all, the US has conducted more than 65 attacks, resulting in over 225 civilians killed in the Caribbean and Pacific.

6:15In the last year, the most recent strike in the Caribbean on August 25th killed four people. Alright, this is a good article with tons of content there, so again, feel free to read through that. It'll be in the sources. From BloombergTax.com, IRS softens on businesses in wake of agency worker Exodus. At President Donald Trump's IRS, businesses in the last year are paying tens of billions of dollars less in taxes, while Americans are shelling out hundreds of billions dollars more. Businesses, both large corporate taxpayers and partnerships, have historically been in Achilles' heel in collections for the agency that is plagued by underfunding. There was a glimmer of aggressive enforcement of these taxpayers after an infusion of cash from the 2022 tax and climate law, but the short-lived effort was riddled with kinks that the Internal Revenue Service didn't get the chance to work out. In the following years, both annual and extra funding would be curtailed, with the Trump Administration bringing more business-friendly moves and scaling back regulations after complaints

7:15from businesses. The agency's shrinking by a quarter after thousands took Elon Musk's incentives to leave the government in the first year of the Trump Administration's second term hasn't helped exam efforts of these taxpayers. Here's a breakdown of how the IRS is handling compliance. So, then there's a little table here, and it says Americans pay more as businesses get breaks. IRS collected $5.3 trillion in tax revenue, mostly from individuals. And then it shows a year-over-year changes in taxes paid. This income tax went down $79 billion, which was a 14% decrease over the previous year. Individual income tax went up $232 billion, which was an 8.6% increase over the last year. So, all in all, essentially, Donald Trump has, uh, through Musk, gutted the IRS, and with a reduced capacity, they changed regulations that made it more business-friendly, and basically said, we'll stop collecting as many taxes from businesses, but we are going to increase

8:16the taxes we're going to take from individuals. If that ain't backwards, I'm not sure what is. From advocate.com, Wyoming lets people stand their ground, which if you're not from the US, that is a term related to the use of a weapon, especially a firearm, a right given by certain states to use those firearms defensively. So anyway, Wyoming lets people stand their ground. A judge will decide if that law extends to this transgender woman. Rihanna Calvert says she drew her gun only after a man hurled anti-trans slurs and shoved her to the pavement. Prosecutors argue that she started it. Rihanna Calvert has maintained that Scott Durham hurled anti-trans slurs and pushed her to the ground outside the crowbar and grill in Laramie before she pulled out a gun. Still, police arrested Calvert on charges including aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent. Albany County District Judge Misha Westby, this week, heard arguments from Calvert's attorney that she acted in self-defense and therefore should face no charges.

9:16The hearing also included a tearful testimony from Calvert, who described her fear during the encounter. Westby is expected to decide soon whether the case should be dismissed on self-defense grounds or proceed to a jury trial. While Wyoming has a stand-your-ground law allowing individuals to defend themselves if they reasonably believe they face an imminent threat, prosecutors have argued that the law does not apply because Calvert allegedly started the altercation. According to court testimony, Calvert was sitting on a bench outside the bar on September 13th when Durham and a small group of friends shouted derogatory slurs. So if that's true, that doesn't sound like she started the altercation, but we'll read on. Surveillance video shows that she then followed the group across the street before approaching Durham with a hand on her satchel. The video then shows Durham shoving her to the ground before beginning to walk away. So it sounds like she didn't let it be after being harassed. She followed them across the street, was then physically assaulted by the individual at that point she pulled her weapon out. While still in her back, she allegedly pulled out a semi-automatic handgun, racked it and

10:18pointed it at Durham. She pointed the gun away after Durham and his group walked away, then returned to her job at the crowbar and grill according to the prosecution. So yeah, this is an interesting one. Obviously there are multiple elements to the discussion here. How would this case be treated if it wasn't involving someone who was transgender? Would this be an open and closed case? I'm not sure. Personally, I don't follow standard ground laws and cases closely. But given the area where this is happening in Laramie, Wyoming, a very red state, it will be interesting to hear the outcome. If there does appear to be bias in that outcome, especially if it goes to trial and it's from a jury of her peers, which will be 12 people from Laramie, Wyoming, right? And whether or not they can make a decision in an unbiased way. This is particularly interesting because we're seeing gun rights come into question for transgender folk in general. And so this plays an interesting part in that. From Transitix News, we used another article from this source last week, says the Trump

11:19Administration is now claiming that being a trans ally makes you more violent. Yes, really, a new dubious HHS study has found that support for gender ideology acts as an ideological accelerant for political violence. It's already fueling right wing claims about transgender violence. And this just goes again back to the last article that we read where this administration is trying to paint transgender people in a violent light for this. They are trying to justify taking away their rights. And just recently, Donald Trump was quoted as saying something like if the GOP wins the midterms, that will allow them to end transgenderism. That is highly genocidal speech. And I think people are very justifiably concerned with this stage that we're in in the direction that we're headed around LGBTQ folk in general. All right, let's talk about elections for a bit. There's a video I'm going to post to on CBS News, Texas, where James Talleriko says nothing terrifies them more than people who show up to vote and people who show up to hold elected

12:25officials accountable. It's why they arrested people. This in reference to Terrent County, Texas, Judge Tim O'Hare is surgically cutting voting locations in minority and pool areas to help mag. A summary of the article says commissioners were ready to cut nearly half of voting locations last time, but everyone showed up in opposition. Even though a lot of the individual cut sites were smaller, together, those cut sites still accounted for almost 40% of everyone who voted on election day in 2022. That's not a rounding error. That's a huge percentage of the county's election day voters whose specific polling places no longer exist. After massive backlash, they're trying to negotiate by cutting 30% of polling locations, even though population and voter registrations are massively higher this election cycle. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is our strongest protection against this, but it has been repeatedly gutted recently by the Supreme Court. They sided with Abbott to racially jaymander, even after the Texas maps were found to be racial in nature. Section 2 prohibits any voting standard practice or procedure that results in the denial or

13:28abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. So there is a specific example of a locality which is trying to make voting harder by cutting polling places. This is happening all over the nation. Here's one interesting going back to Wyoming. It says Wyoming governor objects to very odd DOJ election monitoring. Two election monitors from the Justice Department tried to interview voters and examine voting machines at polling places during Wyoming's primaries last week, drawing pushback from Wyoming's Republican governor. I think we are going to see this type of thing increase very rapidly over the next couple of months. They are normalizing their intrusion into polling places, into being around and being able to interact with or manipulate voting machines. This governor of Wyoming, I just mentioned it's a very red state, this is a Republican governor. He said he was concerned by the behavior of election observers who visited this polling station in Cheyenne. Governor Mark Gordon said it was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive, certainly didn't seem

14:31to show respect for the state. We're going to get to the bottom of it as best we can. This really calls into account the way the elections are run in the US, right? Elections are run by the states, not by the federal government. When you have the federal government interrupting regular state activities, doing monitoring, being aggressive, pushing their way in, insisting that they're in charge, that type of thing, it makes it very difficult for the states to be able to run their elections confidently. It creates chaos, right? It soothes a lack of confidence and discord in the whole system, which is exactly what the administration wants. It wants to be able to say the elections were run incorrectly. It was a mess. It's all the state's fault, even though it could be because they interfered. They made things more difficult. They sold the chaos initially. ICE plans to pay $5 million to create a national voting database. First of all, $5 million is nothing. There's no amount of money, especially for a project of this size.

15:34$5 million bucks to create an entire national voting database to be able to say who can and can't legally vote. It says, this is from wired.com. As part of a broader DHS surge to investigate alleged voter fraud, ICE has announced its plan to pay up to $5 million to create what amounts to a federal voter database. So yeah, like I said, on the first part, $5 million of nothing. On the second part, it's not up to ICE to do this. This is not within their jurisdiction, their realm of responsibility. This is essentially Trump's Gestapo, his brown shirts, creating a registry by which they can decide who gets to vote and who does not. ICE first detailed what the contract would entail in a document published last week. Quote, the purpose of this acquisition is for the handling and secure delivery of publicly available voter registration files and voter history files to support homeland security investigations, fraud detection and data segmentation activities. In the document, ICE says that the agency will initially provide a list of specific states it wants to acquire public voter registration files from, though the successful contractor

16:37will need to have the capability to obtain data from all 50 states. ICE is also seeking voting history data for each federal election specified by the government, including general, primary, runoff and special federal elections. ICE is seeking publicly available information from each state, which each have their own rules around how it is obtained. This would include voter registration and in many cases voting history. Either could potentially include party affiliation, a move that experts believe will violate a right to privacy for U.S. voters. Yeah, pretty obvious here what's happening for the government to say, hey, we're going to make a list of who can vote and also we're going to need to know who you all voted for last time around. Okay, thanks. The document states that the successful contractor won't be asked to collect and share party affiliation data fields for voters, but that could change if explicitly directed in writing by the contracting officer. That last part was a direct quote from the order saying, yeah, we're not going to collect your party affiliation information unless it's explicitly directed by the contracting officer.

17:39So we reserve the right to change that at any time. That contracting officer is listed as Michael Royer, section chief at Homeland Security investigations. All right, once again, lots more to that if you want to read through it. Well, along with not just creating a registry, ice also wants to be able to visit each and every polling place and make arrests there. The Department of Homeland Security chief says ice could make arrests at polling places, ignoring federal ban on armed agents at voting sites. This is from democracy.com says Department of Homeland Security secretary Mark Wayne Mullins said Tuesday that immigration and custom enforcement agents could enter polling places to make arrests this November, raising fresh concerns about the Trump administration contemplating actions that federal law has long prohibited. Speaking to reporters in New York, Mullin insisted that ice isn't there to patrol the polling places with said agents could nevertheless enter voting locations in certain circumstances. The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there's a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down.

18:41If we're serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be. Mullin said the comments represent some of the Trump administration's clearest statements yet about circumstances in which armed immigration agents could appear at voting sites. Federal law imposes extraordinary restrictions on armed federal personnel at elections. Under 18 U.S.C. 592, a federal official who orders, brings or keeps troops or armed men at a location where a general or special election is taking place can face up to five years in prison and disqualification from federal office. The law contains only a narrow exception when such forces necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States. This should be pretty open and shut. Does that mean it's going to stop them from trying, from doing it anyway? No. And as far as how things have gone so far, it will have zero consequences for them and massive implications for voters, for people showing up, feeling confident that they can be there for again, the chaos that can potentially be soed on election day. As a quick note here as well, we've talked recently about the whole Malian voting, the

19:44U.S. PS and their involvement, the postal service in delivering ballots and deciding who should and shouldn't be able to vote. All of that stuff is ongoing. There have been appeals. Trump won one of the appeals, but now it's gone back. So that's currently being voted on like now as I'm recording this. And so by tomorrow, if this is something you've been following or curious and following, you should be able to Google and find out whether or not, you know, what the results of that were. I wish there was an answer that I could give at this moment, but there's still not. It's very likely that this won't be the end of it as well. There will likely be more to come from a legal perspective. That's just how these things work. But with two months now until the midterms, I don't see how they could possibly have time to roll out all of this stuff anyway, but of course, they'll get their best shot. All right. Moving into the ice coverage, ice hasn't paid for detainee medical care since October. Let's call it the death policy. This is from the sf Chronicle.com.

20:44This is a bit of a narrative article highlighting one detainee in specific for the story, but using that to tell a story of a larger trend. This is says over the 10 months Rodrigo spent in an ice detention center east of Bakersfield. He asked repeatedly to see an oncologist about the tumor that was growing to the size of a lemon in his neck, pressing against his throat and making it difficult to speak or swallow the 58 year old Los Angeles construction worker had survived throat cancer. He was detained during 36 sessions of chemotherapy in 2022 before going into remission. When he was detained by ice last September, he said he'd been awaiting an appointment to see his oncologist about a small new lump he'd noticed. In January, medical staff at the detention center requested that Rodrigo be evaluated by an outside oncologist. Medical reports reviewed by the Chronicle show, but for months, ice refused to approve the request while also trying to deport him. Rodrigo, a green card holder who had lived in the US for 52 years, told the Chronicle in July during a phone interview from California City detention facility, they're not giving me any hope of surviving. Immigrants detained by ice have long reported deficiencies in medical care, with sometimes

21:48fatal consequences, but the crisis has intensified since last October, according to former agency staffers and official records. As the Trump administration detains record number of immigrants and ice's budget swells to $104 billion this year, the payment breakdown and other systemic problems have worsened medical neglect in ice facilities, putting people at risk of severe disability, permanent injury or death. Ice has not paid any of its providers for detainees care since October 3, 2025. That's almost a year now. According to agency regulatory filings and the ice website, hospitals and ambulance services told the Chronicle they are owed millions of dollars while many detainees have had appointments for licensing medical care delayed or canceled. Medical providers say they have continued to provide care out of moral obligation, although some observers worry that fear of nonpayment could deter them from offering services to detainees. Another story that I'll read from here from the Guardian, along similar grounds, is titled Ice holds man with stage 4 cancer in detention despite permanent US residency.

22:48A 76 year old man holding permanent US residency and grappling with stage 4 prostate cancer is reportedly being held in ice detention into Koma Washington. Several immigration officials detained him during his US citizenship interview into Kula Washington, his name is Loretto Havar or maybe his Javar. Javar, a Filipino national, moved to the US in 1995 and has lived in the country with his wife and daughter ever since. He was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in January and is prescribed two oral medications, as well as other medications for conditions including high blood pressure, according to the Seattle Times. Speaking to the outlet, Daisy Javar said her father's meals were often delivered late, but lunch sometimes not served until 6 p.m. and dinner at midnight. She said the delays have complicated his medication schedule. So far, he has missed two oncology appointments that occur on the 4th of every month and has recently developed a blood clot in his stomach. The appointments are crucial to conduct blood work and adjust his medication to prevent his cancer from further developing. Just awful. To consider already how terrible it is to experience something like cancer let alone stage 4

23:53cancer and now to have to face that, alone in a detention center away from your family, not receiving the medical care that you need. It is truly a inhumane, cruel, evil thing to do. Lastly, a mom's website shows who profits from ice, why feds call it a threat. This is on USA Today. Laura Berlin watched images of immigration agents rounding up people and flying them to Latin American prison without due process and she knew she had to do something. That situation really haunted me, she said. She asked herself who owned these chartered airlines that were flying the men to a Salvadoran prison, who owned these detention centers where men were being held along the way. In short, what companies were taking money from the government to help deport people. Berlin needed to know. Using her background in non-profit communications, she built an interactive Google map titled, Who is Profiting from Ice. It plots the contractors across the country who work with immigration and customs enforcement to carry out the Trump administration's deportation policies.

24:53Activists found her online database and have used it to organize hundreds of protests across the country against these companies, shaming them into cutting ties with ice. In one case, an East Coast bank broke with two prominent detention center contractors after account holders, including Jersey City, New Jersey, with drew more than $350 million. The US government found her website too and labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism, according to a secret intelligence bulletin obtained by USA Today. It's the latest example of the Trump administration cracking down on dissent. It says could veer into political violence. According to Berlin, she said, The egregious dehumanizing rhetoric, the administration and its allies have relied on to manufacture support for cruel and ill-advised policies was always going to ripple out and hurt people, including kids in all kinds of ways. The anonymous Texas mother of two teenagers has been pulled out from behind her laptop into an uncomfortable spotlight. To Berlin, her online database is an important tool for transparency, protected as free speech. To the Department of Homeland Security, it's information that could be used by anarchist extremists.

25:55That's according to a secret intelligence bulletin, DHS sent to local and federal law enforcement in February, specifically targeting Berlin's website. Quote, anti-ice threat actors, including local anarchist extremists, may escalate otherwise peaceful direct action by carrying out acts of vandalism. Often using spray paint, projectiles, blunt and edged objects, and improvised incendiary devices, the bulletin reads. DHS used the same alert for Berlin's website that it reserves for domestic terrorists. In the past, DHS has used this code to flag information on ISIS, beheading videos and pipe bombs in cities. Berlin says she was unaware her site was the subject of a law enforcement intelligence bulletin. At first, my stomach dropped, she said, but then I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. The bulletin concedes in red letters that some of this information describes first amendment protected activities. All right, there's lots more to this article. It tells the story of many of ISIS activities that frustrated Berlin and why she started the website, talks a little bit more about the site itself, those types of things. Feel free to read on to get the details.

26:58All right, that's all for today. Not sure about where you live, but here the temperature is starting to turn. It's starting to cool down a little bit more, which is amazing. I can feel the beginning of fall coming on, which means here in the US midterm elections, and all of the likely chaos that's going to come with that. I don't look forward to it. I look forward to it being over. I look forward to not having to wonder anymore how it's going to play out being that it doesn't end up being near as bad as we think that it could be, and that we can truly experience a wave of voters getting out, telling the government what they want and putting the government in a place where legally, at least, it has to listen. I think right now that feels like the best we can hope for will find out in the coming months. Thanks for being here. See you Monday. Hey, Corey here. If you are listening to the back catalog of breaking down collapse, thank you. Those episodes are so vital. They're so important. But I also wanted to let you know that I am now doing daily episodes.

27:58Yes, that's right. Here on the podcast, daily episodes. So if you are enjoying the back catalog, great. Please also feel free to zoom forward to the most recent episodes. Catch us daily. They are quick little episodes. And I think you'll enjoy them. Thanks.