There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
Tue, 12 Jan 2021 11:00
Let's Take A Break With Ben Shapiro's Terrible Book
Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioral discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello America, I'm Robert Evans. This is behind the ******** a podcast about terrible people. And just the other day I was doing, you know, normal things for a leftist, anarchist Democrat Matt. Mainly mainly ************ to slash fiction about Barack Obama and Joseph Stalin. My two heroes, when I came across a book, a book that reminded me of all of the wonderful beauty of conservatism and all of the evils of my morally bankrupt liberal ideology. And today, we're going to read another section from that book. Ben Shapiro's true allegiance. Katie and Cody, why don't you come onto the stage and take a bow? Hello. Hello. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, it's too much. It's too much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys don't do it for you. We do it for you. Guys. My heart is going to explode from joy. High praise, please. More praise. More praise now, guys. OK, first question for the panel. Who do you think is the bottom? Obama or Stalin? Obama, Obama, Obama. You think so, huh? Yeah, I've, I've experienced your Stalin episode. Yeah, this is going to be the new Stalin, Trotsky debate. And it's about whether or not Stalin or Obama is a bottom. You haven't been really haven't done an Obama episode yet, so maybe there's more information. Well, yeah, I've, I've yet to learn about his habits, but I could see that I think Obama's, you know? Yeah, I do think that Biden or that not Biden, Stalin. Sorry, they're both similar people. I think that Stalin is probably has the versatility to be a switch for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who's to say to be a fly on the wall of that fanfic? I mean, I have some good news about the way fan fiction works, Katie. We're all flies on the wall. Ah, I'm very excited to be back. Umm, I I was not able to attend the last chapters. I'm assuming it won't really matter. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you missed Ben Shapiro. Still has not learned how to write a single sentence. Yeah. Yeah, as far as I know. Struggle even more. More. Getting worse. Yeah. Fair he got a little sleepy. Yeah, maybe he's sleepy on the third day when? Because it's four days to write this and on the 4th day he got sleepy. Yeah. You know, we had a we had a couple of different things in there, including President Mark Prescott, who's who's white Obama getting to give his equivalent of the speech. George Bush gave it Ground Zero, which is bad when a Democrat does it, but it was good that George Bush did it. That's simple maths and yeah, and actually we're going to start again with another President Prescott chapter as we as we turn into 60% of the way through true allegiance. So that's the only thing I really missed was that the president gave a speech. No, I mean the the, the black gangster character got angry that the Al Sharpton character didn't want to kill cops as much. So he started up secret plan to replace all of the cops with gangsters. As captain already gangsters, right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Change. You're changing the force with that move. Ohh. And Brett Hawthorne did a did a did a what what what's the term when you you judge people based on their racist criminals. Oh yeah, he racial profiling. And then it didn't help and but the point was still that it's good to do. It didn't do what it was supposed to do and learn nothing he learned. Is even bad at writing propaganda. Unbelievable. Wrote, wrote a case against it, still didn't. Still didn't see what he's doing. Yeah, because he kind of had the people who Brett Hawthorne was ordering to do racial profiling be like, this is bad because it's racial profiling, and then the racial profiling doesn't work, and it turns out they were right, but you're not supposed to walk away from the book thinking that. OK, it was a good, it was a good try. We're glad he did it because we need to keep doing it. All right. All right. We love we love your commas. So almost 2/3 of the way into the book, here's President Prescott's chapter New York City, featuring a lot of other characters featured God switch forward in time 30 years what we're starting there, we'll see where we land. Ben knows that the the key to any like really readable piece of fiction is that the reader never have any sense of grounding or understanding of where he is. Much like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, this is this is. I would describe Ben Shapiro as most like this. True allegiance is most similar to, for example, The Dubliners. It's just like The Dubliners. Just like The Dubliners that's that's surely that's what he's going for. He's really nailing the it's just this consistent inconsistency. Yeah, I do now thinking about Ben Shapiro trying to write James Joyce. I'm imagining Ben Shapiro writing about a character ************ through a hole in his pocket and, like, getting stuck up on not being able to write. Come. He knows he has to. Sorry, just a book full of just like that. OK, so the first chapter that we're going to read today is Ellen, who, remember, is Ben Shapiro's wife, but actually is Brett Hawthorne's wife, and she works for Governor Bubba Davis, who is basically George Bush. I think that's what Ben's going for. Yeah, he's bushy and and a perfectly rendered Texan. Ben really has spent a lot of time in my home state. I can tell because he uses the classic Texan phrase hornswoggled all the time. Governor Davis's refusal to send the National Guard to New York sparked a firestorm across the nation. He cited precedent heading the Governor of California refused a federal request to place National Guard troops on the border, but in the aftermath of the bridge attack, he didn't get much sympathy. Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country, shouted one MSNBC commentator into the camera, shouting. Shouts will be seen. Well, this was a man and not a woman, because a woman wasn't. This is how bright screeching, yeah, this is how Ben. Yeah, it has to be a man because he didn't write screeching, shrilly screeching into the right. And it has to be a white man because he absolutely would have told us if it was a black man. So here's Ben Shapiro, who clearly knows how people talk on NBC, describing what NBC would say. Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country, but this time their Hick governor has shown himself to be deeply unpatriotic. You don't get to be a star on the flag of the United States and then go a while when your country needs you, which is like, first, actually a good point. Second, remember when a literal fascist won the Presidency and every mainstream news outlet couldn't wait to go hang out at waffle houses and talk to Trump voters and lecture liberals about being in a bubble? Unfortunately, still do and still do. Every, every day. Every other day, MSNBC gets out and calls him a Hick governor. Yeah, right. I watched YouTube then, right? Yeah, he's he's he's getting it, right. So, yeah, heroically, Governor Davis refuses to send in the National Guard to help with a mass casualty event that's killed thousands of Americans, and the media lambasts him for it. The media ran with the story, a president calling for love and unity and a southern secessionist governor looking like George Wallace. Never mind that Davis had stood with the marchers of the civil rights era. He now stood on the side of the Old South. The media percolate, which I love. So to make this guy, to make this guy a good guy. Been just like he has to invent that he marched with civil rights marchers, which is like the easiest way to get around. Like, I don't want people to think this guy clearly being a bigot is a bigot. I'll just say that he stood with Martin Luther King. It's it's very funny. He's doing a great job. The rounded character you see well, and it's it's also just an example of, like, how to not write a good book. Because if you're writing a good book, you should always be scared of giving yourself an easy answer. So, like, if you're trying to make this character into clearly a good, morally upright guy, you're best way to. And like, you just kind of offhandedly mentioned that he marched with civil rights marchers. That's the laziest way to make him into a good person. Because, again, it it's this whole show. Like, tell don't show thing that Ben has going on. Because, like showing anything? Yeah, because the governor's actually being evil here. So Ben just says. But in the past he did really good things. So what he's doing now is good because Martin Luther King like, it's that's what he's doing. Show him doing a good thing. It is. It would be considered unbelievably lazy if it wasn't the person that we were talking about. It's very believably lazy. Believably lazy. Again, if you wanted to make this more of an interesting book, have him actually have a point and be in the right and the federal government be wrong. But also have the governor be a guy with a problematic pass to his, battling with that, and who, like, faces additional opposition because of bad things he's done in the past that maybe, like, gives the bad guys more, like room to work with or something. Like, make it an interesting ******* story. No, Robert, he saved a bus full of nuns and schoolchildren. OK, yeah, in the past. We don't need to see that, though. Oh, way earlier. Way earlier. No. But that way we don't have to waste words on it. We can just tell you it's like how. It's like how when they made. The action movie Classic Die Hard uh they mentioned that John McClain had stood with the civil rights movement so that people would like him rather than painting him as a deadbeat husband and then making him likable through the things that he suffered and went through and sacrifices he made throughout the movie. You know. I'm going to watch die hard tonight. That's good. Sounds like good storytelling. It's a Thanksgiving movie. It's a Christmas movie. It's a Thanksgiving movie. OK. Die Hard Two is an Easter movie. Diehard 2 is an Easter movie. Is it? No, it's it's it's covered in snow the whole time. It's another Christmas movie. It's a Thanksgiving movie, too. 4th of July, yeah, the President of the United States. OK, so Umm. Bubba Davis turns to evil rights hero Bubba Davis. Civil rights hero, basically. Martin Luther King junior. Bubba Davis, thank you, turns to Ellen Ben Shapiro's wife and asks her to be like the public face of his resistance to the federal government. And she refuses, because the President of the United States, she told Davis, had brought her husband home in one piece. He'd made mistakes. She knew. He'd exiled her husband based on lies, separated them for years, slashed the military, undermined the mission, she thought. But in the end, he brought Brett. Home. And that was all that mattered to her, which is, you know, actually a vaguely reasonable step for a character to take in this book. That's like a human being. That's like, yeah, no, on that sentence. You know what, Ben? Good on you. That was a believable single paragraph. You did it. Wait, was it a single paragraph or was it one really long sentence? Yeah. OK, let's see here. Yeah. He'd exiled or has been based on lies, separated them for years, slash. The military, undermined the mission, she thought, yeah, yeah, it's not a great sentence. The sentence structure isn't good, but the paragraph covers useful emotional territory. Yeah, it's it's it was an attempt. And just because he kept the sentence going a little longer, that's fine. OK, Bubba says when she refuses. Then I need you on the border. Somebody has to head up this outfit and if I go down there, they'll accuse me of outright insurrection. You're competent. Your husband is a well known military figure, and, well, damn it, you're a woman. And those sexists in the press won't labour a woman an insurrectionist. OK, so he gives his, I guess, press secretary control of the military forces he's placing on the border because as a woman, the press won't accuse her of leading an insurrection. So which end of that is sexist is my question for media. You are the media. Landing on there. Great question. I think the media sexist because they won't call her an insurrectionist when she starts leading an insurrection. Yeah, **** the media, you know, we'll see. Maybe, you know. Yeah. OK. So in the next paragraph, she's been there for a week. So I guess all of this was just going back in time to catch us up. So this is so. Yeah, every time. It's like, by the way, this is a year later and yeah, it's just the next sentence. She had to admit that the border. Different, it felt safe. For the first time ever, military vehicles patrolled the Texas side of the river, with checkpoints set up to funnel visitors and workers through. After checking identification soldiers, many speaking Spanish spoke with the locals, helping to Oh my God, what a sentence. Soldiers, Many speaking Spanish, spoke with the locals, helping to direct them to the local ranches. Is even just saying, yeah, I spoke with them to help them with. Yeah. I mean, saying simple adjustments to get rid of all those commas. Yeah, it's it's it's just even a copy editor. And also, I don't know if you ever spend a lot of time in places where there's tons of military vehicles and soldiers manning checkpoints. I can say from experience in multiple countries, you don't feel very safe. That checks out tons of soldiers handling basic travel needs. Makes me feel like I'm in a dangerous place because every place I've been like that has been dangerous. Yeah. Interesting, interesting feeling, yeah. We've spent a lot of time on the Texas border indefinitely. A lot of terrible things do happen on chunks of the US Mexican border. It's a long border. Most of it's pretty empty, you know, right? Uh, yeah. She'd been there for a week and there hadn't been any dead kids in the river. Every so often, a black helicopter would buzz the troops on the American side of the border. Ellen thought it might be members of the same drug cartel that had killed Vivian. She even thought that she'd seen one of the men wearing a bandana over his face. She told the Generals of the Guard that she didn't want to see any fire at the helicopters unless fired upon. Things were bad enough without starting a war in the last few days. The hell yes. You needed to tell the military not to shoot random helicopters out of the sky. In the last few days, the helicopters had buzzed closer and closer, probing Frauding American response. The Americans merely observed the guard had no intelligence capacities. Every soldier I know who's worked with guardsmen would agree with that statement. In fairness to Ben, the feds hadn't been particularly responsive since Davis's big announcement. But Ellen had some private investigators do some digging. What they found shocked her. The city of Juarez, they said, was won by the Juarez Cartel, one of the most dangerous criminal enterprises on the planet, its leadership, and then passed down through the Carrillo Fuentes brothers. Who would turn? OK, so he starts talking about cartels, cartels, cartels. Uh, OK and now he's just quoting under 2006 Guardian article about the crimes of the Juarez cartels. We've got Ben Shapiro writing a daily wire article about the article. Say alright, no, he actually cites the a 2006 article from the UK Guardian. Wait a second. Yeah, so what's ******* world are we in? Yeah, that's a great question. The timeline in this is not super clear because Obama was also president in the past. OK, I thought that they did find weapons of mass destruction. They did. How does this ******* Guardian article from our world still ******* exists? Well, I mean, you know, they found the WMD is in the Middle East. There's still cartels, I guess. Middle Eastern history is completely different in Ben's world, but everything is the same up until 2016. Ish. Yeah. I don't care anymore. Alright? Yeah. Yeah, the presence of American troops on the border. So basically she goes into how like, they had been so dangerous. She cites a bunch of horrible things cartels did in Juarez and then points out that since all the soldiers were now on the border, all of the violence in Juarez had stopped. So it was it was that simple piece of cake. No problem. Nothing to see here, folks. Some people might note that the Mexican military is basically armed identically to the United States military and has not succeeded in any way, shape or form with crushing the cartels who are similarly armed in a lot of cases. Note that some people, it wouldn't be Ben Shapiro. Why wouldn't? Why? Why would he? Yeah, so Ellen's job is to keep the peace on the border. You'd have to do better. She knew one incident gone wrong could end Davis's dreams of a safe Texas. So I guess everything's working great on the border, because the army is there. That's good. Yeah. So we have a little line break and then we're, I guess, in the advanced an indeterminate amount of time in the future. Ellen self. It is still OK so far. That could change any second. Katie. We don't know. We don't know. But Ellen cell phone rang New York number she picked up. Hey, sweetheart. Brett's rich baritone rumble through the phone. Give me a ******* break. Give me a parking break. No, I I can't wait to hear Ben Shapiro write about these two lovebirds. Birds. I'm sorry, but we are we are 60% into the book. This description. Which baritone? Baritone? Actually, I think you do. Hey, sweetheart, says Brett's rich baritone. Hey, babe, she said. Miss? You? His voice sounded thick over the phone, almost tearful. We ******* know. We already know you said it. OK, sorry. OK, it's fine. Just a few days ago. They've been so close to reuniting now with commercial air travel shut down and the crisis in New York? It could be weeks they both knew. But this was something new, too. Brett never talked like this. Since the rescue from arrived, Brett hadn't been himself. He never called her sweetheart. Never called her sweetheart in that rich baritone. You can imagine why. And she could imagine his face. She longed to reach out and touch it. Miss you too. How's bill? He's hanging in there. Another pause. Are you OK? Bill, by the way, is their friend whose wife and young daughter were just killed. That's what they spare for Bill. That was bill. He's fine. In fairness to Ben, the way he wrote Bill, he clearly was not broken up over the death of his wife and child. That is true. He's doing fine. He's doing, he's doing, he's doing great. He's right back to work. Yes. Are you OK? Yes. That's a no, he laughed. So did she. Davis made a mistake not sending the troops, you know. I know. She answered. And I have a feeling something's coming here. Something bad. I'm getting the same feeling. It's not over. Is it a long pause? No, I don't think it is. Someone knocked on the door to Ellen's office. I gotta run, babe, she said. Take a bullet for you. I can't. Brett, Hawthorne responds. Take a bullet for you, sweetheart. She hung up. Yeah. Every time. That's the only. That's what they say at the end. That's what, you know, that's their cute thing that we all love. Take a bullet for you. And I've heard variations of this from a couple of different people who had family members who would end every conversation with I love you, you know, aunts and uncles, grandparents. And they were like, you know, it always seemed kind of silly to me until the day that, like, they died. And then I remembered the last thing that they said to me was that they loved me. And, like, now I understand why they did. And that's legitimately, like, heartwarming and and a wonderful. Yeah. Take a bullet for you is not. No, no, no, it's not. No. It's so interesting to associate violence with love. It says a lot about BIM, but that's his equivalent of like, you just want him to know how they feel, so mention being shot. Every time you finish a conversation. Remember the last time I spoke, we spoke, I said. ******* die in a rain of of bullet fire, yeah? For you. For them. Get stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly for you, babe. Get stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly for you. ******* **** ** my insides with searing hot metal for you, babe. For you. I'll pull my hamstring for you, baby. I'll suffer hydrostatic shock as a high velocity round tears through my organs for you, babe. Love it. You too. Love it, babe. God. And again, if you wanted to do, like a fun, kooky couple, you could have them do increasingly deranged versions of that to end their conversations on it. That's a. That's a fun bit. What's happening? That show that shows like, oh, they're playful and they know, yeah, they get sodomized by a drill bit for you, baby. You could have fun with it. If they love each other, look at how much fun they have. Yeah, it's this. They're kind of dark. They have this dark sensibility as opposed to I can't even read them saying that without, like, gagging for the ninth time. Yeah, it has. Every time. There's a visceral reaction to it, too. It's hard. It's hard. It's the only piece of Vince writing that makes me feel anything. OK, so she hangs up on combat General Brett Hawthorne, and then she gets a slip of paper from a Sergeant in the guard that tells her it came from HQ. And we'll find out what that slip of paper says. But first, Cody, Katie, you know what? We'll take a bullet for you. My man, no, that's not the answer. The products and services that support this podcast, of course we should really get sponsored by body Armor. Yeah, see if Hesco will. Yeah, get on that. Robert. Throw some bucks at us. Wear body armor for you, babe. I'd prefer not to get shot for you, babes, so I wear Class 4 plates with stay out of danger and, like, be happy somewhere else. I'll attempt to stay safe as best I can for you, babe. Same for me babe. OK, alright. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family. And it meant. Families start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at Mint Mobile. Com slash behind now a word from our sponsor better help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy, and better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help is a great. Option it's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey, and if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behind betterhelp.com/behind. My name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change to be able to do it within podcasting. It's just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with speaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with speaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart. We're back. Thank God. So she's just gotten a letter from HQ. Ellen goes to this, you know, some command headquarters. Oh boy, we're talking about journalists again. By the time she arrived at the mobile home, which is, I guess, the mobile headquarters for the Guard, a small crowd of journalists had formed outside. As she stepped out of her car, the cameras clacked away. The focus of the nation was certainly on New York, she thought, but that didn't make the regional journalists any less hungry to get their footage on the national broadcast. It's an awkward sentence. She saw the boxes. She stepped inside the empty room, sitting on a makeshift desk, a table. Somebody had code from the local rec center. That's an awkward way of telling you there's a box in the room. That's well, yeah. Read that again, please. She saw. So this is her. Like she saw the boxes. She stepped inside the empty room, sitting on a makeshift desk, a table. Somebody had cold from the local rec center. The box was bad. She walked into a trailer. There was a makeshift desk, and on top of the desk was a box. Water. Often made of cardboard or something like ohh that was horrendous. I want us to do like a search of how many commas are used in this book when we're done. Billions, so that will break my machine. I only have 4 cores to compute that that with. I don't have enough RAM in this machine. Uh, so yeah. The boxes. Cardboard wet at the bottom. A wet plastic bag sat beside it. The box had been carved open at the top. She crept up on it. Why did she creep up on why? Well, pressure was another real champion of a sentence. She crept up on it, the pressure in her chest screaming at her to not look inside. Screaming, huh? Ah, there's a head. There's a head in the box. We're having our seven moment here and it's the head of some National Guard ************. Who, oh, I guess a National Guard guy had been imprisoned in Mexico for months and she's just letting us know about this here because she finally got her head. If you're. I'm sorry, maybe drop that earlier. I don't know, like, no, he wrote this book in one sitting. He wrote it all the way through and like I did, and he got sleepy at this point if you want to do this scene. You pick any moment in any of the pages before this, and you mentioned this *******. Once you have the governor have an angry phone call with the President about how this man is in danger and he's been kidnapped and the president says we're going to take care of it, he's going to be fine. Like, they don't want to kill him. And you, you show the president is like an unreasonable and and detached from reality, and the governor is caring about this guy. You established that like, this is a major issue. And then when his head shows up in a box, it means more than nothing at all. Or nothing at all. Yeah, nothing at all. Even just a little bit. A little bit, yeah. Should be the bare minimum. Just the bare minimum. Just like go back and add a sentence. It's not. Yeah, I'm fine. It's good, yeah. Now the holes on his head that used to hold eyes stared through Ellen written on his forehead in blue ink was one word terrorista. She held back the urge to vomit. Ah, what a why? Hold that back. Sentence man. Yeah, yeah, sentence man is arrived. She turned away thinking it was a genius move. She concluded. So offensive that there would have to be some response from the Texas Government. A crime directed not at the national government that had an individual claimed by the Mexican government to be a criminal. Wow. That's was one sentence. It played directly to Davis's soft spot abandonment. He'd wanted to retaliate, he'd wanted to push across the border into Juarez, and Prescott would want no part of it. Not while he was trying to woo the President of Mexico to endorse his job creation plan, and not while he had the whole entire world unifying around him. Yeah, it might be bad to invade Mexico in a time like that. Oh my God, I just got what Ben's doing. What's he doing? So this book we have another 911. And after the actual 911, George Bush immediately invaded. Afghanistan and started agitating to invade Iraq and playing the part of Iraq and Afghanistan in this book is Mexico. Ohh yeah, I see it. Bush was right to invade a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack, and Bubba Davis is right to invade Mexico, which also had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. Yeah. Excellent. I love it. Good stuff. Yeah. So Bubba calls Ellen, and he's like, this is America, not Afghanistan. This **** can't happen at my along my border. It's America's border, Bubba. But America won't do **** to protect it. They failed. Now it's my turn. She took a deep breath, governor. She said, you do this and you could be looking at open conflict with Prescott this time. No more play acting, no more excuses. You think he's going to send his boys down here to shoot at our boys over us killing some drug dealers? I don't know, but neither do you. Everybody on Earth has called the president's bluff, said Davis. Everybody, he's capped. Your time. What would make this time different? You, she answered. He hates you. That won't make his cajones any bigger, girl, he laughed. Oh, girl. Really? Yeah. This is this is how people talk? Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing some dead criminals for a change. And the line goes dead. And then Ellen quote, Cesar, you know, and says Alia yakta stuff, which, well, I think it should be S But I'm not an expert on Latin. Which means like it's what Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon, because Ben Shapiro only knows about classical history and only the parts of classical history that are. Dramatic and stuff. Yeah, OK, the hero moments. The hero moments where the hero of history, Julius Caesar. Destroys a democracy, actually. So, yeah, I get why Ben, yeah, is on board. OK, so next we have a Soledad chapter. So that's yeah, Soledad, if you'll remember, is the only woman of color in the story and also a terrorist, but a good terrorist that been like, yeah, yeah. So she's hanging out with a bunch of her militia guys, one of whom, the black man who is there to tell her that everything that she's doing is good and make Ben not seem racist. Because look, there's a black man in the book, Ezekiel. Is hanging out with her and a bunch of guns, and one of soledad's men is like, we need to talk. Solidad nodded, the men filed out of the living room into the outdoors. Ezekiel nodded at her. You need anything, holler. I'll be outside, he said. Aiden, who's the other guy, collapsed into a broken down sofa, breathing hard, and then he leaned forward, staring at Soledad. We need to go to Detroit, he said. And in fairness, every time I've gone to Detroit, it did start with an emotional conversation. Nobody, yeah. So, uh yeah, she she laughs at this because they're supposed to be staying off grid and hiding, but Aiden's like Ricky needs my help. Ricky is the cop who shot the dead eyed black boy and I guess he's a friend of Soledad's, one of her militiamen. Yeah, uh, so Aiden informs us that those pieces of **** which I think are Black Lives Matter activists, just took over the detention center. And so yeah, he's worried. OK, so Aiden's worried that the cop who killed the dead eyed black boy is going to get murdered by the BLM activists who took over the detention center where he's being held. OK. All right. OK, that's good. That's at least relatively succinct. OK. Pretty racist, but succinct. Oh yeah. I mean, it's it's clear. I'm not confused. No, it's just it's just bad. Yeah. They sat listening to the commercials for carpet cleaner in gold, then that, which is accurate for Fox News. So I guess that's fair. Then the news came back on a newscaster speaking in somber tones, his voice cut by static interference. The protesters gathered outside the detention center chanting that they want their own trial. So it doesn't look like we're missing any words there. There's just ships in the middle of there because Ben doesn't even know how to write in static. Like the sentence is complete, it just has in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's static in the middle of it. But the sentence that we get is the protesters gathered outside the detention center chanting that they want their own trial. That's pretty. I don't know. We're not missing much there. Weird choice. Anyway, Aiden switches the radio off. He calls it an old-fashioned lynch mob because they're black people. That this all scam people are the victims of racism? Yeah. They're not going home without a head on a Pike, OK? Cool. And apparently solid ads. Like, why do you care about this guy? And he's like, we're friends. He saved my life once. So now you want to return the favor? He nodded. But this isn't just about you anymore, she said. I've got 40 guys out there who abandoned everything. They had to come out here and try to be left alone. You want me to put them in the middle of a shitstorm? The storm is coming to you. They're distracted. They'll leave us alone. For how long? Aiden grimaced. I'll bet Ricky thought they'd leave him alone, that he was doing the right thing when he shot that black boy. Oh my God, the dead eyed. Dad, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Board. Aiden then thanks Soledad for giving her a reason, something he'd been missing. A reason to fight. So that's good, that's great. Yeah, it's just a bad book. Yeah, it's bad. It's just it's bad. Yeah, it's just a bad book. OK. So she thinks she goes through a little long, dark tea, time of the soul for a paragraph or so, and then she decides to head out at nightfall to Detroit. And then they're in Detroit. They arrived in the evening, a chain of cars and motorcycles taking refuge in the abandoned Michigan central station, the old rail depot for the city. That Aiden guides them through because I guess he knows Detroit. Everything is decayed and crumbling. And yeah, they hold up in an abandoned building and make it their their their HQ. There's homeless drunks still around the place. Because yeah, that's all of all of Detroit. Yeah, that's good. So, yeah. Oh, we get a little rant about Ben Shapiro for? For years, the city had tried to rehabilitate the building. It had been bought Rebought bought again. They'd considered bonds, taxpayer subsidies, anything to get the building restored. Nobody had bothered. Detroit was a disaster area. Investing money in the city would be a massive waste. Aiden had grown up in Detroit. He'd said he knew the city well. His grandfather worked for General Motors, had a union job that was supposed to keep him employed all his life. Then foreign cars began flooding the American market and the auto Union contracts meant that. American car companies. Couldn't compete. Job started fleeing as they did. The government out of the city decided to raise taxes dramatically. And the people who still held jobs and the companies that still decided to stay in town, they left too. Mayor after mayor took office promising to bring business back, then pandered by crushing businesses that remained. The tax base disappeared. So that's how Ben Shapiro thinks Detroit wound up where it wound up. Cool. Yeah, that's it. This is like a segment from his podcast. Yeah. He also notes that white families moved out to the suburbs. Black families couldn't afford to follow the city self segregated. They self they did it the OK. It's as simple as that. Decided to oh, OK. There's nothing. A masterful understanding. It's interesting what's happening. Yeah, it's interesting what's happening here. Because he starts off by saying that, like, Detroit is hopeless and like it, it can't be fixed. And then the only plight that's worth focusing on are like these this white kid whose dad lost his job and who, yeah, like, that's that's fun. And yeah, it this continues because Aiden and Ricky meet in Detroit and they think they're the only two white kids in town, and so they become best friends. Their parents went to church together. They fought back bullies together. Ricky was the straight arrow, Aiden the budding juvenile delinquent, eager and ready to do anything to make friends. Yeah, SO2 white boys against the bad black kids of Detroit. That's Aiden and Ricky, the cop who shoots that little boy to death. That's good. That good book. Good. The good? Yeah. Good was the word I was going to use to. I was like, what's the what's the right word for this? Ben would know. Good. Good. Yeah. OK. So yeah, they they become friends. But then Aiden is a juvenile delinquent and they grow apart. One day Aiden's mother saw Ricky in church, asked him if he'd seen Aiden. Ricky lied to cover for him. Aiden, he'd said, was probably at the library. Then, hands gripped into fists, still wearing his Sunday suit, he went looking for Aiden. He found him in a run down Tract House surrounded by a couple of dropouts. High on weed and drunk off his ***. Aiden, Ricky said your mom's looking for you. She missed you at church. One of the losers laughed. Yeah, mama's boy, your mama's looking for you. Shut up, Aiden slurred to him. Yeah, well tell her I'm out here. I'm not going to do that. I'd said I'd come and get you. Aiden laughed. A high pitched whine that eventually tapered off into a snort. Well you tried, Boy Scout. Now get back home to your Mama. Ricky grabbed him by the scruff of his T-shirt. Get your *** home Aiden. Or what? Aiden sneered. Or this. Ricky punched him in the face. Aiden went down. Like a load of brick? Well So what? Or this? It's interesting because we're getting Aiden's back story here, but it's not being posted as him having a conversation with Soledad and telling her what happened. We're just reading this as if it's another like we've just to 20 years in the past is another scene without any sort of break. It's not like he's not remembering, like we're not starting this chapter on aid and him like having remembering. Been just written not. He's not describing it, he's not telling the story. It's just a series of paragraphs that describes the scene. What happened. He's such a *** **** writer I think. I seriously do not think anybody edited this book. No they did not have. It would have been like this is not how you write a book, Ben. Did he self publish it? The publishing company is it's not great. It's called it's no edit reads is the name of that. I mean it's it's one of those things where like it's like all kind of pay you if you like publish this for me. Yeah. We're all I'm going to I want to. I wanted to look into the publishing company for a long time because it is very clear that like, yeah like first, first. This is first draft ****. Can we have a moment for how good? Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. So in this quick, I'm sorry. This is such a terrible scene. It's it's horrible. And I what's funny also is that what happens here isn't even all that dramatic, because, like, Ricky punches him and then Aiden never gets high again and he becomes a fed. The ATF, right? Yeah, this is a a a low grade misrepresentation of something that was kind of similar that barely didn't maybe kind of happened to Ben or somebody he knew. I think it's just something Ben assumes happens to people who don't succeed. It's like this. Like, yeah like this is this is what. Yeah the, the, the tell. There is that within the the book because it's not Aiden telling the story, it's the author telling this story. Referring to that person as a one of the losers. That's all you need to know, yeah, yeah. Very insightful. And it's it's interesting because this is clearly what Ben thinks drug addiction is as opposed to. He's actually what he's actually described as a kid smoking weed and drinking in a house, which is not an evidence of a serious problem. Most people in this country have something like that happen when they're teens, and it's generally fine. Like, if you want to have this be like, have him get into heroin or some ****. Have *******. Ricky like, find him OD ING and turn him over and stop him from choking on his own puke. At least make it a life or death situation if this guy's going to say he's saved my life. No. He got high on weed. He got high on weed that one time and then got punched. One of the losers punched him. No, no, no. That was Ricky. His friend punched him because that's how heroes heroes make. Solve all their problems with violence. That's what makes them heroes. But Cody beta. Cut my pen once again? Yeah. OK, so that's why Aiden, the guy that we barely know, wants to save Ricky, the guy who shot that dead eyed black child. I wonder if Ben thinks it's disgusting and uncivil to punch Nazis. I bet he does. But not your pot smoking friends. Not not if it helps them become feds. Yeah. So, OK, they go through like a plan. They talk about, like, how the ******* detention centers laid out. And yeah, OK, so here's Aiden again. So here's the plan. We have to wait until the right time. We're not interested in taking out the police. They're armed and they're scared and armed and scared. Cops are just as likely to shoot us as anybody else. Bins on the verge of making a point. I mean, he's just dancing right around it, isn't he? That is why people are angry. Ben, get there. Just get there, man. Instead, we need chaos for the cover. Every riot is led by a few key characters. Ben the riot, nowhere. Everybody there may look like they're ready for war, but most of their to show their friends that they're brave. The authorities know that. So their chief task is to arrest the rabble rousers and let the rest sort of fade away. If that happens, we'll never get Officer O'Sullivan out of there. I guarantee you that whoever is leaving this thing is smart and capable. This is not amateur hour. Oh, so it's we're getting into bins like the all if it's like riots and protests are, like, nefariously organized, because people couldn't spontaneously, you know? Form up in large numbers and confront and outmaneuver the police without having, like, a leadership cast. That's right. Yeah, it's funny because an article dropped last week where like revealing like, so the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were spying on Portland protesters during the the protests and riots this summer. And we're like desperately trying to figure out who the leaders were and the exact, like, the exact, like wording in the report was something along the lines of all we wound up with was a list of who was cancelling. Go on Twitter. That. Amazing. It's very funny. That is intensely beautiful. Yeah. It's the best thing that's ever happened. I I've never been so happy reading a story all day. Thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. It it ******* ruled. Yeah, Ben knows riots. Absolutely knows him. A riot. Ben riot. Shapiro. Yeah. OK, so one of them in the back pipes up. Why don't we just grab him off the street when he's released? And Ezekiel, who's again the only black guy in this group? Guffaws. Have you seen us? We stick out like a KKK rally in Harlem? No chance they don't find us in. At least neutralize us. No, here's what we're going to do. Oh, wait. And then he doesn't tell us what he's going to do instead. Aiden, the next paragraph is so after. Ezekiel says. Here's what we're going to do, Aiden. Takes out a garbage bag and pulls uniforms from it. Then he tosses to Soledad and three of the other men who stepped forward to put them on. Now for the rest of you guys, I've got something really special. Doesn't even tell them anything, just throws out uniforms and then start putting them on. Ben is a real bad writer. I mean, everything. Everything that he has a character say is like a cliche. I'm not thinking sure of the right word, but it's like a overused phrase, like a sentence structure that's like so obvious. And overused, right? It's not like, yeah, it's not cliches, necessarily. You're right, it's we'll stand out like a KKK member in Harlem. Well, and it's also, of course, it had to be the black guy who said that because he would think of Harlem like, right. Like. And it's it's also that he says, here's the plan and then nobody explains the plan and instead another character takes out a garbage bag full of uniforms and everybody understands it. And the chapter ends with Aiden opening a duffel bag with T-shirts. And we don't know what's on the T-shirts, but everybody's jaw drops and Soledad chuckles. Well, you've got to die sometime, so I'm guessing. My guess is that something racist is on them to draw attention and create a giant fight or something so that they can sneak in and free Ricky. That'd be my guess. Kind of like kind of like the start of the third die hard movie, actually. That's an Arbor Day movie. OK. Oh, you're quicker than me, Cody. Our next chapter is a Levon chapter. I think we have to take a break. Oh yeah, yeah, I guess we should. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. You're welcome. I'm appreciative. I'm appreciative, too. And you know who's most appreciative? Your **** yes, that's wrong. The products and services that support this pod cast. Best cast. I'm so happy. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family and at Mint. Families start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at Mint Mobile. Com slash behind now a word from our sponsor better help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy, and better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help is a great. Option it's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey, and if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at anytime. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behind betterhelp.com/behind. My name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with speaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with speaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart. Alright, we're back and it's time for some ****** ******* leave on. Oh yeah, baby, who is again the black crack dealing Osama bin Laden of the story, basically. Although there's also another Osama bin Laden who's basically Osama bin Laden but named. There's a lot of bin Laden, lot of Obama's. Obama's or bin Laden's? Yeah. No, absolutely not. Ohk. OK, so when we open, he's sleeping with. Oh, wait. No, I. OK, sorry. I'll just. I'll just start this. For two days, Levon stood in the cold. He had his men bring him food and clothing. He slept on the sidewalk. Next to him slept the mother of Kendrick Malone, the little kid that Ricky killed. With them slept hundreds of others every day. Local businesses shipped out supplies for the group, eager to be seen as caring for the plight of the righteous protesters. And still, they didn't release Ricky O'Sullivan. Perhaps they thought that the crowd would dissipate. Perhaps they were waiting for federal intervention, intervention that wouldn't come. The president had already declared that this was a local matter, and the resources of the state had already been redirected to the disaster area in New York City. There would be no cavalry. And so they waited. Each day, members of the media crowded around, LEAF on to hear his words. But each day, the number of media dwindled. The attention span of the nation ran shorter and shorter these days. Well, yeah, there's just been a giant terrorist attack, and the governor of Texas is invading Mexico. So I guess people occupying a detention center. Might not be the top story in the nation at the time. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. So leave the media. The media. I don't know. Who knows? Yeah. What newspapers they have access to in there. Yeah. So leave on. Decides the time has come for action because the media is not paying attention anymore. But action required provocation. So far, the authorities have been smart. They had holed up, put nobody on the street, waited for the iron to burn itself out. You know, like we saw the cops do this year. Oh yeah, sure. They hadn't made any statements other than to praise the peacefulness of the protesters and suggest their sympathies for the protesters cause. OK, so yeah, Ben knows how the cops work. That's how they would handle an occupation of a detention center. Jesus. OK, so big Jim is offering to negotiate the yeah, negotiate the stalemate. He said that Levon could become a player by accepting the verdict, demanding change from the feds, and being granted an informal say in the appointment of officials, up to and including police officers. He said that. Evan should just let O'Sullivan go show that he was the bigger man. Already, Big Jim had gone on national television urging the president to send more federal officials to talk about the future. The nation's eyes have been riveted on the Detroit. But with the big gyms and premature of legitimacy, the Detroit federal solution was gradually drawing the steam out of the kettle. Lala. OK, just just just boring ****. And then they arrived like a blessing from the skies they came. There weren't many of them, but they were enough white men riding motorcycles, planting themselves in the midst of the newly minted tent city. And they wore T-shirts fight the thugs that. OK, so he's got right wing vigilantes showing up to a BLM protest. Ben did predict one nailing it. Yeah. That that got the media's attention, but oddly enough, few of the men wanted to talk to the media. That parts not accurate. One in particular bowed his head. Anytime the cameras came near. Levon denounced them for the cameras. Who are these white supremacists coming into a city? White racism is ruined. And accusing us of racism for standing up for human rights but secretly thanked God for bringing them. It kept the fight alive, at least for another day. OK, so we come to big Jim Croff. Oh, we switch viewpoint characters. So we've got big Jim, and he's penning an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. And hanging out in his house and stuff. Do the next step at Detroit, Big Jim knew, would be to give Levon an option for withdrawal. With some Grace he'd already pressed leave on, and he knew Levon was waiting, hoping for something big to happen, but that seemed unlikely with the nation's attention riveted elsewhere. Big Jim climbs out of the shower. God, this is yes, this is just a random interlude with Big Jim. What's going on here? Wait a second. Suddenly, he felt out of breath. He plunged forward, grabbing the sink with both hands. But he could feel the strength of those hands weakening. He tried to push his fingertips into the marble they wouldn't give, for some reason, a desperate need to hold himself up. Rushed. For him. And as he felt his bulk dragging towards the cool floor, away from the fog, that mirror, he had the odd thought that the floor was red. Then he realized it was red and slippery with his blood. He lost his grip. His face hit the oozing puddle hard. He never saw the man who fired the second round into his head. Oh, so he's get he gets shot to death. **** I'm guessing that was Levon. Yeah, that seems right. So yeah, now we're back to leave on after killing Big Jim and he's looking at the T-shirt gang, so I guess that's the shirts. That said, they said fight the thugs because Ben. Ben wasn't even courageous enough to make the shirt. It's really racist. As like a direct provocation. Again, like the die hard thing. OK, got it. Yeah, yeah. Fight the first. You gotta fight though, yeah. Delicate, delicate dance. Yeah, hero. So we wind up with a big belly. Ohh, Jesus Christ. OK. There were eight of them all told. Four had their hobby planted in the corners of the street, ready to move off at the first sign of trouble. Three of the other four planted themselves near the front of the crowd near the steps to the detention center. The lone remaining man, a white, bearded, big bellied bear in his mid 60s, stood near the center of the crowd. Yeah, I think so. Like, like a furry. Of young protesters screamed obscenities at him. He stood his ground placidly, a buzz built at the back of the crowd. More white men, all wearing the same shirts, pulled up on motorcycles, saying nothing. The crowd of protesters moved on them, expecting a confrontation. That's when Levon's phone rang and he gets the news that Big Jim is dead and he screams out they killed Big Jim to the cameras. Yeah, they killed big Jim. Tear it all down, tear down this corrupt system, and I guess everybody starts to go ******* nuts. That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's riot. Let's do it. And riot Shapiro. Yep, Yep, Yep. Teenager with a tire iron grabs the white dude's beard and pulls him to the ground from his beard, and then beats him with a tire iron in the belly and a bunch of other guys try to break into the detention center screaming. Give us O'Sullivan. Give us the child murderer. Sounds like Ben cut off the beginning of that video. Yeah, sounds like he did. Sounds like this is the Andy new version that we're reading. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, but the right wing guys were just standing there placidly like they always do. Yeah, yeah. Placid, Placid, Placid, Placid Bear of a man in the Placid bear of a man who, if this were reality, would have had like bear Mace canisters in both hands. Do you think Ben is the writer that uses the thesaurus search on on Google is just like, what's an word for calm? Yeah, that sounds good. Later. Behind Levon, the street exploded into cams, alright. The writer M-A man who writes things, Writing is what I do. He wrote. He wrote, writing late behind Levon, the street exploded into chaos, protesters and rioters merging into one throng. That's a weird way to say that the bearded white bear had disappeared into the center of the crowd, his body trampled, kicked, stomped, spit on. Hundreds of people gathered in a circle to watch, to participate. At the outskirts of the riot, motorcycles Rev, their engine fending off rocks. Bottles. One pulls out a handgun and fires it into the air, scattering the crowd near him, but drawing a few slot of debris from all quarters. Yadda yadda yadda. Levon gets handed a crowbar and he starts beating the windows of the detention center, and he breaks in, but the rubes empty, and he has a bunch of his men come in and they're all trying to find O'Sullivan. Oh, and now we have another viewpoint switch. The detention officer unlock the cell holding Ricky O'Sullivan, and it creaked back on its hinges. O'Sullivan backed up quickly into the corner, his bulk filling it. You leave me alone, he said to the masked woman in a police uniform. She wore a bandana over her face, and her gun was pointed at the head of the detention officer. Follow me, Soledad said. OK, so they're just in the it's soledad's gotten in there. We don't need to hear. They just. It just happened. It just happened. So then the guys there? Yeah. She also threatens to murder Ricky if he doesn't come with her, which is odd for a rescue. Yeah, and then she tells him that the crowd wants to hurt him after threatening to kill him. OK. Oh, wait, no, she's she's saying that the crowd will kill you if you don't come with me. OK, I guess that makes more questions. You been just wrote it badly. Thing yeah, yeah. So she and Ricky take off. Uh, and they get out just ahead of the rioters. So we have a viewpoint switch to Soledad and Ricky in the middle of Levon's chapter. Oh, and then we're back to Aiden. So we have another viewpoint. Switch to Aiden and leave on in the present or the past. Is this a memory of it? The president? I think we're hearing about his past. All right? Yeah. Aiden's waiting for them in a garage with a SWAT van. We don't seem to know how he got the swat van. Don't need to. Soledad painted on the barrier to the advanced drivers compartment. Go. She screamed. Go. Let's get the hell out of here. Not without a zekiel, Aiden replied. What? He's not here? He'll be here any moment now. Two of Levon's men had reached the van. One began slamming on Aiden's window while the other tried to pry open the back of the van. Hold on, Aiden shouted, throwing the van into reverse. The man at the back of the van screeched as his head banged against the iron of the door. Soledad felt sick to her stomach at the bump as the wheels hit him, but Aiden kept backing up until there were just a few inches of room between the rear doors and the elevator next to the stairwell. Ezekiel's coming, Aiden said. Any second. Now the man at the drivers table. OK, so the guy pounding on the window cracks it. Aiden pulls out a 22 caliber handgun, rolls down the window slightly, and fired. The bullet hit the man in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground, which. That's like the smallest possible handgun. Generally like that 22 is like the smallest of the bullets, you know? Which is not to say that it can't kill people, but it's interesting that this bullet knocks a man to the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A presumably a large thug. Another bear of a man. We have, we have. We have to, we have to assume. We have to assume. OK, so the elevator doors open after this and Ezekiel's there sitting on the floor, his mouth open, breaking hard. Blood ran down the side of his police uniform. Soledad. Ripped out of the back doors, grabbed him by the arm. Stay with me, Ezekiel. We're almost out, almost free. He grunted through another arm over her shoulder. O'Sullivan grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him into the van. So yeah, they confront he has to gun the engine and drive through people with handguns who are threatening him. Shots are fired, but they don't hit anybody. Add yadda, yadda, yadda yadda. OK, let's get through this. Boring action is boring. Yeah, it's really boring action. OK, yeah, they get out. They escape. Great. And now we're back to Levon. Oh, we do finally get back to Levon. So he's hears about O'sullivan's escape the street fights are have died down that we were being told the police had fled the detention center. There's bodies in the street, bleeding. It looked like a war zone. He turned the face, the reporter, the camera directly in his face. She'd asked him a question before he found out O'Sullivan was gone. He'd completely forgotten it. What did you ask? He murmured. What comes next? She asked. The mayor is vowing to keep order. Levon looked out over his burning city, his burning city. We don't need the mayor to keep order. He's just as corrupt as the rest. We're in a war now. You saw them out there on their motorcycles with their racist T-shirts. White supremacists killed Reverend Jim Crawford tonight. No, pretty words are going to bring him back. So here's what America needs to know. Detroit is now in our hands. We will have justice, and it starts with the mayor. But that's not where it ends. We want to work with the police officers who will serve justice. If they weren't, we'll have our own forces of justice. Brothers will not burn down brothers businesses. There will be no looting, no violence. That's not what big Jim would have wanted. We're going to build something new in this city, something better on these ashes, wherever Ricky O'Sullivan is, we'll bring him back to justice, too. This is the beginning of a new era. The blood you see here tonight, that will be repaid in freedom. So tonight I call for the people of my city to join me. It's time to rise up and claim our freedom in the distance. The Sun began to rise, so I guess we went through a whole night already. Some began to rise. Yeah, OK, we're in the end of Part 3, the end of the now into Part 2. Now we're in Part 3, the end of the beginning. The name of that section titled Christmas. Yeah, I think this is a Brett Hawthorne chapter. OK, OK, we'll go a little further. We gotta we gotta talk to Brett. OK. The beginning, yeah, so starts with Brett getting a phone call from his friend Hassan, who's again his Muslim friend who he went to school with, who worked for the FBI to inform on other Muslims, but then stopped working with the FBI when white Obama decided that Muslim terrorists were fine just to catch everybody else but Obama. OK, so. Yeah, Hasan calls him and is worried and tells him to get over quickly. Clearly something is bad has happened, so Brett picks up his service weapon and slid it in the small of his back because all professional gun users know that holsters are not worth using for. Please, Robert, you gotta be right in the back of your pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Closing the door to the hotel room, he glanced down the hall stealthily. What? **** you, Robert. You know, you glance stealthily all the time. Cody. I'm mad at you now. I don't know why nobody who wasn't drunk or having an affair would be coming down the hall at 2:00 AM, he figured. But better to be paranoid than Blyth. Sure enough, a buzzcut man in a black suit waited at the elevator. Federal thought Brett. There was only one reason for him to be waiting. The president wanted to see General Brett Hawthorne, and there was only one reason the President would want to see General Brett Hawthorne to stop his investigation. I like the federal. Uh, yeah. So I guess they they had both met at some point previously that I don't think we saw. Yeah. And Brett doesn't want to have another meeting with the president. Of course not. OK, of course not. That means he's trying to stop his yeah, investigation. And the last thing work Prescott wanted, Brett figured, was bad publicity right after a terror attack. Islamophobia in the top ranks. That's how the headlines in the nation would read and Prescott read the nation. The man in the black suit locked eyes with Brett began walking towards him. After years of writing the bureaucratic bull, Brett had one key rule. Better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. Which is why he was relieved to see a door at the stairs on the other end of the hallway. And fortunately. He was on the 2nd floor, so he turns back and he takes the stairs, half of the flight at a time, his knees throbbing behind him. He hears the door slam open and the man's voice, he's running. We'll grab him in the lobby. Brett had no such intention, so we don't know why these guys are chasing him, really. But yeah, Brett knows how to run. He's great at running, and he gets on to the street without the feds catching him. Yeah, so he makes his way to where Hassan lives, which is a neighborhood nobody wants to walk at at night. God, yeah. Well, he's black. Of course he lives in a bad neighborhood. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. He lives in an old building refurbished with cheap appliances and cheaper flooring. So that's great. They sell they self segregated, Robert. That's Ben's favorite kind of segregation. Oh God. OK, so Hassan gives him a thumb drive and shows it to Brett. And I assume it opened quickly. Hassan slided. A thumb drive loaded onto his laptop, set the machine on the coffee table for Brett. Do you know this man? And then a video file popped up. It showed a young slim Muslim man wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt, yadda yadda. Do you recognize him? Brett does. It's Mohammed. And he asks yeah, Hassan, how he found it. Oh, OK. I guess Hassan has backdoor access to most of the security cameras in New York mosques. What? What? Yeah, that's how we got this picture. Here's a development. Yeah. No, it took him years. That's all he says. But he's got it. He has all the security camera footage. Yeah, the footage is 4 days old. It's too. Oh, God. It was taken four days ago. Hassan anticipated Brett disappointment. I know. Too long. But finding a man named Mohammed in a mosque in New York is like finding a Jew named Goldstein in a synagogue here. Yeah, there it is. Uh, yeah. So the guy that Mohammed's talking to was under FBI surveillance? Uh, we talk about this new terrorist who's been introduced for a little while, and I don't care. Yeah, apparently this other terrorist has given opening praise that the New York Stock Exchange, so that's great. Because prominent Muslims are all tied to terrorism. I forgot about that. Yeah, sorry, I forgot. So Brett travels to the House of this imam who's been hanging out with the terrorist. Uh. The Imam actually lived on a rural compound off the road in the dark. Brett missed the turnoff twice. The gravel clanked off the underside of the cheap Toyota Hassan had borrowed from a friend. The woods showed black against the early glimmers of rising sun. Blah blah blah blah. So it's daytime. There's prayers going on. He shows up at the Imams House and is told that the office doesn't open until 9:00 AM. He says tell him the teacher sent me the mention of a shami's nickname who I guess is the terrorist mastermind that we heard about earlier. OK, so obviously they don't respond to a random white dude who's clearly military walking up and saying that he was sent by a terrorist. They say racial nobody by that name. Yeah, but the imams like, that's all right. I know this man. And he shows up and he invites Brett in. Anjam Omari Hassan had told Brett before Brett left for Jersey, was no one to be trifled with. Had been rumored to have deep connections to various Middle East based charities with their own connections to major terror groups. He fronted for a variety of Islamic human rights organizations dedicated to fighting Islamophobia. And it was in that guise that he'd become a go to face for Prescott. Oh OK, so this guy is fighting Islamophobia and obviously all organizations that are fighting Islamophobia are fronts for terrorists. That's that's what Ben writes here. The only reason? Gotcha. Conclusion, yeah, for Ben to make OK. That is wild. Oh, and this is also this is fun. The very next sentence states that the press got tenure had seen several small lone wolf attacks. Each time, Prescott had cited omarius evidence that the moderate Muslim community was alive and well in the United States. It's fun to note that 71% of the way in the book is the first time we learned that the US has been beset by Lone Wolf Islamic terrorist attacks during this president's administration. Getting news. This is part three. Yeah, part three. We are more than 2/3 of the way through the book. We're almost 3/4 of the way through the book. Be good to know this. Context. But yeah, he's so this guy's a well established media personality. He's a moderate Muslim, but he also criticizes Israel, which should be another hint that he's secretly a terrorist. Yeah. So, uh, so said the imam. What can I do for you, General Hawthorne, I'm so glad you made it back to us in one piece. Allah must have protected you from harm. Indeed, he must have said. Brett, I come here seeking your advice and help and let yet you mentioned the teacher. Why would you think I know such a monster? No reason, Brett said carefully. But I am looking for a man and I think that given your prominence, he might approach you. I'm approached by many Muslims. I am blessed by Allah in having a wide following and a grand platform. How would I know the man you seek? His name is Mohammed, Brett explains. What is this conversation? Yeah, just I'm astounded by this man's writing everybody else's religions and racial experiences, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, it's it's great. So the imam says he doesn't know this 17 year old named Mohammed. OK, and Brett doesn't believe him. Are you implying that I'm lying to you? No, said Brett. I'm flat out telling you that you're lying. I know you know such a man. So either you can continue spouting this line of ******** and I can have you detained in question, or you can tell me the truth. Omari laughed out loud. No, I don't think you have that sort of pull, general. You may be a hot shot with a particular segment of the population, but as you say, I am somewhat well connected. Gentlemen, please come in. The door behind Brett opened and came the federal agent from the hotel, his face impassive. Another black suit clad fed, stood next to him. Brett pushed himself to his feet. Imam, I believe we'll be talking again. Omari stood as well, looked Brett in the eye. No, I don't believe we will. So that's there we go. Yeah, OK. So the feds, the feds and this guy who's a anti Islamophobia Muslim terrorists are all in bed together because the president likes this terrorist because he's a moderate Muslim and I yeah, there you go then. Shapiro, Shin depiro. All right, well, I think that's going to do us for for for this week's episode. Yeah. Yeah. 72% of the way in our next chapter is another Prescott chapter, 10%. Yeah, we got 10% more through it. It's dense. It's a dense one. You know, you got to. It's all those commas. Up a lot of space. I am excited because, yeah, this next chapter starts with Brett Hawthorne and the president having a conversation. Oh boy, I think this is going to be a good one. Yeah, I think this is going to be a real good one. You think we have left 1/2? Uh, Jesus, probably, probably 3 or 4, right? OK, we've got one SEC 123456. 7-8 more chapters, including, uh, well, we have actually, I guess six more named chapters and then the end of the beginning and epilogue. And we haven't about the author. You know what? I might sneak ahead to that right now. Robert you spoilers, what? Yeah, well, there's about the author. I wanna, I wanna know. Oh, boy. Howdy. So it starts with, like, you know, he's an editor at large at Breitbart News, the editor of Daily Wire. It lists some of the political books he wrote. Shapiro was also a nationally syndicated columnist since age 17, a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, and the host of the Morning Answer on KRLA 870 in Los Angeles and KT, IE on 590 in Orange County. Rush Limbaugh says Shapiro isn't just content to have people be dazzled by his brilliance. He actually goes out and confronts and tries to persuade, mobilize, motivate people. Glenn Beck calls Shapiro a warrior for conservatism against those who use fear and intimidation to stifle honest debate. I've never known him to back down from a fight. Sarah Palin says that he's wrong. Yeah, especially when he's wrong. Healing out of it, he got a Palin. Yeah, she says that Americans should consider Ben's advice about how we must stand up and push back twice as hard against this bullying. Sean Hannity says to join Ben Shapiro and fight back against liberal bullying. Michelle Malkin says Shapiro is infused with the indomitable spirit of his friend and mentor Andrew Breitbart, even the Liberal Washington Post in the aftermath of Shapiro's devastating destruction of Piers Morgan on national television. Devastating distraction writing this Oh my God, this is a sentence been absolutely wrote. Even the Liberal Washington Post, in the aftermath of Shapiro's devastating destruction of Pierce Morgan on national television, conceded that Shapiro is a faux of extraordinary polemical ability. Got his little fingers all over it? Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Well, this was a fun way to rogues gallery of endorsements he's got there. He brutally. Destroyed Pierce Morgan. The Liberal Washington Post. I will say this. If he had literally destroyed Pierce Morgan, I would be more positive towards Ben Shapiro. Absolutely. Because he found his phylactery. Yeah, he's referring to a debate he had with Piers Morgan about guns. And that conversation is the entire basis throughout his other book. At 10 or 11, I forget ways to beat the left. It's like this is destruction of the left book. How did he get the leftist he used for his example of a leftist through the entire book is Piers Morgan. Yeah. Awesome, famous leftist. Yeah, he knows he understands politics. Well, yeah. I mean, Pierce Morgan is definitely like, I, I would say the most prominent Maoist in the country right now, you know? Yeah. Very famous left wing voice. Pierce. Morgan. More than Piers Morgan, good friend of the current president and leftist Piers Morgan. The only thing to say is, hey babes, want to plug your plegables beb? Yeah, because I'd take a bullet for you. Yeah, this is Roberts job. It's not our show. It's his show. No, I want your plugable. Just follow us. We have a Katie. You go, you go. No, you got shows. We've got a show called some more news on YouTube. Check us out on patreon.com/somemore News, our podcast called even more news. We also Co host another podcast called the worst year ever and I'm a doctor. Mr Cody on Twitter. Katie is Katie stole. Grab your things, yeah? Blah blah blah. Ben Shapiro, pirro. Yeah. You can find me nowhere at all. I've never heard of the Internet. I'm actually alone in a forest shrieking this. I'm just channeling Ben Shapiro's words, and I I don't know who I'm talking to right now, so definitely calling them beb. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I take a bullet for him. God, I can't even say that without like. Starting to Wretch a little bit. I'd get eaten by ants for you, babe. Yeah? I'd lay down in front of a combine for you, babe, and get churned up into mulch. Babe, do you love me? Yeah, sure, why not? See you. Yeah. Yeah, that's the episode. That's the show. That's the episode. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. So four whole months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear into the vegetation. Using wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts, sisters of the Underground is a podcast about fearless Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Kapal Trujillo. He needs to be stopped, weeping, silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez, and as a Dominicana myself, I am proud to be narrating this true story that is often left out of the history books to read. Your has blood on his hands. Listen to sisters of the underground wherever you get your podcasts.