Idiots Seeking Village

The War on Christmas Caracas

Adam and Rich dive into the latest series of events in the escalating Venezuela situation; SecDef Hegseth's "double tap" on boat strike survivors, Trump's failed offramp for Maduro turns into an airspace closure, and the pardoning of convicted drug trafficker, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, while accusing Maduro of the same.

And when one door closes another opens. We analyze the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan, written by and for US billionaires and Russian Oligarchs to their exclusive benefit, and how it plays into Putin's goals to undermine NATO.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Just a quick one to brush up on current events before grabbing a slice of your MAGA Auntie's Ivermectin Pie.

[03:05] Sauced: Weed Sales Spike on Thanksgiving Eve

[06:00] Talk: MTG Flies the Congressional Coop

[13:14] Foul Play: Trump Threatens to Carve Up Congress

[18:12] Leavitt on Simmer: The Press Secretary's Role

[20:43] Basting in Glory: Blood For Oil In Venezuela

[27:35] Butterball Diplomacy: When Donny Met Mamdani

Rich and Adam discuss the political theater surrounding the Epstein Files release, from Mike Johnson's increasingly desperate attempts to block the vote to Trump's panic mode flip-flops, and apparently never understanding his own Q-Anon-fueled base actually expected him to burn the system down.

Once they turn their attention to the files themselves, they come to one conclusion. The Epstein Files aren't about sex crimes: they're about power, money, and a system built to protect the wealthy and well connected while pretending to seek justice. Yes, Epstein was a pedophile and sex trafficker. But more than that he...

"If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?"

Rich and Adam continue to tackle the fundamental flaw in America's modern protest movements: we're great at being AGAINST things, but what are we actually FOR? Everyone loves to cosplay as a revolutionary, but few are able to translate economic grievances into actionable political demands.

We explore the timeline of events along with dispatches from participants on the ground in Hong Kong and Poland to understand what took massive crowds with genuine grievances to results, or lack thereof.

In Part One we tackle...

Rich and Adam go head-to-head over whether Democrats just committed political suicide or played 4D chess in the government shutdown negotiations. Their fundamental disagreement: Did Democrats save 40 million SNAP recipients while buying time, or did they hand Republicans total victory for nothing but empty promises?

[00:45] Debating the Government Shutdown

[04:02] Reagan's Shutdowns: Parties Over Politics

[06:15] Media and Political Satire in the 90s

[09:59] The 1995 Shutdown and Cultural Milestones

[14:36] Modern Shutdowns and Political Strategy

[31:56] Healthcare and Political Strategy

[32:48] Republican and Democrat Dynamics

[36:22] Progressive Movements and Establishment...

"If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?"

Rich and Adam continue to tackle the fundamental flaw in America's modern protest movements: we're great at being AGAINST things, but what are we actually FOR? Everyone loves to cosplay as a revolutionary, but few are able to translate economic grievances into actionable political demands.

We explore the timeline of events along with dispatches from participants on the ground in Hong Kong and Poland to understand what took massive crowds with genuine grievances to results, or lack thereof.

In Part One we tackle...

Are protests just performative rage or the first step toward real change? Rich and Adam dive into America's escalating protest movement as demonstrations in 2025 triple compared to Trump's first term. From the "No Kings" protests spreading into Trump country to the fundamental question of what these movements are actually trying to accomplish, we explore what it takes to transform visibility into meaningful action.

In this episode:

Alligator Alcatraz, Florida; Fort Bliss, Texas; Speedway Slammer, Indiana; Cornhusker Clink, Nebraska; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. From the Trail of Tears to ICE Camps this is the story of how America developed the largest civil concentration camp system in the world, and is now expanding the migrant detention system at a pace unseen since the second world war.

In part two Rich and Adam expose how every administration since 1980 transformed immigration from an administrative process to militarized mass incarceration. Starting with Reagan's reversal on 30 years of bonded release, to Clinton's mandatory detention laws, to Obama's family separation facilities...

Alligator Alcatraz, Florida; Fort Bliss, Texas; Speedway Slammer, Indiana; Cornhusker Clink, Nebraska; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. From the Trail of Tears to ICE Camps this is the story of how America developed the largest civil concentration camp system in the world, and is now expanding the migrant detention system at a pace unseen since the second world war.

In part one Rich and Adam trace the forgotten origins of concentration camps from the Trail of Tears and Civil War detention to Spanish colonial camps in Cuba, British camps in South Africa, and America's brutal Philippine occupation. They expose...

Veni, Vidi, Vuvuzela..? The US has launched multiple military volleys at Venezuela. Hegseth and Trump claim it's about narco-terrorism, but Venezuela barely produces drugs. Rich and Adam expose the real agenda: seizing oil reserves larger than Saudi Arabia's and forcing Russia and China out of America's backyard as part of Trump's neo-imperialist Monroe Doctrine revival. They trace America's 150-year addiction crisis from Civil War morphine to fentanyl, revealing how the "War on Drugs" has always been cover for political repression and resource extraction.

[00:00] Podcast Introduction and Banter

[04:26] Trump's Venezuela Ambitions and America's Drug Culture

We break down Trump's new National Security Directive that goes beyond the Executive Order that designates Antifa as a terrorist organization and gives the FBI, IRS and Treasury sweeping powers to investigate anyone even vaguely connected to "anti-fascist" activities - mirroring the FBI's COINTELPRO and CIA's Project CHAOS programs that once illegally spied on MLK and civil rights activists, anti-war protesters, and the "New Left".

Rich and Adam say WTF to Stephen Miller’s plagiarized Nazi speech in Arizona, break down the "unitary executive" theory and Silicon Valley's "Dark Enlightenment" philosophy, and how martyrs, manufactured crises, and constitutional loopholes led to the seizure of power after the Reichstag Fire and how that might play out here and now.

Rich and Adam dive into some of the most spectacularly unhinged nuclear powered ideas - from the Air Force's 1958 proposal to nuke the moon for a PR stunt, to the Davy Crockett, the Army's portable nuclear bazooka that would cook their own crews, to the variety of proposals to use atomic bombs as construction equipment, engines, and as hurricane defense.

Are we already living through a Cold Civil War? We examine the current and historical parallels of scattered political violence, institutional breakdown, and cultural polarization tearing America apart. Then we take a look at Italy's "Years of Lead" to better understand what might happen in America and whether democracy can survive when compromise becomes betrayal.

Rich and Adam explore the psychology of fascism through Dorothy Thompson's 1941 essay "Who Goes Nazi" and the shocking 1967 Third Wave experiment where a high school teacher accidentally created a fascist movement in just five days. They discuss how ordinary people get drawn into authoritarian movements and what this means for America today.

Rich and Adam discuss how President Trump is deploying National Guard troops in DC, explore how this fits a years-long pattern of militarizing domestic law enforcement, and break down the legal mechanisms being used to bypass traditional restrictions on Posse Comitatus and why this should concern everyone.

Rich and Adam explore the Texas redistricting fight and dive into the history of redistricting, representation and gerrymandering in the US.

Do you ever wonder what you would have done during some unprecedented world event? You’re doing it right now.

Join Rich and Adam as they try to make sense of the senseless in a world with no instructions.

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