“480 Minutes” - Bailing Out Billionaire = Corruption

Oct 24

Once again: all apologies for any difficulties you had accessing the BAGeL Radio stream this week. You were not alone as a big outage at AWS caused systems & smart beds & all kinds cloud-computing-reliant devices to fail. We are still dealing with the residual effects.

Estimates for attendance at the multiple No Kings rallies in NYC last week ranged from 100k to 350k. Hundreds of people showed up in my tiny little corner of the city for a No Kings in Queens rally, which featured as many inflated unicorns (2) as counter-protesters. One thing I have not heard disputed is the number of arrests reported — zero. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets & no mayhem. How can that be?! Based on this undisputed reality (& the fact that I live here & can attest to its veracity) it is safe to say that NYC isn’t the “violent crime hellhole” Trump & His Pathetic Parrots claim. Obviously the military need not to be sent in under cover of the Insurrection Act as there is nothing resembling an insurrection here. Maybe T & his PP claims about Portland & Memphis & LA & Chicago & Washington D.C. are similarly untrue which would explain why elected leaders are suing to stop and/or expel the authoritarian power-grab deployments of troops to their cities & states.

Trump supporters — I ask that you consider this one fact & hold it up against what you’ve been told about the unconstitutional unnecessary & un-American use of the military against U.S. cities & citizens therein. Then consider the possible reasons for building ICE into Trump’s own police force accountable only to him. American citizens & non-citizens alike are being disappeared off the streets. No charges, no due process of law, no rule of law. The size & power & unaccountability of ICE today is already out of control, to say nothing of what it will look like a year from now after the billions diverted to it have empowered tens of thousands of white supremacists, untrained in law enforcement, to police our streets as they see fit. Military & paramilitary raids against “undesireables” will seem commonplace even as they smother what’s left of our representative democracy. ICE on steroids is not about immigration, it’s about the violent repression of free speech & the enforcement of [whatever ideology Trump decides on that day] on the (former) “land of the free.”

For a glimpse of what happens when democracy is usurped by authoriarianism, check out what happened in Argentina. The Trump Administration is currently bailing out Argentina to the tune of $20B (that number nay be up to $40B now & involve U.S. banks with U.S. gov’t guarantees…it’s hard to say as the Administration still hasn’t bothered justifying the first $20B it has stolen from the U.S. Treasury) to rescue Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s hedge fund billionaire buddy & former colleague Rob Citrone who unwisely bet on/invested heavily in the faltering Argentine economy.

Following that gross overt corruption I’d like to the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a fine organization which has been defending privacy & protecting speech for 35 years making them worthy of your attention & support (& I say that not just b/c one of our long-time listeners works there!). Check out their new anti-surviellance initiative at https://takebackctrl.org/.

Today’s show will feature new 🎵 by Nation of Language (Brooklyn, NY, @NationofLanguage), Packaging (Seattle, WA, @PackagingMusic), Peel Dream Magazine (Los Angeles, CA, @PeelDreamMagazine), & Upchuck (Atlanta, GA, @_upchuck_).

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