On November 21, 1999, Elián's mother, her partner, and Elián fled Cuba by boat as part of a group of refugees attempting to reach the United States. The boat sank during the journey, and Elián's mother, along with most of the passengers, drowned. Elián was found floating on an inner tube and rescued by two fishermen, who turned him over to the U.S. Coast Guard. Elián was taken to a hospital and treated for dehydration and minor cuts. In addition to Elián, a young couple survived and reached shore separately.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) granted Elián temporary permission to stay in the U.S. and placed him with his great-uncle, Lázaro González, in Miami. His great-uncle wanted Elián to remain in the country, while his father, Juan Miguel González, sought his return to Cuba. This led to a high-profile and protracted custody battle involving his father, his Miami relatives, and U.S. and Cuban officials. Elián was returned to his father's custody after an INS raid on his Miami relatives' home on April 22, 2000. They returned to Cuba when the legal dispute concluded on June 28, 2000.

"Inner Tube Child Saved By Fiahermen, Apprehended At Gun Point"

I just recently heard a 'liberal' describe the south as just 'an infected wound that needs to be amputated.' Which kinda sucks for us leftists in the south who are basically left to fend for ourselves against hordes of republican chuds. and thats just one example. I understand it to some degree- the south is deeply in the hands of the republicans and from the perspective of a northern liberal it must seem like the south is holding everyone else back. But this ignores that the real 'problem' is the rich elites who extend their control over the south and its culture through their immense wealth. We have the same enemy!

edit- Okay, Im gonna try to save us all some time because I keep getting asked the same questions. Point 1: No, I cant just move. There are complicated and reasonable reasons I cant. Point 2: Yes, I understand that the conservatives are worse and say meaner things. Your very smart. No, I wasnt trying to say that liberals are worse than conservatives. and finally no, it doesnt justify you to say whatever you want. Of course you are free to say whatever you want, Im just gonna judge you for it. lol.

I just read this article about how internet sleuths, who often identify people using worse images, are doing jack dick to help identify the UHC CEO killer. It's something I didn't think about since I don't have TikTok and didn't realize there was such a strong community

She found out I hate him and decided to sent it to me a few years ago for my birthdays and told me she had dinner with him twice in the 90s and I quote said “he new how to treat a women”

And for my birthday last year she sent me a authentic Chinese culture revolution arm band when she heard I was a leftist

I know this isn’t very relevant to the podcast, but listening helped me shape my political views and how I now view my marriage. I wanted to get this off my chest, and I feel safe opening up here about it.

My husband has always loved history, and had a tendency to lean right, but not so much so that it bothered me. Some things he would talk about I refrained from having strong opinions on because I didn’t take the time to educate myself enough to be confident in my own opinion. Him believing in conspiracies rubbed off on me, and made me too skeptical to believe in anything. I’ve tried to educate him now that I’m more informed, but I’ve realized he’s not being logical in his beliefs. Surprisingly he isn’t a huge Trumper, but he has very problematic opinions.

Recently he got very upset about the protesters in D.C. that vandalized the liberty bell replica and other monuments. He told me he’s going to support Israel just because of “how the left has been acting.” I told him the spray paint is nothing compared to the human lives being taken in Palestine. He then tried to say the US shouldn’t be involved in foreign affairs anyways. I told him it is our business, since our tax dollars have been funding Israel for a long time.

He genuinely believes democrats have a secret plan to allow abortions full term and want to kill babies.

When I showed him a dumb meme I saw on Twitter (a picture of Putin, AOC, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary with the caption “you can only save one”) he said he would pick Putin. I asked why. He said, “Putin is the only one who isn’t a threat to American’s liberty.”

He almost lost his job when they wanted everyone to wear masks again and he threw a fit. (This was a couple years ago or so.)

His Christian friend made nasty comments when I shared a post on Facebook along the lines of religion shouldn’t be used to justify creating a law, since our government shouldn’t be religiously biased. When I told my husband, he was mad at me for arguing with his friend in the comments, even though his friend resorted to personal insults at me (like calling me fat) while I did not.

He thinks the Satanic Temple is out to corrupt children (After School Satan Club) and that they genuinely believe in Satan. (He’s not even religious.) I tried to explain what the Satanic Temple actually is. He watched a video on YouTube about satanists that weren’t even related to The Satanic Temple and that was enough “research” to solidify his beliefs.

There’s more, but this is already very long. He seemed to have reasonable views on politics when I met him. It’s heartbreaking to watch this brain-rot affect someone in person. I’ve honestly lost my respect and attraction to him.

In the post mortum of the election, one thing that's sticking in my head is the fact that despite what anyone might claim, Trump's campaign was not expecting to win this election.

The lead up to the election was a deluge of voter fraud claims, gearing up to file lawsuits all over the country, and freaking out over the number of women early voting.

The left didn't show up to vote and we lost big with historically democratic leaning demographics, but it was just as much a surprise to them as it was to us.

I think for me personally a John Oliver or Ken Jennings would be a good pull. Curious to see what other “celebs” would be a good fit for bastards

If anyone can answer this question, it’s the listeners of this pod…so who is #3?

Edit 2: I've changed my view on this.

Edit: please read the post. The whole point of it is that there will be collateral damage and it won't just be Trump supporters who will be affected.

I've been seeing this shit a lot especially on posts about how Latino Trump voters might be affected by the plan for mass deportations and "turbo charging" the denaturalization program as Stephen Miller put it on Twitter recently.

This is not funny and believe me, if any of the policies Trump's team is saying they'll pass get pushed through, it's not going to be just Trump voters who get affected. There absolutely will be many many victims who didn't vote Republican and are not conservative. There will be victims who were not able to vote due to being minors or due to being non-citizens.

What I remember about 2017 is that, despite all the awful things happening, people all over the country protested, voiced how adamantly they were against these actions, and voiced their support of the victims. It kills me that this time around people might be cheering the policies on if they think Trump supporters might be victimized by them.

I do need to mention that the posts and comments about mass deportation and denaturalization affect me a lot partially because I'm a naturalized citizen myself. The thought of being denaturalized and sent back to my birth country (Russia) is terrifying.

Edit: I’m the worst. It was 2020 obviously. But all else applies lol. Sorry!

Not here to say she is perfect by any means!

But I was inspired to do a little bit of digging about Kamala Harris after seeing some info about her that we were all misled about in 2020 when she ran for president.

If any of the following is in fact false, please let me know and I will edit this post. If anyone would like me to add anything to this, also let me know.

And sorry for possible weird formatting. I’m on mobile, if this gains traction or I end up adding more maybe I’ll fix it.

Most notably the claim that she jailed a ton of people for weed.

While it is true, under her term as DA, weed related convictions increased, most of those folks did not serve any jail time.

(https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-record-marijuana-prosecutor-173249390.html)

She also created the San Francisco Reentry Division (or Back on Track? Seems to be the same program under 2 separate names.) This program helps non violent drug offenders get back on track with their lives through a pretty intense program. During her time as DA, those who completed this program had a less than 10% recidivism rate compared to CAs ~50%.

(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/finding-the-path-back-on_b_350679)

Additions:

DA of San Francisco (2004–2011)

Death Penalty

refusing to seek the death penalty and prosecuting three-strike offenders only for serious or violent felonies.

(https://web.archive.org/web/20201017095119/https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/New-D-A-promises-to-be-smart-on-crime-Harris-2831205.php)

Did not seek death penalty in Isaac Espinoza's case, a cop who was shot and killed. (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/kamala-harris-death-penalty-decisions/index.html)

(https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/diaz/article/Harris-and-the-death-penalty-years-of-13693075.php)

LGBT+

Opposed Prop 22, Prop 8, Supports the repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), 2006 creation of Hate Crimes Unit

(https://web.archive.org/web/20101125112342/http://kamalaharris.org/MarriageEquality) (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/16/15808396/kamala-harris-democrat-rising-star-interrupted)

Environment

Created as environmental crimes unit. (2005) (https://web.archive.org/web/20200422163016/https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-D-A-creates-environmental-unit-2666667.php)

Violent Crimes

Capt. Tim Hettrich of the narcotics and vice units credits Harris with tightening loopholes in bail and drug programs that defendants exploited, a change that has resulted in more suspects facing jail time.

She promised to crack down on drug and gun crimes

Harris -- whose office has touted a 90 percent conviction rate in homicide cases

Seems like some decent info in this article if you're interested in more details about her dealings with violent crimes as DA (https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Trials-and-tribulations-of-Kamala-Harris-D-A-2521498.php)

Truancy

Harris said she will prosecute chronically truant high school students and the parents of chronically truant younger students. The latter could face a penalty of a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail, she said.

(https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-City-trying-to-get-worst-truants-2469689.php)

There was a 23 percent drop in the number of elementary school truants at San Francisco... Middle-school truancy dropped only 4 percent... high school truancy increased by 2 percent

Harris' office only prosecuted seven parents in three years.

(https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Fighting-truancy-yields-big-dividends-3295152.php)

No quotes from here, but still useful info (https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/S-F-cites-parents-of-chronically-truant-kids-3209547.php)

AG of CA (2011-2017)

This section is a whole lot of specific cases that will take a lot of time to comb through. Might get to it, might not. This is a lot more work than I was anticipating, it's mind blowing Robert does this as a job lol. Very respectable

I keep seeing posts like these on TikTok and Reddit, like something is up, or there's some massive storm brewing where MAGA supporters are going to burst out all at once and start massacring their perceived enemies.

As tempting as it is to fall down these conspiritorial rabbit holes, is there a more simple answer to this? I'm thinking one of two things:

One: MAGA was prepared to fight the results of the election tooth and nail, and now that it went their way, the foot soldiers are in a bit of an awkward position where they were getting amped up, but are now standing down.

Two: Cracks showed in their information silos after the election was called for Trump, and now that they are learning the details of his actual policies, there's a lot of buyer's remorse.

Thoughts? There's probably more to this too.

That's about as well as I can articulate it right now.

EDIT: Omfg I didn't hear it. Never post while high without giving it a aecond thought. Maybe pass that one through a sober person first.

Smarter and presumably more sober people than me have explained what I was trying to say:

Media that reaches out to rural white americans and translates what is happening in politics to them, Iwas thinking about people like my dad, who hasn'trI ead anything about politics more complex than a headline since leaving school about 30 years. He could not define communism, or socialism, but knows they're bad and that it wrecks countries. I have to regularly demonstrate that the political party he is considering voting for would rather I not exist, and hope that he loves me more that he hates the person in charge.

If everyone is going to have a say in the systems that structure their lives, I think we need to account for that fact that some people don't know anything and don't have the time or inclination to seek out more knowledge if it is any work whatsoever.

I'm listening to part one of masculinity grifters and they made absolutely no effort to describe the clips of that weird masculinity boot camp thing. I'm getting really frustrated with all of these podcasts that are pivoting to YouTube and forgetting that they were and supposedly still are podcasts. There's a reason I'm not listening to things on YouTube and I hate that now I feel like I have to watch episodes on YouTube just understand what's going on.

I have this gripe about a lot of podcasts in general, but I was really disappointed that this issue is cropping up on Behind the Bastards specifically.

I don't know if this post is okay, like many others here I'm both depressed and in a slight panic over the election results and I just need to vent a little.

I just wanted to share this great message I got on this work reddit account this morning because between the results and this I'm just coming to terms with the fact that our fellow citizens are the problem.

They see this as a sports competition where as long as they win they don't give a shit what happens, however sexist, racist, vile, and crude their team is does not matter because they get to go "HAHA WE WON YOU LOST".

Edit: spelling fixes because exhaustion let that slip by.

Title says it all. I’m sure there are some good real-life applications on this sub.

Among other things, my bf and I have taken to using “(The Big) Dub Dub Dos” when World War II is mentioned in conversation. 🤣

EDIT: fwiw the responses to this post have turned my bad mood around - thank you so much 🙏 love this sub.

I know there's a lot of fucked up and fetishistic ideas underneath this. But also like I'm sorry you don't think lesbians are real??? I have zero desire to have sex with a man and it goes into the negatives when I'm confronted with the existence of Jordan Peterson.

In the original It Could Happen Here back in 2019 Robert detailed several ways serious civil conflict could break out as American political tensions rose and our social fabric became threadbare. He went into great detail speculating on how bad such a conflict could get, especially drawing comparisons to the Syrian Civil War, including how conflict could seriously disrupt the global food supply and hasten ecological catastrophe, to the point of seriously endangering the survival of the human race (iirc).

It’s 2024 now, and trump has won re-election, (at time of writing) likely winning the popular vote for the first time as well as quite possibly both houses of congress, and already has been granted essentially preemptive immunity for all “official acts”, and an apparatus of organized supporters with plans in place for a complete christofascist takeover of every major institution in the federal government.

And, to be entirely honest, I don’t have much faith in the liberal establishment of this country or what constitutes “the left” being capable of putting up enough organized resistance to stop them, or even meaningfully slow them down. I don’t think this even rises to the level of civil war.

I don’t think the comparison is Syria. I think the comparison is Germany, and I don’t care about incurring the wrath of Godwin’s Law because this moment really feels like the months before the Reichstag Fire.

In Germany organized resistance was crushed quickly, and only small groups like the Edelweiss Pirates and White Rose were able to dance around the edges for a while without doing any real damage. The German left was significantly better organized and proportionately larger than ours has ever been, and they didn’t stand a chance.

It took war with all the greatest powers of the world at once to overthrow the Nazis, and they weren’t starting from a position of having the largest and best funded military in the world. There’s no chance of such a coalition forming to take the MAGA movement out of power here, and our global influence is very likely to do the opposite by spreading and empowering fascism worldwide.

I know what the usual advice is from the coolzone crew and it is the best solution available. Talk to people, organize to meet basic needs and try to build dual power, mutual aid, mutual defense and solidarity. All good things that will certainly keep some people alive longer. But I genuinely don’t see a way for that to happen quickly enough, or broadly enough to stop what I fear is coming, or even meaningfully slow it down.

At least in a civil war, both sides are doing the shooting.

I really don’t see that Happening Here.

Hopefully I’m wrong. Please, show me where I’m wrong, I really don’t want to be right about this.

(If mods take this down for not being relevant enough to the show or violating another rule that’s fine, I just had to get this off my chest. I haven’t slept in the last two days so I’m sorry if I read the rules wrong.)

So recently my mother got fooled by these little books from EverBright media. She saw one on computer science and thought it would be good information for my daughter.

I was almost immediately suspicious about these. I don't know why but they felt sinister. Especially when we got one about Elon Musk. But I tried to keep an open mind, maybe it truly was innocent. Then we got this one today. And I felt so validated. Look at the way it describes the candidates, regardless of who you like, it is very clearly biased.

The subscription model starts you at 1$ a month for these, but then bumps it up to 21$ without notifying you. The "Kids Guide" was founded by Mike Huckabee. You know, the father of the lady who reinstated child labor in Arkansas. Im sure he cares alot about children.

Anyway, subscription canceled. No more right wing child grooming books in this house. I also included the pages on Columbus day and a few other titles from the "Kids Guide" series for your viewing pleasure

Stay moist fellow bastards

-Lando