- 5 months ago
This week on The Cameron Journal Newshour, we're talking about the disease outbreak at Alligator Alcatraz and how it is impacting people. We are also talking about the Supreme Court's complicity in the agenda of the Trump administration. Then we explore President Trump's latest military moves against the cartels in Central and South America and his take over of the Washington D.C. police department. We also see how JD Vance knows nothing about tariffs or how that works and we also explore a new kind of butter!
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NewsTranscript
02:29My name is Cameron Cowan.
02:31Welcome to the Cameron Journal NewsHour.
02:35Just what I needed to wet down the throat.
02:40Um, you may get a little air conditioning feedback in the background, please pardon that.
02:46Um, it has been a long, hot day here, and my comfort is, uh, important.
02:54So, um, a couple housekeeping items.
02:58First of all, um, I want to mention, uh, the Cameron Journal Newsletter.
03:05Um, a lot of the stories I cover on the NewsHour are oftentimes different from the ones that go in the newsletter.
03:10Um, I covered Israel's annexation of Gaza last week and a bunch of other important stories.
03:14So, if you want to check out the Cameron Journal Newsletter, please do so.
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04:07Um, I also want to mention, um, my book, America's Lost Generation, is coming out officially on September 12th.
04:15Yes, I finally picked a publication date because we're finally ready to put the book out.
04:20So, look for that on September 12th.
04:22We're very excited.
04:24Um, right now at soup.substack.com, I have been, uh, reposting my Millennials Collection, a bunch of articles in support of the book, which I've also been going out to CameronJournal Newsletter.
04:37It's been a wonderfully winding series, uh, talking through many of the concepts of the book.
04:43I have a lot of videos that I need to record here shortly, um, on different things in the book, so be on the lookout.
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05:11Um, and very, very exciting.
05:13Um, so we're excited for America's Last Generation.
05:15Um, I will probably be doing, um, a bit of a reading from it during the news hour, um, right after the publication week.
05:21So we're very excited about, we're very excited about that.
05:26And really telling the story of Millennials and what happened to us.
05:30So it's really exciting.
05:32Um, I do have a couple interviews planned as well, so be on the lookout for those,
05:37because I will be going around and talking to everybody about this book.
05:42So, uh, that's the housekeeping stuff.
05:44Updates!
05:44What do we have this week?
05:45Um, other than it's hot here, um, still sort of navigating, uh, navigating that whole situation.
05:53Very busy these days, but a bit lacking in the energy department.
06:00So, it's, um, it's tough times on, uh, on that end of, um, on that end of things.
06:08But, uh, overall, things are, things are, things are kind of okay.
06:12Um, there's a lot going on in News from the Headlines.
06:16Um, and the first thing I want to jump into, we'll just jump right into the headlines so we can get you in here and out of here.
06:22Um, the first thing I want to jump into is a new video from Mikey Weinstein over at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation,
06:30because, um, the march of Christian nationalism is starting to reach a bit of a fever pitch.
06:37And as I've said for a while, one of my great fears, because Trump, weirdly, is a moderating force on the GOP,
06:45is that without Trump, this sort of thing is going to go into hyperdrive,
06:49especially given the people that are currently involved in this cabinet.
06:53And this is an excellent example of that, when we're talking about, um, Pete Hegseth
06:59and his interviewing his pastor and pushing global Christian nationalism.
07:03I'm not going to say anything more.
07:05We'll let Mikey tell you the rest of the story.
07:06Thursday, the Secretary of Defense, little P.D. Hegseth, on social media, uh, validated and sent out his personal pastor's, um, uh, interview that was done on an outlet.
07:20The pastor, of course, is a Christian nationalist.
07:23He espoused how important it was going to be for every village, town, state, country, and the world to become a Christian village, state, country, and world.
07:33Christian nationalism, um, the fact that women shouldn't be voting, uh, the suppression of women, um, everything against gay marriage,
07:41everything you could imagine that would be horrible.
07:43That is the Christian nationalist playbook right out of Project 2025.
07:48In case you didn't know it, I wanted to make sure that you could see it.
07:51And in this press release, you look below and you will see it.
07:54Uh, this, of course, is the same Secretary of Defense who each month, uh, holds a, uh, a Jesus praise service during the duty day in uniform at the Pentagon.
08:04I hope you can understand what we're dealing with.
08:08We are fighting this tooth and nail.
08:10It's expensive and we need your help.
08:13You want us out there fighting, I believe.
08:15And if you don't, again, turn the video off and go away.
08:19If you want us fighting, open your wallet and keep us armed so we can fight against this.
08:24And, of course, if you do want to donate to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, you can visit them at militaryreligiousfreedom.org and you can donate, um, as well.
08:35That's very important.
08:37I met, most people know this story, but I'll tell it quickly.
08:40I met Mikey Weinstein kind of randomly several years ago and I think he might have reached out through the show or something.
08:48But he and I met and I ended up writing, kind of working with his, um, oh, no, no, no, no, I remember.
08:58He had done a video with a parody actress called Mrs. Betty Bowers and they had paid for them to do a video on Christian nationalism and I had found them through that and I had reached out to them.
09:08That's right.
09:08And, um, and he and I wrote together a very long article, um, that's on the Cameron Journal that he told me was basically the definitive article on him, his organization, and Christian nationalism.
09:24And it's a bit long.
09:26Um, I've done a couple videos on this.
09:28One is audio only on the channel.
09:30Another, um, is an interview with him.
09:32That's very short because he's very busy, um, but talking about all of this and why it's important and, uh, and the real threat that our armed men and women are faced from, uh, be essentially being ordered to worship in a certain way and having, uh, their religious freedom stomped on.
09:53It always starts that way in a military organization or other organization where people are kind of a captive audience and then it expands out into society.
10:01When you look at the President's Faith Council and some of the people on there and, you know, Pete Hegseth being a cabinet-level secretary saying this stuff out, you start to see the shades of this really coming through.
10:12And I wanted to kind of talk about this this week because, one, this never gets enough attention.
10:17Ever.
10:18Ever, ever, ever.
10:19Never gets enough attention.
10:21And I'm working on bringing a lot more attention to it because this is something that we all will be facing, uh, very shortly.
10:30It's even starting to hit mainstream media.
10:33There was a CBS story, um, with, uh, a pastor named Doug Wilson and I had spelunked into that a little bit.
10:40Um, and there was, uh, there was a lot of, it was, I mean, he was saying right out loud, like, yes, like, women should not vote and, you know, everyone, you know, needs to be Christian, needs to be the state religion.
10:52And people forget, like, we're, our country took great pains to make sure that Congress shall establish no religion, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.
11:02And that was a world first.
11:05Uh, Europe was a, was a continent which, to this day, oftentimes has state-endorsed and backed religion.
11:11And, uh, the founders of this country wanted to break away from that and allow people to worship whatever religion they chose freely within our country.
11:21And we're now to a place where even that fundamental American value is deeply under attack.
11:27So, if you haven't checked out MRFF, you should, you should subscribe to their channel.
11:32It doesn't get nearly enough love or nearly enough attention.
11:34Please make sure to, to check that out.
11:38Speaking of things marching on, uh, today President Trump announced that he is going to take over the, uh, the D.C. Police Department
11:52and deploy 800 National Guard troops to the city to slow down on crime after one of the DOGE, uh, workers, who's nicknamed Big Balls, uh, was attacked in D.C.
12:06And we have the latest from the New York Times.
12:08It says here,
12:09President Trump said that he was temporarily taking control of the Washington, D.C. Police Department
12:13and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the city, painting a dystopian picture of the nation's capital
12:18that stood in sharp contrast to official figures showing violent crime in the city as at a city 30-year low.
12:23After Mr. Trump's claims that the city was overrun by, quote, bloodthirsty criminals, unquote,
12:27and, quote, roving mobs of wild youth, unquote,
12:29Mayor Muriel Bowser struck a diplomatic tone that acknowledged the President's authority to enact a 30-day takeover of the city's police,
12:35but she disputed his rationale and his despictions of life in the city, calling his actions unsettling and unprecedented.
12:41During a White House news conference on Monday morning,
12:43Mr. Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi would oversee the federal takeover of the Capitol's Metropolitan Police Department
12:49and with Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth at his side,
12:51added that he was prepared to send the military into Washington, quote, if needed, unquote.
12:54Mr. Trump also threatened to expand his efforts to other cities, including Chicago,
12:58if they did not deal with the crime rates he claimed were out of control.
13:01But Mr. Trump's authority to intervene elsewhere would be more limited.
13:04His announcement on Monday invoked a section of the District Columbia Home Rule Act
13:07that granted him the power to temporarily seize control of the city's police department.
13:10While Ms. Bowser said there was little she could do to prevent such a takeover,
13:15Brian Schlopp, the Attorney General of the District of Columbia,
13:17called it unlawful and vowed to do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of district residents.
13:21Here's what else to know.
13:23The Trump administration also plans to temporarily reassign 120 FBI agents in Washington
13:28to nighttime patrol duties as part of the crackdown, according to people familiar with the matter.
13:32Residents expressed skepticism of the president's actions, which also prompted protests.
13:36Mr. Trump's most recent thrust to take control of Washington
13:38came after a prominent member of the Department of Government Efficiency,
13:40his federal cost-cutting initiative reported being beaten in an attempt at carjacking.
13:44But on Monday, he sought to lay out an even darker version of the city,
13:47overrun by violent crime and anarchy that many who live in it are unlikely to recognize.
13:51In portraying crimes out of control in cities across the country,
13:54he listed familiar targets like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago,
13:56but did not mention cities in Republican-led states with higher murder rates,
13:59like Memphis, St. Louis, or New Orleans.
14:01He also ignored the most violent episode in Washington's most recent history,
14:04the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol,
14:07where his supporters sought to stop the certification of the 2020 election he lost.
14:10Mr. Trump pardoned the nearly 1,600 of those rioters after returning to the White House in January.
14:15This summer, Mr. Trump deployed nearly 5,000 National Guard troops into Los Angeles
14:18with orders to help quell protests that had erupted over immigration rates
14:21and to protect the federal agents conducting them.
14:23A suit brought challenging the deployment's legality and went to trial on Monday,
14:27although most of the troops have since been withdrawn.
14:29And in his first term, Mr. Trump called up National Guard soldiers and federal law enforcement,
14:32personnel to forcibly clear peaceful protests during the Black Lives Matter protests
14:36after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
14:40So, you want to talk about your jackbooted authoritarianism, we've got it here.
14:46And floating, invading other cities is probably foreshadowing, we're going to say.
14:55Although with Trump, you never really can tell.
14:57He likes to talk and just say random things.
15:00And they've been, you know, updating things all day.
15:04Here's the violent crimes in D.C.
15:06We see a peak kind of after the pandemic in 22, 23,
15:11and then a major drawdown in crime, lower than it was in 2011, here in 2025.
15:18Which is always encouraging.
15:20And there's been different stories filed throughout the day,
15:23including, you know, letters sent out to the D.C. representative in Congress.
15:28And it shows that cities in similar populations to Washington, like Memphis, Detroit, Nashville,
15:35Denver, Seattle, Louisville, Kentucky, Boston, and El Paso,
15:38have, in some cases, like Memphis and Detroit, a much higher murder rate.
15:44Denver's almost there at 993.
15:46Nashville's greater, Detroit is greater, Memphis is greater.
15:48And then we have some larger cities like Seattle, Louisville, Boston, El Paso, with much lower rates.
15:54And even of large cities, Washington, D.C. is, would be, you know, larger cities,
15:59tend, some of these have much, have much lower violent crime rates.
16:03Even in New York and Los Angeles, it's less than a thousand.
16:06So, as the city of its size goes, it is probably a little bit more violent than, um, than, you know, other places.
16:18But it is definitely not as bad as it could be.
16:21That award goes to Memphis and Detroit.
16:25So, it's something to be aware of.
16:27It's something to under, but it's kind of funny, going back to this chart one second.
16:31I was talking with a friend this afternoon, and statistics are not comforting to those to whom are suffering the violent crime.
16:41There's also a media narrative that's not helpful.
16:44When the media is promoting this idea that we have lots of violent crimes, cities are unsafe, the country's unsafe, better hide in your house,
16:52it's very easy for any story to, um, draw attention.
16:58And I'll give you an example.
16:59Right as I was clearing out my email to get ready to do this, there was a story from the New York Times about a three-person shooting in Austin.
17:07The reality is, in the 80s and 90s, it was in your evening news every evening.
17:12Now it's in your pocket.
17:13It makes the world seem a lot more dangerous than it is.
17:17And when you look at the objective numbers, it's much less stark.
17:22Now, if you're one of the people to whom had the violent crime in 2024, for you, this is 100%.
17:29It's a perception versus reality issue.
17:32I think a lot of this is Donald Trump seizing power wherever he can, and using power wherever he can, for the sake of using power.
17:41And that has been a theme in this current term, I think mostly because Donald Trump wants to be seen as doing something.
17:54He wants to be seen as, you know, I'm out there, I'm doing something, I'm taking care of, and he's going to step over whoever, whatever, in order to achieve that goal.
18:07In completely unrelated news, let's just check the approval ratings real quick.
18:11Um, oh, disapprove, 53%.
18:16Approve, 44%.
18:19Um, looks like he's been underwater since about, oh, March or so.
18:24Very interesting, like I said, in unrelated, unrelated news.
18:33This is a very interesting sort of story that is a bit odd.
18:38Um, we'll listen to the tape.
18:40This is about a new butter that is made from carbon.
18:44It uses no animals, no plants, and no oils, and is backed by Bill Gates.
18:48Familiar with, but without the farmland, fertilizers, or emissions tied to that typical process.
18:55And this butter breakthrough, it's happening right here in Batavia.
19:00In the middle of an industrial park in a suburb west of Chicago, something unprecedented is happening.
19:07So you're using this gas right now to, like, cook your food.
19:10Um, and we're proposing that we would like to first make your food with, with that gas.
19:15The company is called Savor, and you better believe it.
19:19Their pioneering tech uses carbon and hydrogen to make the stick of butter you see on this plate.
19:25This is pretty novel to be able to make food that looks and tastes and feels exactly like dairy butter,
19:32but with no agriculture whatsoever.
19:34And no long ingredient list the average person can't pronounce.
19:38It's really just our fat, some water, a little bit of lecithin is an emulsifier,
19:43and some natural flavor and color.
19:44How?
19:45How?
19:46Fats are made up of carbon and hydrogen chains.
19:49The goal here?
19:50Replicate those chains without animals or plants.
19:54And they did it.
19:55They tell me, to simplify, they take carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water,
20:01heat them up and oxidize them.
20:03The final result?
20:04It looks like a wax, like a candle wax at first.
20:07But they're fat molecules, like the ones in beef, cheese, or vegetable oils.
20:14Sustainability is why we are here.
20:16It's all done releasing zero greenhouse gases, using no farmland to feed cows.
20:22We're, like, not at full capacity in this facility yet.
20:25And even though we're standing in a factory setting.
20:28And in addition to the carbon footprint being much lower for a process like this, right,
20:33the land footprint is, like, a thousand times lower than what you need in traditional agriculture.
20:39I know what you're thinking.
20:41I think we need to taste this.
20:42I would love for you to taste this.
20:44How does it taste?
20:46I love butter, so I'm going to take a really healthy amount.
20:50Admittedly, surprisingly, like butter.
20:54Cheers.
21:02We're tasting butter.
21:03Another reason they say this makes an impact?
21:07No palm oil, a significant contributor to deforestation and climate change.
21:12That's not all.
21:14Of the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases emitted every year,
21:187% is from the production of fats and oils from animals and plants.
21:23So when could you get a taste yourself?
21:26Right now, they're working directly with restaurants, bakeries, and food suppliers,
21:30releasing these chocolates made with their butter.
21:33In time for the holidays.
21:35Savor butter in either its current manifestation.
21:40I think that's quite interesting to find new ways to take existing things
21:48and make it that reduces, you know, dependence on agriculture.
21:54I mean, you can get into the whole dystopia, you know, thing of,
21:58oh, yes, yes, yes, Pakistan cities with nothing derived from animals, all fake.
22:02Soylent green, soylent green, it's people, it's people.
22:05You can certainly go that way.
22:06But I think this is actually quite incredibly positive.
22:09And it could be, you know, it could be a way for all those companies sucking carbon
22:15out of the atmosphere to maybe turn that carbon into something else.
22:19It's, uh, I, I do, I do love the, uh, only God knows what consuming entirely artificial products
22:28like this does to your body in the long term.
22:30I mean, that is, that is true.
22:34And, um, and it's, and here's the dystopia.
22:38You're not eating anymore.
22:39You're uploading calories from a patented dystopia while they pat themselves on the back for innovation.
22:43You eat to comply.
22:47They took butter and turned it into a ritual.
22:49Daily communion with the system.
22:51Of course, it's Twitter.
22:53People are, are quite crazy, of course.
22:57Um, it, yeah.
22:59Uh, yeah, I noticed that too, actually.
23:02Someone's like, someone really should have mentioned that filming this with a little tank of slop water
23:06in the background probably wasn't the best idea.
23:09I did notice that.
23:11I did notice that too.
23:13And, of course, with Bill Gates being connected, it ends up being a whole, a whole conspiracy.
23:19But I thought it was something a bit interesting.
23:22It reminds me of some of the new foods in the 90s, like the Flavor Saver Tomato and all,
23:26and different, you know, GMO products and things.
23:29There was a lot of hype and hysteria around that.
23:31And I imagine as this stuff gets rolled out, especially, you know, with more vegan foods and things,
23:35there'll be more hype, hype and hysteria.
23:39So, um, in another kind of video, we're going to be a little video heavy today.
23:44This interview from J.D. Vance about the tariffs.
23:47So, shifting to trade and everything.
23:50So, he's talking with Maria Bartiromo, and they're talking about tariffs and all the new revenue
23:57that's being brought in so people can, uh, can get by.
24:01Here's the problem.
24:03I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
24:07We are the ones paying the tariffs.
24:11The money is coming from us.
24:13It is a wealth transfer from people who consume to people that don't.
24:19It's more upward wealth transfer in a country already teaming with wealth inequality.
24:23But let's see what the vice president has to say.
24:26Do it.
24:27The second thing the tariffs are doing is it's bringing in a lot of additional revenue,
24:32which, of course, we're using to give tax relief to the American people
24:36and make it easier for average Americans to get by.
24:39So, do it.
24:39The second thing the tariffs are doing...
24:42And it says here that tariffs were at a $270 billion annualized rate in Q2 of 25,
24:50which is a tax hike of around $2,000 per household.
24:53To the extent U.S. corporations take the hit to profits,
24:56those slow hiring reduce spending and reduce investment.
24:58To the extent they raise prices, consumers pay it.
25:01And so you see here this huge jump in tariffs.
25:05And it's like, oh, we're providing tax relief.
25:07Where's the tax relief?
25:09Like, okay, so you made the Trump tax cuts permanent from the 2017 tax cuts permanent.
25:13There's a sense at the end of this year.
25:15Okay, that's cool.
25:16Here's the problem, and people forget this.
25:18The initial middle-class tax cuts they passed in 2017 already expired.
25:23People's tax bills have already gone up.
25:25They also got rid of a lot of deductions, both in the first term and now.
25:29This means on net people will be getting less back from their withholding,
25:33and those of us that pay our own taxes will be paying more.
25:36On top of everything that's more expensive due to tariffs.
25:39On top of businesses closing.
25:41Like a nail plant in Missouri that can't afford steel anymore.
25:44Trade barriers choke economic progress.
25:49They always do.
25:50It's well known to do so.
25:52And this is another example of, as Steve Ratner put it in an op-ed in the New York Times this past weekend,
25:59that I cover in the newsletter, economic illiteracy.
26:02But this was just, I mean, just him saying this is just so crazy.
26:07Because it's not true at all.
26:08The second thing the tariffs are doing is it's bringing in a lot of additional revenue,
26:14which, of course, we're using to give tax relief to the American people
26:17and make it easier for average Americans to get by.
26:21Okay, it is additional revenue, but it's not making it easier for people to get by
26:25because we're the ones creating the revenue.
26:28We're just adding a new tax on ourselves.
26:31Unnecessarily.
26:33And we're not even developing the training programs or industries to mitigate some of that.
26:38We're just paying it on the nose.
26:41One of the things people forget about the wealthy is their money does not move.
26:46It stays in assets.
26:48Houses, property, art, stocks, bonds, all this type of thing.
26:51It stays in assets.
26:54And it doesn't really circulate in the economy beyond what they spend,
26:58which isn't much compared to their total wealth.
27:01The great thing about giving money to poor people is that it gets spent in the real economy.
27:06They go buy things with it.
27:08They go purchase things.
27:10They improve their life.
27:12That does more economic activity than sitting on assets that just produce return all the time
27:18and money that tends to not move beyond a certain lifestyle.
27:22And here's the other thing.
27:23It's also a mass thing.
27:24There's not very many wealthy people.
27:25So even if they all were a bit spendthrifty, it wouldn't affect the economy in the same way
27:30as giving 100 million people more money to spend in the economy.
27:36That creates more economic activity.
27:38It creates new demand.
27:40People get hired for new jobs.
27:41That sort of mass affluence creates a far stronger, deeper economy.
27:48And that's been the secret to America since World War II is the depth of the consumer market
27:53and the ability to be able to buy things, especially luxury goods, impulse purchases,
27:57things that we don't necessarily need.
27:59Most of their economies outside of the developed world don't have that.
28:02And that's a very important thing to remember.
28:03And that consumption, that mass affluent consumption is what's being taxed.
28:09The money's coming from your pocket.
28:11So while he's over here being like, oh yes, we're getting new revenue to make your life easier.
28:16No, they're making your life harder.
28:18They're stealing from you twice.
28:20And it's causing inflation to increase because companies are raising prices.
28:24And they're also not going to hire as many people or invest as much
28:27because everything you do now has a new tax attached to it.
28:30You want to buy a new machine taxed.
28:32You want, you know, the only thing that doesn't cost more is hiring people.
28:36But even that would, people will demand more wages.
28:39You even have that there.
28:40And this is on top of 25% increase in prices since the pandemic.
28:45It's a bad deal for the average person.
28:48It's probably fabulous if you're wealthy, but it's a bad deal for the average person.
28:52Moving on to some immigration news.
28:56I found this interesting video from Alligate, about the Alligator Alcatraz.
29:00And this person posted, remember how I posted a week ago about ambulance coming in and out of Alligator Auschwitz?
29:08Well, that's what, that's because there's a contagious disease outbreak there.
29:12And numerous immigrants have become infected and extremely ill because of it.
29:16The families and lawyers weren't being notified about it.
29:19And here's a video with someone talking about it.
29:21It opened.
29:23There's a giant disease outbreak in Alligator Alcatraz.
29:27And they're not doing a whole lot about it.
29:30Actually, they're making it a little bit worse.
29:33So this is Luis.
29:34And for two days, Luis's family thought he was dead.
29:38He's detained at the internment camp in Florida.
29:42And he was suffering some respiratory distress and had asked a couple of the guards for help.
29:48And they laughed at him and told him no.
29:50And it wasn't until he passed out unconscious that he actually got taken to the hospital.
29:55And even then, they made him wait too long.
29:58Luckily, he was able to get a hold of one of our attorneys yesterday.
30:01And we found out that they are withholding his medical records.
30:05And that a whole bunch of other people are also sick.
30:08And so while all these people are getting sick in these camps, in these crowded conditions,
30:13the sickest thing about this is the way that these officers are treating these human beings.
30:18And the way that they're withholding information from their families who care about them and want to know what's going on.
30:23If you want to read the full press release, just go to our website, McEnteeLaw.com.
30:28If you have a relative or anybody you know who's ill or afraid of becoming ill at Alligator Alcatraz,
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30:54I don't want to say it.
30:58But I'm going to say it.
31:01The biggest killer of people in the concentration camps the Nazis had was not the gas chambers and the crematoria.
31:10It was typhoid.
31:13It was disease.
31:15Disease was the bigger killer.
31:17More people died of sick than died at the hand of the Nazis.
31:20And in some ways, that was a blessing.
31:23One of the most haunting moments from Night by Elie Wiesel is when he would watch even his own father lay down in a ditch and choose to die in that moment.
31:36And a similar terrible situation is going on at this camp in Florida now.
31:48And these people, not that I necessarily condone illegal immigration, I certainly do not.
31:56The, these people who, you know, through fault of crossing a border, do not deserve to die of disease in a swamp, in thick air and poor living conditions, for this crime.
32:18They don't.
32:18Deported, yes.
32:23Not allowed to come back into this country, fine.
32:27All right.
32:28They certainly do not deserve to die of disease in a swamp.
32:32If you were wondering what you would do in the face of this terrible information coming out, now's your chance to find out.
32:43What are we going to do?
32:45My great fear is that this will continue and there'll never be the popular support to stop it.
32:56Because it's happening to someone else.
32:58It's happening to the other.
32:59It's happening to a group of people that some people think should be gotten rid of anyway.
33:06And, for better or for worse, a lot of people don't necessarily care how it's done.
33:13And I'm just so grateful that there are people, like this law firm, in this TikTok video, that is doing something to mitigate the terrible suffering of these people.
33:26I understand we have an illegal immigration problem.
33:28I understand we have people in this country that don't necessarily belong here.
33:31That problem is worth solving.
33:33It is.
33:34Not like this.
33:37We don't have to be cruel.
33:40But this is a choice.
33:42A very careful choice.
33:44And I wish, I hope, that we're able to stop this before too long.
33:51I really do.
33:53It is.
33:55I never thought I would live long enough to see something like this happen.
34:02I always figured perhaps late in my life we might get to this point.
34:06I'm shocked it's happening now.
34:08And this is still shocking.
34:09And this should be shocking.
34:10It's very easy to read this and find out about it and just let it roll off your back.
34:15This is one of those checkpoint moments.
34:19Are you okay with this?
34:21If not, you have some very tough decisions to make.
34:29We all do.
34:31We all have very tough decisions to make.
34:33Do we want this to continue in our name at our taxpayer expense?
34:36If not, it's time to resist.
34:43If so, then you don't need to listen to this.
34:47It's fine.
34:47You're fine with it.
34:48It's alright.
34:49But for those of us that find this to be abhorrent, now's the time for action.
34:56Otherwise it will continue.
34:58And it will grow.
34:59And it will expand.
35:00And it will become permanent.
35:01And if you erroneously think they're going to stop illegal immigrants, I have a bridge to sell you.
35:09Now, speaking of losing rights and all this sort of thing,
35:14this opinion piece from the New York Times was quite interesting.
35:18It was, the Vox had a similar piece, but it was paywalled and I didn't feel like looking it up because I had this here.
35:24But the title is rather telling.
35:26The Supreme Court has finally found a president it likes.
35:28And it says here that the six-member conservative majority on the Supreme Court has become a key enabler of President Trump's agenda.
35:37Quote, since May, federal district courts have ruled against the administration 94.3% of the time.
35:42Unquote.
35:42Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford, wrote in a June 25 sub-stack essay.
35:46Quote, the Supreme Court, however, has flipped that outcome, siding with the administration in 93.7% of its cases.
35:52The Supreme Court is now in open conflict with the lower courts over cases involving the Trump administration.
35:56District court judges, quote, who see the evidence firsthand and hear directly from those affected, unquote Bonica added, quote, overwhelmingly find the administration's actions unlawful.
36:05Circuit appeals courts that split more evenly, 68.2% against Trump, 31.8% for Trump, but still lean against the administration.
36:12Then the Supreme Court, furthest from facts, closest to power, reverses almost automatically.
36:16Mark Graber, a law professor at the University of Maryland, described the situation writing by email, quote,
36:21Both Republican and Democratic judicial appointees have found numerous constitutional and statutory flaws with the Trump administration policies, unquote.
36:28Faced with the surge of lower court rulings against Trump and his appointees, Graber continued, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts, quote,
36:35Almost without exception, has been breaking the lower federal courts rather than the Trump administration.
36:39This has been done largely through rulings without accompanying reasons explaining why the lower courts' federal courts were so wrong.
36:44The result is, in some cases, all lower federal courts have to guide them as a sense that the Roberts court majority does not want to lower federal courts interfering with the Trump administration.
36:52Universities, Graber wrote, fear being tied up in litigation for years.
36:55Even if they eventually win every case in the Supreme Court, the costs are likely to be substantial.
36:59If the Supreme Court permits Trump to implement his version of the law for two or three years, universities who oppose him will be damaged significantly.
37:06In addition, Graber said, the Roberts court's pro-Trump series of decisions creates reason for thinking you might lose, even as every professor in your law school tells you the law is on your side.
37:16The court's conservative majority appears to have adopted what is known as the unitary executive theory,
37:20which amounts to the empowerment of the president as the chief executive officer of the executive branch of government,
37:24as the chief executive sometimes would be in the private sector, as opposed to the top official of an executive branch fulfilling mandates specifically financed and authorized by Congress.
37:32In another sub-second essay, How to Dismail a Democracy Legally, the unitary executive theory is a master class in autocratic legalism.
37:38Bonica argued for the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court,
37:41The unitary executive theory is not a principled theory of constitutional law being applied in good faith.
37:47It is a political weapon wielded with partisan selectivity, designed to achieve a concentration of power that is fundamentally at odds with American democracy.
37:55It is the American face of autocratic legalism.
37:58If, Bonica continued,
37:59Bonica continued that the court has adopted a strategy of what he called selective application of the use of the theory.
38:16The uneven application is the most stark in the court's handling of nationwide injunctions,
38:21a powerful tool lower courts use to block controversial executive policies.
38:24The Biden Justice Department repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to limit this practice.
38:27The court refused.
38:28Yet, just five months into the second Trump administration, the court seized the opportunity in Trump v. Costa to do exactly that,
38:34stripping away a key check on executive power, precisely when it most benefited its political allies.
38:39The data from the court's emergency shadow docket reveals the staggering result of this double standard.
38:44The court intervened to lift a 77% of lower court temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against the Trump administration,
38:50while lifting 14% of those against the Biden administration.
38:53In an email, Joseph Fishkin, a law professor at UCLA, wrote in support of Bonica's argument,
38:57It would take a fine legal mind indeed to explain why, for instance, Biden's student loan relief plan so dangerously exceeded statutory authority,
39:03that the court had to stop immediately by injunction, whereas the court upheld Trump's evisceration of that entire department,
39:09in contravention of the statute Congress passed.
39:11So yes, there are many examples.
39:13This court is unmistakably more interested in consolidating executive power under this president than under any Democratic president.
39:19That said, Fishkin continued,
39:20The most consequential decisions of the court in a unitary executive direction are on matters like firing the heads of agencies set up by Congress to be independent of control from the White House,
39:29where Trump is the only modern president to really try it.
39:31You cannot point to all the heads of independent agencies that the court refused to let Biden fire,
39:35because Biden said other presidents respect the laws Congress passed in this area,
39:39an approach that served the country well.
39:40We are now in uncharted waters.
39:43And of course, it goes on for a bit into other, you know, quotable quotables from people he interviewed and all this sort of thing.
39:52The long story short is that the Supreme Court has done an excellent job of doing what the Trump administration wants
40:01in a way that it was unwilling to do for Biden, even Obama, because Roberts has been on the court that long.
40:06And this is also particularly prescient, because there's now a case winding its way through the Supreme Court to invalidate gay marriage.
40:15Now, I'm not quite sure how that's going to work, considering Congress codified that in law in 2022.
40:21So, I'm not quite sure if they're just trying to undo Dobbs, or if they're trying to, um, if they're trying to undo, uh, undo the law as well.
40:31Haven't heard all the details on that yet.
40:34Or not Dobbs or Bergerfell.
40:35Or if they're trying to undo just a Bergerfell, they're trying to undo the law that Congress passed codifying into law.
40:40Either way, the Supreme Court has become a cudgel, Trump is finally getting what he wants.
40:46He's getting the courts to go along with his plans.
40:50And because three justices are Trump appointees, and there's some political alignment there,
40:56although not always, Kavanaugh's been a bit of a wild card, so has Amy Coney Barrett.
41:00Um, you end up with this situation where, where the Supreme Court should be restraining the executive.
41:07They are allowing broad powers and authority for the executive to reshape government and choose what it will and will not do,
41:20regardless of what Congress wants.
41:21And they're the final authority.
41:24If they won't stop him, nothing else can.
41:27And the reality is that this is what conservatives have been building towards for decades.
41:37Republican voters understand, understood, at a very fundamental level,
41:44that if you wanted to get your agenda through and not have it bogged down in the courts,
41:50you had to get the courts on your side.
41:52And it took them decades, but they finally got there.
41:55It took them about 25 years.
41:57And they finally got there with enough people retired and died and new justices were appointed
42:03and all this sort of thing that they've gotten a hold of the Supreme Court,
42:07which in years past has been one of the few places where liberal policies have managed to squeak on through.
42:12Healthcare, gay marriage, miscegenation, if you go back far enough.
42:17And so you have this situation where this really is, and that's, I think, probably the most frightening part here
42:27is that all of this that's happening is the end result of decades, decades of Republicans trying to seize government
42:38in order to enforce their cultural view and their political views on the country, whether we like it or not.
42:46And you even see this with the gerrymandering thing in Texas and California,
42:53where they want to gerrymander Texas so bad no Democrats can win a congressional seat.
42:57Locking Democrats out of having seats from Texas.
43:00California wants to respond to the same thing in California, effectively getting rid of Republicans.
43:05And now there's kind of this whole gerrymandering push to basically rewrite, redraw Congress unnecessarily.
43:11On top of that, President Trump has asked for a new census to be held because the one in 2020 had so many problems.
43:17And he wants it to exclude all illegal immigrants, which would then also cause new maps to be drawn
43:25and redistricting to happen and have states gain and lose seats.
43:30And I think that would kind of really screw them over in Texas a little bit.
43:34Although it might screw California more, which is why I think they're probably happy about it.
43:39But this is an institutional procedural capture.
43:45Now, let's flip the coin to the other side.
43:49Republicans would say, yeah, we lived under this for decades.
43:53How does it feel?
43:54You know, all this liberal stuff got through because the Supreme Court allowed it or didn't stop it or made a decision in favor of it.
44:05And, you know, this is what it's like living when the courts are not on your side and are openly, you know, and flagrantly, you know, pushing down your agenda.
44:16And I think what's interesting is that argument for me would have more salience if it was, okay, you're, you know, you're suing for relief, you have cases, and the Supreme Court is striking them down.
44:32What the Supreme Court is doing fundamentally is it is telling plaintiffs in lower courts, no, no, no.
44:38You don't, anytime you go to seek relief, get some relief, and lower courts who are fine-educated people have to say, yes, there's a law problem, we're going to, no matter what, overturn it, because that's what the White House wants.
44:53And no Democrat has ever enjoyed that privilege.
44:57But the reality is there's a public perception that the Supreme Court and the court system in general has been this bastion of defending liberalism and liberal values.
45:08And that the fastest way to stop a lot of these terrible things from happening and uphold, you know, the law with a certain political point of view is to capture the courts.
45:18And that's what they've done.
45:20And unfortunately, the reality is when you are an authoritarian and you're consolidating power and Trump isn't consolidating power, this sort of thing allows that to happen.
45:29This is what allows power consolidation to occur.
45:35And that should be frightening for everyone.
45:37Genuinely.
45:38Last story, speaking of consolidating power.
45:42The President has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what was in the past was considered law enforcement.
45:48It says here,
45:49President Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations, according to people familiar with the matter.
46:00The decision to bring the American military into the fight is the most aggressive step so far in the administration's escalating campaign against the cartels.
46:07It signals Mr. Trump's continued willingness to use military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a law enforcement responsibility to curb the flow of fentanyl and other drugs.
46:15The order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels.
46:21U.S. military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after the groups, the people familiar with the conversation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.
46:31But directing the military to correct on an illicit trade also raises legal issues, including whether it would count as murder if U.S. forces acting outside of a congressionally authorized armed conflict were to kill civilians, even criminal suspects, who pose no imminent threat.
46:44It is unclear what White House, Pentagon, and State Department lawyers have said about the new directive, where the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has produced an authoritative opinion assessing legal issues.
46:52Already this year, Mr. Trump has deployed National Guard and active duty troops to the southwest border to choke off the flow of drugs as well as immigrants, and has increased surveillance in drug interdiction efforts.
47:01When he returned to office in January, Mr. Trump signed an order directing the State Department to start labeling drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
47:08In February, the State Department designated Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucho, known as MS-13, and several other groups as foreign terrorist organizations, saying they constituted a, quote, national security threat beyond that posed by a traditional organized crime, unquote.
47:21Two weeks ago, the Trump administration added the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Sons, to a list of specially designated global terrorist groups,
47:29asserting that it is headed by President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and other high-ranking officials in his administration.
47:35On Thursday, the Justice and State Departments announced that the United States government is doubling a reward to $50 million for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Maduro, who has been indicted on drug trafficking charges.
47:44The administration again described him as a cartel head, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said he will, quote,
47:49quote, not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes, unquote.
47:53Asked about Mr. Trump's authorization for military force against the cartels,
47:56Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in an email that President Trump's top priority is protecting the homeland,
48:01which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
48:06The Defense Department declined to comment on the new directive.
48:11And it also, it talks about the President, and I'm glad they talked about this because it's very important.
48:19In 1989, President George W. Bush sent more than 20,000 troops into Panama to arrest its strongman leader,
48:24Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States for uncharges of drug trafficking.
48:28Ahead of the operation, William Barr, yes, that William Barr, who then led the Office of Legal Counsel
48:33and was the Attorney General in Mr. Trump's first term,
48:35wrote a disputed memo saying it was within Mr. Bush's authority to direct law enforcement arrests of fugitives overseas
48:42without the consent of foreign states.
48:44The United Nations General Assembly condemned the Panama action as a flagrant violation of international law.
48:50In the 1990s, the U.S. military assisted Colombian and Peruvian anti-drug law enforcement activities
48:55by sharing information about civilian flights suspected of carrying drugs,
48:58like radar data and communications intercepts.
49:00But after those governments started shooting down such planes,
49:02The point being, this isn't entirely unprecedented,
49:22and I knew that because of Panama and everything,
49:24but it is definitely an interesting and quite flagrant move,
49:32especially considering there's talk of invading Mexico in order to accomplish this.
49:37And I don't know if we're planning on invading Venezuela or how we're going to collect Mr. Maduro,
49:42but that is certainly an...
49:45That certainly would be a big move and could cause a lot of regional instability.
49:50However, I think big picture-wise, it's important to be mindful of the fact that Trump definitely wants
49:56all of the ducks quacking and all the chickens clucking in our own region.
50:01He wants to make sure that North and South America together,
50:04our immediate land mass is beneficial to the United States,
50:10probably in a way that we have not been doing that since literally the early 19th century.
50:17And I think this is part of the strategy of,
50:20we can't clean up the drugs here, the war on drugs failed,
50:24we're going to go to the source and shut down the cartels.
50:28This can get expensive, it can get bloody, and it can get very messy.
50:35It'll be interesting to see how this develops.
50:37This will be a story that I'll keep tracking.
50:41I'm going to cut it off there.
50:44I know we're a little early, so it's before the top of the hour.
50:46I've only been on for 15 minutes, but my throat's a little dry.
50:50I'm a little tired. It was a long weekend.
50:52But I appreciate you all.
50:54Thank you all so much for coming and watching and listening.
50:57I did a really great interview on AI today.
51:00Today's interview, you should go watch, is with Delaney Bartlett.
51:03It's about the Dumond affair and how a silly, how Mike,
51:06Bill Clinton got impeached over a land deal,
51:09Mike Huckabee snuck into the governor's mansion in Arkansas,
51:11and a serial killer and rapist was accidentally set free in the process.
51:15It's fascinating.
51:16So that's today's interview.
51:18Make sure to go listen to that on all your favorite podcast channels
51:21or right here on YouTube or Facebook, if you're watching on Facebook.
51:24Twitter, link in bio.
51:26So Twitch, link in bio, because it's on the Cameron Journal right now.
51:30But those are all, that's a very exciting interview.
51:32Delaney Bartlett's a wonderful journalist.
51:34She had a great book on it.
51:35And it's fascinating, especially as someone who grew up in the 90s in Northwest Arkansas
51:39and kind of saw some of this stuff happen.
51:41It was really quite fascinating.
51:42And talking to her was like being at Patrick's Diner in Knob Hill,
51:46talking to people I grew up with.
51:47So it was a great, it was a great time.
51:50In any case, my name is Cameron Cowan.
51:52This is the Cameron Journal NewsHour.
51:54Thank you all so much for watching.
51:55Please join us on Wednesday for The Living Joke at 4 p.m. Eastern.
51:58And I will see you next Monday.
52:00Thank you so much, everyone.
52:01Good night.
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