Crisis at the Border, Navigating Haiti's Gang Turmoil
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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

Our first guest up today, Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Mark is a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues, has served as Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies since 1995. The center is an independent nonpartisan research organization in Washington, which examines and critiques the impact of immigration on the United States. Mark Krikorian, welcome to the program.

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Mark, you wrote a great issue, a great article in the April 2024 issue of National Review called How to Fix the Border. And you started with a quote from Barbara Jordan, who people don't know is a

Congresswoman, big on civil rights, and she wrote, credibility in immigration policy can't be summed up in one sentence. Those who should get in, get in. Those who should be kept out are kept out. And those who should not be here will be required to leave.

Does the U.S. immigration policy follow that standard at all right now? That's a rhetorical question. It is. Well, yeah, it is. It's radio, so it's rhetorical. We're teeing up a softball to open up here. We don't get into the hardball until the second segment. It's a tough question. No, obviously not. In fact, they have no – the current administration has no intention of –

uh... enforcing immigration law and you know before we get into nitty-gritty i think the thing that's driving that sort of the underlying impulse

is that the mainstream left now, this used to be a fringe view, but the mainstream left no longer believes that immigration law is morally legitimate. They think it's the same as Jim Crow, that it is Jim Crow. And therefore, enforcing it would simply be immoral, would make them Bull Connor or something. And so they see themselves as heroic in

in subverting immigration law. Not the president necessarily, but he doesn't really have much to do with the conduct of the administration. I'm talking about the people who actually run immigration policy are anti-borders people, and everything stems from that once you understand that. Mark, is that only possible, it seems only possible from a very elitist left viewpoint, that if you are, for instance, a blue-collar Democrat,

this issue has real negative impacts on you that they're frankly ignoring by that point of view. Oh, certainly. But that would assume that the well-being of an American blue-collar worker is more important than the well-being of somebody from, you know, Haiti or Albania. And this perspective, basically, I call it post-American. They don't necessarily hate America, although some of them...

I guarantee you do. But even the ones who don't hate America sort of see themselves as having moved beyond it, that it's backwards and primitive to consider the well-being of people in your own country over the well-being of people elsewhere. And, you know, that's that's a basic clash of opinions.

perspectives of worldviews and I wish more Republican politicians would force their Democratic opponents to actually admit what's going on. Why do you think they don't do? We ask this question all the time. I mean, literally, we've had probably 50 members of Congress on the past year and we always ask this question about immigration.

what do they not understand about it? And Sam and I have never been very pleased or satisfied with their answers. And you bring up a good point. Literally have this debate because the majority of the Americans are going to support their side of it. Why do you think they don't have this debate? Is it because they don't feel prepared for it? They don't know about it? What do you think it is?

Yeah, I mean, there's a few people who know what they're doing on the right and basically are just bad on immigration. They're libertarians and they agree with the left on a lot of issues related to immigration. But for the most part,

You know, it's that old joke about the stupid party and the evil party. You know what I mean? Where they get together and do something both stupid and evil, and it's called bipartisanship. And the fact is that most, I think most Republican politicians just don't think this through down to the bottom.

They're sort of dealing with the superficial aspects like, you know, the murder of that poor woman, Lincoln Riley, as the president called her. And those are important issues. I mean, I'm not in any way downplaying that. I'm just saying that those are issues.

surface issues that are the result of a deeper disagreement. And, you know, for instance, I would like to just pin a Democrat down running for office and say, OK, what do you think immigration should be? Should it be like 10 million a year, which is, you

We take a million a year and that's too much already. But let's say, let's just for sake of argument, you want 10 million a year. Okay. What are you willing to do to Mr. 10 million and one? He's not a criminal. He's not a rapist. He's not smuggling fentanyl. He's just a regular working stiff. Are you willing to track him down, arrest him, detain him and throw him out quick? No BS, no nothing. Yes or no. And if the answer is no,

Then they're not for immigration limits, therefore unlimited immigration, which is basically the litmus test position now for the Democratic Party. That is a fantastic point. I think what we're in now, and I blame a lot of this on social media and cable news, we're in the click bait intellectual side of all arguments now. You know, so it's just it's easy to go point out the tragedy and murder of this young woman in Georgia.

But it's too difficult to go get him on a radio show and talk 20 minutes what your philosophy is about it or, you know, doing a substantial three part series on it in the local paper. They just seem unwilling to do it. And I'm not sure a lot of the members have the intellectual have to do it anymore. Yeah. And, you know, there was a joke, another joke about Congress. The woman I'm in Washington. So there's a lot of jokes about Congress.

where some congressman objected and he said, look, mediocre people need representation too.

Well, they are well represented in D.C., that's for sure. Yeah, legions, legions standing in front of them. Sam had a question about E-Verify. Sam, go ahead. Yeah, so one of the podcasts you did for the Center for Immigration Studies was talking a little bit about E-Verify in the age of Joe Biden's work visa program, these handout visas. I always used to say to people here, if we just used E-Verify the way it was meant to be,

that we really crack down on it, we could address a lot of the motivation for why people are coming here. And that includes penalties on employers. And that includes really holding them accountable. Is that still an effective tool in this age when Biden's handing out all these work visas? Yes, it still is. Obviously, with the Biden administration giving work permits to people right and left,

it's not as easy it's not as effective in dealing with the the whole immigration issue but there's you know most illegal immigrants are still not don't have work permits even a lot probably at least half of the ones that biden has waved into the country in addition to those that eluded the border patrol those people don't have work permits so absolutely um enforcing even

making it mandatory because it exists now. Anybody, any employer can use it. We've used it for years, but it's voluntary. And,

And about half of new hires are screened through E-Verify to make sure that they're not lying to their new employers about who they are. But the other half aren't, and that's where most of the illegal aliens are, because most illegal immigrants actually work on the books, believe it or not. There's a lot of guys hanging out in front of Home Depot for cash. That's a real thing. But more than half of illegal immigrants are working on the books. And so, yes, it would make a huge difference. Also in that, you talked a little bit about

And I've encouraged states. I think every state should create a task force that focuses on identity theft issues, because if those people are on the books, they're here illegally. They're using someone else's identity for sure. Yeah. I mean, there's no question that's a place that even with the federal government not wanting to enforce immigration law,

You know, identity fraud and identity theft are state crimes, too. So go after it. And unfortunately, what you see is in a lot of places is this is a true with a lot of areas of law is that if it impinges on illegal immigrants, they don't bother to enforce it.

whether it's like occupancy rules in neighborhoods, you're not allowed to have more than three unrelated people living in a house, say, and there's 14 people in a dormitory kind of situation. Local authorities often just won't enforce it just because it would be illegal immigrants. They're good at enforcing it on Airbnbs. They're not so good at enforcing it. Exactly. You wrote an article for the National Review entitled Border Bill Ironies.

You brought up a point when I read it that just made me laugh because it's true, and I don't think people realize it. So on the Langford-Schumer border bill, basically the House was voting to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas. At the same time, the Senate was negotiating with him on this border bill. Is that true? Oh, absolutely. It wasn't just negotiating with him. I mean, he helped write much of that bill. You can't make that up. That's like a Veep episode.

Yeah, well, unfortunately, we're living in deep. I mean, look who the vice president is, for heaven's sake. I just read that and I never thought about it, but like, oh my gosh, that's literally what they did.

Yep, yep, yep. Mark, we have— You know, the problem is not the House passing a good bill. It's the Senate leadership engaging in that ridiculous negotiation with the Biden administration. Well, and this goes back to the point we talked about earlier. The House has been malpractice, the House majority, by just not pushing—we have a border bill passed. It's called H.R. 2, and it solves a lot of the problem. And they just do not go out and talk about it enough. It's like, well, we passed it. Well, no one knows what's in that bill. It was passed in 23. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I agree. And the thing is, but the point is, look, I mean, yes, they should be talking about this more, making it a major response when the issue comes up. But they sent it over to the Senate. A majority of Republican senators co-sponsored the companion bill in the Senate, and then the leadership instead said,

decided to, you know, sort of give away the farm and negotiate with the Biden administration. So, yes, the House Republicans should be doing more. But, you know, if the Senate Republican leadership did its job, we'd be in a lot better shape. Mark, we have just about a minute and a half left. How one last question, then I want to give you a quick opportunity to tell folks how to follow you and your work. But

Should Republicans – I feel like we are missing a huge opportunity right now to go out and point out to folks that when we had the border more under control under Trump, that income for low-income earners was rising at the fastest rate in history. And the minute we throw open the border, that stops. Shouldn't we be going to all the low-wage workers and saying, this is your future on the line?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I'm glad you brought that up because before COVID, we had robust economic growth, but immigration actually was somewhat lower.

Congress hadn't changed the rules or what have you, but the Trump people did more enforcement. They tightened things up. And the actual number, there were still more immigrants coming in. It's just that the number of new immigrants was down. And like you said, everybody's income went up because the economy was doing well, but the poorest, lowest-income people enjoyed the biggest increases. And this had never happened literally for like 50 or 75 years. So make that argument. The problem is...

And this is what we touched on before. The easy argument is crime, fentanyl, look at Joe Biden letting people across. Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. You can follow him on Twitter at Mark S. Krikorian. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Morin and Sam Stone. Up next, our second guest today, Caroline Downey, education reporter for the National Review. She has a new piece out covering a lawsuit by female swimmers against the NCAA over some of the transgender swimmer issues. However, before we get into that, folks...

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Well, Caroline, you wrote an article for the National Review entitled, Female Swimmers Sue NCAA Over Male Competition Demand Return of Trophies on Monetary D damages. Basically, what happens, a group of female athletes Thursday filed a suit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association for permitting male intrusion into a very sex-specific sport. And they're saying, you know,

that this breaks all federal statute and they want compensation. They want this turned around. Tell us, people, what you've learned about it, what your thoughts are on it, where you think this is heading. Right. Well, thank you all so much for having me. This lawsuit is the culmination of so much groundwork that has been laid over the last couple of years by women's sports advocates who frankly never asked to be thrown into this fight.

But it was Riley Gaines, in addition to 16 other current and former female athletes who are plaintiffs in the suit, who experienced or feared that would experience violence.

unfair competition at the hands of male athletes who were invading into their sports, into the female division, and endured some very uncomfortable situations. Either they were stripped of a title, of an accolade, of a trophy that happened to Riley Gaines firsthand. She tied with Leah Thomas at the NCAA tournament, the infamous one back in

2022, and she didn't get to hold the trophy. We remember that infamous photo of Riley standing while this towering, enormous male figure is standing next to her. It was just such a farce. And there was so much moral clarity, I think, at that moment. And the dominoes started to fall from then on. And essentially, any normal person with eyes could see that

This is not just a scandal, but it's just ludicrous. There is no way that a male with larger muscle build,

with much higher testosterone concentration levels, with so many other physical advantages, should be allowed to participate in the women's category of any sport. And it's not just collegiate team sports like swimming, where this is egregiously unfair. It's niche sports like badminton and skateboarding. It's extreme sports.

Power sports like powerlifting or MMA or boxing. And in those, it's actually far more dangerous because it's very unsafe for the female athletes. They are actively put in harm's way.

very directly by their opponents who were male. And I mean, they could die. They could die quite literally. I mean, we've seen this in volleyball where, you know, Peyton McNabb, she's affiliated with the Independent Women's Forum alongside Riley Gaines. She also experienced violence

a very traumatic incident with a trans-identifying male athlete on the opposing volleyball team, punted a volleyball to her head, spiked it, and she had a concussion and

and many other secondary health complications as a result of that. So, I mean, across the board, we have overwhelming evidence that this is an outrage, that this is wrong, that this is an absolute reversal of all of the rights that feminists crusaded for decades ago. And finally, we're

We're taking, they're taking action. They're suing the organization, one of the governing bodies that has been responsible for the perpetuation of this farce. They're accusing it of violating Title IX, which is federal law that, you know, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions that receive federal funding. And Title IX served as the basis for sex-segregated spaces and sports, which...

makes sense, they're intuitive, right? Because women are distinctly different than men. It's absurd that we have to say that in 2024, but they are by their natural makeup and bodily construction. And so we're hoping, you know, obviously that this case escalates, but I think this had to happen. And at the end of this, by the way, the Supreme Court has got to rule on this. If we're talking really endgame here,

It's got to be the Supreme Court that intervenes. 100%. You know, is there any example? So Leah Thomas was born male. She now claims she's a female and she won the 500 meter freestyle. Is there any examples where a woman has transitioned to male, played in a male sports and won?

Yeah.

I'm sure. Where there's weight. Right. It's weight and also it's junior high. Yeah, yeah. Right? Which doesn't exactly translate to college. I'm sure there's been cases. Do you feel there'll be more people, more female athletes joining on with this lawsuit? Well, I think what this has done, first of all, this coalition of female athletes, it's been, like I said, a long time coming. They

They've been gaining momentum, gaining the courage to speak out, being platformed, thankfully, by courageous organizations such as ICONS and such as Independent Women's Forum, giving them the platform to speak out on this issue without fear of retaliation, retribution, or loss of livelihood. You know, that's pretty key because a lot of these female athletes, they, you know, either plan to pursue it long-term, maybe professionally, professionally,

This is like career suicide if they step out of line, because like I said, it's the international governing bodies and unfortunately national governing bodies in the U.S. that are complicit in this. They are prescribing a Band-Aid solution in the form of hormone suppression, which by no means is a good thing.

neutralizes the male advantages that they bring to the playing field, but they claim that it does to appease both lobbies, both the trans activists and the women who feel extremely disenfranchised right now. And so, you know, basically I think more female athletes will get the, you know, will be given permission as a result of this lawsuit to, you know, come out of the woodwork, join the

the fight. And I think it's, you know, there's strength in numbers. And it's past time for that to happen. I mean, just from a fan's perspective, the entire point of watching sports is watching people compete on an even playing field. And when you have a decidedly uneven playing field, it's not sport. It's not worth watching in the same way. Not to, you know, before that's

then on top of all the damage they're doing to these women, it's absolutely insane what they're doing. Caroline, we're coming to the end of our segment here. How do folks follow you and your work? Well, I would love it if everyone could follow me at National Review, where I cover the women's sports issue extensively. I also cover the invasion of men into many other sacred female spaces, such as the sorority on college campuses. Oh, good grief. The female prison, women's prison, and the locker room and...

I'm sure there's more to go. I think we're going to want to have you back on to talk about the prisons one and some of that other stuff also. Caroline Downey, education reporter for the National Review, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Folks, stay tuned. We've got more great guests coming up here. And if you're not already, go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote, sign up for our sub stack. You can find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our next guest up today is...

covering something that is, frankly, should be world-shaking and isn't getting nearly the coverage it deserves. Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. She was awarded a 2018 Maria Moores Cabot Prize, the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas. Jacqueline, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me. So, Jacqueline, let me sum things up in Haiti and tell me what I'm missing. So basically, the prime minister has resigned, okay, which now may affect the international force from Kenya coming in to police. We have political and civil leaders who can't reach a consensus on who should rule the country. We have gangs controlling 80% of the capital city. We have armed international force stuck halfway around the world. So...

And it gets worse. What happens here? I mean, you put out an article two days ago. Can I actually back this up, Chuck? What started all this? What kicked all this off? Right. What led to it? Is it the assassination and then just a void of leadership? What happened?

So, you know, a lot of people have taken this back to the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, on the 7th of July 2021. But actually, Haiti has been in a downward spiral for a while, at least the last 14 years, I would say. I mean, we have to go back to 2010.

Remember, we had a major earthquake, 7.0. Most of Port-au-Prince was destroyed. According to the Haitian government, 316,000 people were killed in that disaster. A lot of promises were made by the international community, billions of dollars that never really materialized, despite what a lot of people believe. That money did not go to the Haitian government. Haiti was forced to have an election literally in the midst of the rubble.

And that started this crisis. First, we had an electoral crisis where there were allegations of fraud that weren't necessarily proven, but the president at the time, Rene Préval, who had brought a measure of stability to Haiti after coming out of another transition, you know, the US decided and others decided, well, we were kind of tired of you and we don't want to continue with you. So he was forced to kick his candidate out of the election.

And then that issue was just never resolved. You know, during this current crisis, I always said the debate that Haitians should have been having was whether or not

The country was ready to go into an elections and the idea that elections, you know, they always bring trouble to Haiti, instability, not stability. But but that whole argument never even happened because it became this issue of sort of a first a power grab. Who should be in charge?

And then the gangs literally stepped into this power vacuum. You know, President Moise, when he was in power and by the time he died, he was killed in the middle of the night by a group of commandos. He had not had an election in four years. So what that meant was at the time that he was assassinated, he was one of 11 elected officials in the country. The other 10 were members of

of the Senate. So he had been ruling by executive order and already he was facing anti-government protests. People were accusing him of trying to be the region's next dictator. We were already in a political crisis. And despite efforts to get him and his opponents to sit down and to come with some political deal, a more inclusive government, that really did not happen. And so

What people are seeing this week are saying, oh, well, Ariel Henry failed to do this. Yes, but he came and he met this crisis. And so when you think about a country in a constitutional void, right, you don't have a constitution that says, no, you can't do this. Yes, you should be doing that. You don't have any elected leaders, but you've got armed gangs that are heavily armed. You have a weak government.

And you this is what you end up with. You end up where they have coordinated. They've come together in everybody's worst nightmare. They have launched a united front of attacks. These are the gangs that have the gang armed group. They they or they orchestrated a massive prison break of the country's two large prisons.

where they basically freed over, I think it was over 4,000 people. I've seen numbers. The largest prison had 3,600 inmates at the time. And among those inmates, murderers, kidnappers, and notorious gang leaders, as well as some people who were indicted just in January in the president's assassination, they're now running in the streets. And by the way, yesterday, that same prison caught fire. They think it's accidental, but...

But the place cannot get a break. And so in the midst of all of this, the Miami Herald, we reported and we broke the story that said the U.S. had asked Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign, to work on a transition plan that will lead to his resignation. The White House denied it initially, but they had to come back. And well, we see what happened. Henry basically announced his resignation. He was locked out of the country. He was trying, he was in Kenya, ironically enough, trying to

You know, he was finalizing a deal to get a multinational security support mission there to help the Haitian national police take out these gangs. Jacqueline, we're going to stop you right there. We take this quick break. We want to come back to you. So don't lose your train of thought. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back talking more about Haiti and the crisis down there.

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We're with Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald. If you want to know what's going on in Haiti and Central and South America, get the Miami Herald. That's the first thing. Jacqueline's been covering the Caribbean for 10 plus years. And as she described to us, the current crisis in Haiti really has been going on since 2010. And the Herald's really unique in their coverage of that sphere of the world. 100%. It's fantastic. And folks, you can also hear this interview in Miami at AM610WIOD.com.

So Jacqueline, continue. We interrupted you for that segment break, but continue with the background about what's been going on there. National Security Support Mission, which basically is a non-United Nations mission to

Come in and to bolster the Haitian national police. So this issue has been very controversial with some people saying, oh, my God, Haiti doesn't need an international force. But it's also a numbers game. Right. Imagine a country of 12 million people, a police force that doesn't even have 9000 officers and only a couple of hundreds are involved in anti-gang operations.

And so even when police successfully go in and take control of an area that falls under gang control, they cannot they can't hold it very long.

So what makes this particular crisis, this violence different from what we've been seeing in the last couple of years? Well, the gangs were coordinated, they were united, and they had the police spread thin. I mean, the police literally was trying to decide, okay, I've got this area that's under attack, I've got that area under attack, which one do I go? They had to make a choice. I mean, your security forces should not have to make that kind of choice. And so, you know, after a couple of days of calm, we

We are now once again in a situation where the attacks have started again. Yesterday, they set fire to the house of the police chiefs.

That has created a lot of panic, even among some of the individuals in Haiti who were considering joining this presidential council that was part of a deal brokered by the U.S. and the Caribbean community in Jamaica on Monday that Secretary of State Blinken personally flew there to do. People are scared. And people probably don't know, Chuck.

But Kenya has a very good history the last 20 or so years of helping other countries address some of these type of gang issues with their security forces. They may be the best in the world at that at this point or most experienced. I have two questions here for you. First of all, Little Haiti is about 30,000 people in Miami. I'm sure you have a lot of contacts there. What is the reaction from people in your contacts in Little Haiti right now about what's going on?

Wow. So, you know, so South Florida has like the largest or the fastest growing Haitian community in South Florida, in the United States, actually. And people are mixed. I mean, what I find is that a

A lot of people, your average patient really don't know what's going on. They think they know, but they but they don't know. Right. And this is where, you know, mainstream press like myself, we're kind of losing the war with, you know, the YouTube's and the things that flow on social media. But people are attuned. And some of them, they think that this violence just started in the last three years. Of course, they're very angry at the government. They felt that the government just ignored the gang issue and didn't do anything.

And those of us, of course, who've been covering Haiti for a while have basically said, look, this has been going on for a while. I mean, this is just a natural progression, unfortunately, of what happens when you have a weak government and you don't have a constitution in place because you're failing as a state.

But people are concerned and you have people who have family members in Haiti. So they're getting the phone calls, they're hearing the bullets, the heavy gunfire in the background. Today, they can't even go to Haiti even if they were hoping to take the risk. You have people who have been victims

kidnappings or they have this and there's kidnapping this crisis has really affected the Haitians living in the United States because they have been pulled into it one way or another whether they've had to get ransom to try to free a loved one whether they can't go home or whether they had to send more money home for their families um it there is nothing has been um off

you know, nothing sacred in this. We've got children who have been locked in their schools for days because of the gunfighting outside. Kids, you know, where bullets have been flying in the classroom. So imagine as a parent, you send your child to school and you think that's eight hours where you should be able to rest in peace and do what you need to do. No, that

For everybody, whether you're in your house or whether you sent your kid to school, the threat is there. And this week, it's even more so than it has been. So what most people don't understand, I'm sure our listeners don't, is Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic, right? And the Dominican Republic would be viewed as an upper middle income country. It's like ranked 80th of 189 countries in income per capita, right?

How does the what is the Dominican Republic's position on this? What is their role in this and how do they keep that violence from coming across their border?

So the first thing we should also note that the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which shares the island Hispaniola, have a very acrimonious history because Haiti at one point owned the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Republic celebrates its independence not from Spain but from Haiti. And that has not made for a very neighborly relationship. I mean, just a few months ago, we had a situation where the Dominican Republic shut down all of its borders

with Haiti because the Haitians in northern Haiti decided they were going to build a canal and the Dominicans were upset by this. And this really spurred feelings of nationalism among Haitians there, and it did not help the larger political security crisis in Haiti, unfortunately.

And so what we're seeing today, we're keeping our eyes on is, you know, is how is this going to spill over in the sense that Dominican Republic that has, you know, been beefing up its borders. President Abid Arrear, who was in a reelection campaign, has said publicly that he will not turn his country into refugee camps for Haitians. We are seeing Haitians being pushed back.

into Haiti over the border. The concern among US officials and others is that if people decide that the violence in Haiti is too much or the humanitarian situation is unbearable, rather than risk being deported back to Haiti by the Dominican Republic, they may take on boats and try to make their way to Puerto Rico through the Mona Passage, which is one of the most dangerous maritime passages there are because people die in that passage.

So, yes, and right now they're looking at a possible air bridge, the United Nations into the Dominican Republic, because they want to get some of their staff out of Haiti, but keep them nearby where they continue to work remotely.

So we're looking. It's a very complex relationship. Yes, President Abiraneh has been, you know, the voice internationally saying that there needs to be assistance to Haiti. There needs to be some international force. He's called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission. They went on record opposing it when it was pulled out around 2017.

But at the same time that, you know, I did mention at the beginning of this that the prime minister of Haiti was on his way to Haiti in a charter plane where he was going to land in the Dominican Republic and take a helicopter back into Port-au-Prince in 30 minutes before his flight was supposed to land. The Dominicans did not give him landing rights. Wow. Talking about international assistance, whether it be a U.N. mission or other, is there realistically any

Is there any way that this settles in any kind of reasonable timeline without that? I mean, the history of countries where the rule of law has completely broken down and where you end up with a failed state is that.

at best it takes decades from that point for them to recover on their own. Oh yes. I mean, I don't think that anybody thinks that this is going to happen overnight. The question is how do we get this country back to some sort of measure of stability where it was, let's say 2009. I mean, I remember December, 2009 being in Haiti and we just came out of, you know, food riots that happened around the world. Remember that 2008 people went up in arms because of the price of rice. And then, um,

And so we had our share of food rides in Haiti, but you had a UN peacekeeping mission there. And you had this crash that happened in the Caribbean. So Haitians with money were like, maybe I'm better off keeping my money in Haiti. And people really started to have hope and really started to look at the country differently. Former President Clinton had gone down with the IEDB, had a huge investment conference there.

And the country really was turning a corner, not in a grand way, but there was a momentum. And then the 12th of January, the worst thing that you thought could have happened, at least at that point, because this is probably far worse, but it was that earthquake. And that earthquake was so devastating. And what you saw was the international community talked a good game. We want to do things differently. We want to do this. We want to do that. But at the end of the day, grassroots organizations still didn't get access to funds.

Things were still not rebuilt and the promises of aid were not, you know, they were not kept. There's a lot of money that's unaccounted for from that. Yes. Yes. Jacqueline, that brings a good point. You've seen this. So there always seems to be some international group that's going to save Haiti or temper the violence. Right. Do Haitians even trust these international forces anymore?

You know, it really depends on who you talk to, right? Because for the for the average Haitian who's living outside of the capital or they're living in an area that has been totally neglected by government after government, they understand the role of the international community and NGOs because they become the social safety net for them. Right. OK. But then for for others who, you

you know, have a sort of different kind of reading of things. And remember the 1915 U.S. occupation of the country and all of the ills that come when you have outside forces, they have been opposed. But what we have seen in the last two years is that people who were initially opposed to the international force coming into Haiti, who live in Haiti, they have now changed their minds because they

You know, safety is such an important thing. I mean, we often take it for granted in the United States because, you know, yeah, crime goes up and we have our police and we respond and everybody's sort of panics. But you're not walking out of your house and thinking like, I'm going to get grabbed, I'm going to get kidnapped, I'm going to get killed. You know, that's a reality every single day. So when I see, you know, when I receive emails from people who are saying we don't need these foreign forces, they're often people who are not in Haiti or who are not living this problem.

And the people who are there, it's something different. And let me just say this. People have asked, well, why Kenya? Why Africa? The reason why is because it took over almost a year before somebody responded. The government of Haiti during another gang blockade of the port, you know, made this appeal for international help reluctantly, but this was happening in the midst of a cholera epidemic, another cholera epidemic. Schools were shuttered, no potable water, no fuel. Things were

really bad. And he says, look, I need help to help the police, not to come do the job with the police, but to come and bolster and help the police. And it wasn't until late July of last year that Kenya raised their hands and said, hey, you know what, we will do it. That is the reason why you have Kenya. Now, this multinational security support mission has faced legal hurdles in Kenya where the opposition

filed against it. They went to court. And then in the United States, we have some Republican lawmakers who are not convinced that this is going to work. And they are not giving the money to the administration at this particular moment.

Jacqueline, one of the issues I kind of remember and tell me if I'm wrong here. And we have two minutes left here. Go ahead. Is real quick. There was there was a lot of issues with some of the behavior of some of the U.N. troops there the last time they were deployed. Is that a factor in the U.N.'s reticence to step in?

It's not the UN's renaissance to step in, but it was that the US took the lead on this question. And basically because of the opposition to probably a UN peacekeeping force, which would require the United States to go and get China and Russia not to veto, and the US is not going to send in troops, they decided to come up with this hybrid, which would be with a UN mandate, but it is not a UN peacekeeping force. And that means countries have to provide volunteer payments. And that's been a problem because

It hasn't been, it's not fully financed yet. Gotcha. Jacqueline Charles, Charles, we have one minute left here, just with 30 seconds left. I mean, you're about 400 miles, Haiti's about 400 miles from Cuba, Guantanamo. Why briefly should this matter to America that we help resolve this crisis?

This should matter because we have something called the U.S. Arms Embargo that determines what kind of guns the Haitian National Police has, what kind of how much ammunition they can have. We built that force after we pushed Haiti to get rid of its army after one too many coups. And the guns and the ammo that the gangs have access to are coming from our shores in the U.S. Oh, good grief. Wow. I had no clue on that one. Thank you so much, Jacqueline Charles, reporter for the Miami Herald. Jacqueline, how do folks follow you in your work?

You can follow me at www.miamihurl.com backslash Haiti or on Twitter at Jackie Charles, J-A-C-Q-U-I-E-C-H-A-R-L-E-S. Fantastic. Jacqueline Charles, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate having you on the program. Look forward to having you back in the future.

Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Really appreciate all of our guests today. Mark Krikorian,

Caroline Downey of the National Review and Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald. They were fantastic. Our next guest up today is a

Well, now he's a friend of the program after today, but he's a friend of the co-hosts of this program. He's a friend of our group chat. Yes. That's right. The group chat that we shouldn't admit to having. He's also the host of the podcast, Light Beer, Dark Money. Which is a great name for a podcast. It's a pretty good name for a podcast. I wish I could come up. I wish I could take credit for coming up with it. We should probably introduce him as Sean Noble. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Who in the hell are you? Why are you here? Wait, so who came up with the name? - So it's Chris, my co-host. He's a former beer distributor. He sold his company and then he called me out of the blue. I hadn't talked to him for a while.

And he says, you ever thought about doing a podcast? And I was like, well, actually, I have. It was on my goals. It was on my New Year's resolution. It can be a lot of fun. Yeah. And he says, well, I've got a great name if you want to do one with me. And I was like, what do you think? He's like, it's light beer, dark money. And I was totally sold right then. I was like, absolutely. Oh, that's a great name. It's a great name. I spent years kind of.

Yeah.

But I was like, you know what? I'm just going to it's not ever going to go away. So just embrace it. It's sort of what you got to do. A great killer does in Missouri. Have you followed Greg Keller on Twitter? He just anything bad print of it goes. Yeah, I'm blessed for the folks that don't know him. Sean has been winning elections, fights and ballot initiatives and all sorts of fun here in Arizona for many, many years. And nobody knows who paid for any of it, which given the way Democrats are today about canceling people.

I used to question whether we needed dark money. I don't anymore. Well, especially, I mean, it's with the Citizens United decision. So the part of why I got the moniker is because I was doing Koch Brothers stuff in 2010 after Citizens United. And we actually kind of pioneered the way to engage with independent expenditures, you know, dark money, because we played in 100 congressional districts that year.

And obviously the Republicans won the House, so it was a big success.

And it was really just equalizing. Correct. Citizens United just equalizes the playing field because the Democrats had been using union money as Darkwing Forever. And people don't realize one of the things they do there is their big donor will donate to the union. Right. Who will then move that money to the election. Exactly. These aren't the union dues necessarily that they're working with. They use those too, but they also have wealthy people pouring money into the unions. And so when...

Since United came out, the playing field was equalized. We had pretty good success for a couple cycles. And then Democrats were like, oh, wait a minute. And so they started pouring even more money. So they are now the kings of this. Our local paper, the Arizona Republic, Lori Roberts, the leading columnist, if you will, went on a multi-year rampage against you and dark money.

That literally ended the day Democrats learned to play the game. Yeah. Has she brought it up since? Oh, no. I've even questioned her directly on it. And what did she say? And her excuse is, well, everyone does it. Yeah. Like, I was the public enemy number one. What a principled fight you're leading, lady.

Well, the reason Sean, podcast host of Like Beer, Dark Money, is here is, folks, Sam and Sean are only people up early like me. So when I get on a rant at the gym, when I see something, I call them. They're lucky enough to be called. I think I've been frustrating Chuck because I'm getting up even earlier, but I'm going out for about a 90-minute walk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I leave my phone. I started leaving my phone on ice. What the hell is that about? So anyway, today, as I was at the gym. It's good for mental health. As I was at the gym this morning listening to news,

Morning Joe, which tries to pretend like he's a conservative, but there's nothing conservative about him. I mean, he's lost every principle in the world. They came out and I started watching it. They just started doing a bunch of Twitter feeds that simply a post that said breaking judge rules. Fannie Fannie. Sorry, I don't want to be racist on it. Fannie Willis. Apparently CNN, an episode I was watching last night. It's not Fannie. It's Fannie. So Fannie Willis can remain on the Trump Georgia case.

So immediately what I do now, whenever I see anything, it's even on Fox, I just start Googling and say, okay, what's the real story, right? Right. And immediately what you had is I just started pulling up and even the Washington Post and

The Wall Street Journal. Just basically, the claim was, breaking news, Georgia judge orders district attorney Fannie Willis to step aside or remove top prosecutor in the Trump election interference case. So that's a big point. It wasn't that she was allowed to stay. You have an option. You can keep your lover and fellow prosecutor on and you can leave or...

Or you fire your lover and you stay on. Right. And we're going to find out how tight this relationship is right now, right? Let's just say Wade is headed for the door. But as I called Sean and I called you and I just said, this is again, what the press does now is the sin of omission, right? They just simply omit a fact. That is a big fact. It's not that they just said that what they want to make it seem like for all the moronic act blue donors who completely are brain dead is that the fact is that

No, she was given an option. There's impropriety here. So you can leave or he can stay or he can stay and you can leave or whatever the case may be, but get it together. Right. I mean, it's they they they purposely leave that stuff out so as to make people believe, oh, well, you know, the Trump guys who are opposing this clearly got it wrong. Look.

Yet again, a judge has ruled against them. Right. And that's just fundamentally not the case. No, but it's a broader problem. I was actually at a breakfast before we recorded this program today talking with some folks who were asking how do we get to – there's so much going on that if you're a blue-collar worker on the left, you should be just – your party should be anathema to you at this point.

And we were talking about this and I said the problem is they're not going – unless we pay to get in front of them those messages and that's a lot of money. You don't get them through because post-2016 – in 2016 they spun Trump for all they could. But they gave him access. They gave him time. And lo and behold, people liked what he was saying and they voted him into office. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, they learned their lesson from

They simply do not cover anything at all that doesn't fit the narrative. Right. Yeah. They learned the hard way in their minds because because it backfired on them. They thought that, oh, we're ratings bonanza to have Trump on and just give them an open mic and let them do it. All the crazy stuff they thought was just nuts. And whoa, wait a minute. People like that stuff. He got elected. Holy crap. We screwed up.

We've got to figure this out. So you're exactly right. They have completely changed it so that there is just zero room for anything that's outside their narrative. What are some examples in Arizona, Arizona Republic local press lately that they've done these sins of omission in reporting? Well, the biggest one is probably school funding.

Absolutely. And it has been going on for years. And that's been going on for years. But they have gotten even worse where they don't even cover it anymore when the legislature gives more money to the schools. Right. So like last year, we gave the schools what I think $500 million extra. And that was over what anyone was even asking for. I mean, literally gave them $500 million more than they were even asking for.

And if you watch the local press, it was like it did not happen. Yeah. Well, and they also are dishonest about the teacher pay increases because the reality is the legislature and the governor pass money. Ducey did this all the time. Supposed to get a 20 percent increase. The school boards decide how much they get paid. These people never got a 20 percent increase because the school boards, which are funded elections by teachers unions. Right. Right.

make sure it doesn't go to the teachers, but then they complain that teachers need more salary. Sean, you may know this better than I, but I think it was 7% got to them, not 20. Right. And, and what's, but, but let's back up even more a little bit. So remember that the teachers union was demanding, not if they, you know, the, the legislature is like, Oh, we'll give you a 4% increase. He's like, no, we need 8%. Right. We need 8% and we're not doing anything for anything less than 8%. The governor comes in and says, we'll give you 20. Oh, that's not enough. We need 40.

I mean, it literally they change the goalpost every time. Never enough. And again, those goalposts aren't reported. They're not reported. And as you point out, it doesn't actually get to the teachers because the teachers unions are anti teacher. They're not only anti student, they're anti teacher. It's just they're a union. I've had this. I've had this theory for a while that if you're the teachers union and your real goal is political influence and power.

That keeping teachers underpaid is the best thing you can do to age your mission because you can fundraise off them. Well, I'll give you a perfect example. So I have a friend that's a lot. There's a lobbying occasionally and they did a great job on a bill and the bill passed. Right. And they got done what they got paid to do. And their comment to me was last week, like, I'm not gonna get paid anymore.

Right. Because the reality is this person did their job. Right. So now – and I feel that's the teachers unions. Well, if I give you a 20%, 30% increase, there's no need for us anymore. Well, and that's always been – in previous years and cycles, that's been the issue on the border too is that both sides fundraise off it. Both sides get elected off it within their own electorates. So solving the problem, solving any problem is politically dicey. Yeah. And I mean –

That is going to be the thing that that is going to be interesting to watch, because I think as we look at the landscape, barring now, you guys know that I've been saying that it's not going to be it's not going to be Biden on the on the ballot in November. I think the Democrats are going to fix that. But I agree with you. And I'm starting to question my I'm starting to question that. I think he's he's intent on holding on. Well, he's intent on holding on. This is going to be it's going to be ugly.

But I just don't think that it's possible, especially with RFK getting on the ballot in so many states. That just completely undercuts Biden's ability to win. But let's assume that Biden's there and Trump wins. Let's throw this one thing in there. Not Aaron Rodgers or someone like that. RFK. Listen, if you're listening and you want to have a real impact, go get someone on someone real.

Not RFK? No, not Aaron Rodgers. They're talking about Aaron Rodgers being his running mate? Come on. No, that would be silly. I mean, it would take him off the field. Yeah. I mean, the Jets fans are going to go freak out. Well, you're definitely not winning New Jersey. Right, right. Exactly. You never were anyway. But let's assume it's a Biden, Trump, RFK. So Trump wins. So now...

Is Trump because he's a he's a lame duck president going in day one. Right. So does he work to get stuff done? Does he have the help of the Senate, which will be Republican? The House is a question whether it's going to be Republican or Democrat. So he'll either have all of it or he'll have at least the Senate. And so he can get quite a bit done and he certainly can get a bunch of stuff done with his executive orders. The question is whether he's going to actually do it.

and actually pass real policies, or is it going to be, like you point out, a just continued...

Well, turning up with him, too. I know from from working with Carrie Lake and some of the conversations she's had with him that he is expresses real concern about whoever the VP is has to be the one to carry on. Correct. After him that he won't be able to complete the the objectives he's laid out for himself in one term. Despite him saying that he could do it in a year. Right. Ron DeSantis couldn't do it. Right. But the reality to that is that I question is that can Donald Trump.

Step aside and give someone else enough of the limelight to make that even possible. I don't think so. I think that I think who he picks as vice president is is probably nominally important, but not nearly as important as who comes after.

I think it's important if you pick a Tim Scott or someone who can help you electorally. Yeah, right. But the question is, if it's any – there's a good chance that whoever he picks as vice president is not going to be necessarily the nominee. Absolutely. Yeah, morbid caretaker. So we now have what's –

known throughout the world as Kylie's Corner. Kylie, you know you have a bar joke in here. What happens when you have a Jewish man, a Catholic man, and a Mormon man walk into a radio station and you get Kylie's Corner? Did you know that? With no shellfish. There's a lot going on. So,

Some people all over, people getting arrested, but I don't even know where to begin. So I'm going to start with the first one. So there is a criminal justice reform activist that was appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast about a month ago. He spent 25 years in jail for robbery and attempted murder. He got out. He told Joe Rogan, I had a decision to make. I'm either getting clean and getting my life together or not.

And he chose the podcast. You can say shit. Yeah. He chose the path to get it together. He was working with youth kids in Queens, New York.

and in Bronx. But this week he was just arrested for murder. Someone called a wellness check on his house to which when they when the cops showed up there was a dismantled body inside of a plastic bin. So then they went and got their search warrant to which they then found the torso and the head in the freezer. And old habits die hard. Clearly. But

But he was actually seen. This guy was exonerated, right? I mean, he got out because they said, oh, yeah, you weren't the murderer. Yes. Or the attempted murderer. So it was like this great story of redemption. It's like, oh. Yeah, but he went to the full end. On security camera, he had fake wigs, multiple wigs, multiple clothing, trying to get rid of the body. It was a blonde wig, too, wasn't it? Blonde wig, yeah. Blondes do have more fun. Yeah.

So this guy's staying in jail probably for the rest of his life. Anyways, there's two kids, two students from two different colleges that disappeared. Two male students that disappeared last weekend. So Riley Strain was the first one. He was in Nashville on a fraternity conference. I call it a conference. Yeah.

and so they're out on Broadway. He was at Luke Bryan's bar and he was getting kicked out for being too drunk. So his friend tried to go with him to which the supposedly the security guards said, no, we're taking him out the back. He's getting kicked out that way. You can go out the front and meet him out back. Um,

Um, to which then Riley has already walked off by the time his friend went back and went to go meet him. So his friend then went to the hotel cause he's assuming that Riley walked to the hotel. He wasn't there. So he then called his parents and called the cops and said, I can't find Riley. So pretty much right away he immediately called the cops. Um,

Video footage has been released of Riley and he walked the opposite way of where the hotel was. So you can see pretty much the path that he took, which he was walking towards a river, the river that's near that direction. Super drunk frat boy and river. Yes. He's not been seen since. The only thing is there's a woman that works at a homeless shelter who said that he was wearing a very distinct shirt and you can see it in all the footage of him walking down the street. She said that there was a homeless man that was wearing it.

So I don't know if that like throws anything. And he goes, and the man, the homeless man is very specific that was wearing. It always hangs out with another homeless man who pulls a black wagon around Nashville. And in the first foot or in the last footage, which is where he's closest to the river, Riley, there is a homeless man pulling a black wagon, which was very specific. So I don't know if like maybe she saw that and said, you know, gave that story or if that's true and there's something going on there.

But Riley Strain is still missing from Nashville. Oh, his poor parents. Yes. And then Caleb Harris, he is in Corpus Christi, Texas. He goes to Texas A&M. There's different reports on what was happening between 2 and 3 a.m. Supposedly, he told his parents. Nothing good ever. Exactly. Zero. So he had told his parents the night before that he got back from fishing and he was going to go fishing in the morning and then go to class. So he was getting all that stuff ready for that. Supposedly.

It was first reported that he took his dog for a walk at 2 a.m. and came back at 2.45 in the morning and dropped his dog off and then was waiting for his Uber Eats.

And the reason why supposedly we know this, I'm saying supposedly, because there's also reports that he never took his dog out for a walk and that he had just let the dog outside at 2.15 in the morning and then let the dog back in at 2.45 in the morning. In the 2.45 mark, we know about this dog situation because he Snapchatted his sister a video of the dog being outside at 2.44 in the morning.

And then at three in the morning, his Snapchat apparently pinged again. And that was the last time his phone has ever been in use. And the Uber Eats was still sitting on the front door and he's missing and gone and obviously never showed up for class the next day. So people speculate online that a lot of kids use Snapchat for drugs and maybe he was meeting up with a drug dealer and something went wrong. And that's the reason why that was the last ping.

Ping with Snapchat. I knew I was using Snapchat wrong. Yeah. That's apparently how. Yeah. And they have reported. I don't know. I mean, give the Arizona legislature another few weeks and they'll have a store for it all here. So they're about to they're about to legalize like magic mushrooms for COVID.

commercial sale. Have they not looked at what Oregon's, Oregon's going totally backwards now. Yeah, no, this is, because people are dying. Well, maybe we'll send our officials there to go learn about the drug crisis. Exactly. How to fix it. Exactly. And then the final one, so they're still missing, so obviously go online and you can look at their photo. Wish the best for them. Wish the best for them. Um,

I won't get into the other theories because that just goes down a far rabbit hole, the smiley face killer. But, well, that's too long for today. Oh. Because that sounds more interesting. Well, Chuck knows about the smiley face killer. Oh, yeah, yeah. Matter of fact, Kylan had did some investigation on the smiley killer two years ago. We went to the scene of the crime. We went to the location. We went to the scene. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was like this theory that started back in the 90s about a smiley face killer, but really there's a bunch of copycats. I'm putting this in air quotes for those that can't see me. And...

They kill males that they think would be a challenge to fight. So they're usually athletic, tall, fit. College-age men. Yeah, college-age men. And then they show up in a body of water. And there's supposedly a body of... I keep saying supposedly. I need to find a new word. Allegedly. There's a smiley face that's spray-painted near the death of the body. Wow. So we went to... There was a kid here that...

was found in a body of water so we went to see if there was a smiley face. And there wasn't. No, but there was black spray paint covering up something suspicious. Yeah, no, no, no. We felt we had something but it turned out to be negative. Anyway, your last story? My last story is an update about the Gilbert Goons because I think last time there was no arrest made when we talked about this. Now we have six, right? Seven. Seven arrests made. Six have pled guilty or not guilty, right? So six pled not guilty but then I was like, what happened to the seventh? He did not plead guilty. He... That was

Was my question. I think we have the talker. No, no, no, no. I think this kid... So it says he did not appear in court that day after reportedly refusing to be transferred to face a judge. So that's why he didn't plead anything. He hasn't made a plea. Okay, so my first thought with that was he was the one pleading out and rolling over. Yeah, no. So there has been all sorts of rumors on...

The internet if you try to find them they get shut down fairly quickly They're removed from the internet very fast, but I like to keep on top of this so there had been The kid William Owens, which is the one or William Hines William Owen Hines He was supposedly hiding out on the reservation, which is what took a little bit from his arrest Oh, well, this is the one that wouldn't appear in court in front of the judge So I don't know what his situation is But yeah seven arrests

All of them have had run-in with the cops prior to these arrests. And they go from... Two of them had DUIs. So there was a...

Three or four of them are underage, so they wouldn't assign what the issue was to each person. But they did give us them. One of them was criminal damage for doing donuts with a farm equipment, throwing fire. Okay, wait a minute. Here, as a farm kid? Yeah, wait a minute. Listen, listen.

This is over criminalization right here. That's exactly right. I can tell you for a fact I've done donuts on farm equipment. I mean, every person who grew up where I did in Sholo, I mean, that's... Look, when you're a kid and you're given a machine, if you don't try to do stupid things with it, you are not doing it right. Yeah, lots of them are recklessly driving in the dirt. Three of them have DUIs.

Two of them were arrested for throwing fireworks out of a car. I'm assuming they're probably together doing that. And again, that's. Yeah. OK, I did that, too. Yeah. I mean, there's caught with weed and tobacco on campus shoplifting. OK, the shoplifting and DUI are different things than the rest of this. The rest of this is the stuff that, quite frankly, I thought our society was better when we didn't get

the police involved and when your neighbor would just kick your ass. Yeah. Right. You know, they got in a fight over a girl. He was arrested for that. Someone hit someone with their car. They were arrested over that.

So they weren't choir boys. They weren't choir boys. They were definitely... But they're not, you know, hardened criminals. Well, hitting someone with your car is like attempted murder. Yeah, but the point is... Depends on the circumstances. No, no, no. But I think the point of this is that's what they've been caught for. Right. Yeah, good point. I mean, look, I think... They've definitely done it. We're probably making too light of it in that sense. Yeah, no, I mean, this is all they've been caught for. It's like...

Yeah, I think. Who do we catch at the border? I mean, the thing that concerns me the most about this is that it appears to me that there were adults that were involved in covering this up. Yes, so I was going to say, this is the wildest part. So it's not just that, like, the adult, like, the father. So Renner's father, Travis Renner, he was arrested when the first raid happened.

of their house occurred because there was dangerous drugs and paraphernalia in the house. So he was arrested for that to which it has further come out that him and his business partner immediately after, um,

Why am I drawing a blank? They put the businesses, they changed ownership or whatever, right? Well, so he owns Relentless Media Agency. And so Ashley Reynolds came out and spoke to the Arizona Republic, and she's an employee of that. And they had her like handling it as a crisis PR thing, trying to cover it up. Yeah, they called the entire team. And this was Preston Lord, I don't know. That's...

who I was about to say. So Preston, before he even passed away, because it took two days for him to pass away in the hospital, the day after this happened, he called a team meeting and asked the, and with the business partner and tried to start a way to cover this up. And so, so on the internet, it's hard to find anything. If you,

comment or tweet this kid's name, the Renner kids, any of the, because both sons were arrested. If you tweet there, that tweet's gone. If you make a comment about them on Instagram, it's gone. Wow. Like it's insane how quick, if you Google Talon Renner, it'll say like there's 15 million views on this TikTok. If you click it, the TikTok doesn't exist. Wow. They're spending some money on having this done. Yeah,

And then two MCSO deputies have since been reassigned for giving the Renner family special treatment. Oh, so it was the Renner family that got the special treatment. It was the Renner family. Interesting. That's another scandal. It says they escorted them in an unauthorized family escort on March 7th using a route known from prior high-profile and security-sensitive escorts.

I mean, and what's interesting is that the judge got involved in this saying this put out a statement saying this is absolutely uncalled for. It's unauthorized. Yeah, which I thought I thought was interesting because it means they're specific. I mean, in that case, they actually normally would provide some type of security for those folks leaving public appearances coming to and leaving.

But there was a thing about I guess one of the deputies got in and drove their car into a secured area and all that. So to me, like, I don't know. I don't know who you would even begin to talk to if I needed special treatment. If my son was, you know, like, I don't know where to begin, but I feel like it wouldn't be these two random. Well, no, you would. I mean, I would feel like there's higher with some of this around the city of Phoenix stuff.

So that's actually a request you would put into the judge. Yeah. So you would put that into the court to do that and the court would order or you could do it to the prosecutor and say, hey, can you provide the security? And the prosecutor would issue that order. It would not come from the police department. They do not make those type of decisions. Yeah. So they had some kind of connection there. I'll say that.

Well, that was interesting, Kylie's Corner. Lots going on in the world. Lots going on. It's sort of like why Law & Order's been on for two decades plus. They always, always have. The world always provides a plot. They got endless material. Yeah, happy things happen, but it just kind of gets buried when this stuff happens. I will say the stingray, the pregnant stingray, has not had the babies yet, which is a little suspicious. I feel like it is a shark ray, and they just don't want to have to face the world. I agree with you on it. They don't want to face this. They don't want to face that real answer. So, well...

Great show today, guys. We got to follow up more on Haiti. We thank Sean for coming. I hope you'll come back on another time with us, buddy. Appreciate it. Yes, indeed. Immigration, women's lawsuit against NCAA, legislation.

Lots of going on in the world. Yeah, the Haiti thing, folks, tune in because that's a bigger deal. And it's in our backyard. For all of you people who hate us being involved in Ukraine, Haiti is literally in the backyard. And for those who hate this open borders problem that we have. It's about ready to get bigger with a bunch of Haitians who are scrambling for their life. Literally scrambling for their life. That is asylum type stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So on behalf of Sam.

Kylie, myself, and our guest host, Sean Noble. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you next week.