Ironweeds

For the holiday, please enjoy this very special bonus episode in which we talk about the history of criminalization and decriminalization of cannabis. One of the oldest intoxicants in human history, cannabis is finally being legalized throughout the US, but it’s been a long road to the slow end of prohibition.

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A bit doom and gloom this week, we’re talking about the latest IPCC climate report, and guess what? We have a lot of work to do. Like, a lot. Meanwhile, we’re quibbling over whether or not public transport kills businesses (it doesn’t). A Texas woman was charged with murder for a self-induced abortion, a likely sign of things to come if the court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer. And in some more cheery labor news, airport workers around the country are rallying for better wages and working conditions. We’re playing you out with Zombie Guiliani’s Let’s Go Extinct!

Climate report: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/climate/climate-change-ipcc-un.html?referringSource=articleShare 

Massachussettes needs way, way more electric vehicles: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/09/science/massachusetts-needs-least-750000-electric-vehicles-road-by-2030-it-is-nowhere-close/ 

Woman charged with murder over abortion: https://www.tpr.org/news/2022-04-08/texas-woman-charged-with-murder-for-self-induced-abortion

Parking actually kills businesses: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/parking-kills-businesses-not-bikes-or-buses 

Airport workers have had enough: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/airport-workers-rally-better-wages-airlines_n_62448ffae4b0d7ac3d550f91 

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Multi millionaire President of Black Rock thinks you’re entitled, and you better buckle up for shortages that you’ve never experienced. Except, ya know, the last two years. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. Mo Brooks went woke. The House is giving the Senate an opportunity to not end prohibition. Albany drug addict advocates are calling for prevention centers. And unions are in bloom!

Brace for shortages you little twerps: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10667971/BlackRock-president-warns-entitled-generation-needs-brace-shock-shortages.html

Lead Baloon Legalization Bill: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bill-legalize-marijuana-passes-us-house-faces-dim-prospects-senate-2022-04-01/

Woke Mo:https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/trump-mo-brooks-senate.html

'It's hard to argue with lives saved.' As overdoses soar, calls for prevention centers grow: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/It-s-hard-to-argue-with-lives-saved-As-17050912.php 

Latham Starbucks Union Drive: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Workers-at-Latham-Plaza-Starbucks-want-to-unionize-17044819.php 

Cybertruck is dead. Long live Cybertruck: https://carbuzz.com/news/canceled-tesla-cybertruck-is-dead 

Amazon Union: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/business/amazon-union-christian-smalls.html 

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This week we’re back with a nice smattering of weird and disturbing stories. The number of workers who believe their boss cares about them has plummeted in the last year, which is pretty obvious given that an Applebee’s franchising executive recently expounded the virtues of worker suffering for his bottom line. Saudi Arabia is considering accepting Chinese yuan for oil, which, like, hello? We’ve been backing you up for years, and this is how you treat us? Wow. In related news, Antarctica saw an unexplainable spike in temperature that has climate scientists confused and very, very concerned. Ginni Thomas’ unhinged texts to Mark Meadows reveal the degree of the elites’ disconnection from reality. Biden shouldn’t have said that, and Boston is making its busses free for the next two years.

Finding out your boss isn’t your family: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/390776/percent-feel-employer-cares-wellbeing-plummets.aspx

Ginni Thomas calls for the release of The Kraken: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/us/politics/ginni-thomas-donald-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare 

Free busses in Boston: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/14/boston-free-public-transit/ 

Franchise executive things serfdom is great for business: https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article259689425.html

Saudi Arabia is a fake friend: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/598257-saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollar-for-oil 

Antarctica is on fire: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/18/antarctica-heat-wave-climate-change/

Biden accidentally calls for Putin’s overthrow: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/26/world/ukraine-russia-war/russia-ukraine-biden 

The forces of Men’s Rights Activists take control of South Korea in a record-breaking election year for that country thanks in part to Seo Cheon-seok’s digital double. Meanwhile, in Texas, where they have the matriarchy on the run, a woman is forced to fly to Colorado for a life-saving abortion on her wedding day. To help Ukraine realize the kind of freedom enjoyed in America, the world’s third largest military --the combined force of America’s collective police departments-- have started donating their combat gear to that country. We’re not without a wildflower of course: New York is putting those impacted the worst by the Drug War at the front of the line for legal Cannabis growing.  

Cops donate tactical gear to Ukraine:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypkjx/us-police-donates-tactical-gear-ukraine

Texas’ abortion law forces a woman to get care in Colorado: 

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083536401/texas-abortion-law-6-months

Deepfake candidate videos, hair insurance and anti-feminism in South Korea’s election:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vx8k/south-korea-incel-gender-wars-election-womens-rights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5bnjr0bhKk

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skorea-candidates-woo-young-voters-with-deepfakes-hair-insurance-2022-03-03/

Wildflower: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/First-dispensaries-to-go-to-New-Yorkers-with-past-16992669.php

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As things continue to heat up in Ukraine, the manufacturing of consent here in the US intensifies. A New York State County Executive is holding a gun drive to send poorly maintained long rifles purchased from Field and Stream at a discount to Ukraine. The US trucker convoy is making its way to DC just in time to protest Covid restrictions that are no longer in place, and we thank them for their service. Albany Police Chief says that officers who covered their badges last summer while crushing protests did no wrong, and their actions were the result of a miscommunication. Also, protestors are very mean. And finally, unionizing efforts at a Manhattan REI see huge success.

Trucker Convoy: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/us/trucker-convoy-washington-protest.html 

NY Gun Drive: https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-gun-drive-ukraine-russia-war

Report: Police violated policy by covering badges before protest: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Report-Police-violated-policy-by-covering-badges-16946814.php 

This week we’ve got one thing on the brain: Ukraine. David fills us in on the long history of US interventionism and context for the current conflict. This is a tragic, catastrophic story full of bad actors on all sides. From the expansion of NATO to covert CIA actions that installed bloodthirsty regimes, Western governments’ interventionism fuels so much war. One bit of good news though! Covid cases are down 90% in the United States and we’re looking forward to seeing people in person!

The history of the CIA in Ukraine:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia-insurgents-russia-invasion 

A brief and incomplete list of American election meddling: 

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/02/26/msnbc-needs-a-history-lesson/ 

“This is what happens in banana republics around the world where the United States takes a very active role in preventing that kind of military coup.”

https://archive.org/details/MSNBCW_20220204_210000_Deadline_White_House/start/4320/end/4380 

You never forget your first, the CIA overthrows Syria’s first elected president:

​​https://time.com/4735438/america-syria-war-coup-history/ 

When the U.S. installed Boris Yeltsin: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/26/russian-election-interference-meddling/  

We even bragged about it on the cover of Time Magazine:

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html 

Remember that time“Obama directed the release of 12 Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft, 20 Boeing Harpoon missiles, and up to 125 M1A1 Abrams tank kits… Obama told Sisi he would continue to ask the U.S. Congress for $1.3 billion in military aid for Egypt per year…”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-egypt-military/obama-ends-freeze-on-u-s-military-aid-to-egypt-idUSKBN0MR2GR20150401 

Jeffrey Goldberg’s 2016 interview with Obama:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ 

Brookings Institute goons call for even more weapons to Ukraine https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/03/18/the-obama-doctrine-and-ukraine/ 

The Bidens and Ukraine:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/02/20/escalating-the-new-cold-war-with-russia-via-ukraine-bidens-unprincipled-stands-involving-covert-operations-blackmail-corruption-nepotism-and-state-terrorism/ 

This week we talk about a white supremacist rally in Woodstock, a WaPo food critic who wants to be pampered, and because we love you so much, a double whammy wildflower of labor and cannabis. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/02/17/restaurant-service-problems-pandemic/

https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/news/article/White-Lives-Matter-rally-Woodstock-raises-concerns-16918415.php 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/20/world/queen-elizabeth-covid/queen-elizabeth-icoronavirus 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/18/apple-retail-stores-union-labor/ 

https://mjbizdaily.com/new-york-senate-oks-bill-to-allow-hemp-farmers-to-grow-adult-use-marijuana/

The horrors of the modern world greet us this week, with tortured monkies, conspiracy-fueled spousal murder, whatever is going on at Fort Bragg, and Anti-China propaganda that paints Western Imperialism as the responsible parent of a wayward Africa. But German weasels are doing god’s work.

These bears aren’t even bears, let alone horny! https://www.cnet.com/news/build-a-bear-just-launched-an-after-dark-series-of-horny-teddy-bears/?TheTime=2022-02-03T03%3A36%3A52&ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&ServiceType=twitter&PostType=link&UniqueID=87175AA6-84A2-11EC-93FE-40CF4744363C

Fort Bragg is not OK: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ftbragg-army-beheading-charges-filed-1283450/ 

Man pleads insanity after murdering wife because Q Anon told him to: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgd49n/qanon-man-killed-wife-cia-sex-trafficker

Imperialism and Development in Africa: https://fair.org/home/why-comparing-chinese-africa-investment-to-western-colonialism-is-no-joke/  

Anti-Car Aktion: https://www.bavariannews.com/blog/2020/01/17/marten-a-misunderstood-pest-and-how-to-deter-from-vehicle-wiring/

Boss Baby Steve’s lackeys have had their phones confiscated, and David wants to see the groypers. The infamous Renalli memo commissioned by Mayor Madden is being released, and our boy Chris Churchill is not impressed. Albany is using millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan funds to give cops raises–look they’ve really struggled in this economy, OK? Green Island is getting green micro transit that is BY New Yorkers, FOR New Yorkers! Got it? And lastly, a big round of applause for all of the Starbucks workers unionizing. You’re killin it!

WoW guilds and Market Socialism?: https://youtu.be/BKGx5xrr5eg

FBI seizes cell phones: https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/FBI-seizes-mobile-phones-of-top-Rensselaer-County-16829935.php

Green Island gets EV factory: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2022/01/13/green-island-new-york-electric-vehicle-factory.html?ana=TRUEANTHEMFB_AL&csrc=6398&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3rOZRS2Rz9FHS9BoFNxEy-kgLWoIMQu0q2wxDvfUwHOlftLJvvn5rzpVY

Churchill: For mayor, truth about Thevenin shooting was never the goal https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/Churchill-For-Troy-s-mayor-truth-about-police-16832172.php 

Rescue Plan funds go to police: https://www.albanyproper.com/albany-to-use-9-8mil-of-rescue-plan-funds-to-cover-police-raises/