Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy. Not quite. On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between-songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.
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Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.
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My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it.
She moved in for two weeks, lasted five days, left a mess, and then pressed her ear against their bedroom door and burst in screaming. When kicked out to a hotel, she called her son-in-law's workplace, pretending his partner had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Faked a medical emergency? And spoiler, that was just the beginning.
To find out how it ends, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 2: Who was Quentin Deranque and what led to his death?
Like maybe Freud could have joined the club. That's a horrifying mix of worlds. Tell us about this French Nazi getting beat to death. Okay. I'm starting with a bit of an introduction because this story actually happens in my hometown of Utrecht.
Oh, no shit.
Yeah. Somewhere midway through February, a message started to circulate in far-right circles in the Netherlands. It originated from a group called Defend Netherlands, who made a public call to visit the AQ on the night of Thursday 26th to remember Quinton, killed in a cowardly manner by Antifa in Lyon earlier that month.
Small side note, all these groups are so proud of the Netherlands, but never use Dutch language. And it's my personal pet peeve. They're doing it in English? Yeah, they call themselves like Defend Netherlands. Oh, it's called Defend. It's not translated as Defend Netherlands. It's not translated.
That's so interesting. I find when European Nazi groups use primarily English, it is because it is for an American audience.
Yeah, they're trying to communicate something.
Because Americans only speak English.
But anyway, that was the message that was circulated on Instagram and Telegram. The top of the image that was shared showed a Celtic cross, a symbol with a Christian and pagan origins, but politically often used by white supremacist and neo-fascist groups. At the bottom is an Italian slogan in orange letters, the national color of the Netherlands, reading, Pertutti Camerati Calutti.
presente the slogan originates from the italian fascist movements and means for our fallen comrades presence signaling that the fallen comrades are present in spirit i can hear you all thinking what the fuck has the death in france to do with the political community center in the netherlands because that is what acu is it's a community center there's concerts there's a bar sometimes there's fundraisers there's nothing ominous going on there okay
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Chapter 3: What role did far-right and anti-fascist groups play in the events surrounding Quentin's death?
I've read both some and did not stick. What I do find very interesting was a particular tweet in which he compared African migration to German occupation, where he expressed his preference for doliho-seleptic blondes over blacks with large nostrils and disproportionate lips.
oh that's gross and that's a very nice scrabble word for those of you that play it's a fascinating choice of words it comes from 19th century anthropology back when anthropology was more problematic than it is now yeah it's like scientific racism pretty much it comes from cephalometry the measuring of skulls and crania yes i love a good caliper guy Oh, phrenology.
No, this was like a branching off of phrenology. Okay. I dove into this because it was like, what the fuck is he saying? Yeah. But yeah, essentially it was used to make different races. And of course, the Aryan race was the best one. Though least cocephalic refers specifically to the Aryan white race. What he essentially said is like, I prefer to be occupied by white people. So great guy.
And then this is also how I come back to like how well read he was in this garbage, because those are not terms that you typically find when you're researching Nazis or like the Nazi discourse. It almost is like an academic term.
level of i mean that's very french it's very french yes well it it's reminded me of like uh creatives of yours molly uh richard spencer who i think once i'm not sure if i can oh he does he does love to to let you know that he's read philosophy yeah yeah he's not a common gutter racist he's read papers yeah he's read anthropology
We can bleep the following word out because I'm not too into like American discourse to know if I can say this. But I think at some point he referred to like people of African ancestry as Octoroons. Oh, yeah, that's a... It's a very obscure, like old racial slur. Like it's something like my great great grandparents would have said. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a fascinating...
Yeah, they love to flag, so they have read a book.
The N-word is for common racists.
I know old-fashioned racial slayers.
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Chapter 4: How do the discussions around martyrdom and political exploitation unfold?
So, yeah, he was just being a gentleman providing security for these girl boss Nazis.
Pretty much. There is a very girl boss photo I found. I'll pull it up in a bit. But, yeah, they are identitarian, air quotes, feminists who blame all sexual violence on people of color and Muslims. There it is.
Okay, great.
Yeah, we knew this was coming.
I bet their white boyfriends never, never mistreat them.
Would never. No, they respect a woman. No. Depending on her race and her politics, of course.
And the beauty of the white Aryan woman, James, please.
Founder and frequent guest on various French right-wing platforms, Alice Cordier was the one who founded this collective. They seem to have like a few hundred people in the collective, but like a very small inner circle of like 12 people. And Alice Cordier was already at the center of a controversy.
On March 10th this year, journalist Ricardo Pereira posted a photo on Twitter of Alice mimicking an SS symbol with her hands. And in this photo, she's together with former Lyon Populaire member, who is allegedly now fighting with the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.
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Chapter 5: What are the current conditions in Lebanon as described by Justin Salhani?
I know what you're thinking.
What the hell does George Bush got to do with Lil' Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back At It podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack.
I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have eggs on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.
Chapter 6: What happened during the recent attacks on Beirut and Black Wednesday?
Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. This is It Could Happen Here. My name is Dana Al-Kurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics.
Today, I'm joined by Justin Salhani, who is a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and a writer and journalist based in Beirut.
He has worked with Al Jazeera Digital and has contributed to a number of different outlets in the past and has been reporting on the region since 2011. Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.
So since you are, you know, based in Beirut and so intimately knowledgeable of what's been going on, I thought we could start by just kind of laying out what conditions are like in Lebanon right now. So right now, as we speak, we're in the midst of kind of a tenuous, fragile situation. Incomplete, we can call it ceasefire.
In Beirut proper, there still is occasionally, you know, a drone overhead, this kind of infamous drone that buzzes incessantly and keeps everyone constantly on their toes. But there's been almost two weeks or a little, maybe a little bit more now without this.
An attack on Beirut, basically, we had that day, April 8th, which is being called locally Black Wednesday, where around the country, I think the numbers are now over 350 people were killed. And many of those were in Beirut, in areas that... Came without warning.
You know, there is this kind of dynamic now where the Israeli military will at times announce warnings for certain areas, though many attacks come with no warning. And they brought down buildings without warning in some cases as well in central Beirut. So the conditions right now are, you know, relatively normal. I guess we can call it quiet here.
Of course, that's vastly different in the South, where there was an intensification, particularly yesterday. There wasn't really any cessation of hostilities. We can talk about how the minutes leading up to April 16, when the ceasefire went into effect yesterday,
Throughout the country in Lebanon, the Israelis were attacking around the country, not Beirut, but in other parts of the country, particularly in the south. And in the city of Sur, they bombed. I was down there the other day and people were talking about what time the Israelis dropped their last bomb, whether it was 12 on the dot or 11.59 p.m.
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Chapter 7: How are journalists being affected by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon?
or 11.57 p.m. And so these are the conditions that essentially journalists and media workers are forced to live with on a daily basis. I mean, it's wild how conscientious they are. You know, they have to take every single minute to bomb their neighbors. So, yeah, maybe tell us what the situation has been like for journalists in particular.
I imagine different parts of the country are struggling with maybe different challenges. Yeah, this exists on a sliding scale. Obviously, since 2023, the first week post-October 7, there was a Lebanese journalist by the name of Aysam Abdullah who was killed. He was a Reuters photographer. And that was a strike that wounded other journalists, including journalists from AFP and Al Jazeera.
So, I mean, it's been... over two and a half years now that there has been a danger. And that first strike that killed Aysam changed the way that media assesses risk in this country. Since then, a number of other journalists have also been killed. So in that sense, there still is a fear that targeting, you know, much like in Gaza, is a thing that happens. Of course, in Gaza, it was way worse.
There was a way higher threat level. And I think part of that is because there were no foreign journalists in Gaza during that period. So it was killing of Palestinians. Until now, there has been at least one foreign journalist who was wounded in that initial attack.
Since then, most of the attacks have targeted Lebanese journalists, and particularly Lebanese journalists working with outlets who have some sort of, we can call it, line that supports or is differential to Hezbollah. I mean, of course, this is not an excuse, right?
They're still journalists, they're still working in the media, regardless of what their political affiliation is, these are people who are there to assess information. Recently, in this latest intensification, there have been more killings of journalists, of course, and these are typically journalists who are working on the front lines and in the South.
You know, we can't know what's in the minds of the Israeli military, but based on my conversations with media professionals and media watchdogs in the recent years, I wrote a piece for Al Jazeera back in 2021. Four, I believe it was about the killing of journalists in Gaza.
And, you know, people at outlets like Reporters Without Borders were telling me that at that point, we're talking, you know, a year and a half ago, it was already systematic. There was a systematic means of trying to control the narrative through the killing of journalists.
And this is a big thing for these groups that are, you know, work really hard to share only things that they've backed up with data. They're not bombastic spokespeople who have some sort of political lean, you can say. These are people who really have to and organizations that really have to be careful with the language that they pick and choose.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the ceasefire in Lebanon and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz?
I believe that a warning had happened at that time. So, again, questions over maybe decisions that were made. Still, that does not excuse the Israeli military action. And I've heard people say, you know, that if you work through this logic, if we go back to the logic of what happened in Gaza, for example, with the first attack on a hospital.
And, you know, this was in the first few weeks after October 7th. You may remember at the time there was this whole kind of debate between analysts and pundits and talking heads and what have you. You know, Israel would never do that. They would never attack a hospital. And then months later, here we are.
And every hospital in Gaza, you know, at one point, multiple hospitals in Gaza were completely on operational attacks that happened around hospitals, at hospitals, claiming hospitals were militant centers or centers that were hosting militants and all these other sort of things.
forensic architecture has done fantastic work on the Gaza example of how the Israelis had structurally gone in and dismantled Gaza and healthcare, Palestinian healthcare in Gaza.
And I think it might be fair to say that there's a similar logic that is working here in Lebanon is that, you know, because after the murder of Issam Abdullah, essentially, there was a period where journalists were not killed for at least, you know, a short period of time, then two journalists from the outlet Al Mayadeen were killed. And then
Since then, we've had others from Mayadeen, from Manar, etc., that have been killed by the Israelis. So you see kind of a pattern that, OK, we can get away with killing these journalists that are ostensibly working with outlets who have some sort of affiliation or lean towards the Hezbollah narrative. That's also the case for Al-Akhbar with the newspaper that Ahmad Khalil worked with.
She was killed in a really horrific targeted strike just a few days ago where her and a colleague were in the south. An attack happened. They fled into a building. Then the Israelis attacked that building. She was stuck under the rubble and the Israelis prevented Red Cross medics and first responders from from getting to her for a series of hours.
I think it was around seven hours, the official reporting says, and she died. There's no way to frame this other than that Israel attacked her and then prevented her from receiving the treatment that she needed to be able to continue to live.
And Amal was somebody who I didn't know personally, so I can't speak to her character in my sense, but from the reports, people reported her as a person that was incredibly generous with her time, was incredibly helpful, was very kind to animals. She was somebody who was in the South,
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