POPULARITY
Hosted by Thomas Kennedy
Hosted by Thomas Kennedy
Hosted by Thomas Kennedy
4 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
4 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
2 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
2 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
2 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
2 episodes with Thomas Kennedy
Joe is joined by Paul Byrne from Healthcare Abroad, and Limerick man Thomas Kennedy, to talk about his experience with going abroad to get his hip replacement surgery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, born in Grady County, Georgia, where he currently lives in the city of Cairo was crossing the Florida state line for his work in construction in Tallahassee, about 45 minutes away from home, when he was detained under a new Florida law SB 4-C. Lopez-Gomez was released Thursday evening, Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson for an immigrant rights coalition that was working with Lopez-Gomez's family Join this channel for exclusive access and bonus content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbwLFZhawBqK2b9gW08z3g/join Five Minute News is an Evergreen Podcast, covering politics, inequality, health and climate - delivering independent, unbiased and essential news for the US and across the world. Visit us online at http://www.fiveminute.news Follow us on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/fiveminutenews.bsky.social Follow us on Instagram http://instagram.com/fiveminnews Support us on Patreon http://www.patreon.com/fiveminutenews You can subscribe to Five Minute News with your preferred podcast app, ask your smart speaker, or enable Five Minute News as your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing skill. Please subscribe HERE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbwLFZhawBqK2b9gW08z3g?sub_confirmation=1 CONTENT DISCLAIMER The views and opinions expressed on this channel are those of the guests and authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Anthony Davis or Five Minute News LLC. Any content provided by our hosts, guests or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything, in line with the First Amendment right to free and protected speech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
El Instituto de Políticas Migratorias (MPI) publicó un informe en el que resalta que, por primera vez en 175 años, el crecimiento de la población en Estados Unidos se debe principalmente a la inmigración. 'El aporte de los migrantes es clave en sectores que sufren escasez de mano de obra', dijo a RFI Thomas Kennedy, vocero de la Coalición de Inmigrantes de Florida (FLIC). En medio de un descenso de la natalidad y la ofensiva de la administración Trump contra los inmigrantes indocumentados, que también afecta a los migrantes legales, el MPI ha publicado un informe según el cual entre 2022 y 2023, la migración fue el único factor que impulsó el crecimiento poblacional en ese país. En ese período, el número de inmigrantes aumentó en 1,6 millones, alcanzando los 47,8 millones en 2023, según el informe de ese centro con sede en Washington."La migración ha contribuido de forma importante al crecimiento de la población estadounidense, que se ha ralentizado en la última década debido al descenso de las tasas de natalidad", señala también el MPI en su informe.Thomas Kennedy destacó a RFI los aportes de los inmigrantes, incluidos aquellos en situación irregular."Aquí en Estados Unidos, el Seguro Social, nuestro sistema de pensiones, es financiado en gran parte por los inmigrantes. Cuando un inmigrante llega a este país, el único número oficial al que puede acceder es un ‘Tax ID' [número de identificación fiscal]. Con este número, también conocido como ‘ITIN number', el migrante puede pagar sus impuestos cada año. Cuando tenés la oportunidad de ajustar tu estatus migratorio, te preguntan cuándo entraste al país. Pues bien, tenés que demostrar que has pagado todos tus impuestos desde ese momento utilizando tu número de identificación fiscal", explica Kennedy.Pagar impuestos sí, beneficiarse de ellos, noSin embargo, los inmigrantes realizan más aportes, en particular al Seguro Social, sin beneficiarse automáticamente de ellos."Aparte de pagar impuestos, tenés que contribuir al Seguro Social. La cuestión es que una persona indocumentada no recibe los beneficios del Seguro Social durante los años en que estuvo en esa condición. Ellos están aportando a un sistema del que se benefician los ciudadanos estadounidenses, pero no ellos. Esto hace que el dinero disponible para las pensiones sea mayor de lo que sería sin el aporte de los inmigrantes. Por eso, deportar a esta gente afecta el sistema de pensiones", señala Kennedy.Casi tres cuartas partes de los inmigrantes en Estados Unidos están en el país de forma legal y casi la mitad son ciudadanos naturalizados. Representan una fuerza laboral clave con un impacto significativo en la economía.Escasez de mano de obra en varios sectores "Estados Unidos enfrenta ahora una escasez de mano de obra muy aguda en varios estados. Por ejemplo, los jubilados están viniendo a vivir a Florida, mientras que los jóvenes se van por el alto costo de vida, que empeora cada mes. En enero, la inflación subió un 3%. La gente ya no está dispuesta a formar una familia como antes porque es demasiado costoso. La única manera de cubrir la falta de trabajadores en estos sectores es con la inmigración", subraya Kennedy.El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional llevó a cabo 685.000 deportaciones de inmigrantes indocumentados el año pasado. Esta cifra podría aumentar debido al endurecimiento de la política migratoria desde la llegada al poder del presidente Donald Trump.
El Instituto de Políticas Migratorias (MPI) publicó un informe en el que resalta que, por primera vez en 175 años, el crecimiento de la población en Estados Unidos se debe principalmente a la inmigración. 'El aporte de los migrantes es clave en sectores que sufren escasez de mano de obra', dijo a RFI Thomas Kennedy, vocero de la Coalición de Inmigrantes de Florida (FLIC). En medio de un descenso de la natalidad y la ofensiva de la administración Trump contra los inmigrantes indocumentados, que también afecta a los migrantes legales, el MPI ha publicado un informe según el cual entre 2022 y 2023, la migración fue el único factor que impulsó el crecimiento poblacional en ese país. En ese período, el número de inmigrantes aumentó en 1,6 millones, alcanzando los 47,8 millones en 2023, según el informe de ese centro con sede en Washington."La migración ha contribuido de forma importante al crecimiento de la población estadounidense, que se ha ralentizado en la última década debido al descenso de las tasas de natalidad", señala también el MPI en su informe.Thomas Kennedy destacó a RFI los aportes de los inmigrantes, incluidos aquellos en situación irregular."Aquí en Estados Unidos, el Seguro Social, nuestro sistema de pensiones, es financiado en gran parte por los inmigrantes. Cuando un inmigrante llega a este país, el único número oficial al que puede acceder es un ‘Tax ID' [número de identificación fiscal]. Con este número, también conocido como ‘ITIN number', el migrante puede pagar sus impuestos cada año. Cuando tenés la oportunidad de ajustar tu estatus migratorio, te preguntan cuándo entraste al país. Pues bien, tenés que demostrar que has pagado todos tus impuestos desde ese momento utilizando tu número de identificación fiscal", explica Kennedy.Pagar impuestos sí, beneficiarse de ellos, noSin embargo, los inmigrantes realizan más aportes, en particular al Seguro Social, sin beneficiarse automáticamente de ellos."Aparte de pagar impuestos, tenés que contribuir al Seguro Social. La cuestión es que una persona indocumentada no recibe los beneficios del Seguro Social durante los años en que estuvo en esa condición. Ellos están aportando a un sistema del que se benefician los ciudadanos estadounidenses, pero no ellos. Esto hace que el dinero disponible para las pensiones sea mayor de lo que sería sin el aporte de los inmigrantes. Por eso, deportar a esta gente afecta el sistema de pensiones", señala Kennedy.Casi tres cuartas partes de los inmigrantes en Estados Unidos están en el país de forma legal y casi la mitad son ciudadanos naturalizados. Representan una fuerza laboral clave con un impacto significativo en la economía.Escasez de mano de obra en varios sectores "Estados Unidos enfrenta ahora una escasez de mano de obra muy aguda en varios estados. Por ejemplo, los jubilados están viniendo a vivir a Florida, mientras que los jóvenes se van por el alto costo de vida, que empeora cada mes. En enero, la inflación subió un 3%. La gente ya no está dispuesta a formar una familia como antes porque es demasiado costoso. La única manera de cubrir la falta de trabajadores en estos sectores es con la inmigración", subraya Kennedy.El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional llevó a cabo 685.000 deportaciones de inmigrantes indocumentados el año pasado. Esta cifra podría aumentar debido al endurecimiento de la política migratoria desde la llegada al poder del presidente Donald Trump.
On this episode of the Debtwired! podcast, Thomas Kennedy, Chief Investment Strategist for JP Morgan Private Bank, joins Melina Chalkia, Debtwire's primary market reporter for North America, to discuss how debt markets are responding to the shifting monetary policy and geopolitical tensions. Kennedy leads the development of the bank's global economic and investment views, while serving as the chair of the Global Investment Strategy Group. Previously, Kennedy worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for eight years, holding various research and policy positions.In this conversation, Kennedy discusses the interest rate outlook for 2025 and how high yield markets will be impacted by President Trump's tariffs. He highlights where he finds the best investment opportunities in debt markets and direct lending. #JPMorgan #Outlook #Debt, #Investment Opportunities #Direct Lending
Most of Vermont's trash ends up in just one place — a landfill in Coventry, just 20 minutes south of the Canadian border. In a recent episode of Brave Little State, Mikaela sets out to answer this listener question: "New Hampshire has six landfills. Why does Vermont only have one?" We also look to the future, when the landfill reaches capacity and we need a new place to put our trash.Then, John Leddy of the Northwest Solid Waste District and Thomas Kennedy of the Mount Ascutney Regional Commission discuss how their particular parts of the state manage their trash and recycling.Broadcast live on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
In this episode: Thomas Kennedy, a progressive organizer in Miami and former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer, rejoins the pod to talk about how Democrats lost touch with the working class — and what needs to happen next.Show notes: A couple of items referenced on the show:What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic PartyTrump's closing campaign ad in 2016Thomas' podcastQuestions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.comListen to the show: Apple | SpotifyWatch the show: YouTube Get full access to Seeking Rents at jasongarcia.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode: Progressive activist and Ron DeSantis antagonist Thomas Kennedy joins the show to talk about why the DeSantis bubble burst so spectacularly on the national stage and to call out some of the Florida politicians from both parties who take money — and marching orders — from Big Sugar. We also talk about DeSantis' refusal to extend Florida's voter registration as a monstrous hurricane looms off the coast and new campaigns targeting Republican lawmakers who have attacked and exploited immigrants. Show notes:As promised on the show, here are links to watch the CBS Sunday Morning segment on the ways Florida's anti-immigrant laws are hurting Florida farmers and to see the infamous Tallahassee billboard mocking a cosplaying governor pretending to be a fighter pilot.You can also find lots more detail about the ways some top Florida Democrats teamed up with DeSantis and Florida Republicans to do Big Sugar's bidding in these stories and podcasts:After sugar's $11 million investment, a bipartisan push to protect industry (Miami Herald)Glades residents left behind: Nikki Fried's ‘changes' to cane burning served only Big Sugar (Palm Beach Post)How Ron DeSantis and Nikki Fried Teamed Up to Defend Big Sugar (Seeking Rents – The Podcast)Finally, make sure to check out Kennedy's Podcast, Why Are We Like This, and to follow him on social media (@tomaskenn on Instagram and @tomaskenn on Twitter).Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.comListen to the show: Apple | SpotifyWatch the show: YouTubeSubscribe: SeekingRentsFL.com Get full access to Seeking Rents at jasongarcia.substack.com/subscribe
Los gehts! Start in die Jubiläumssaison und die dritte Staffel HEARTBERG HOTEL. Zum Saisonstart gibt sich unser Kapitän Thomas Kennedy die Ehre und spricht über das neue Team, Erwartungen und seine neue Rolle im Team. Flo Koch berichtet nach seinem bewegenden Abschied über Gefühle und Hintergründe. 30 Jahre Baskets! Powered by Emotions!
In today's episode of Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, the Golden Crew (Trevor Shelby, Gary Manning and Jennifer Rowell) dive into a rollercoaster of emotions as they announce Thomas Kennedy's departure from the show. The crew hilariously discusses the reason behind Thomas's decision to join a rival cruise line, Windstar, and his heartfelt (and slightly exaggerated) farewell message. Gary shares his highlights from his latest cruise, including a memorable cannonball into a live YouTube broadcast, while Jenn gives her perspective on cruising with 8,000 fellow passengers on the upcoming ACE class ships. The episode wraps up with a heartwarming voice message from an OG fan, Catherine, who reminisces about the good old days and praises the new segments and additions to the podcast.
In this episode of Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, hosts Thomas Kennedy, Jennifer Rowell, and Gary Manning dive into the latest cruise ship controversies and comforts. The team discusses the new motion-sensor nightlights causing a stir on Carnival ships, debates the ideal number of pillows for a perfect cruise sleep, and mourns the permanent reduction of bacon at the Lido buffet. With Trevor Shelby's sudden departure from the show, the remaining hosts introduce a new segment called "Snooty Sleuths," enlisting listeners to help find the snootiest comments on John Heald's Facebook page. The group also shares personal cruise experiences, from pillow preferences to breakfast favorites, and introduces a special birthday shoutout. Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or planning your first voyage, this episode offers a mix of practical tips, humor, and insider insights into the ever-changing world of Carnival cruises. Join the CCP crew as they navigate the choppy waters of cruise ship amenities and customer complaints with their signature wit and charm.
Join Trevor Shelby, Gary Manning, and Thomas Kennedy as they take on the biggest myths about Carnival Cruises in this week's episode of Carnival Cruising Podcastaways! From the belief that cruises are only for retirees to the misconception that they're just one big party, the Golden Boys set the record straight. Hear hilarious personal anecdotes, surprising truths, and a special segment from Madison debunking cruise food myths. Plus, celebrate Trevor's birthday with us and get a sneak peek into his ghost-hunting birthday plans. Don't miss out on the laughs and insider tips! #CarnivalCruising #CruiseMyths #BirthdayFun"
Join the Golden Boys—Trevor Shelby, Gary Manning, and Thomas Kennedy—as they dive into the ultimate showdown of their favorite Carnival Cruise ships in this week's episode of Carnival Cruising Podcastaways! From nostalgic first cruises to the most luxurious experiences, they cover it all, including special shout-outs from listeners like you. With hilarious banter about ship amenities, unforgettable moments, and a few surprises along the way, this episode is a must-listen for every Carnival enthusiast. Don't miss out on the fun and make sure to share your own favorite or not so favorite ship on our Speakpipe link at Speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingpodcastaways. Whether you're team Spirit, Splendor, or a fan of the new Excel class, we've got something for you! Tune in for a boatload of laughs and cruise insights.
Join the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways' Golden Boys - Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Minney - as they embark on another fun-filled episode! This week, Trevor shares his thrilling Alaskan adventure on the Carnival Spirit. From breathtaking glacier views to comical casino escapades, and a lively visit to the Red Onion Saloon, Trevor's trip had it all. The boys discuss the quirks and highlights of each Alaskan port, with plenty of laughs along the way. Plus, a sneak peek into the much-anticipated FRGC3 group cruise. Tune in for cruise tips, tales, and Trevor's legendary burrito obsession!
Join the Golden Boys - Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Manning - for an unforgettable episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. Today, they dive into the hilarious yet harrowing tales of passengers getting left behind, share insider stories from the fantastic Gary Manning Fun Cruise, and ponder over piers with a side of Gary's antics. From speed-up audio mysteries to budget negotiations with Wil Wheaton, this episode is packed with laughter, cruise news, and a touch of the unexpected. Don't miss out on their signature blend of cruise insights and comedy that just might have you booking your next Carnival adventure (or checking the pier return times, just to be safe).
Stocks tumbled in the final hours of trading. We have you covered from every angle. Wells Fargo's Scott Wren and Vital Knowledge's Adam Crisfulli on the market action while Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok breaks down the Fed's part in this. Plus, Thomas Kennedy, Chief Investment Strategist for Global Wealth Management at J.P. Morgan on how he is telling clients to handle the recent volatility.
Welcome to today's episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, where Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy, two of the legendary "Golden Boys," embark on another kooky, crazy cruising adventure. In this laugh-filled episode, they tackle the lighter and darker sides of cruising, from culinary controversies like the infamous "Gelato Gate" and the debate over Carnival's fried chicken to more sinister stories involving suspicious bear hugs and the law and order of cruising. They also dive into the cruising culture's spring break etiquette, enforced by stern warnings from Carnival's higher-ups. Don't miss their hilarious take on dressing to the nines for formal nights, a practical guide to staying safe in port cities amidst cartel changes, and, of course, Gary's culinary escapades with breakfast burritos and 12-hour French toast. It's an episode packed with tales, tips, and a touch of mystery, proving once again that anything can happen in the world of Carnival Cruising. Join our Facebook Group!
La migración vuelve a ser el centro de atención en Estados Unidos, generando un intenso debate que refleja las divisiones políticas y las complejidades de las relaciones bilaterales con México. En medio de una campaña presidencial en pleno apogeo, esta semana se desató un pulso entre partidos sobre la controvertida ley en el estado de Texas que permite detener y deportar a migrantes que crucen por puntos ilegales sin necesidad de una autorización federal. Lo analizamos en este debate. La polarización entre republicanos y demócratas se intensifica a medida que ambos bandos se culpan mutuamente por no tomar medidas efectivas para frenar el creciente flujo migratorio. Con las elecciones presidenciales programadas para noviembre de 2024, la pregunta que resuena es si la migración se ha convertido en un arma electoral.La reciente suspensión de la polémica ley de migrantes en Texas ha dejado un escenario de caos e incertidumbre en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.La Corte Suprema estadounidense permitió temporalmente la aplicación de la llamada ley 'SB4', aprobada por Texas en 2023, que convierte en un delito estatal el cruce fronterizo. Sin embargo, la disputa sobre la legalidad de esta medida continúa, con la Casa Blanca demandando su derogación y argumentando que la política migratoria es competencia exclusiva del Gobierno federal.Esta pugna judicial refleja un largo historial de tensiones políticas entre demócratas y republicanos, y subraya la importancia crucial que la cuestión migratoria está adquiriendo en el panorama político estadounidense.Además, esta controversia no se limita al ámbito interno de Estados Unidos. México ha rechazado la ley de Texas y ha declarado que no recibiría a ningún deportado. Esta postura pone de relieve las tensiones diplomáticas y el impacto que las decisiones políticas en materia migratoria pueden tener en las relaciones bilaterales entre ambos países.¿Hasta qué punto la migración se está convirtiendo en un factor determinante en las elecciones estadounidenses? ¿Y cuál será el alcance de su influencia en las relaciones con México? Lo discutimos en esta edición de El Debate con nuestros invitados:- María Herrera, doctora en Ciencias Jurídicas y presidenta de la Asamblea Hispana del Partido Republicano en Miami.- Thomas Kennedy, vocero de la Coalición de Inmigrantes de la Florida.
Today's episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways focuses on a fun and engaging mix of topics, including solar rays, cruise entitlements, and hidden gems for the 2025 cruise season. The "Golden Boys," Thomas Kennedy, Trevor Shelby, and Gary Manning, kick things off with their usual playful banter, diving into a game of two truths and a lie, setting a lighthearted tone for the episode. They discuss various cruising experiences, share personal stories related to their adventures on different cruises, and delve into upcoming cruise plans, highlighting the uniqueness of each host's perspective on cruising.
Dive into an episode packed with laughter, birthday surprises, and cruising dreams for 2024! Join the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Manning, as they share their bucket list destinations, insider tips on what to do (and what not to do) on a Carnival cruise, and some unexpected fishing tips that might land you in the brig! Celebrate Gary's birthday month with us, explore new ports, and find out why you might need a hard hat at Celebration Key. Whether you're planning your next Carnival adventure or just cruising through your day, this episode is your ticket to fun and adventure on the high seas! https://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastaways https://www.facebook.com/groups/252616670263026
In this episode, the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Manning, are unveiling the much-anticipated Celebration Key, Carnival's latest exclusive destination. We dive into a whirlwind of topics from unexpected financial windfalls and the anticipation of festive holiday cruises to the adrenaline of live concerts and the unpredictable world of cryptocurrency. They also tackle the maritime law of rescuing kayakers at sea, explore the nuances of loyalty statuses among cruisers, and share a glimpse into the future with robot-assisted dining experiences. Join us for a blend of humor, insights, and carnival cruising culture that promises not only to entertain but also to enlighten.
Dive into the latest Carnival Cruising Podcastaways episode where the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary (aka Garrity) Manning, delve into a variety of cruising topics with their signature humor. They discuss their personal experiences with AARP and the use of gift cards for cruise savings, share fascinating stories about their latest cruises, and chat about innovative cruise-related products. The episode also covers useful tips for first-time cruisers, including advice on tipping porters and navigating onboard expenses. Tune in for an episode filled with laughter, practical advice, and insider knowledge on making the most of your Carnival Cruise experience.
In this lively episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, join the Golden Boys - Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Manning - as they navigate through the exciting news of Carnival's potential multi-billion dollar order for new cruise ships. The team dives deep into the speculation of this major investment, discussing the possible impact on the future of cruising, the implications for Carnival's fleet, and the overall industry trends. They also explore various topics including the benefits of all-inclusive packages, the charm of smaller ships, and the unique aspects of the cruising experience. Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or just dreaming of your first voyage, this episode is packed with insights, humor, and the warm camaraderie that only the Golden Boys can deliver. So, grab your life jackets and join us for a cruise through the latest in the world of Carnival Cruises!
In this lively episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, our beloved hosts, the "Golden Boys" - Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Gary Manning, bring another dose of cruising fun and shenanigans. The episode kicks off with an amusing introduction and leads into their signature "Two Truths and a Lie" segment, where listeners are invited to decipher the tall tales from the truths about their week's adventures. The episode features a mix of humorous anecdotes, including a story about a secret underwater dinner hosted by a billionaire and an ancient jewel-encrusted compass. They also delve into a John Heald segment, sharing amusing complaints and stories from the world of cruising, including a hilarious incident involving cell phone charges at sea. The hosts tackle a list of "20 Things You Should Never Do on a Cruise," covering everything from the perils of being late for boarding to the importance of attending the muster drill. They also share personal experiences and insights on cruising etiquette and protocols. Wrapping up with their usual charm and wit, the Golden Boys remind listeners of the camaraderie and excitement that the cruising community offers. Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or planning your first voyage, this episode is packed with laughs, tips, and insider knowledge that will enhance your cruising experience.
Join the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby, Gary Manning and Thomas Kennedy, in this fun-filled episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. Dive into their New Year celebrations, including a virtual party with Shaquille O'Neal in the metaverse, and laugh along with their "Two Truths and a Lie" segment. The episode also delves into the challenges of cruising during winter weather and shares exciting plans and dreams for cruises in 2024. From exploring new ports to reminiscing about adventures in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao, this episode is packed with humorous anecdotes, cruise tips, and dream destinations. Don't forget to engage with us on our SpeakPipe page at speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastaways and join our Facebook community at facebook.com/carnivalcruisingpodcastaways for more cruise fun and interaction.
In this episode, Hosts Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and kinda Gary Manning, also known as the Golden Boys, engage in their usual humorous and lighthearted banter. They discuss various aspects of cruising with Carnival Cruises, focusing on recent updates to the cruise line's dining options, especially the new omelette selections. The episode is filled with jokes, personal anecdotes, and tips for cruisers, maintaining a fun and engaging atmosphere throughout. The hosts also touch on other cruising experiences, offering insights and laughs in equal measure.
Ahoy, cruisers! Welcome aboard the first episode of Season 3 of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. Join your favorite Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy, as they embark on another year of cruising adventures. In this episode, they kick things off with a celebration of the podcast's growth and express gratitude to their loyal listeners. Dive into the excitement as they discuss the upcoming Jubilee fun event, potential live streams, and their hopes to interview some big names in the cruising world. The duo also tackles the latest cruising controversies, including a lively discussion on the evolving dress codes on Carnival cruises and a unique Christmas PJ brunch debate. They share personal anecdotes, offer tips for new cruisers, and engage in their trademark humorous banter. But it's not all laughs; they also touch on more heartfelt matters, addressing a listener's dilemma from Reddit's Am I the Asshole Forum about family dynamics and personal challenges in the cruising context. Season 3 promises more insights, tips, and laughter as we cruise through the world of Carnival Cruises. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social media pages and leave us a voicemail with your thoughts and questions. Let's make this season the best one yet! Follow our page! www.facebook.com/carnivalcruisingpodcastaways Leave us a Voicemail! www.speakpipe.com/carnivalcruisingpodcastaways
Ahoy, cruisers! Dive into the Thanksgiving spirit with a delightful twist in this special episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. Join the hilarious duo, Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy, as they navigate through a sea of Thanksgiving cheer and quirky adventures. In this episode, they touch on everything from presidential turkey pardons to the wild happenings in Durant, Oklahoma. The Golden Boys also delve into more serious waters, discussing recent events in the cruising world, including a heart-wrenching incident on the Carnival Glory. Plus, they shed light on a peculiar ban involving CBD gummies - a cautionary tale for all cruisers!But it's not all serious seas; get ready for a wave of laughter with their unique take on Thanksgiving, the upcoming 'Thankness' celebration, and their signature playful banter. This episode might be short, but it's packed with fun, stories, and the warmth of the holiday season. Whether you're using cash, Visa, or just a smile, join us on this festive journey and remember: You are unique, special, and loved. So set your compass for fun and let's sail into the spirit of Thankness together!
"Join the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy, for another fun-filled episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways! This week, we're diving into Trevor's latest cruise adventures, including his strategic approaches to save money while maximizing fun. Discover the intriguing spots he visited, from the lively Crazy Lobster in Costa Maya to the Thirsty Lizard bar in Belize. Learn about his close calls with sketchy situations and get insider tips on how to make the most of your cruise experience. Plus, we're discussing the latest Carnival news, including the Jubilee's sea trials and updates on the Paranormal Panorama. Don't miss our humorous take on quirky cruise experiences, from pier runners to unexpected encounters. It's all about good times, great stories, and the best cruise insights. Tune in and set sail on a laughter-filled journey with the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways!"See our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://Podcastaways.threadless.com/https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Thomas Kennedy, JP Morgan Private Bank Chief Investment Strategist, expects a growth slowdown in the US amid a decline in excess savings. Christian Scherer, Airbus Chief Commercial Officer, says the company is in an undersupplied situation coming out of the pandemic with high numbers of aircraft orders. Claudia Sahm, Sahm Consulting Founder, says the US is now closer to a recession than earlier this year. Toto Wolff, Mercedes AMG Petronas CEO, previews this weekend's first-ever Las Vegas Grand Prix. Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group United States Managing Director, says that both political parties are aligned on avoiding a government shutdown. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance Full transcript: This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keene, along with Jonathan Farrow and Lisa Abramowitz. Join us each day for insight from the best and economics, geopolitics, finance and investment. Subscribe to Bloomberg Surveillance on demand on a Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts, and always on Bloomberg dot Com, the Bloomberg Terminal, and the Bloomberg Business App. What we do here is we have smart guests like Will Kennedy, just joining us at Queen Victoria Street in London on oil and now joining us his compatriot in Irish crime. Thomas Kennedy joins his chief investment strategist at JP Morgan. One Kennedy to another, and you linked it when you sat down and you looked at Will Kennedy's world and says, when the price of oil moves, you see in chases, charge card juggernaut reaction, what do you observes oil comes down? Yeah, we saw change in the way the consumer was reacting to higher oil prices around August September area in our Chase credit card day. To remember, we're banking about twenty percent of America, and what we saw there was a nice plug nailed deck when gasoline prices rose. You actually saw a discretionary spending go down. Now, Tommy might be saying, well, of course you're going to see that. Right, prior to August and September, in the post COVID era, we did not see that relationship. It suggests the excess savings in America might actually be depleting after how many quarters of negotiating on it, right, and then when we really dig into the accounts of these folks, and we do it in anymous anonymous fashion, about half of America looks like they're out of excess. If you're missing words up, it's okay. You're sitting on the side of the table where we do that routinely. You know, I'm looking Time Kennedy at the polarity between Morgan Stanley and Golden Sachs today. You need the leadership or Bruce chast and Michael Faroli to give you an economic backdrop. What's your economic backdrop that forms your outlook call this year? Yeah, we're expecting a growth slow down pretty much like the less rest of Wall Street at this point, and it is relatively simple and intuitive. You have the cost of capital above expected revenue in this economy, and if you think about America as one big business, it's very odd to see the cost of capital to be above expected GDP. It should force investors to say, maybe I'll just save instead of borrow money and invest in my business. We've seen this four or five times in the last forty years, just about every time you see a growth slowdown, tom So we should expect that to happen. The question becomes what's the scenarios where it doesn't happen? And in those scenarios you have one where either the consumer is much more resilient and they have access to borrowing, and you're going to see growth come higher or something breaks in the meantime. Those are pretty dynamic and polarizing outcomes in the future. Everything you set up until then, though said, by the ten year go along the curve. Look in some of this yield. Is that right? Yeah? I think it has to be. John. You have at this point a municipal bond that is giving you equity like yields, and for the first time in twenty years, it is actually competing with the earning yield on the s and P five hundred. For my clients that are gathering wealth for generations, I can show them something that has near zero default risk and you can get equity like yields. Is their risk to that, of course there is, But that's a dynamic that they haven't seen in two decades. And now I can start to reposition some of their portfolio and they say, Thomas, I'm nervous. I'm seeing yields all over the place. Are they reluctant to buy even at these rates? Even after you tell that story, it's a reluctant still to buy it. In our data for the last twelve months, this has been the trade that people have been excited about and can get invested in. That doesn't mean it's not without angst. When we saw a five year tax free yields show up two weeks ago, that dynamic changed five percent tax free for people in New York City, where we're sitting. Guys got to buy a taxable bond above ten percent to get an equal return, So the behavioral experience for them did change there. I think as a market prognosticator makes you say, well, how high can rates really go before we're going to see that crowding out effect of high yields. One of the mysteries of this year has been what the main driving force in yields has been. Is it the economy? Is it inflation? Is it the politics or the fiscal backdrop? This is going to be a really interesting test. What do you think is going to be most important with respect to market volatility? Of all the things that are going to happen this week, the FED expected out look for the FED. You can explain more than three quarters of all the movement and rates just from those two things. Where the FED is and where you expect them to be in a year's time. In the last couple of months you have seen I would call it supply of treasuries become a little bit more of a factor, but not dominant at this point, Lisa. So as we look ahead, what's going to matter the slowdown? How big of a slowdown is it? And importantly, what will the Fed's reaction function be. You said that half of America's are half of America is pretty much out of savings based on your data, Yeah, which half, right? I mean? Is this the half that has been spending more aggressively and will continue to if they had the money, or is this a half that is particular in the economy? Right? I mean we're talking about the two Americas. We've got a lot of Americas and they're moving at different speeds. Yeah, the two America's theme really resonates for me. But the folks that are out of excess savings at the bottom half of America, and those are todaytionally the ones that don't have excess savings. So now they have a decision to make. They can either slow consumption or try to turn to their credit card at a time when credit card rates are historically punitive, even when you normalize them for where interest rates are or base rates from the FED. So I think the slow down metrics makes sense when your highest marginal propensity to consume folks are running out of their excess savings. Really sharp article this weekend of the millions of Americans. They don't own Apple, they don't own Nvidio, Microsoft, they missed the boat and they got a two to oh one k. They walk into JP Morgan Chase this morning with a disastrous portfolio. They're miserable. How do you approach the active versus passive retirement debate? I think at this point in the cycle time, active is going to make the most sense in that when you're looking at a passive allocation, even to the equity market, the haves and have nots are there. On the one hand, you have, say Tech in the equity market that has gone through its optimization of its balance sheet. Layoffs in the tech sector have been big in the last twelve months. Capex is now getting turned back on around AI and the monetization phase is not going to be that long. Microsoft, as an example, three percent of their revenues are coming from AI already. Meanwhile, you move to small and midcaps, and these are the most interest rate sensitive sectors and they have debt to EBITDA two to five times. They are going to feel this pain more than big tech. So in the equity market as an example, active management I think makes sense as a headline early cycles when you rotate back two more passive ideas, and that's not where we are right now. So in the minds of money, late cycle is where people think we are right now. I think it's a muddel and I'm really fascinated by the outlooks. I meantime, Kennedy's going to put together thirty four page outlook I have a rule I read the first must this time of the year where it's difficult to sort of get beyond next week to put something out for the next twelve months. How hot is that? I think it's difficult when you're trying to do it at the end of a cycle. The FED has just done the most aggressive rate hiking cycle we've seen. And where are you? Are you in the muddle through? Are you in the late cycle? Are you in the end cycle? That's the hardest part. But to be able to turn to your client and say to them, I can show you equity like yields and fixed income it's a way to buy some time and get some good yield in a portfolio. Pro tip more charts tip David malpassed a Bears Turns years ago. Went in doubt. Saw that from David costin effort goalman. This morning it was gone through his outlook. He's just full of chance and tables. Thomas, this is great. He's going to see it some kind of do that of JP Mulkin prims a bank. Guy Johnson is expert at the development of jets, the crafts that we fly every day, and he knows the Christian Sharer Bleeds Airbus share grew up in to Lose France. He's been part of Airbus Way way Back for many many years and he is now the CCO of the great European airplane builder. Guy Johnson in Dubai, gud good morning, Good morning, Tom King, All good evening. The sun's setting on day one of the Dubai Air Show, and as you say, it has been a big one. We've seen some significant orders, some promise of even more still to come, and as you say, the wide body market feels like it is back. Over the last few years, this has been all about narrowbodies. The recovery out of the pandemic driven by the narrow bodies. Now it's the big workhorses of the sky, their time to shine. Let's talk to Christian Sharer, as you say, the chief commercial officer at Airbus. If you want to know what's happening in this industry, here is the guy to talk to. Christian. Nice to see you, Thanks for making some time for us. Look, the world at the moment feels like we've got a lot of geopolitical tension. We've got a lot of uncertainty. We've got a lot of economic uncertainty as well. Rates have been jacked up, economies are slowing down. Yet it doesn't feel like it at this show, huge orders across the peace in terms of what we're seeing from airlines from around the world. Why the disconnect, I wouldn't say it's a disconnect. You know, an order at an air show is I wouldn't say anecdotal, but it's being very much highlighted because it's an air show. You will will have seen that this year alone, there's been lots of orders in particular with us at Airbus, well before the air show. During the air show, there'll be orders after the air show, So it isn't like an incredible peak all of a sudden, It's part of a phenomenon. The airshow is building for a while though. This is a kind of moment in time when you can take stock. As you say, you're about to sign a very large order with Turkish Airlines, a huge order, a lot of arrow bodies in there, but a lot of wide bodies as well. This feels like a moment in time just to reflect on what is happening, and it feels like demand from the customer is still very strong. Demand within the industry is very strong. They've watched what happens with the narrow bodies and then they've sold out. Now these guys want to make sure that they've got their slots. What is driving this demand, What gives the industry this confidence probably the act guy that we're seemingly in an under a supply situation again, so there's a lot of jockeying for delivery positions. You don't want to miss the train. Just a few years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, remember we manufactures were asked to slash our production by roughly fifty percent, So it takes time. There's a lot of industrial inertia to rebuild an industrial system that's capable of producing large numbers of white body airplanes, and so they don't come in large numbers. So you don't want to miss the train. You study the numbers very carefully. If I look at what's happening with discretionary spend at the moment I listened to LVMH or Reach Moore or the Azure, they're talking about that sort of high end discretionary spend beginning to roll over. And do you think that happens in aviation or do you think the lesson from the pandemic is? Do you know what? I won't have the Cognac, I won't have the Cartier watch, but I will have the airfat I think the letter is true. I think an air trip is no longer a luxury per se. It is part of discretionary consumer spending. It's probably a the top of the list. I would think that the recent behavior that we've seen, beyond the obvious phenomenon of pent up demand coming loose after the pandemic, I believe that the consumer will tend to go enjoy himself, yourself, visit, visit friend's family before they buy an expensive watch in terms of kind of what happens next. Do you see this demand being sustainable? Do you talk about the fact that the esshow shouldn't just be how we perceive what's going on? You see this as big a sustainable story. Now you think white body demand is back. Where in the cycle do you think we are. I'm not sure we can talk about cycles as much as we used to anymore. So I do believe fundamentally it's sustainable. Our studies are telling us that we will see continue growth in air travel, including in wide body air travel, a little bit less perhaps than before the pandemic, or irrespective of the pandemic, because of the inflationary pressures, increases in fuel prices, et cetera, et cetera. You mentioned it, But we do see sustained demand, including on intercontinental travel, and we do see on the large aircraft where fuel burn in particular and technology plays the biggest part, increased demand to replace all the airplanes. So there's more replacement in the years ahead than there was before. You talk about inflation, What are you building into these contracts? You're selling airplanes five ten years down the road. Inflation is running hot right now? How are you building that into your contracts? How much are you building into that contracts? How important when you sign a contract is that escalation tools. That's a really good question, and that is a subject of finding the right balance of how you share that risk of inflation with the customer, the airline that is making a purchase decision many years in advance, typically a guy. What we do is we index our pricing on indices of material costs and labor costs. Those are US industries, those are most mature indices that exists in this industry. So we index that and then if it's a discussion depending on how far out the airplane is being ordered for, that's a discussion of how we share that risk, that inflationary risk with our customer. You're going to be able to build all these airplanes. I spoke to Gail a few days ago CEO. He was talking to me about going from nine to ten on the three point fifty program. If this demand continues, do you have to go ten to eleven, eleven to twelve, twelve to thirteen and how hard is that? Well, one step at a time. Remember we're coming from we were at a rate ten before the pandemic. We slashed it down. Now we're ramping back up to ten. It's not a trivial thing. Airbus is not necessarily the limiting factor here. It's a huge supply chain that we're pulling with us, and that's the pacing item. Is it conceptually possible that we go further? Yes, In fact, the ever optimistic commercial man and me will say yes, most probably we will, but that is not for today. We have objective ten per month in our site. That's what we're going to do, and our programs are running very much on time. One final quick question, and it's come up a lot today in the conversation that I've been having, the Rolls Royce new CEO two fan appears to be running the business in a slightly different way. He can clearly add up. He clearly wants to make some money, and that is resetting the relationships within the industry. They are sole supply on the A three fifty. How as that relationship changes, How does the relationship between Airbus and Rolls Royce change, Airbus and Emirates change, How does it change the nature of the relationship between between supply customer and ultimate customer. Well, I'd say two things. The first one, the most important is we're really really happy with the Rolls Royce engine on the A three to fifty program and on the A three thirty as well, but on the A three to fifty program in particular, the XWB engine, I will dare say is by far the best engine in the sky today in reliability, in fuel burn, endurability. It's a wonderful engine. So that's point one. Point two. Yes, there is a resetting of pricing in the engine business, the fuel burn. The engine guys have developed fabulous machines to lower the fuel burn. That comes at the expense, at some expense on the maintenance side, because these engines consume paths quicker, consume less fuel, more parts, And that reset is what's happening in the industry, in the engine industry at large, and Rolls Royce is no exception to be glad to see you. Thank you very much, Dean Christian, thanks for taking us, taking the time and here at us Tom Kine from the Dubai show, the sun is setting here back to you, guy Johnson, thank you so much. Always interesting. She has become acclaimed. Claudia Sam was someone out of Michigan in the fed A number of years ago with a really really dry, smart academic paper on government assistance and how to decide wrapped around recession economics. She's literally become a household name. Doctor Sam joins us now former Fed economist, founder of some consulting. I guess, congratulations. The only one Claudia had a bigger year than you was Taylor Swift. I expect we'll see you at a Kansas City football game anytime soon, Claudia, Sam, I got to get it out of the way just because of the notoriety. How closer we to recession. We're closer than we were say the middle of this year. We are not in a recession. And that's not just this Sam rule. Look around. The economy is still growing now. That's no guaranteed that we will be in that place, you know, in the coming months. And yet we are not in a danger zone with the labor market. And there's a lot of reasons why we may have seen the unemployment rate come up. There could be good reasons like workers coming back. What's important here and you have it in your research note to us and Bramo I think has really been out front on this is almost the behavioral impact. I think Faylor at Chicago. The behavioral impact of feedback loops tell us about what you're working on. The new I'm selling this, folks, for Claudia. She needs something to do. The new acclaimed some feedback loop. What's it looked like? Well, this is the logic. I mean, this Sam rule is about the unemployment rate rising a relatively small amount that happens early in recent It's been very accurate. The idea behind it comes well before me in that once the unemployment rate starts rising, it keeps going because on the demand side, there's this feedback loop. Some people lose their jobs, then they buy less, then those workers lose their jobs, and so on and so forth, and that's where it really gets going. What we see right now is not just a demand side, which would be a typical path into a recession. We see this. You know, workers have really come back. We've gone from labor shortages to now some workers that are looking for jobs. Right. It's going to take the jobs longer to catch up. That's a good thing. We needed those workers. It's just as with everything else in this economy, it's been messy to line up supply and demand. So now it's in the labor market. How uncomfortable does it make you to say this time is different? Very uncomfortable, and yet we could have said many times since the pandemic, this time is different, and very legitimately, you know, I talk about the quote unquote some rule breaking, which is it would trigger and then we would not go into a recession. Last year we saw two quarters of declines in GDP growth. That has only happened inside of recession since World War Two. It happened and we were not in a recession. So the SAM rule could be next in line to break. And I mean I prefer it didn't. I prefer unemployments stay low. But if it did, my base case is we don't go on a recession. Does this mean that right now you see sort of the immaculate disinflation or you see just year over year inflation come down to the Fed's target by later next year without necessarily the FED doing anything more and even potentially cutting rates, like so many Wall Street firms seem to believe. I take issue with the idea or the term of immaculate disinflation. I mean, this is coming out of a pandemic. We know where this is coming from. It's not just like it appeared. And yet to your point, we've already seen it right, and there are not all the disruptions worked out in the economy. The labor market's a place where we've seen some of like the kind of last momentum. There is more to give in terms of inflation coming down. It's going to be messy. I expect roma not to be a fun day in core inflation, and there is some of the demand to come out. And we've seen that wage growth has slowed back to something more normal. So everything is rowing in the right direction on inflation, it's just going to be slow and bumpy. Can you draw distinction, Claudia, between people coming back into the market and the participation rate which hasn't actually gone up so dramatically. Even as we do talk about people coming back into the labor force, when we look at the years a whole participation has moved up. That's a very slow moving creature. Just in terms of the measurement, we've absolutely seen a burst of workers. Women's employment is at an all time high. We have seen a big surge of immigrants. In terms of the workfieces finally getting processed, so we've had people coming back in. It is there in the data in the labor force participation, and some of these factors are more temporary, and that's part of the jobs being able to catch up. Like we're still adding jobs at a good clip, just not like last year. Clot. I don't mean to interrupt, but I think it's really important into the CPI data tomorrow and retail sales the next day. The Boston Fed as a cottage industry of trying to this is Michelle Barnes years ago. Folks trying to figure out guessing consumption? Can we actually guess consumption? How do you respond to people talking about, well, this is the credit card data or that. What are the academics like you actually say about gaming? Seventy percent of the American economy? Right, So I was one of the lead forecasters on consumer spending at the Federal Reserve for about a decade. So I spent a lot of time trying to forecast consumer spending. The big piece, and I've talked about this recently, it's the income. Like if we lose the labor market, we lose consumers, as many people spend their paychecks. If we lose consumers, we're done for in a recession. So to me, it's like all eyes on the labor market that it keeps in the place it is, and household balance sheets are in a place that they have not been in for a very long time, particularly at the bottom. Like that's really encouraging, Claudia, Thank you so much. Claudia, so former feeder reserve economist. There's a lot to talk about here, John, as we get to Toto Wolf Team principal CEO of Mercedes. But John, the real issue here to me, and I'm gonna do a little bit more Spanner and cispar I was reading about the SISPEC cake folks, the side impact bar is very very important for all these different cars. This, thank you, This is more of an engineering discussion you're looking at it. Maybe what we've got SITI is not running away from the camera. Joined us now, Toto Wolf Team principle and CEO of Mercedes AMG ptronis formula onetside. Fantastic catch with you, sir. Let's just start with this new racetrack. We've spoken to a couple of people about it already. What kind of feedback how are you getting from the drivers on the simulars Again, it's a race weekend. First of all, good morning, Good morning to New York. We can also talk side impic structures if you wish, but you're gonna lose some of your some of your audiences. Yeah, I'm skilled with that. Yeah, we can jump on a separate call. I'll tell you. So. The drivers have been in the simulator, and I spoke to Lewis last week when we had a meeting in the factory and he said, the strait is so long and impressive, but we don't really know what to expect because, as you mentioned before, we're racing between ten and twelve local time. Nevada nights, i've heard can be pretty pretty cold, and the only night racing experience that we have is Singapore and a little bit of the Middle East, but obviously never on a new track close to five degree cent degree with careally tires that have never experienced these kind of temperatures. It just raised some questions as to why it's being hosted at this time of the year, at this time of night. Toto, how did that come about and would you push for a change next season? Well, obviously, Las Vegas stands for entertainment and show and liberty came up with the plan, which is great. To be honest, we've not raised in Las Vegas for a long time, certainly not in modern Formula one, and going there with this new format in the night. It's going to be spectacular. I think it's been said before. The track is brand new. That means the surface can be quite greasy or oily, because that's what asphal do does when it's new. We haven't raised in those temperatures, as I said before, But in any case, it's going to be a big spectacle. I don't know whether we will be sliding around or whether the track is going to be really grippy, but we shall find out in a few days. We've been talking about qualifying and the prospect of maybe needing to two three laps to get tires up to what's more temperature to put in that quick slab, so twenty thoughts on that at this point. Yeah, we've headed in the past that sometimes you just needed to slowly warm up the tires because if you push them too hard at the beginning they're green, you know, then you slide over the surface. The grip is never going to come. So bringing them in, driving them carefully, getting them up to temperature and that could last a few laps, depending and we're getting a little bit technical here, depending on how much you heat your rims and your breaks beforehand. And teams have various concepts. They don't want to have the front tires pretty cool and long lasting, or you heat them a lot, which gives you a grip for a single lab for qualifying, but obviously harms them for the risks. It could be chaos or it could be really exciting one or the other. It goes to a conversation we've been having all season on this program total just how you balance pursuing commercial gains without compromising race quality. What do you make in the current balance the Formula one. I think we had that balance to cope with that balance for a long time. And I think why we love the sport so much is because it's honest. Entertainment follows sport. We're not designing regulations or content because we want to create scripted content with a certain outcome, with a certain degree of non variability. We're doing this, we're launching ourselves. There's technical regulations, they're sporting regulations, and then off you go with a certain within a certain framework of cost cap which is similar to the salary cap in some of the US leagues. Everybody has the same starting point and then we launch ourselves into this. So it's honest, the stop watch never lies, and therefore the entertainment's follow suit. And yet we go through these periods of dominance. We saw it with Ferrari late nineties, early two thousands, we saw it with you Mercedes for a long time as well, and now with Red Bull. So Lewis has said recently in the last couple of days, the Red Bull is so far away. I think they're probably going to be very clear for the next couple of years. From your standpoint as team principle, is that a realistic assessment of the future, the next couple of seasons where we're giving it all to break a cycle. Like you said, we had five years of dominance of Ferrari, and we had a drug spell of Red bulland then it was us eight times in a row. And now it's the second Constructor Championship for a Bull or the third Drivate Championship with an indeed very good driver. So we are, you know, with all we have back in effect, and at the racetrake we're trying to come up with a car and with an execution that is as good as it can be, and we have a next cycle of regulatory engine twenty twenty six. But we got to turn this around the well for this race, and I think Total Wolf it's very clear. There's three late races left Las Vegas and then back over the Middle East cutter in Abu Dhabi. Are you racing right now for next year? Yes, we have done for quite some while. We're still fighting for the second championship in the constructor championship. We are second at the moment and Ferrari behind us, so that's an interesting one. But you know, deep down, second or third, third place doesn't matter. We've got to with old humility fight for the front. And that's why many months ago already we've switched and the transitioned to a new corner totally. There's a phenomenal photo of three Austrians, Nikki Lauda, Total Wolf and a guy named Schwarzeneger. It's a really really cool photo. And to take what Arnold Schwarzenegger did, and all of our American audience remove from F one understands the tale in here. When you look at the showbiz a Formula one, the Netflix success of which you're a star his Formula one Gone two Showbiz in twenty twenty three. Obviously, you know there's a few Austrians of us that have gone beyond beyond the country and schwartzeneg are probably the biggest. And I was lucky enough to be very close friends with Niki. We traveled the world around in its function as chairman of the team and there were very valuable lessons that I that I could learn. Did we go beyond the sports too much entertainment? No, I don't think so. We have. We're trying different formats with the sprint race weekends and all Las Vegas racing in the night, and if it needs calibration to provide a better show whilst staying true to our values of the honest spot, I think we've got to try it. But the core product the Grand Korea on Sunday, within the regulations financial technical in sporting is always what Formula one has been all about. Let's finish on the prospective expansion at Toto. I believe you've been against the expansion of the grid. Do you think it's now ultimately inevitable? I think the ten teams that have been in the sport, have been so for a long long time. The smaller teams or midfield teams have gone through a lot of hardship a few years ago when COVID struck, but in any case, they fault for survival. And here we are with the cost cap kicking in. The teams have most of the teams have done into profitability and finally are in a sustainable way and continuing. But that is not a given. You know. We we are on high at the moment, and therefore we've got to respect what the FA and the commercial rights holder are going to decide whether they want to have an additional team joining. And obviously, if we are being asked to saying, as long as it's a crazy for the show, as long as we provide a better, better entertainment, more income, why would any team be against it. But fundamentally it's it's somebody else that decides. And so it's wonderful to catch up with you, sir going into race weekend. Good luck to you with a team. I'm looking forward to watching the race over the weekend. Thank you for being with us. Total wolfare team principle and CEO of Mercedes AMG patronas f one. We've got clocks for any number of things. Four days, seventeen hours, forty one minutes, fifty three seconds to shut down. John Lieber knows the shutdown clock well over the many decades he is at your Raise your group, John, thanks so much for joining from London this morning. We're riveted to the shutdown clock. What's the likelihood that the nation's going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight on Saturday. Well, it's always exciting in US fiscal policy, and the shutdown clock's fun to watch. But I think fundamentally both parties are basically aligned around not shutting down the government. So I think that kind of this situation looks like I did a couple of months ago, where you've got Republicans making demands for spending cuts, Democrats saying we don't really want to do that, but neither side really wants to shut down the government, and Republicans are now putting forward as plan to keep funding going through January for part of the government, February or for the rest. I would bet by the end of this week that's passed, because no, unless there's some mistake or something goes wrong, and these two sides inside they just hate each other too much to actually do this. My quick creator of the Moody's announcement was it was sort of a statement on civics in America. Are we going to go through a process now and towards the next shut down six months out a year out where we yearn to go back to the system you knew working for McConnell years ago. Are we going to some new system of legislating and appropriations in America? You know? I mean the system is basically the same as it has been for the last decade, where one party the other is trying to leverage these deadlines to get the fiscal policy they want. And you mentioned with the Moodies downgrade interest rates and basic civics. But there's also demographics and the US demographics aren't changing, and because of that, you've got this massive increase in spending as there's more retirees in this country, while tax revenues remain basically flat as a percentage GDP. And what that means is the combinations you get more debt as a share of GDP. We've seen the stock of debt triple over the last ten years, and that's probably going to happen again in the future. So I think this Moody's rating is yes about the short term, about higher interest rates, and about the dysfunction in Congress, but fundamentally, this country's on a bad path long term fiscally. Neither party has any seriousness about doing anything about it. Even the Democrats, in what they called an Inflation Reduction Act, which was ostensibly designed to yes, invest in green technology but also reduce the deficit, couldn't muster a single thing that's an actual tax increase in there. They had to rely on these things they could spin as loophole closers, and in the end that bill is probably going to end up increasing the deficit too. So there's simply no seriousness in dealing with this problem, and there won't be until there's a crisis, which raises a question of what it will take. And we were talking with Neil Kashkari last week and he said he actually questions how much the fiscal concerns about the US really are affecting benchmark rates in the US, saying that if this really were an international concern, you would see the dollar weekend. From an international negotiation standpoint, is the fiscal backdrop of the US entering into the discussion more, is it putting the US in a more difficult situation with China and other potential trading partners. Yes, yeah, I mean I think this is a factor. For sure. The US has relied both on kind of foreign funding of its debt, but also the Federal Reserve is a marginal buyer of debt for this ten year period of low and dropping interest rates, and that's now shifting fundamentally where foreign strategies around US debt are going to start affecting the interest rate outlook, and it's not going to be such a sure thing that the US can continue to fund these these massive deficits. However, all evidence so far suggests that when there's a flight to safety, US treasuries are still the place to be. The US has the reserve currency, and despite all the issues that we've seen this year, people still think that the US is a pretty safe bet that's got a deep and rich pool of taxable assets that you can get at in an emergency if you need it to. The big question is not whether or not the US can repay or has the money to repay, is if there's the political will to keep this going and what it looks like in a crisis where you might need to see an instant increase in taxes or something. John, just looking ahead to Wednesday, we are going to get that meeting between Jijon paying and President Biden. What are you looking for? You know, I think this is a very low bar to get over. The big celebration is the fact that they're meeting at all. I think a key question is if they resume the military to military communications that were cut off after the Pelosi visit. This would help de risk some of the challenges that you're seeing in the South China. See where China's you know, the China argues the US has been aggressively going approaching on their territory the Philippines as well, and they've been sending these warning signs to the US that they are telling them to back off. Resuming the military to military communications is a step that trying to help de escalate those tensions. That's probably the most we can hope for. I'm really curious to see what hu Jinping says in his speech to the American people, and I'm also watching what is his message going to be to US corporate executives who are very worried about a sudden stop and their ability to do business in China. What messages he give them to reassure them that China is still a safe place for them to do business. I think those three things will be the most interesting to watch coming out of this week. That last point is just absolutely huge and a big one for us or wait, John, Thank you, John Lebade. If you write your group, subscribe to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live every weekday starting at seven am Eastern. I'm Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can watch us live on Bloomberg Television and always I'm the Bloomberg Terminal. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Keen, and this is BloomberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In today's episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy, dive deep into the intricacies of cruise planning. From the unexpected challenges faced by travelers during the pandemic to the current state of cruise bookings, they cover it all. They discuss the nuances of selecting the right cruise, the importance of considering the size of the ship, and the various factors that can influence the cost of your trip, such as the time of year and the destination. The duo also shares personal anecdotes, from the allure of Alaskan cruises to the challenges of transportation and the importance of travel insurance. Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or a first-timer, this episode is packed with valuable insights and a touch of humor to guide you through your next cruise adventure. Join us and set sail on a journey of cruise planning knowledge!
Today the Golden boys Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy talk about a missing person case onboard a Carnival Ship and they also discuss Facebook Drama that has been a thorn in John's side! For more information on the July 2024 Carnival Jubilee Group Cruise "Family Reunion Group Cruise 2.0" Contact Amanda Barmore at booking@hlwtravel.comSee our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://Podcastaways.threadless.com/https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Today the Golden Boys Trevor Shelby and Thomas Kennedy talk about this week in Carnival News. Hurricane response, new technology and more!For more information on the July 2024 Carnival Jubilee Group Cruise "Family Reunion Group Cruise 2.0" Contact Amanda Barmore at booking@hlwtravel.comSee our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://Podcastaways.threadless.com/https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Today the Golden Boys Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy and Reese Schrimsher are all back together! They discuss the adventure of a friend who got caught by the drug sniffing dogs, RC charging for Pizza and if Carnival might do the same and more!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Thomas Kennedy, originally from Argentina, immigrated to the United States at the age of 9. Growing up, he witnessed the struggles his undocumented parents faced, inspiring him to become involved in progressive activism and immigration reform advocacy. He earned a degree in International Relations from Florida International University and a Master's in Community and Social Change from the University of Miami. Thomas has worked for various nonprofits and civil rights organizations, including the Service Employees International Union, The New Florida Majority, and the Florida Immigrant Coalition. As Political Director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, he managed statewide electoral campaigns and led successful voter registration efforts, registering 29,000 voters in 2018 and 2019. He also played a significant role in passing amendment 4, which restored voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians. Thomas was involved in campaigns to improve conditions for migrant children in detention camps, including one in Homestead. He worked for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, managing volunteers across all 50 states. As National Campaign Manager at United We Dream, he continued his advocacy for immigrant rights. Currently, he advises progressive and immigrant rights organizations, works for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and serves as a Democratic National Committee member. Thomas Kennedy's journey from an undocumented immigrant to a prominent activist demonstrates his dedication to improving the lives of immigrants and pursuing progressive causes. Through his voter registration efforts, electoral campaigns, and advocacy work, he has made a lasting impact on communities and continues to fight for inclusive policies and immigrant rights across the United States.
Join the Golden Boys, Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Reese Schrimsher, tomorrow at 8 PM Central Time for an exciting episode of the Podcastaways LIVE! This time, they'll be sharing their top tips and tricks to help you navigate the online check-in process and secure the best check-in times for your next cruise. Plus, we might have a special guest joining the fun!But that's not all – the Golden Boys will also be discussing all the big announcements surrounding the upcoming Carnival Jubilee! From the immersive ocean-themed zones, Currents and The Shores, to the thrilling onboard experiences, this is one Carnival cruise you won't want to miss.Tune in for the Golden Boys' signature humor, expert insights, and interactive conversations with the audience. Don't forget to set a reminder and join us tomorrow at 8 PM Central Time for this fantastic episode of the Podcastaways LIVE! Special Thank you to these names, because for as little as one dollar a month, you can help support this show over at patreon.com/PodcastawaysThe Traveling Mann-ingsSee our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://Podcastaways.threadless.com/https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Join the "Golden Boys" Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Reese Schrimsher for a special LIVE episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. In this episode, the boys are discussing true crime on cruise ships - the most shocking and mysterious incidents that have occurred at sea. They will delve into some of the most infamous cases, exploring the stories and the impact they've had on the cruise industry as a whole.But that's not all - the Golden Boys have some major announcements to make about upcoming cruises, guests, and special episodes. Plus, they will be shooting a brand-new commercial for their Patreon page, where fans can gain access to exclusive content and behind-the-scenes insights into the podcast.So grab your favorite drink, sit back, and join the Golden Boys for this exciting LIVE episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways. Don't miss out on all the fun, surprises, and laughs!Special Thank you to these names, because for as little as one dollar a month, you can help support this show over at patreon.com/PodcastawaysThe Traveling Mann-ingsSee our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://Podcastaways.threadless.com/https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
On this episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways, join the Golden Boys - Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Reese Schrimsher - as they discuss their upcoming trip to Curaçao and what they have planned for the island. They also share the results of their recent poll on the best Guys Burger on a Carnival cruise and discuss some of the latest cruise news and updates. Tune in for their signature humor and plenty of laughs along the way. Don't miss this fun and informative episode of the Carnival Cruising Podcastaways!Special Thank you to these names, because for as little as one dollar a month, you can help support this show over at patreon.com/PodcastawaysThe Traveling Mann-ingsSee our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Today, the Golden boys Trevor Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, and Reese Schrimsher conduct their first-ever PODCASTAWAYS LIVE! Where you can join us each Monday at 6 PM to experience us recording the show Live. Then you can join us on our new Patreon https://patreon.com/Podcastaways where you can experience the new AFTER SHOW, Children of the Iceberg. We also talk about the Family Reunion Group Cruise 2.0, which will be our 2024 cruise with any and all of our Cult Members who wish to join!See our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
In this episode, the Golden Boys, Thomas Kennedy and Trevor Shelby, talk about the latest funny things reported through the cruise groups and they also start to go over some of the packing "hacks" some people like to recommend for your cruise. See our faces!https://www.youtube.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysSend us a question!https://www.speakpipe.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysNEW MERCH!https://my-store-d1401f.creator-spring.com/Follow us athttps://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCruisingPodcastawaysTrevor Shelby: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.shelby.3Thomas Kennedy: https://www.facebook.com/buddhakenReese Schrimsher: https://www.facebook.com/tim.schrimsher.3Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy! Crystal and Nicole discuss a number of news items this week, including new data showing a change in commute patterns for Seattle workers, as well as a new poll showing Republican Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier and Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson as the two leading candidates to succeed Jay Inslee as governor, should Inslee decide against seeking an unprecedented fourth term. They also delve into the details of the ACLU lawsuit against King County over Seattle jail conditions and examine the rising demand for the state's 988 hotline, how important non-police responses are for public safety, and the potential for new funding to help support mental health resource. Following Tacoma's State of the City address by Mayor Victoria Woodards, Crystal and Nicole also note the progress Tacoma is making in a more holistic approach to public safety with a Behavioral Health Crisis Response Team and an unarmed Community Services Officer Program, which would increase the level of response and bring support to non-emergency situations that are not an active threat to life or property. They review an encouraging update from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority about their work with the Right of Way Safety Initiative moving a total of 189 previously unsheltered people inside to a shelter or housing option that meets their needs. They also discuss a contentious debate surrounding the location of a new Sound Transit station. The conversation wraps up with a discussion of the recent train derailment on the Swinomish Reservation and the tribe's upcoming court case against the railway company for allegedly running trains in violation of a 1991 easement agreement that the tribe says limited the length of trains allowed to pass through. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy at @NTKallday. Resources How Highway 99 Removal Would Reconnect South Park with Mike McGinn and Coté Soerens from Hacks & Wonks “Your old workweek is extinct, Commute Seattle data shows” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times “Bruce Dammeier (R), Bob Ferguson (D) lead hypothetical 2024 gubernatorial field in WA” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate “The Exodus of Inmates from the King County Jail Continues” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City “ACLU-WA, Director of Public Defense Call Out Conditions in King County Jail” by Alison Jean Smith from South Seattle Emerald “ACLU sues King County over Seattle jail conditions” by Sydney Brownstone from The Seattle Times “Washington state may boost 988 hotline funding as demand grows" by Taija PerryCook from Crosscut “New facility will provide crisis response services for Washingtonians in north King County” by Shane Ersland from State of Reform “‘Our best days are ahead of us.' Mayor Woodards relays optimism in State of the City” by Liz Moomey from The News Tribune “Safety, homelessness, recovery top priorities in Tacoma State of the City address” from KIRO 7 News “Identification Documents Open Doors” | King County Regional Homelessness Authority “Constantine Backs ‘North of CID' Light Rail Station, Bypassing Chinatown and Midtown” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist “Incomplete Analysis Overlooks Rider Delay Caused by Skipping Union Station Hub” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist Coalition Letter opposing 4th & 5th Ave locations: WSBLE station location in the Chinatown International District “Balducci Wants a Good Transit Option for Chinatown” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist “BNSF train derails on Swinomish Reservation as tribe readies court case against railway company” by Isabella Breda and Vonnai Phair from The Seattle Times Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, I'm joined by Mike McGinn of America Walks and Coté Soerens of Reconnect South Park to learn more about their work with the Freeway Fighters Network. Mike shares a broad overview of the movement's efforts to remove crumbling highway infrastructure while addressing the climate, health, and equity issues that these concrete structures have caused. As a resident of Seattle's South Park, Coté reflects on the throughline of Highway 99 running through the middle of her community - connecting a history of redlining, displacement, and racism to the present-day impacts on the neighborhoods' livability, pollution exposure, and life expectancy. Mike and Coté call out the lack of imagination exhibited by the country's attachment to the highways, to our highways, and paint a compelling vision that replaces underutilized thoroughfares with vibrant, connected communities. But today we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with our co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: defense attorney, abolitionist, and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. [00:01:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hi, thanks for having me. It's always - [00:01:57] Crystal Fincher: Hey, love having you - happy to have you back. We've got a bunch of news to cover today. One interesting story - starting out - was just new data showing new commute trends. We are not traveling in the same way that we did before the pandemic. What did you take from this report? [00:02:17] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: It seems that no matter how much some want everyone to come back to the office Monday through Friday, office workers don't wanna do that. And it looks like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is the day that people are primarily coming into the office. And it sounds like they're working remotely mostly Mondays and Fridays. [00:02:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that has shaped and changed our commute patterns. Lots of people have noticed they're different - certainly midweek has the biggest impact. There continues to be this push to get people back to the office. We've seen Seattle's mayor, other people celebrate a return there. Certainly a lot of businesses that provide services and amenities to people who have traditionally worked downtown are happy to see increased traffic. Do you think we're ever gonna get back to a time where people are doing a regular Monday through Friday workday again? [00:03:11] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I hope not - that's just my personal opinion. But people don't get paid for their commute time. And if you live in Snohomish County, or if you live - housing prices are so high right now that more and more people are forced to live outside of the City's core and travel in, which is part of our traffic problem, but it's also a quality of life issue. If people can work three days a week in the office and essentially get the same benefits that they would be for working five days a week in the office, why would we be trying to get people in there more? Obviously there are benefits felt by those workers, and I think reducing traffic is a huge issue. I understand that it doesn't necessarily benefit downtown businesses, but times have changed, things have changed, technology changes things, and I hope we don't get back to five days a week of intense and horrifying traffic. [00:04:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I do also wanna mention that - being one of the people who does not have to commute every single day and can work from home, there is privilege attached to that. There are people predominantly in lower wage jobs, a lot of service jobs that don't have the option to not come into the office. Or people doing manual labor, which is every bit as skilled and takes all the talent that all the other types of jobs have, but they oftentimes are not able to have the flexibility to work from home or to take advantage of the saved commute time, which is really significant. If someone handed you back an hour, an hour and a half every day - there's so much more that can be done, or so much more rest that could be had, or just spending time with your family - it doesn't necessarily have to be productive in the way that we view work. But people finding balance is an important thing. So that's interesting and that has changed. Other interesting news that we saw this week - there was a poll fielded by the Northwest Progressive Institute that they wrote about in The Cascadia Advocate, their news publication, that showed if Governor Inslee happened to decide against seeking an unprecedented fourth term - which he has not announced any plans about - if that were to happen though, Bob Ferguson, our current Attorney General is viewed as the leading Democrat for the governor's race and Bruce Dammeier is the leading Republican. How did you view this? [00:05:38] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Polls are always interesting, right - we all wanna know what the future holds. But it's always who is responding to polls, what sort of choices or wording - which I think that poll actually went into a little bit, which is great - but at this point, I don't think a Republican is gonna poll all the Democrat votes. So it looks like they're even, based on the responses by - the people who respond - based on the people who responded to the poll. [00:06:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely - a situation where Democrats are splitting the vote. And to be clear, it showed if Jay Inslee were not to run again, who people were asked who they'd vote for, Bruce Dammeier - and I always forget whether it's Dammeier or Dammeier, so if I'm mispronouncing his name, I apologize - got 35%, Bob Ferguson 21%, Dow Constantine and Hilary Franz both polled at 7%, with 30% of the respondents not being sure. So really interesting to see the response to this. They also had breakdowns of the different regions of the state - notable there was Dammeier's home turf is in Pierce County, but he basically polled about the same there as he did for a statewide percentage. So there wasn't necessarily the kind of advantage that we normally see there. And swing turf continues to be swing turf. But really interesting as we move closer to the time where people expect to hear more from Jay Inslee about what his plans are or are not. Certainly a fourth term would be unprecedented - doesn't mean that he can't go for it - but certainly there's a lot of people waiting in line to figure out what's gonna happen and who's gonna be on the ballot. [00:07:20] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, it'll be interesting. [00:07:22] Crystal Fincher: Will be very interesting. Also this week, we see the ACLU suing King County over Seattle jail conditions. What's happening here? [00:07:32] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So there was a decision - I can't remember how long ago - it was about conditions in the jail that was won by the ACLU. I think it was maybe in the late 80s? And basically the ACLU is saying is that they are not living up to the terms of that decision. There's also community groups that are not happy about what is going on in the jail. There's an astronomical suicide rate, especially compared to the national average in the downtown jail. It's old, it's antiquated, it makes it difficult for attorneys to see their clients. There's just a lot of elevated risk there. And Constantine said in 2020 that he recognized all of those things and wanted to shut it down. And so between the ACLU lawsuit and community groups' pressure, we are seeing a little bit of movement - but instead of finding alternatives to incarceration, what's happening is they moved 50 people from the downtown jail to the RJC [Regional Justice Center] in Kent. And now those people are double-bunked, so they took one thing and made another problem over here. Or the other thing that I think is being sought by the executive is a contract with SCORE, which is the South County Correctional Regional [South Correctional Entity] - I don't remember what it stands for - but which is really well understood to be the worst of our three jails here in King County. And so he wants to move people to SCORE, which obviously - people with the ACLU, with community groups are not excited about that because it doesn't do anything to solve the problem. It just moves it around. [00:09:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And to your point, the other facilities that they're moving inmates to already had their own pre-existing problems in this area that are being made worse with these additional inmates. It is just really a challenge and they are not, have not been able, willing or able - probably both - to adequately staff this. And so you can't just keep shoving people into this facility - that you're completely in control of - that is inadequately staffed, that doesn't have appropriate medical care, that has escalating rates of illness and suicide, where the corrections officers themselves have reached out and communicated via letter to the Executive to say - Hey, we are not staffed enough to keep our own selves safe and we're asking you to reduce the population because it's also unsafe for the corrections officers and staff that are there. Just this isn't working for anyone. And it seems like it's absolutely reasonable and appropriate for the ACLU to seek a court remedy for this. [00:10:17] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. Something needs to be done. [00:10:19] Crystal Fincher: Right - and this also goes to the larger conversation we're having about public safety, about policing, about whether we want to return to more punitive, punishment-focus-based public safety where we're just locking up everybody - without realizing that that requires staffing, that requires administration. There is a cost to what we're doing and we don't even seem to be reaping any benefits in terms of increased public safety because of this. It is just a money suck that is harmful to everyone involved with the system and then makes us less safe on the other side. It just doesn't seem like this is working in any way, shape, or form. [00:11:04] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, it's true. And I think part of the problem is it's such a political question at this point. So many people have absorbed the idea that the only way for us to have public safety is to be as punitive as humanly possible. And we have mass incarceration in this country - we incarcerate more than any country in the world and we are not the safest. So clearly that isn't working, but I think that that's a - it's an easy flashpoint, fear sell to people that is actually making us less safe. And there's a lot of people that are pushing for alternatives, but it is an uphill battle. But it's being waged and I have a lot of hope that we will get there eventually, just hopefully sooner than later. [00:11:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And there are a lot of individual cities, organizations making progress in this area. In fact, this week we saw a story that the state's demand for the 988 hotline is increasing and they may receive new funding - this is an alternative response to just sending police out to every single call solo. And thinking that we can solve calls related to homelessness, or someone feeling uncomfortable with someone in their neighborhood, or someone going through a behavioral health crisis - which we see turn out tragically in so many other situations - to say maybe a more appropriate response to this, that if someone is having a behavioral health crisis, there are responders that maybe don't need a gun and a badge, but they're experts in handling this type of mental health crisis situation. This is what we're trying to get at. This is what poll after poll shows the residents know is necessary and want. And so we might be increasing capacity for that. How do you see the 988 hotline, the demand for it, and what's possible through it? [00:12:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: When I was a public defender, I constantly had family members, people in the community asking - who can I call when my uncle, or my son, or someone in the community - who can I call that's not just a police officer? Because a lot of times the people that are forced - they don't have a choice - something is happening and they need to call, they need help, but it's always been a police officer. And I've seen so many mothers have to call, and then their sons get locked up, and they have no contact orders with the mom. And it just becomes this whole mushrooming problem that makes everything significantly worse and - if not deadly. And so I have seen community, directly affected community asking for this for years. And I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. It's really encouraging that people know about it, that people are using it. I think that once that becomes more of a normalized thing, we can keep pushing in that direction because there's so little - police always say that they don't wanna be social workers, they don't wanna be mental health counselors, they don't wanna be domestic violence experts, but we have to build those alternatives - because it can't just be cops or nothing. So it's really encouraging to me to see these alternatives being built up. I hope they keep moving in the direction they are because a lot of times services like this end up getting co-opted for different means, where, it'll be like - oh, we didn't have police come to this X amount of calls and now we have police coming to every calls because that's something that they lobbied for. And so I hope that they can stay and keep moving in an independent direction because it is so necessary. So yeah, I think it's encouraging. [00:14:30] Crystal Fincher: Definitely encouraging. And I should note that the 988 system doesn't absolutely guarantee that there's not going to be a police person involved in the response - that is still a possibility. There may be frontline people who come and if they happen to call for backup, that could happen - some places like in Seattle, as we've seen, police are wanting to respond to every overdose call - even though that is not a public safety call in many, if not most, jurisdictions, that seems out of line with many practices, certainly best practices. It can happen, but as you say, building out these alternative responses are absolutely necessary. And I think the more we do that, the better, the more we accelerate moving on to more effective solutions that keep us all safer. Because you hear this - Well, if we get rid of cops, then what next? We call 911 and no one comes, and there's anarchy and wild stuff in the streets. And that's not it. Being a progressive stance on public safety and understanding that it takes a comprehensive approach and addressing root causes, or else we wind up with this revolving door situation that doesn't address any problems that we're trying to solve - accountability is a progressive value. We don't want to escape accountability. We just want it to be effective and productive, and the end result to be that the entire community is safer and people are victimized less often. And we have data from experts who study this. And by the way, police are not necessarily public safety experts - they're not paid to do that or be that in any kind of way - but there are a lot of criminologists, a lot of people who actually do study this, who have identified several more effective approaches. And so it would be just really good to see us getting this stood up and see how we can actually work through these models and processes to make us safer. 'Cause we do need that. Crime is bad - there is not anyone who disagrees with that. People being victimized is bad, but it happens - the context in which we discuss it just through policing, the things that we've decided to make it illegal or focus on enforcing is just such a tiny percentage of the story of how safe people are. And whether it's sexual assault and harassment, or theft, or wage theft - those kinds of things - there are some that make the headlines, there are some don't, there are some that just slip by unnoticed even though it's harmful to a lot of people. And the more we can get at that, the better off we will all be. And a bill is still alive in the Legislature to increase funding for that 988 system and help to further build it out. Also saw this week, Tacoma's State of the City from Mayor Victoria Woodards, there in Tacoma. A lot of the standard stuff that you would expect to see there and focusing on public safety. But I think one thing that I found notable about the State of the City address, in Tacoma and so many other cities, is how the City of Seattle sometimes it's thought - well, it's progressive - and people just say that and assume it's true, and so all the most progressive policy must be coming out of Seattle. And Seattle is actually behind a lot of other cities in the state on really crucial issues - on homelessness, housing affordability, and public safety - because we saw Tacoma talking about something that Seattle seems to not be very interested in. They're running behind on their alternate response plans. Mayor Harrell committed that he would be standing up alternatives to a police response and is behind his stated timelines on that. And now people continue to ask - Hey, where's that coming? You said public safety was one of your top priorities and this major piece of it is still going unaddressed that's really up to him to implement. And Tacoma is talking about implementing those. Certainly they're talking about incentives for new officers, but they're also talking about standing up alternative response programs, investing in youth violence prevention, and addressing root causes. And it seems like they're taking at least a more holistic approach, or moving forward, than Seattle in the region. And it just underscores to me that this really, to your point, shouldn't be a political conversation. It should just be about what makes more people more safe. And was pretty happy to see that Tacoma seems serious about investing in some of those things. [00:19:13] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I think it's a really positive direction. When people talk about police - in Seattle we always talk about 911 response times without really looking at what, all the factors that influence those things. But one thing - if we wanted to actually increase the speed at which police responded, one thing we could do instead of hiring more officers - 'cause there's an officer shortage all over the country - is to take some things off their plate. They have said - We don't wanna do substance abuse counseling, we don't wanna do this. So fine - let's take that off. Why are they being asked to do those things anyway? And there has been a fundamental shift over the last, I would say 40 years, but also just - there's always a fundamental shift with the passage of time. But a lot of things that police officers do now are not things that we asked them to do when I was a kid in the '80s, or something like that. And there's a complaint that we have to do all these things now, and it's just - Okay, how about we listen to you and take some things off your plate? And that's one way to meet both the stated goals of each party - you want faster 911 response times, we want actual public safety or things that actually work. And that really building out those other services and other ways to respond to things, other than just an armed officer, really meets all of the goals. So it's encouraging, and I think Seattle definitely has a tendency to give lip service to things. And then when no one's looking, there's a slow walk. And that's what I'm seeing right now is - Oh yeah, definitely, we should do these things. And then we look away and it's just a casual, just slinking away without really doing anything, or without making any specific promises, or really having a plan. And so I really like that Tacoma is - Yeah, we're not gonna do that. [00:20:59] Crystal Fincher: Yes - not that I have no bones to pick with decisions that they make in Tacoma - but it really does seem like they are interested in moving the needle on more comprehensive responses that get closer to addressing root causes. And investing real money into doing that, because that really is the bottom line. If there is nothing invested in there, if it's not in the budget, then it's clearly not a priority. And it's so interesting, especially having you on the program with unique insight and insight beyond what most people have into the criminal legal system - also reminds me of talking to former Mayor Mike McGinn, who enjoyed one of the lowest crime rates in the past 40 years, but making a very similar point that you did in - Hey, okay, so they say we have a shortage - which I could go on a whole rant about - but okay, so say that there really is a shortage, which everyone is experiencing. Police keep saying that it's actually not a financial problem, that this is something that has to do with the perceptions of the culture and the perceptions of just the profession - the job of being a police officer - that lots of people have. And until that gets more effectively addressed, until there's more trust built there, that this is going to be a problem that continues. But since everyone is having a hiring problem, if you're pinning all your hopes on once we can get enough police officers hired - which no one seems to be able to do these days - then it'll be safe. So is everyone just supposed to sit around and accept not being safe until years down the line when there are enough officers - even when an officer gets into the system, a lot of times it's a year before they're actually deployed on the street. They've got to go through training and all that kind of stuff. So we have to stand up these other things if we're going to make a dent in public safety, if we're gonna keep people safer. And it really is confounding to me that we have police determined to respond to every overdose call, but they also made the decision that they were too short-staffed to investigate sexual assaults of adults. How does this make sense? If the goal is to keep people safe, if the goal is to take the "bad guys" off of the street, then would we be doing more investigating? Would we want to spend more time doing that stuff than accompanying EMT on an overdose call where no other cities - other cities are not doing this. Why are we utilizing these resources in this way? Why do they still want to keep parking enforcement? Why do they still want to keep doing these things and accompany encampment sweeps, where they're essentially just watching Parks Department? It just doesn't make sense anyway you look at it, even if you grant everything that they're saying, even if you agree with, "We need more cops," and, "They help keep people safe," and all that, then why aren't you doing the things to utilize them more effectively? I don't know, but it is frustrating. [00:24:04] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: It is frustrating because no matter how you look at it - if you're going to listen to police say, "We don't want to do these things," then you have to weigh that against the fact that they are actively fighting to do those things. Or if you're gonna believe that a reactionary police force is what's going to keep us safe, then why are they not reacting to things that are threats to public safety? And if you're gonna believe that they don't want to - yeah, I don't know - there's a lot to it, but there is a lot of, I think, talking out of both sides of things. But the bottom line is we've had fully staffed police before. We still have crime. They only react. Why don't we focus on prevention? I would like to see less crime. I don't want to be the victim of a crime. I don't want my daughter to be the victim of a crime. I would rather that didn't happen rather than have someone respond to it after it happened. And that's what I would like to see for myself, my family, my neighbors, this community - is that not only do we just feel safer maybe because we're told we should, but that we are actually safer, that we're not experiencing these traumatic things. And there's no guesswork in it. We are the only country that does things this way. There's been a million studies saying it doesn't work, or at least not the way it's proposed that it works. But we also have so many other countries that have taken different avenues towards public safety that have been far more successful than we are. So it's really not - there's no guesswork in it. It's just a matter of - can we get past this ridiculous narrative that we've all been fed in order to enact real solutions? And so people are working on it. I'm hoping we're getting there. More and more people are being open to the idea that it's not - the one cure-all solution for everything is more police. [00:25:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And for these alternative responses, like this 988 hotline - seems like there was pent-up demand for it. People have been waiting for something like this and wanting to use it. It's had a 25% to 30% increase in calls just since last July. 90% of calls are answered within 30 seconds. 95% of calls are resolved over the phone. Fewer than 2% of the calls end up involving the police or an EMS responder. And for the 5% of calls not able to be resolved over the phone, the speed of that response is critical - and that's what that bill in the Legislature is trying to target. It would increase funding for rapid-response teams. It passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate. It looks like the Legislature is trying to be responsive to their communities and their residents, certainly expressing that this is something that they want. Information is showing that it's being used, and so we will see there. Also, this week we got a press release from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and they're making progress. It took a bit to get spun up. They had to basically start from scratch in building a brand-new office that took a little bit more time than originally anticipated. But since they've been up and running, what they have been doing seems like it has been working and in line with the vision of the KCRHA. So they just announced 30 people previously unsheltered at First and Michigan are now inside. They've been working in conjunction with the Seattle, with the Washington Department of Transportation - our State Department of Transportation - to remove people from rights of way. Sometimes you see people camping under freeways or in other similar rights of way - and we talked last year about legislation and funding passed to try and address this. And it looks like it's going to good use - 30 people moved inside from one that a lot of people have seen there at First and Southwest Michigan. 41 people moved inside from sites in the Chinatown International District, in the CID - 27 people matched with shelter or housing options will be moving inside soon. Two weeks ago, they had an event with state partners to ensure that people had the IDs necessary for housing and all the paperwork, because there's a lot that goes into being able to qualify for housing, and so making sure that other stuff was done. They also resolved five encampment sites under the same Right of Way Safety Initiative, with a total of 189 people previously unsheltered having moved inside to a shelter housing option that meets their needs, according to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And other sites remain in progress - there's a contract to open an additional 113 units of emergency housing that's just about done. So they seem to be moving forward. Lots of talk about their recent five-year plan and the budget request attached to it, which is big and robust, but we're also trying to address this problem that is tied to so many other problems in our community. So how do you see this and the work that they're doing overall? [00:29:13] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Obviously, it's a step in the right direction. There was the homelessness - declared a crisis in the Ed Murray years - it's a clear step in the right direction. I think one thing that I often notice is that a lot of these different groups will be stepping on each other all of the time - not really not meaning to but the county is doing this, but the City Attorney is also putting people in jail for sleeping under an awning - which means then they lose their ID, then they lose everything they have, and then they're back to square one. Or, the City does encampment sweeps where same things happen - people lose all of the things that they need in order to get housing. They're back to zero. Then they have to go back to DESC, get a new tent - blah, blah, blah - it just is this compounding thing. So I'm encouraged by what they're doing, and my hope in the future is to not - we spend so much time and money getting one step ahead and then pulling it back two steps. And so I like that there's a coordinated effort. I hope that the City can get more on board with that because nobody likes it. The people who live outside don't like it. The people who don't live outside don't like it. It's a thing I think we can all agree on. And so my hope is that they can continue their work, but that that work isn't impeded by constantly enacting actions that have a detrimental effect on people's ability to stay sheltered - because obviously the problem is not going to go away unless we address it. So I'm happy to see that they are taking those steps. [00:30:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I agree. Also making news this week is something that has flown under the radar for a while, but seems to be garnering a lot of attention now and with a flurry of new activity. It's a new station that will be built that - the Sound Transit Board of Directors is going to be making a decision on on March 23rd - about some new Sound Transit stations, or a new Sound Transit station, in Seattle. For quite some time, they have been looking at a 4th Avenue alignment - that has had a lot of support from various groups for a long time - that would connect with existing infrastructure, have a Union Station transit hub that also helps with connectivity with the existing stations, the Sounder station, just kind of everything going on in that area in terms of just pure transit connection time and ease of use of the transit system in terms of speed for a lot of people around the neighborhood. However, there's a new alternative or some new alternatives that have popped up recently in response to concerns from many people in the CID saying, "No, actually, there are lots of problems with the proposed alignment that will create, once again, significant impacts and challenges for the CID, that could potentially displace a lot of people in businesses, and just create a lot of havoc on the streets after they have dealt with a lot of havoc over the past decade with challenges from dealing with everything from the deep bore tunnel to other Sound Transit stations. And a historical challenge that has been there for a while has been - as we've seen and talked about on the show forever - government entities' lack of engaging communities, especially BIPOC and lower-income communities, when it comes to alignments of light rail and other regional transit options through the City and region. This has been a long-standing issue, and even way back on the first segments that were entered, that were built, people from the CID have been saying - Hey, you have not been listening to us, and we're paying the price, and we're displacing a really important community. We're not considering the importance of landmarks to the community that are part of - some of them are saying they're part of our heritage. These landmarks are as important as the people. This is our community. All of the elements of it make our community. And yes, we can talk about how quick transit connection would be otherwise, but is it fair and equitable to only pay attention to that and disregard the needs of the community that exists there, or should we be looking at mitigating that impact, that - no, this may not be the first choice of a lot of people, and it may even come with some harmful outcomes that may need to be mitigated otherwise, but that is what this work really involves if you're doing it right. It's talking to everybody, considering all of those, and trying to come up with a solution that kind of, first off, doesn't seek to harm or destroy anything that can't be rebuilt. And I think that's the crux of where a lot of people are coming from. If you're trying to destroy a part of our community that can't be rebuilt or can't be reclaimed or is just going to be lost if you do that. I personally don't have a dog on the hunt, really, for preferred alignment. My interest is in making sure that the community is heard - and not astroturf efforts, not people seeking to use this to further a pre-existing political argument, or to just oppose development or oppose transit like some people reflexively do. If someone is at risk for displacement, if someone is part of a community that has been displaced and has seen a lot of what they have built and have been able to maintain despite historic attempts to destroy it in a variety of ways, that that's something that we shouldn't dismiss. That doesn't, that's not the same thing as a NIMBY opposing transit. These are people who are at risk of displacement and who are at risk at losing important parts of their culture potentially, and that should be listened to and valued. [00:35:02] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. I think that BIPOC and low-income communities have always borne the brunt of this sort of utilitarian approach to transit, and I'm happy to see people speaking up and I would expect that. And I think you make a really good point. This isn't the regular sort of NIMBY - I don't want it, I don't want people in my neighborhood, I don't care about this, I drive every day or whatever. That there's different solutions being proposed here. And I think that's a really important distinction and the solutions are not do it in another neighborhood. The solutions are - yes, we want this here. We recognize the necessity of it, but how about we go about it in a way that considers our culture and what we've built here and the people who already live here. And I hope that conversation can be had and there's something that can be worked out with the actual input of the community that's going to be affected because that's really - it's the bottom line with everything really. [00:36:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know everything that went into the support of this - of some new alignments by, particularly the King County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell. But I will point out that they have received frequent criticism, including from me, about not listening to residents of the CID - whether it's from previous Sound Transit alignments with light rail, or the deep bore tunnel, or homelessness service provisions and access. And again, it's not to say that these things shouldn't happen, but they certainly shouldn't happen without the input and participation of the people who live there. And that hasn't happened in a while, so a charitable reading of this late proposal and support for some alternative alignments - could charitably be read as responding to the desires of the community after hearing and taking criticism and admitting to falling short sometimes before. So I hope that that is genuinely what is going on. And we will see - obviously a lot to follow there. I know there was actually a Transit Riders Union meeting last night where they were discussing it, which I missed, but there are lots of people - I know people who have strong feelings on both sides of this. And again, my interest isn't necessarily in just the alignment, but in making sure that we don't discount the voice of the community as just wanting to oppose this, but we can dismiss it and keep moving on. These concerns should be listened to. They are valid. And if we can find a workaround, even if that means that it's not purely the fastest alignment from transit, then let's figure that out. To me, it feels very similar to people who are really focusing on - everything that you're doing is anti-car and this is anti-car if it slows me down five minutes to get to my destination, even if that five minutes means that other people will literally live instead of being killed by cars on streets that are designed and used dangerously. And just saying - It's not the fastest for me, therefore it is inefficient and bad. There are other considerations and we have to consider the whole community. I don't know how this is gonna end up. I don't know who's gonna wind up supporting what, but it seems like there are valid concerns all the way around that no one should dismiss. Also looking at other news this week, we saw another train derailment - this time on the Swinomish reservation - which on the heels of the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio, certainly people are paying more attention. Hear a lot of people saying - There are like a thousand derailments every year, this is normal, it's not a big deal. Something being normal and not a big deal are not always the same thing. Yes, it happens frequently. No, it should not be happening and we should be paying more attention to this and it should be bothering us more than it has, I think. And this is another example why - it's something that is considered to a lot of people that doesn't get a lot of attention, that perhaps this is a small source of contamination from this freight train that derailed. But this is their land, this is their water supply, and they have never consented to having that be spoiled and they knew the risk of this. In fact, there's a trial set to begin on Monday over a lawsuit that the tribe filed in 2015, alleging that BNSF trespassed when it ran thousands of trains filled with highly combustible crude oil over the reservation without the tribe's consent. The tribe says that the railroad was knowingly violating an easement agreement the two parties made in 1991, that the tribe has limited the length of trains allowed to pass through. And it looks like BNSF just ignored that, decided to put through longer trains, and now the things that they were warned could and would happen are happening. And this is just happening everywhere and we should be paying more attention. [00:40:06] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in a railroad family. My dad worked for Santa Fe, later at BNSF - and derailments weren't considered a "Heh, like they just happen" type thing. They shouldn't be happening. And do accidents happen? Yes, of course, sometimes they do, but it's not something that we should just be like, "Oh yeah, huh." It's not normal and it's not healthy. And I think one of the things that's really dangerous is that not only are we in a place where people who work on trains are saying, "Hey, it's not safe. We are not safe. We're not healthy. We're not well. We are put in danger. We're told to ignore danger," which was such a - to me, when I read things like, "Oh, they say just go ahead and run it even if a wheel bearing is." - just growing up the way I grew up with my dad - that was such a wild concept to be like, "Hey, there's something unsafe. We'll just go ahead and do it anyway." That is not how things have been done historically with the railroads. So we're seeing already this shift between worker safety and train safety and community safety. But the thing that's really scary too is that the railroads wanna keep moving in this direction. They want less staff on train, they want half of what they used to have on trains because they think it's gonna be automated and it's gonna be cheaper. And they want to move towards even more intense scheduling. And at the same time, benefits for workers have eroded. The union power has eroded - as we saw, the government step in and end the strike that was happening. And I think that there's, we're seeing the convergence of all of those things at once - and not just things are bad now, but they're going to get significantly worse if we don't pay attention to this problem. So I'm happy to see that there is coverage of these things. And I wish that we didn't have to do this thing where the Swinomish said "Hey, we're in danger of this." and they're like, "Whatever, do it anyway." And then the dangerous thing happens. We know what's going to happen. There's no need to have these constant reminders that are material harms that validate the concerns of the community that's there. And it's the same, not the same, but it's similar to what we were talking about with the CID. There has been communities - historically, communities of color, low-income communities, Indigenous communities - that have borne the brunt of utilitarian transportation design. And they are saying, "Hey, we don't want that anymore." And that's something that should be valued. Of course, I think it should be valued, but I hope to see some movement and I hope - I wish them well on their legal pursuits on that. But I think that we need to be - I don't care if there's 100 derailments every day. They need to be something that we should be paying attention to because we shouldn't just be settling for that. [00:42:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And there's a problem with just railroad regulation. And the problem is that they are subject to so little of it. It's absurd. And I don't think most people realize how much latitude we give railroad companies. It is almost obscene. I don't think most people realize that. So I live in Kent - the reason why I'm a little bit more familiar with railroad problems and policies because - Kent has two railroad lines crossing right through its downtown, which I live in the middle of, which is why sometimes you hear train horns if you're listening. But cities are actually not allowed to touch train tracks. They're actually not allowed to touch crossing arms and stuff, and so we have two separate railroad companies who have been so horrible about maintaining railroad crossings. If people are residents of Kent, they have been stuck behind, in a humongous traffic jam, on some of Kent's biggest thoroughfares that are just cut off by railroad track crossing arms that get stuck, or don't go down, or they're malfunctioning. That's been happening for years. And so many people are like, "Why doesn't the city do something about this?" And it turns out - yeah, the city is legally prohibited from touching the railroad tracks. The railroad company has to respond. The railroad companies don't share what hazardous material is on there and you basically have to wait for the railroads and the companies to show up and decide how they're gonna handle it, decide what they're gonna disclose, decide what the timeline is - and people have no control. And when you think about having no control over potentially hazardous substances going through your communities - these railroad lines are adjoining neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds - and it's just by chance that there's not a situation like in Swinomish and in East Palestine - this is what we're all signing up for and we shouldn't be, we should not be. Unfortunately, this is something that these lawsuits - I'm glad that the Swinomish tribe filed this lawsuit. This may be some of the only recourse we have aside from Congressional action to pare this down and to demand some accountability. Railroad companies don't even have to tell you if something highly flammable, highly hazardous, highly toxic is traveling through cities so that people can appropriately prepare emergency and hazmat responses. Cities can't even prepare for the type of damage that railroads can do, so we just need to change. I am glad a lot more people are paying attention and I hope people continue to hold our elected leaders' feet to the fire, but particularly our Senators and Congresspeople, to actually take some action to regulate and rein in the control and domination that these railroad companies have - that is really putting people at risk and that these companies haven't shown anywhere close to the type of responsibility, accountability to cleaning up these things or to being able to handle the type of world that they're putting us all into. So it's a challenge. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 17th, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was defense attorney, abolitionist, and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Thank you for joining us - always a good time. [00:46:27] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Always a good time. [00:46:27] Crystal Fincher: Yes! You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you prefer to get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can find Nicole Thomas-Kennedy on Twitter @NTKAllDay. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me @finchfrii, it's two I's at the end. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.
Support the show and get the Sunday show and Postgame at patreon.com/leftreckoning Matt & Dave are joined by Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) to talk about Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis latest moves to restrict critics. Is Science Political? The Fight Against Reactionary Genetics ft. Kevin Bird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtW5wd0tCG8 And Matt & Dave look at some classic Hitchens when he took on the genetic determinists. Full Hitchens talk on C-Span https://www.c-span.org/video/?93435-1/state-media
Barron's Senior Managing Editor Lauren R. Rublin and Deputy Editor Ben Levisohn talk with Thomas Kennedy, chief investment strategist of global wealth management at J.P. Morgan, about the outlook for the economy and investment strategies.
AFL-CIO Director of Government Affairs Bill Samuel joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast and discussed the aftermath of the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. He believes an ineffective House Speaker will be good for organized labor. Samuel gave his thoughts on the issues surrounding the debt ceiling and then explained why Presidential holdover nominees from the last Sentate should receive a vote in from this Congress. Thomas Kennedy, Director and Secretary/Treasurer of the Texas State Building and Construction Trades Council appeared on the America's Work Force Union Podcast and explained how joining a building trades union can lift two generations out of poverty at the same time. He also discussed the need to recruit new apprentices and the multiple mega projects go out to bid in Texas..
Thomas Kennedy From Torrance California,Lives in Apple Valley California,4 years United States Marine Corps,MOS 0811 Artillery,Desert Storm, Somalia, MOS Artillery Section Chief,Worked at Untied Airlines 11 years and during 911,Union Pacific Railroad Engineer/ Conductor 17 years,California National Guard 7 years,MOS 92 FOX Petroleum Supply Specialist,Operation New Dawn,2 Combat Action Awards,Married Father of 2,Went to Rehab Sept 2019,YouTube Link:YouTube: The ToxicThom Story PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, Alcoholism Links:https://pod.link/1440830329https://www.facebook.com/iconutilityservices/photos/pcb.3282304212030773/3282304082030786/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqvd5sUEtC9xkm7ejGNK5Zw/featuredhttps://www.facebook.com/aqseiberthttps://www.facebook.com/CombatVetVisionEmail: Aqseibert@yahoo.comThe Warrior Built Foundation - https://warriorbuilt.org/The PTSD Foundation of America - https://ptsdusa.org/Virtual Office(Come see me) Virbella.comSponsorsSitch Radio - https://sitchradio.com/If you would like to become a sponsor or advertiser Call Sitch Radio (714) 643-2500 X 1 I part of the solution or the problem.PTSD FOA Warrior Group Chaptershttps://ptsdusa.org/about-us/chapters/
On this week's Hacks & Wonks, Crystal is joined by friend of the show, defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy! They start catching up with the Seattle City Budget. The City Council revealed their proposed budget earlier this week, and in general it proposes putting back funding for programs that were originally given fewer resources under Mayor Harrell's proposal - most notably restoring the raises for frontline homeless service workers, which were cut in Harrell's budget. The Council's proposal also uses JumpStart funds as originally intended, cuts ghost cop positions, and eliminates funding for the controversial ShotSpotter program. After the horrific incident last week that involved a shooting at Seattle's Ingraham High School, students staged a walkout and protest on Monday to ask city leaders for resources to help prevent gun violence. The students are asking for anti-racism and de-escalation training for school security, assault weapon bans, and more school counselors and mental health resources. What they have made clear they don't want is more cops in schools, but despite that Mayor Harrell and some of his advisory boards are advocating for an increased police presence in schools. Housing updates this week start with positive news: Mayor Harrell is asking for affordable housing to be exempt from the much maligned design review process. Allowing affordable housing to skip design review will encourage developers to build affordable housing, and will help us battle our housing shortage faster than we could otherwise. In frustrating housing news, KING5 released some upsetting reporting outlining some overt racial housing discrimination against Black families in Seattle, including one story about family who received a significantly higher appraisal when they dressed their home to look like it was owned by a white family. Carolyn Bick from the South Seattle Emerald reported on potential City and State records laws violations by the Office of Police Accountability. The OPA has been manually deleting emails, or allowing them to automatically be deleted, before the two-year mark prescribed by City and State laws. It's another example of a city office failing to hold itself accountable to basic records standards. The Seattle Department of Transportation seemed to once again be more responsive to concerns about administrative liability than community concerns about pedestrian safety amid rising fatalities. When locals painted an unauthorized crosswalk at the intersection of E Olive Way and Harvard, SDOT workers removed the crosswalk within 24 hours. This is happening while many people and business owners, most notably Councilmember Sara Nelson, have been placing illegal “eco blocks” without removals or consequences. Finally, the Chair of Washington State Democrats is being criticized for threats to withhold resources against Washington House candidates if they showed support for nonpartisan Secretary of State candidate Julie Anderson. This is a high-profile extension of a question that party groups–big and small–are dealing with: how do we handle Democrats' support of nonpartisan or third party candidates? As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, on Twitter at @NTKallday. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Resources “City Council's ‘anti-austerity' budget package: Aiming JumpStart back where it belongs, preserving parking enforcement's move out of SPD, nuking ShotSpotter, and giving mayor his ‘Unified Care Team'” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “Morales Hopes to Resurrect Social Housing Amendment That Didn't Make Balancing Package Cut” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link. “Care, Not Cops” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger “Seattle proposal would free affordable projects from design review — and give all developers path to skip public meetings” by CHS from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “After a low appraisal, Black Seattle family 'whitewashes' home, gets higher price” by PJ Randhawa from KING5 “Why housing discrimination is worse today than it was in the 1960s” by PJ Randhawa from KING5 “OPA May Have Broken City and State Records Laws By Not Retaining Emails” by Carolyn Bick from The South Seattle Emerald “SDOT Decries Tactical Urbanism While Allowing Eco-Blocks All Over the City” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola “Rent a Capitol Hill apartment from one of these companies? You ‘may have rights under antitrust laws to compensation' as lawsuit alleges price-fixing violations in Seattle” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “Scoop: State Democratic Party chair under fire for alleged threats” by Melissa Santos from Axios Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full text transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's cohost: defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Hey. [00:00:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hey - thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Welcome back. Great to have you back. So we have a few things going on this week. We will start with the Seattle budget. The mayor introduced his budget a few weeks back - this is now the Council, and the President of the Council, being able to introduce their own budget and their take on things. What did you see here that was notable? [00:01:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think the things that were really notable were that JumpStart was headed back to where it was originally planned. That tax was created for affordable housing and things like that, and the mayor tried to take it a different direction that I don't think addresses the City's needs at all - so it was good to see that. Keeping - not giving SPD the money for those ghost cops - the officers that don't actually work there, that haven't actually worked there for a while - their salaries, SPD was allowed to keep for a long time, and so taking that away. And I think really most importantly - to me, given what I do - is taking out the money for ShotSpotter, which is something that the mayor has pushed really hard for, but has shown to not work and actually be detrimental to marginalized communities in other cities. And that was a million dollars, so it was great to see that taken out. [00:02:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that was definitely an improvement, I think, in a lot of people's minds. That was something that did seem to be oddly championed by the mayor and very few other people, regardless of what their political orientation or leaning is. It is just something that - a decade ago, people were wondering if it had some potential, and then it was implemented in a number of cities with a number of very well-documented problems. One thing that it does not seem to be able to accomplish is to reduce gun violence, which is its ultimate goal. But it did introduce a lot of other problems. It was expensive. It seemed to increase surveillance and harassment, particularly of Black and Brown communities, without intervening or interrupting any kind of violence. And that is just an inexpensive and ineffective use of funds. Given a budget shortfall, it seems like we should not be wasting money on things that have proven not to work and not to make anyone safer. I think another notable difference in this budget, between the mayor's budget, was he had proposed a reduction in salary for some of the frontline workers for homelessness services and outreach services there. Those are critical positions and crucial to being able to address homelessness, reduce homelessness. A lot has been covered over the years across the country about how important having comfortable, well-paid frontline workers is so that they're not living in poverty, they aren't in unstable positions - creating a lot of turnover and uncertainty with the workers on the frontline - so that they do have the capacity and ability to do that kind of frontline outreach work and getting people into services that meet their needs. And so there was definitely a repudiation of the idea of reducing their pay and making sure that their pay will continue to rise with the cost of living and the Consumer Price Index. So that was nice to see. A few other things, like you talked about, just making sure that the JumpStart funds, which it seems now everybody is acknowledging, have been very helpful. And even people who previously opposed it are now backing its use to backfill their own plans. But really just making sure that it is spent in a way consistent with its original charter, basically. And so more of a right-sizing and being more consistent with the spending that Seattle voters have backed, that these candidates were elected and reelected with mandates to go forward with - that we're seeing that there. Moving forward here, there was just an opportunity for public comment earlier this year. There is one more opportunity for councilmembers to introduce amendments to this budget before it's going to be ultimately passed. So I encourage everyone, if you have thoughts about the budget, we'll include some links just explaining it. There was a really good Capitol Hill Seattle story just breaking down the budget and what's happening there to make sure we go there. But a few notable other investments from there include $20 million each year for equitable development initiative projects that advance economic opportunity and prevent displacement. $20 million Green New Deal investments each year, including $4 million to create community climate resilience labs. $4.6 million for indigenous-led sustainability projects and $1.8 million for community-led environmental justice projects. $9 million for school-based health centers, which is a really big deal, including a new $3 million across the biennium for mental health services in response to the demand for more health providers from teachers and students - we'll talk a little bit more about the student walkout and strike and their demands later in the show. Also created a combined total of $1.5 million for abortion care in 2023, to ensure access to reproductive care for uninsured people in Seattle. And a $253 million investment into the Office of Housing for affordable housing - and that's over $50 million more than the last budget for building rental housing, more supportive services, first-time ownership opportunities. I know a lot of people are also hoping that Councilmember Tammy Morales' proviso makes it back into the budget to support social housing and securing City-owned property for rental housing that has a much better shot of being able to be affordable for regular people working in the City, especially those who don't have six-figure incomes and can't afford a million dollar home. This is going to be crucial to making sure that we have dedicated land and space and capacity to build permanent affordable housing. [00:07:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and I hope that makes it back in very - I really hope that makes it back in. The thing that I see with the Council's - what they're proposing to put back in, or the changes they're making from Harrell's budget - is most all of them address things that would enhance public safety. And when I hear about things like old technology that's been shown not to work, that gives more or giving more money to police or things like that, I think people think that that's about public safety, but it's not. Those are reactionary things, those are things that have been shown not to address the problems, we really do need to be looking at those upstream things like housing, helping marginalized communities, mental health - all of these things are things that are actually going to result in more safety for everyone. And so I'm happy to see that their proposals are addressing those things. And I hope that they make it into the final budget. [00:08:52] Crystal Fincher: I agree. And I also think that we saw - with just these past election results that we received - that residents of Seattle, really across the county, but especially in Seattle, once again, show through their votes for candidates who are talking about addressing root causes, the rejection of candidates for the Legislature for King County Prosecuting Attorney who were talking about punitive punishment-based approaches, lock-em-up approaches, which the city and the county continually have rejected. And I think voters are just at the point where they're saying, no, please listen - you have already increased funding for police, but we have these big gaps in all of these other areas that we need you to address and fill, and it's - just talking about police is doing the overall public safety conversation a disservice because it takes so many other things to make sure that we are building communities that are safer, and where fewer people get victimized, and where we are not creating conditions that cause disorder. And so I hope that they are listening. And I hope that that gives both the Budget Chair and councilmembers faith and strength and motivation to move forward with these kinds of investments in community - that center community and that center addressing the root causes of crime, preventing crime - which is the most important thing that we can do. I don't think anyone is looking around and saying - things are great, things are fine - but I think people are fed up with the inaction or bad action and ineffective action taken. So we will stay tuned and continue to report on that. [00:10:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Very helpful. [00:10:47] Crystal Fincher: We just alluded to, but talked about this week - following last week's shooting of an Ingraham High School student by another student - extremely extremely tragic situation - that student wound up dying. This is a traumatic thing for the school community to go through, for the entire community to go through. And we saw students walk out to cause awareness and with a list of demands. What were they demanding? [00:11:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I'm not going to get it perfectly off the top of my head, but they want more resources for students. They want more mental health care. They want access to those things. They want things that are preventative. They're not asking for punitive retribution or more metal detectors or cops in schools or something like that. They're asking for things that are actually going to be preventative, that are going to encourage the wellbeing of all students. And they know that that's what's going to keep them safe. And from what I've seen from SPS - they seem responsive to those demands in some way. It remains to see what will be actually followed through on. But the response I've seen so far from SPS, just being the parent of an SPS student, is that they are listening to what these kids are actually saying and what the data actually shows will make these kids safer. So I find that to be hopeful. I hope you can verbalize what their list of demands were more succinctly than that, because I don't want to misrepresent what they're saying at all. But when I read through what they were asking for and saw what they were asking for, it was all stuff that was aimed at prevention - because that's what - they don't want to be shot. And that's very valid. And they shouldn't have to worry about those things. And the things that have been implemented for years, like more police in school, those lockdown drills and things like that - it's not working. It's just like we were talking about with the budget stuff, we need to get to those root causes. [00:13:04] Crystal Fincher: You're exactly right. And what these students want really does, to your point, cover the gamut of preventative measures. So there are a few different things. One, they want the district to increase anti-racist and de-escalation training for any security at Seattle Public Schools. They also demand that the state update safe storage laws and ban assault rifles. Students asked the Council to reroute $9 million from SPD to pay for counselors. They want one counselor - to be paid a living wage - but at least at a ratio of 1 for every 200 students. Right now, the district is averaging about 1 for every 350 students, so that is a significant increase in counselors. But I don't think there is anyone here who does not acknowledge the need for more mental health resources for students. And this is especially pronounced in the middle schools across the district. So that is a pretty substantial one. They did say that they don't want cops in schools. They don't want the introduction of more guns, more people with guns in schools - but they want the things that will prevent them. They want mental health resources and community-based resources, therapy resources, and intentional de-escalation and communication training, DBT therapy training - really for students there, so they can figure out how to use words to disarm and de-escalate conflicts instead of getting physically violent, encouraging gun violence, that type of thing. They really want to - they understand that there's a gap with many kids that they're trying to navigate through and this is a normal thing for students anyway. We need to equip them with the tools to work through conflict, to work through their emotions, even when they're very big. They recognize that and they're calling for that. So these are all things that are backed by data and evidence, that have shown to reduce conflict, to reduce violence of all kinds, definitely gun violence. And that are evidence-based, have worked in other areas - pretty reasonable. And so there are a few areas where this could come from. They're certainly asking the Legislature for action, but also with the City and the mental health money. I think Teresa Mosqueda said that she was allocating $2 million and saying that's a down payment on what the students are asking for. Another source that was talked about by some people online was the Families & Education Levy in the City of Seattle, which is tailor-made for things like this. And so that, I think, should be part of this conversation going forward. But we absolutely do need more mental health resources in the schools. And we heard that post - as students were returning back to school after schools were closed due to COVID, and as they were returning, there were certainly a lot of parents who wanted to reopen schools, get their students back in there, but also talked about the challenges that students were dealing with - with anxiety and a range of mental health needs. They seemed to acknowledge that students, in connection with violent events happening and needing to deal with that - we need to figure out a way to get this done. I think the student demands are entirely reasonable and the entire community needs to listen. Now, one dimension of the story that we have seen, there was a story - and I forget at this point who came out with it - but it was like the district is exploring basically putting armed police officers back in school. Upon reading the story, it was like no, actually the district, no one in the district was considering that. The students specifically said they didn't want that. School board members said that they were not currently examining that. But it does seem like the mayor and some of his advisory boards are advocating for armed police officers to return to schools. It seems like the people directly impacted are saying, no, please no, again, not anymore. But the mayor has a different viewpoint here. How do you see that? [00:17:57] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: First of all - yes, the student demands are very reasonable and it's, I don't know, I'm constantly impressed by youth - just how informed they are, the way they present their ideas, and just - they're deeply rooted in this. They are the ones that are impacted. We didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with COVID. I didn't have to deal with the Internet. I didn't have to deal with guns in schools. This is new territory for these kids and they are the ones that are able to tell us what they need and they do so so well. And it is backed by data and research. And I think the mayor has suggested or wants to do this cops-back-in-school thing, but kids know this isn't what has made us safe. We have seen very, very good - horrible, tragic examples of how school resource officers fail to keep kids safe. And I think a lot of people's eyes have been open to that. And while I see the suggestion, I acknowledge the suggestion, I don't think it's serious. I don't think you can keep talking about more cops, more cops - putting more cops here - and be serious about safety. We know that doesn't work. And I think that there's enough kids, there's enough parents, there's enough people, there's enough people on the Council that know these things that - if he wants to push forward that kind of agenda, I think the pushback is going to be really big. And we can't keep pretending that that's the solution - I think that a lot of people are ready to stop doing that and to be able to push back. And I love this walkout. I think it's so encouraging that these kids are really pushing for what they know to be true. And they're not just sitting there saying, there's nothing we can do about it. They know that there's something they can do about it. So I think that's very encouraging. And I would expect that any sort of really serious pushing forward of that idea of more cops in school, I would expect there to be really very large community and student backlash to those ideas. [00:20:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there would be pretty ferocious backlash to that. We will see how that proceeds and continue to keep you up to date on that. Now, something that Bruce Harrell announced this week, that actually seems like it's going to have a positive reception and that can move things in a positive direction - he's looking to exempt affordable housing from design review - from the much-maligned design review process. What's he proposing to do here? [00:20:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: He's proposing sort of a moratorium on affordable housing projects having to go through design review. So if people don't know - design review is a lengthy process where there's - I'm doing air quotes - "community input" on housing design, and it really drags out housing projects for so long. If you see an empty lot and there's a billboard up that says that they're going to build a nine-story building with mixed use - there'll be commercial space on the bottom - and then nothing happens for years and years and years. There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the primary ones is that really long design review process, which is shown not to be actually that democratic when it comes to the community. So exempting affordable housing from that is such a huge and awesome idea that I think someone said, why didn't we do this before when there was a homelessness crisis declared? Ed Murray could have done this when he declared that crisis, but instead that there's all these projects that are languishing and really upping the price for developers to even build these things. So I think there's - not only is it going to get affordable housing built more quickly if this is actually implemented, which I hope it is, but it's also going to make building affordable housing more attractive to developers because just having that land sit there and having those plans sit there for years and years - it makes it very expensive for developers to undertake projects. And when they do, they're going to want to get as much return on their investment as possible. And so you have to make up for those lost years of the land just sitting there. And so allowing this to go forward is going to provide more housing for the community, which we desperately, desperately need, but it's also going to encourage developers to build affordable housing over other types of housing. So I think this is fantastic and I really hope it goes through. [00:22:55] Crystal Fincher: I think it is fantastic. I think this is a good example of listening to the community. This is a win all the way across for developers who are trying to build projects more economically and more quickly, for just the community who is waiting for housing prices to be more affordable - and not just because interest rates are changing the equation for a lot of people, but to get more supply online quickly. And so this was done with Mayor Bruce Harrell and with Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Teresa Mosqueda. And it would begin a one-year interim period exempting affordable housing projects from design review and then use that trial year to conduct what Harrell says will be a full State Environmental Policy Act review of legislation to try and make this exemption permanent. And so it would permanently exempt, or they're hoping to permanently exempt, housing projects from design review - exempting housing projects that use the mandatory housing affordability program to produce their units on site for a two-year pilot and also allow other housing projects to choose whether to participate in full design review or administrative design review as a two-year pilot. So this is something that hopefully does get more affordable housing units online quickly, cut through the bureaucracy - so a positive development here and excited to see it. What I was not excited to see was a story on KING5 about one of the elements that is part of the wealth disparity, the wealth gap that we see. We've seen stories, sometimes from across the country, talking about whitewashing homes and homes owned by Black people getting lower appraisals than other homes for no other reason, seemingly, than that they're Black. And this happened with a Black family in Seattle who got an initial home appraisal - they had their family pictures in there, they had some African art up. The home was visibly owned by Black people. So with this, this family got an appraisal that was initially $670,000 - under the median home price in Seattle. They thought - well, that seems low, that seems out-of-spec for what we've seen others in this area. So they decided to take down their personal pictures. They put up pictures from a white family. They had a white friend stand in the house presented now as if it was owned by a white family. And instead of the $670,000 appraisal, they got a $929,000 appraisal. The only difference was that it was a home owned by a white person, that appeared to be owned by a white person, versus one that is owned by a Black person - right here in Seattle. What did you think of this? [00:26:09] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Personally, I was not surprised. I saw that this had happened in other areas. I think there was a famous example from a couple of years ago where the difference was half a million dollars. But I think that there's an idea that - in Seattle, we're so progressive, we're so liberal that this kind of thing doesn't happen here. And it does. And I think it's dangerous to think that it doesn't. I think that the Black community gets gaslighted a lot about these things when this is a really clear, very obvious example. But how many other times has this happened? Probably quite a bit. And it's really contributing to the wealth gap. And this is something that Black people have been saying for years has been happening. And it's just now starting to catch on. People are starting to catch on that this is a thing. And when I say people, I mean people who are not Black because they already know about this. But it's really starting to be something that's obvious, that's happening here, that's happening everywhere. And there's all of these little things that happen to maintain that wealth gap - because it's the appraisal value, it's also Black homeowners being targeted for mortgage takeovers by banks, by realty companies. This is not something that a lot of white homeowners deal with - I think in one of the articles, a parent had died. And so then they kept getting calls from different groups asking to buy the home for cash and asking to do some sort of weird backhand reverse mortgage and things like - there's a lot of predatory things out there aimed at Black people and Black homeowners that white homeowners don't deal with. And I'm glad to see KING5 do this story. It's awful that it's happening, but I think the public needs to know that this is something that's happening and that in progressive Seattle, we are not - by any stretch of the imagination - immune to things like this happening on a regular basis. [00:28:23] Crystal Fincher: We are not at all immune. It impacts us in so many ways. Just where we still deal with the legacy of redlining and where Black people in Black communities have been. And then as there is this new displacement happening - that kind of difference in home valuation can very much determine whether that family can afford to buy again in Seattle or be forced out of Seattle. This is just such a major problem and just another manifestation of it here. So yeah, unfortunately not something that I found surprising, but just still really infuriating all the same. And I just hope more people wake up to see what's happening and engage in how they can help make this community more inclusive and do the work that needs to be done because there is work that needs to be done. [00:29:15] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. [00:29:17] Crystal Fincher: Other news this week - the Office of Police Accountability may have broken records laws in what - how they've been operating. What happened here? [00:29:29] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So in this case, I believe Carolyn Bick from the Emerald had put in a public disclosure request for some emails. And what she got back from OPA was that they didn't retain it because they followed SPD's policy of record retention, which is different than the City's policy of record retention, which - they say they're part of SPD or they initially said they were a part of SPD, but they're not. They're not a law enforcement agency. They're a City agency. But I would like to point out one thing too - that the City's record retention policy is wild compared to other bigger entities. If you're a City employee, you're required to archive emails or communications that could be of public interest. So instead of automatically retaining everything and then deleting spam or needing this manual deletion, you have to manually save it. But what's in the public interest is huge. So there should be a default to be saving these things all the time. And of course, we've seen with other communications, like the mayor's texts or Carmen Best's texts, that absolutely those things should have been saved and they set them to delete instead. I think the argument here is about what is the record retention policy for OPA and it's just - it's just interesting that this is the Office of Police Accountability, but yet they're not accountable for their own record keeping. And then the City Attorney's Office said, we can't give you an answer to the question about, do they have SPD's retention policy or the City's retention policy? They said that calls for a legal opinion, so we can't give you one - which to me is just like, what do you do then? Isn't that your job - to make those determinations? So just another way that the Office of Police Accountability is - it's just an HR department for SPD. They just whitewash everything and put righteous complaints through a long bureaucratic process that they tell people to trust in, that ends at being a big old nothing - that even that process - that they can't keep correct records for. So it's shocking really just how much it is all the time that we're hearing about this stuff. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's what is notable to me. It's just yet another thing from a body that is supposed to hold other entities accountable - and seems to have challenges doing that - just seeming to skirt accountability itself and being a hub of so much controversy. Just really makes you evaluate - what is the purpose, what is happening, what is going on? Are we doing more harm than good here? And it just seems like we don't ever receive answers, that there are very alarming things that happen. And the answers are to - well, we'll reshuffle some staff and we won't really address the substance of what happened. We'll just call it a day, wrap it up, put a stamp on it, and close it out. We just won't talk about it anymore. It's just - what is happening, why are we doing this? And jeez, if this is just going to be a farce, can we just save the money and do something else? Why are we investing in something that continues to break rules, and to seemingly break accountability processes? Just really confusing there. [00:33:30] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, very much so. [00:33:32] Crystal Fincher: Also really confusing this week - SDOT once again very quickly erased a crosswalk - a crossswalk that a community put up at a dangerous intersection, that is clearly an intersection where people are designed to cross - indicated by the curb cut and the ADA-compliant rumble strip. But it was a dangerous place to cross. It was a place where community had brought up concerns that had seemingly not been listened to or addressed. They decided, as has happened before in the City, to put up their own crosswalk to increase the safety of people who need to cross the street. And there are people who need to cross the street more safely. But once again, seemingly - within 24 hours, I think - SDOT appeared and took action, not based off of calls for increased safety and taking action to make this intersection more safe, but came and removed the paint creating the crosswalk, saying for reasons of safety and liability, they can't stand by and let the community paint a crosswalk, even if it is painted to standards. But they immediately removed it. And the new head of SDOT said, hey, we are trying to move in a new direction, but we can't. We'll never be comfortable with people painting their own crosswalks for liability reasons. And then receiving pushback from the community saying, we ask you to take action to make this more safe. You don't. People get killed on the street. People get run into and hurt. Our street designs are nearly exclusively car-centric in most of the City. So hey, neighbors took action to make the road safer for their neighbors, for kids who need to cross the street, for elderly people, disabled people who need to cross the street. And it just seems that the action comes when people take their own actions - [00:35:50] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Sometimes [00:35:51] Crystal Fincher: - to make the street safer. That will get resources out to remove it, but we don't seem to be wanting to deploy the resources necessary to make these intersections safer. How did you see this? [00:36:05] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I applaud the effort of the community to make those streets safer. And I thought that the reasoning given - safety and liability - was thin. There's nothing about not having a crosswalk that makes it safer, obviously - that's what the community has been complaining about. And in terms of liability, it's always interesting to me that the liability that they're talking about is liability for a crosswalk that, "shouldn't be there," that they didn't sanction. But apparently there's no liability for people who are continually injured or killed in a place where the community has asked repeatedly for a crosswalk. And I think that it seems disingenuous to me. And yes, and it doesn't really mesh with the other things that they're talking about. So they can have someone come out and pressure wash off something that's supposed to be for community safety - like you said, for kids, for elders, for disabled people, for everyone - because we all walk if we're able. But the streets belong to everybody. But then they'll have someone come out and pressure wash this crosswalk off overnight. But at the same time, we have seen, for over a year, these ecoblocks, the big concrete blocks - that I think the most famous example of them is Councilmember Sara Nelson putting them around her business - so RVs, or people who are unfortunately having to live in their car, can't park near her business. Those are popping up all over the City now. And SDOT says, we're unwilling to pull people off safety projects to move those. But yet, they'll get someone out there overnight to erase something that's making public safety, but they won't do anything about these ecoblocks. And I think that's really another disingenuous argument, because there is more that they could be doing about that. There's ticketing. There's not just going and every day removing whatever's put there. There's a lot of things - there's fines, there's ticketing - that they could do to discourage this, and they're just not doing it. And to me, I think back to 2020 - when SPD built that ecoblock fort around the East Precinct and the West Precinct too. They built a little fort out of these City-owned ecoblocks around their precinct. And when there was things that ecoblocks were needed for, the City said, we don't have any more ecoblocks right now because they're being used for SPD's fort. And so now it seems like we have a glut of ecoblocks in the city - they're just everywhere. So I don't really understand where they're coming from. If they're not coming from SDOT, where are they coming from? And if they're not coming from SDOT and these are people buying ecoblocks and putting them there - on city streets - seems like it would be fairly advantageous for SDOT to go and pick them up. They're on public property. We didn't have enough of them before. Why not just collect them then? Or like I said, especially when they're on a private business, there's so much more the City could be doing about it. And obviously there's someone on the Council that does it. It's never been addressed. And it shakes, I think, people's faith and trust in City government and City agencies when they so clearly don't - their actions don't match up with what they're saying that they want to do. And so I expect more of these sort of crosswalks to pop up. And the community has been having these conversations with SDOT forever and nothing has happened. If this is what's moving the conversation forward, if this is what's creating safety - to me, that's the most important thing. People shouldn't be dying on the street. That's the most important thing. So whatever creates safety, whatever moves that conversation forward to protect people's lives, I think that's great that the community is doing that. I hope it pushes the conversation forward and really creates this infrastructure that we so desperately need. [00:40:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. I think those ecoblocks - some people I've seen refer to them now as Nelson blocks since Councilmember Sara Nelson, despite seeming acknowledgement that they are illegal, continues to use and deploy them and exclude others from public space that they are entitled to be in. And that just does not seem to be a priority, like some other things in this community that seemingly have lower costs or impacts. But just, yeah, that the responses don't seem to make sense. The interventions don't seem to be consistent. And I would really like to hear a coherent and consistent approach to safety in Seattle. Or at least start by understanding and acknowledging that what is happening is unacceptable. And instead of running to defend - and I understand that there are concerns about liability, that is a fact - but we do need to expand the conversation to - let's be not just concerned about getting sued, let's be concerned about one of the residents in the City, that we're responsible for, being killed. Because that is happening. And what are we doing to mitigate against that risk? - is really the bottom-line question I think people want some better answers to. [00:42:12] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and they deserve them. [00:42:14] Crystal Fincher: They do. Another activity that maybe deserves - some Capitol Hill tenants are suing some landlords. What's happening here? [00:42:22] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So they are suing - there's, I don't know if people know this, but there are a few corporations, big housing corporations that own a lot of the housing in Capitol Hill and all around Seattle. And so many of them have started using an algorithm, through a company called RealPage, that collects all the information about whatever the company-owned property is, but then also all of the surrounding properties - to raise rents. So to tell landlords the maximum asking price that they can have for rent, based on what's going on around the city, around the neighborhood, from all this data from other places. And it's caused a lot of - and it's something that these big companies can hide behind for rental hikes too - they say, oh, a computer algorithm sets our rental prices and this is what it's set as. And RealPage CEOs have been very open about saying this is more than most landlords could ask for - I wouldn't feel comfortable as a human being asking for this rent, but it's set by a computer, so I can't do anything about it. And it's really caused rents around Seattle and Capitol Hill to skyrocket. There's many factors that go into skyrocketing rents, but this is absolutely one of them. And so the lawsuit is alleging illegal price fixing by these tenants, or by these landlords. And they're not the small mom-and-pop landlords that we're talking about. We're talking about the big housing conglomerates that own so much of our rental housing here in Seattle. And it alleges that it's basically illegal price fixing by having all of these groups that just continuously raise the rent - at the same time, along the same lines - and it's driving up prices everywhere. And I'm very happy to see this lawsuit personally. Rents are out of control in Seattle, and some of that is tied to supply, obviously. Obviously, there's no doubt about that. But what we don't need is businesses taking advantage of data aggregation to make rents go higher and higher and higher. And what I hear sometimes is - the market supports this. And I think that's a really misguided argument. People need housing. It's very, very dangerous to live on the street. Nobody's living on the street because that's a good time. No one's having an urban camping vacation out there in the middle of November. People don't want to live on the street. Housing - like food, like water - is something that we all need. So just because the market supports it doesn't mean it's affordable or good for the rest of the city. When people are paying 50% or 60% of their income to rent, that hurts everyone. That makes it - as food prices go up, as rent goes up, we have people that have to lean on social services. They have to go without things that are - really, it's a detriment to our entire community. So I'm very happy to see this lawsuit. Anything we can do to bring rents down and rebalance the - there's never going to be a full balance between landlord and tenant, obviously, but there needs to be some sort of rebalancing that's going on to make it so people can actually afford to live in this city. [00:46:01] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We still have areas in the state where people's rent can double. We still have areas just - where we are displacing people in the name of profit. And this is an essential need. This is something that people need to survive. We are seeing an explosion in homelessness because people cannot afford a place to live. Fundamental causes of homelessness are the inability to afford rent. People try and blame - people dealing with substance use disorder or people with mental illnesses - and those are issues and often become worse issues after someone is out on the streets because that is such a rough environment. But the biggest contributor is the inability to pay rent. And that's why we see other areas that have higher instances of people dealing with substance abuse, higher instances of people dealing with those issues - that don't have the degree of homelessness that we do in areas like Seattle, where things are just simply so unaffordable for so many. So we absolutely need to do that. To your point, we need more supply and action - to get more supply is great, but we aren't going to fully address this issue until we bring this landlord and renter situation into greater balance, until there are more rent controls, renter protections in place. That is also a necessary piece of this scenario. And taking this action is necessary - what we've seen has been predatory and has contributed to homelessness. And if we don't get a handle on this, we're not going to get more people housed anywhere around here. So I think this is a justified action. I think that - no, we actually need to stand up and say, you are not entitled to ever-escalating and increasing profits on the backs of people who are providing valuable services and who are valuable people in our communities. We just can't allow that to happen. It's not that - no one can make a profit, right? It's not that we're outlawing being able to be a landlord. But there are responsibilities that should come with that. This is not just a great area for profit and speculation. You're dealing with people in their housing, you're dealing with families in their housing. And there should be a greater amount of care and responsibility that we demand from that. So I am also happy to see this happening. [00:48:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah. I also think it's important to realize that when there are so many housing - when there are so many landlords and companies raising these rents - like you said, they are also causing homelessness. These rising prices cause homelessness. So what is actually happening is they are externalizing the cost of homelessness to the community while they make ever greater profits. And as I really like to point out - that this is to the detriment of everyone. So it is the community that is paying for them to make ever greater profits. And that's what we're really talking about. It's not just, people should be able to make money - of course they should be able to make money - but this is something that you can't ignore. This is not like an expensive handbag. People need shelter. And so when we are talking about those things, there will be a community cost if those things aren't brought back in line. And it's important to recognize that the market can't fix all of this. There has to be something else when it comes to things that people - that are basic human needs. And I like the idea that housing is a human right. We need it. We can't live without it. And I think that more and more people are getting behind the idea of that - that housing is a human right, that we all deserve the dignity of living in a home. But I also hope people realize that it is these profiteering landlords that are externalizing the cost of their profits to the community. So yeah, I welcome this too. It's hopeful. [00:50:45] Crystal Fincher: It is. And the last thing we'll cover today - there was a story by Melissa Santos in Axios talking about the State Democratic Party Chair under fire for being a staunch defender of Democrats Steve Hobbs, and really discouraging and going after folks who endorsed non-partisan Julie Anderson and her race against Democrat Steve Hobbs for Secretary of State. You have Joe Fitzgibbon, who chairs the House Democrats Campaign Committee, saying that Tina made threats about withholding resources from Washington House candidates because Democratic House Speaker Laurie Jinkins supported the non-partisan candidate instead of the Democrat. And then you have folks - Tina Podlodowski, certainly, but also others saying that - hey, this is what happens in the Democratic Party. Either you back Democrats or you're not. You're free to support who you want, but not within the Democratic Party. How did you see this? [00:51:58] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I thought this was a kind of a nothing, really. She's the Chair of the Democratic Party. Think whatever you want about Democrats - the job of the chair of the Democratic Party - there's many things to it, but pushing forward Democrat candidates, Democratic candidates, and a Democratic agenda is what she does. And I was really surprised - the headline of the article, which I know is not written by the journalist, said something about "alleged threats," which makes it sound so much more intense than it was - I think that it's - we really need to get serious about politics and about what we're doing. Republicans are on board with just voting for whoever has an R by their name, and that's something that Democrats haven't necessarily been doing. They've been trying to do that, but they haven't necessarily done it. But to think that the Chair of the Democratic Party is not going to try to push hard for Democratic candidates - I just thought was ridiculous, really. It just seemed like an absurd story. I have a limited - I had a limited experience with politics, but from what I experienced - this was nothing. This was really not much compared to what actually goes on in politics. To me, this just seems like she's trying to get Democratic candidates in there, which is what she's doing, that's what she's supposed to be doing. So I thought it was a kind of a weird story - the way it was framed, the choice of using the word "threat" without really talking about, until much later in the story, about what those "threats" really were - which were not direct, and which were about using Democratic Party funds and resources. And those are things that she's responsible for. I just really thought it was a kind of a nothing of a story, really. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think what made it a story was that you had a House leader making these accusations directly, and that's something that we don't really see that often. And I think just the - I think it is largely to be expected that a Democratic Party Chair is not going to be happy with the endorsement of a Democrat. I think what caused more of the question is not just saying, hey, Joe Fitzgibbon or Laurie Jinkins, you took this action, and therefore I'm not happy with this - with you - and maybe not supporting you, but the extension to Democratic candidates overall across the state, potentially, because of that. Which Tina Podlodowski and her team said wasn't serious and was par for the course, after being confronted with the existence of them, after I think initially saying that nothing was said. But then, I think this is interesting - not necessarily for this instance - although I do think there's a healthy conversation to be had about is holding the support of unrelated candidates fair play or not. But also just because it does talk about - in this instance, we're talking about a nonpartisan - some of these issues become very simple if we're talking about Republicans. They become a little more complicated when we talk about nonpartisans, when we talk about - especially in the Seattle area - folks from the DSA or People's Party, who may not label themselves as Democrats, but may be aligned on values. And so, is the Democratic Party a party of a label where just the - vote blue, no matter who - if they have a D by their name, great. Or is it a party of principles underneath that label, and you're more searching for someone who adheres to those principles, which may be someone who doesn't necessarily identify as a Democrat. I think that this conversation has been happening within local party organizations for a while, and different LPOs [Local Party Organizations] have come up with different stances themselves. Some are fine with endorsing folks outside of the party if they align on values, and others are very not fine with that. I think we see where Tina Podlodowski and the State Party is on that. But it is, it's not a straightforward equation. Because you do have these resources for the - it is the Democratic Party - doesn't prevent anyone from aligning with another party in doing that. Although that's a flip remark - if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican, that alignment comes with significant resources that are available or not available with that. So I think, especially with those resources at stake, especially with candidates who may not be affiliated, I understand where people paused and said, wait, what is going on here? But I do think there's a bigger conversation to be had just within the party about - is it about a label? Is it not? Usually that's a much simpler equation when you get to a general election in a partisan race, but we had a situation with a nonpartisan running. And in Seattle - in city council races and other local races, we have situations where non-Democrats run, who are in the same place or further to the left of Democrats. So it just really depends here. But I think there is further exploration and conversation that needs to happen about this, even on the local level. [00:58:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I think that's - those are all really good points. And I guess, when I was running, I saw people in the LDs going hard for Nikkita Oliver, who didn't identify as a Democrat. And a lot of non-endorsements of Sara Nelson, for instance, who was a Democrat. And to me, it seemed like there was robust conversation in the LDs and they did not all agree. And they did not all do the same thing. And I - yeah, I think there is room for conversation about that. To me, it just - I get a little bit - it seems very - what am I trying to think of? What am I trying to think of when something's pot-kettle-type thing - like the right does this stuff constantly. And there's a total double standard when it comes to liberals, Democrats, progressives, the left. And I ran in a race where my opponent was not nonpartisan, but presented themselves that way. And it's hard to know, as a voter, what you're truly looking at. And so I wish - yeah, I think there - I definitely agree there needs to be a more robust conversation. At the same time, I think the Chair of the Democratic Party should probably be - whoever the Democratic Party has endorsed would be like someone that they would be pushing forward. But yeah, it does get really murky. And you're right, it comes with a lot of resources and access to voter databases and things like that - that has been shared with some groups and not others. There is - it isn't a straightforward situation, like it is with the right, where it's just - he's the nominee, so that's who we vote for - which is also breaking down on the right, it seems like, because they seem like they maybe took that too far. But there's a lot of nuanced conversation that needs to take place. [01:00:28] Crystal Fincher: And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 18, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co host today is defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. You can find Nicole on Twitter @NTKallday - that's NTK-A-L-L-D-A-Y. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. Please leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time. [01:01:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Thanks for having me - this was great.
Last time we spoke about the end of the infamous First Opium War of 1839-1842. The Qing tried to procrastinate as much as they could in the face of a goliath force wrecking havoc upon them. Their cannons were simply outmatched and as a result the British armada was easily brushing aside their war junks and fortifications. Many horrible battles were fought and countless Qing commanders took their own lives in shame after defeat. The closer the British forces got to Beijing the more desperate the Qing became and eventually Emperor Daoguang was forced to send diplomats to negotiate a peace. The result was the infamous treaty of Nanking a utter humiliation for the Qing dynasty, marking the beginning of the century of humiliation for China. Britain grabbed Hong Kong, the Qing would pay 6 million taels of silver in reparation. But the treaty made zero mention of why the war had occurred at all, Mr. Opium. Was Mr. Opium gone..no by no means was he. #18 This episode is The Trade of Poison and Pigs Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on the history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So the last time we left off, on October 12th of 1842, the last $6 million dollars of payment reached the British armada and they finally departed from Nanking. The tension between the Chinese and British was still raging however. In fact there would be another skirmish so to say. In november of 1842, opium merchants decided to bring their wives for a trip from Whampoa to Canton violated a Chinese taboo against mixing of sexes. The Chinese residents of Canton seized and burned the Union Jack flying over the British factory there. Defenders of the American factory shot 5 rioters before the Qing police managed to calm things down. Then the shipwrecked survivors of the Ann and Nerbuda were grabbed from jail and beheaded by angry Chinese. This pressed Pottinger to threaten retaliation and soon the viceroy of Canton, Yiliang rushed to the scene to arrest the ringleaders of the executions and sent them to Beijing to be punished. The British press, such as the Illustrated London News hailed the Treaty of Nanking as “It secures us a few round millions of dollars and no end of very refreshing tea. It gives an impetus to trade, cedes us one island in perpetuity, and in short puts that sort of climax to the war which satisfies our interests more than our vanity and rather gives over glory a preponderance to gain,”. Now just like the Treaty of Nanking itself, the press made zero mention of the reason for the war in the first place, Mr. Opium. Now with Hong Kong island in the hands of the British, it would be used as an offloading point for opium, go figure. Despite the horror of the war, the demand for the opium was still raging and thus the poisonous relationship between the two empires remained alive. Now not everyone in Britain was jubilant about the situation. The Times of London condemned the opium trade and criticized the treaty of Nanking quite a bit. They went a step further by calling the victors of the war “early victorian vikings” a nickname that would soon denote the raping and pillaging that would occur in the second opium war. Alongside this the Anglican Church members of the Tory party railed against opium. On January the 4th of 1843, Lord Aberdeen, the new boss of Pottingers foreign office told a British envoy to China “The British opium smugglers must receive no protection or support in the prosecution of this illegal speculation”. An order from the Council gave Pottinger the power to quote “forbid the opium traffic in Hong Kong”. For Pottinger's part, he paid lip service to this by issuing lukewarm threats on August 1st of 1843 ““Opium being an article the traffic in which is well known to be declared illegal and contraband by the laws and Imperial Edicts of China, any person who may take such a step will do so at his own risk, and will, if a British subject, meet with no support or protection from HM Consuls or other officers.”. Officially, at the least and to what degree it mattered, there would be no more gunboat diplomacy nor gunboat protection for opium smugglers. Now as you can imagine there were those who saw the dollar bill signs such as Jardine & Matheson who could not help themselves. They were not alone, the British Exchequer also wanted to see tax revenues from the opium trade to balance the budget. At the time of the first opium war, the opium trade accounted for 10% of the Exchequers budget. James Matheson sent a letter to a colleague indicating he was untroubled by the status of parliament and Pottingers tiny threats because he knew it would come to nothing, “The Plenipotentiary [Pottinger] had published a most fiery Edict against smuggling, but I believe it is like the Chinese Edicts, meaning nothing, and only intended for the Saints [High Church Anglicans] in England. Sir Henry never means to act upon it, and no doubt privately considers it a good joke. At any rate, he allows the drug to be landed and stored at Hong Kong.”. And so the opium smugglers simply ignored their homelands attempts to stop them. The opium trade did not just continue it would increase. The end of the first Opium War was not the end at all to the opium problem. In fact British parliament was coming to the conclusion the only resolution to the issue was the legalization of opium in China. As countless had done before, many in parliament were shifting culpability to the users and their leaders rather than the dealers. Many blamed Emperor Daoguang, stating he did nothing to halt the distribution and use, which is simply a lie and a dumb one. The Opium smugglers and English textile manufacturers were purchasing the mouths of members of parliament to promote their interests. Now back to the “early victorian vikings”, the heroes of the war such as Sir Henry Pottinger well he was rewarded the grant post of Governor of Madras, and an annual pension of 1500 pounds. Charles Elliot was sent to the backwaters of Bermuda, Trinidad and in a rather symbolic fashion ended up in Napoleon's place of exile, St. Helena. Jardine & Matheson both left China and entered parliament as Whig supporters. Jardine died in 1843 to an undiagnosed and painful illness leaving Matheson to represent the seat of Ross and Cromartry in parliament from 1847-1868. Jardines death produced a bit of a myth that he was cursed from the opium trade, but Matheson lived to the ripe age of 91 so take that with a grain of salt. Jardine & Mathesons Qing counter party, Houqua died from diarrhea, so I guess ⅔ could be said to have some sort of curse on them. As for the heroic figure of Lin Zexu, his effigy became a cynosure at a museum with a plaque under his statue stating he destroyed 2.5 million dollars worth of British property without mentioning that the property was opium. The Emperor forgave Lin Zexu in 1845 and allowed him to return to service, but as for Yilibu the Emperor shunned his ass into exile. The Treaty of Nanking can be better seen as a truce, or perhaps in the same regard as the treaty of versailles. The interval between the two opium wars was that of an armed truce rather than a peace. After the first opium war, Opium began to get into the port of Shanghai, then onto the Yangtze river which provided a highway for it to infiltrate the Chinese hinterlands. The Chinese population were becoming more and more addicted to the substance as the British traders became more addicted to the profits. The grand vision of the English textiles penetrating China's market turned out to be a complete waste. The Chinese preferred their own homespun cloth and failed to buy the British products while the British could not stop their increasing demand for Chinese silk and of course Tea. Now while the British addiction to Tea did not result in weeks of den dwelling and intoxication, they were still very much addicted and this contributed to another trade imbalance. Yes the silver was flowing again out of Britain and back to China, by 1857 the British would be paying China 15 million for silk and tea. Despite the enormous demand for Opium, the Chinese were spending 7 million on it, 1.5 million on cotton textiles from India and another 2 million from Britain still leaving Britain to owe back 4.5 million. And the Chinese policy of only accepting silver never changed. After the first Opium war, the illicit trade became known as the Poison trade. Around the same time another terrible commerce began nicknamed the Pig trade. The “pigs” in this case were referring to coolies who were either hired or literally kidnapped and forced into indentured servitude overseas. Britain had outlawed such practices back in 1807, but this did not stop the trade and it differed little from African slavery. Interesting thing to note here, the term “shanghaied” was born from this situation. When coolies were drugged up and thrown onto ships often from Shanghai, this is how that term was born. For the Chinese part, often the Qing officials would open up their jails and hand over prisoners. As indicated in a letter complaint to the foreign secretary, lord Malmesbury from a British official in Canton “iniquities scarcely exceeding those practiced on the African coast and on the African middle passage have not been wanting…the jails of China [have been] emptied to supply ‘labour' to British colonies…hundreds [of coolies] gathered together in barracoons, stripped naked and stamped or painted with the letter C (California), P (Peru) or S (Sandwich Islands) on their breasts, according to destination.” Now the British wanted to keep the poison trade rolling, but the pig trade was really infuriating the Chinese. This led many of the opium merchants to push for action to be made to stop the pig trade. Powerful lobbies pushed the British parliament to enact the Chinese passenger act of 1855. While this act did not outlaw the trade of coolies, what it did do was codify and improve the conditions in which coolies could be transported to their place of labor. In 1850 the Daoguang Emperor died and within his will he begged for forgiveness for agreeing to sign the shameful treaty of Nanking. His fourth son became his successor, Xianfeng who was 19 at the time he took the dragon throne. Unlike his more industrious father, Xianfeng did not care much for government. Xianfeng was married to a Manchu princess, but he chose to spend the majority of his time with his concubines, one named Cixi who will become one of the most important figures in modern Chinese history. Cixi participated in the selection for wives for Xianfeng alongside 60 other candidates. She was one of the few candidates chosen to stay and Xianfeng became obsessed with her to the point he spent most of his time in bed with her while taking puffs from his opium pipe, oh yes the emperor even took up the illicit drug. Cixi ended up bearing his only son and this earned her the rank of co-empress with the title of Empress of the Western Palace, Xianfengs actual wife held the title of Empress of the eastern palace. As the mother heir, Cixi held enormous influence at the imperial court. Now going way far into the future, Emperor Xianfeng would die in 1861 after a very short life of overindulgence and he would leave his 6 year old son, Zaichun as his successor. A day before his death on his death bed he made an imperial edict that 8 men would act as a regency council to aid his son, later to be enthroned as the Tongzhi emperor. He gave the 8 men power of regency, but indicated their edict must be endorsed by the Noble Consort Yi and the Empress Consort Zhen, these being Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress dowager Ci'an. However Cixi performed a palace coup against the regency council and installed herself and Xianfengs first wife as co-regents, who would rule China until her son came of age. After the death of the co-empress, Cixi ruled China alone until 1908, yeah 1908, this woman was a monolith of modern Chinese history and not looked upon too favorably mind you. Cixi's was an opium addict which is shocking given the incredible power grab moves she made and the amount of dominance she held over the Qing dynasty. Many historians believe she stuck to an opium maintenance dose that prevented both impairment and withdrawal. Anyways she will be a large part of the story in the future, but I just wanted to give you a taste of her now. Meanwhile in China countless disasters were occurring both man made and from mother nature. The high government office of the Qing dynasty which was filled by those who had to pass the rigorous imperial examinations, well that system had guaranteed the competence of the ruling class, but something had changed. Now anyone who had around 800 pounds could get around the examinations and this led a flood of mediocrities, albeit rich ones to come to power. These people proved to be unequal to the responsibilities they had simply purchased and the once industrious and highly educated Qing bureaucracy decayed rapidly. Adding to this was a horrible natural disaster. In 1856 the Huang He River overflowed and destroyed thousands of acres of rice paddies. The capital began to starve and with such a drastic problem came drastic solutions. As had happened to China countless times before, the decay of the Imperial court combined with famine amongst the people would lead to one if not the worst rebellion in human history. Now I would to stipulate this here, there is going to be two large events that will both require a number of episodes each, but both events overlap. The Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864 and the second opium war of 1856-1860. I will be covering both separately and in depth, beginning with the second opium war than the Taiping Rebellion afterwards. However it's impossible to talk about one without the other, so I will sprinkle information here and there and apologize for the tease. Now the Taiping Rebellion is a colossal event in modern Chinese history. It began in the southeastern province of Guangxi. At its zenith the Taiping rebels controlled 17 provinces in south and central China. It was the most destructive civil war in human history causing massive hardship via military action, religio-political repress and retaliations and wide scale famine as a result of mother nature. All told the estimations for deaths because of this civil war are unreal, somewhere between 20 to 30 million people. Now like I said I will have an entire mini series on the Taiping Rebellion, so I will not be going into any fine detail, but for now I want to at least explain a bit about why it is going on in the background. The leader of the movement was a man named Hong Xiuquan, the 4th son of a hard working rural family in Guangdong. His family was Hakka, they are a minority group in southern China with a unique culture that differed from Han Chinese. Hong's family did everything they could to get enough money so their son could get a good education and attempt to pass the first imperial examination in order to become part of the scholar-gentry class. Hong failed his first two attempts and was left humiliated so he left home and went to Canton where he hoped to continue his studies in order to pass a third time around. In Canton Hong came across Protestant missionaries and studied some of the bible under them. When Hong attempted the imperial exam for a third time he failed yet again and because of this he had a nervous breakdown. Hong began to suffer delirium and a series of dreams or what he called visions that would change his life and that of China. He found himself talking with an older bearded man with golden hair and a younger man whom he referred to as “elder brother”. The younger man gave him a magical sword and taught him how to slay demons. Now as I may have mentioned in a previous episode my first degree is in neurobehavioral sciences, but you don't need a degree in the field of psychology to know Hong probably was schizophrenic. At first he did not associate these weird visions with anything else nor act out, instead he worked for 6 years as a village schoolteacher, still studying to give the imperial examination a 4th go. In 1843 Hong failed the imperial examination a 4th time and it broke him. His ambition to become a member of the scholar Gentry class was shattered and he suffered a full nervous breakdown. He apparently was catatonic for a month and would come out of this stupor sporadically screaming things like “kill the demons”. These demons he spoke of he later identified as the traditional Chinese gods and the Emperor of the Qing dynasty. As he gradually recovered from his breakdown, Hong began to reread Christian texts until he came to the sudden realization that the men in his visions were God and Jesus. With some quasi logically thinking, he began to explain to himself that he failed the imperial examination because he had a greater purpose and because he referred to Jesus as Elder brother in his dreams, he must be the brother of Jesus. Yes folks, Hong Xiuquan the self proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ. Hong returned to Canton in 1847 to study the bible more thoroughly under an american southern baptist missionary named Isaacher Roberts. Shortly after he relocated to eastern Guangxi in a rugged area known as Thistle mountain where he began preaching and developing a new doctrine. Many converts flocked to Hong, notably many Hakka's and other minority groups, hell even triads joined in. The triads of course had inner motivations such as wanting to overthrow the Manchu and reclaim the ming dynasty. Hong afterall was saying they all had to destroy the demons and restore China on the path of righteousness. Now again I don't want to get into the finer details, but in 1851 Hong began a rebellion using thousands of his converts known as the God Worshippers. Hong's doctrine was that of opium abstinence and he attracted countless opium addicts to his flock and helped cure them of their addiction. In many ways the Taiping movement was something like a 12 step program for recovering addicts, but it also encompassed so much more. It including communalism, socialism, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor Robinhood mentality and it was quite Marxist. Hong had his forces take all the plunder and funds and pooled it in a common treasury shared equally by members of the collective. Hong advocated to abolish private ownership of land and impose the death penalty on those trying to hold onto their wealth. He also made a long list of taboos including alcohol, gambling, tobacco, prostitution, concubinage, the pig trade and other forms of slavery. And before any of you start screaming at your headphones, by far and large many including Hong did not follow these rules, like I said it was very Marxist, haha shots fired. Hong called his movement the Taiping Tianguo “heavenly kingdom of the great peace” and named himself the heavenly king. The Taiping talk of expropriating land scared the hell out of Beijing and even Queen Victoria who received news of the rebellion. The obvious actions took place, the emperor sent forces to quell the insurrection in guangxi province. The emperor sent Zhen Zuchen at the ripe age of 67 to exterminate the rebels. Zhen was a devout Buddhist, but he respected the god worshippers and targeted the Triads. By 1850 China had suffered 4 years of famine, right at the time the emperor began to escalate his attacks on the Taiping. Because of Zhen's choice of only targeting triads, the emperor choose to bring out of retirement and disgrace none other than Lin Zexu. Lin Zexu was given the task of eliminated the Taiping, but at the ripe age of also 67 he died while en route to Guangxi. Lin Zexu never got his last hurrah chance to redeem himself. So by 1851 the Qing forces performed horribly and were repulsed from Thistle Mountain by the Taiping rebels who were armed with pikes and halberds for the most part. Cool side note, women fought alongside men for the Taiping and there was a real attempt at equality amongst the sexes, keyword attempt. Hong eventually adapted the ten commandments for Chinese sensibilities. He named the emperor a false god in his first commandment and added complete obedience to himself and his officers as the 4th. The commandments led Hongs rebel group to become a bonafide theocracy. By the fall of 1851 the Taiping ranks had grown to a whopping million, mostly built up from starving peasants fleeing famine torn areas of Guangxi. The Qing sent forces against them in Thistle mountain only to lose each time. Ironically a major reason the Taiping kept winning battles may have been because of their opium ban. Some sources estimate the Qing military engaging the rebels in this region may have been suffering 90% opium addiction rates, which is insane if thats true. Regardless by september 25th of 1851, Hong felt confident enough to move out and this led his army to conquer vast amounts of territory. By January 12th of 1853 Hong's forces took the city of Wuchang after blowing up its gates and massacring all the Manchu people they could find deeming them demons. At this point Hong set his eyes on a very grand prize, the old capital of China, Nanjing. Nanjing was being defended by only 7000 Machus alongside 6000 Qing regulars. Hong tossed 80,000 men and women soldiers into a siege of Nanjing on february 28th and after two weeks they blew a hole it Nanjings walls. Now I don't want to spoil anymore and honestly everything I brutally summarized will be covered much much more indepth, but what you need to know is Hong established his own capital, the heavenly kingdom in Nanjing. He builds up his forces even more, performs wide scale reforms and creates a very large administration. The Taiping become a very real threat to Beijing and honestly could have overthrown the Qing dynasty at multiple points. The Qing for their part in the later 1850's were not only dealing with the bloodiest civil war the world had ever seen, but we're fighting western forces cause the second opium war was raging. And that is what I am building towards folks, trying to lay this rather insane 3d chess table of stuff going on simultaneously. Now I said it before, but much like the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Nanjing caused more problems than it solved and simply led to another war. China was humiliated by the conditions of the treaty, it surrendered her symbolic and practical forms of sovereignty to Britain. That bitterness was simmering since 1842 and like a powder keg would eventually explode in 1856. In february of 1856, a french priest named Abbe Auguste Chapdelaine, god the old french names are dreadful haha, well Abbe was converting a village called Xilin in the province of Guangxi, ironically in the center of the Taiping rebel control. So Mr Abbe was arrested and imprisoned, they tossed him in a cage and set it up in the village square. Chapdelaine was in violation of Chinese law because he was performing missionary work in China's interior. Another thing that did not help his cause was the fact he shared the same beliefs as the Taiping…well I mean not exactly mind you he was a catholic and the Taiping were on a more protestant footing, but tomato tomato. In fact Mr Abbe and the other Catholic missionaries were appalled by the bastardized proto protestant movement of the Taiping and they actually supported the Qing rule. Abbe was at the wrong place and wrong time so to say. On February 29th of 1856, Abbe was beheaded, dismembered and eviscerated by his executioners whom the rather hysterical French press claimed later took pieces of Abbe and cooked it and ate it, specifically his heart. Historians agree that the cannibalism story here was most likely urban legend. The French representative at Canton, Comte de Courcy was powerless and furious. He began sending letters to Cantons viceroy, Ye Mingchen, but took no military action to avenge the death of the priest. It seems Ye Mingchen believed the French had no stomach for a fight, so he sent Comte an insulting reply to his letters explaining that that atrocity was a simple case of mistaken identity “Chapdelaine dressed and spoke like a Chinese, nobody thought him to be french”. Well the French would not be alone in their grievances with the Qing. On October 8th, the 127 ton lorcha, the Arrow, a hybrid ship, it had a British hull but Chinese junk sails, was registered in Hong Kong as a British vessel. But in reality it was owned by a Chinese merchant and manned by a crew of 14 Chinese. Well the Arrow docked in Canton with a cargo of rice from Macao en route for Hong Kong. The Arrow's figurehead captain was a 21 year old Belfast native named Thomas Kennedy. His role on board was literally just to make the ship seem British owned and operated as British vessels held privileges because of the Treaty of Nanjing. Well on that day, Kennedy was not aboard the arrow, he had gone over to another lorcha captained by another figurehead captain named John Leach. Also aboard was Charles Earl, the captain of the Chusan. At 8am the friends were having breakfast when they noticed 2 large Qing warships flying the emperors flag, carrying 60 Qing marines, the ship was heading towards the Arrow. Qing officials boarded the Arrow and arrested her Chinese crew, bound them all and tossed them onto a Qing warship. Leach, Earl and Kennedy jumped into a sampan and rowed towards the warship. To make the situation a bit more fun, a Portuguese lorcha nearby stated later in testimony the Arrow had not had its Union Jack flying. Kennedy would claim the Qing marines pulled down the Union Jack. Regardless when Kennedy got to the warship he began protesting their seizure, but the Qing forces simply sent curses his way. Kennedy tried to smooth things over asking if just 2 of his crew could be allowed to stay on the Arrow as caretakers and the Qing officials agreed and handed 2 men over, but took the other 12 away. Now the Arrow might seem an unlikely prize for the Qing to seize since it was just carrying rice, but the Arrow had a dark past so to say. The Arrow had been built by the Chinese as a cargo ship, but it had been captured by pirates then recaptured by Cantons viceroy, Ye Mingchen who sold it at an auction to a comprador employed by a British firm. The comprador registered the Arrow as a British ship, but something the new owner did not look into was changing the existing crew of the ship which included 3 pirates. The Qing would use the presence of these pirates as a justification for seizing 12 of the crew. Later it would turn out the registration had also expired, so by that technicality it was not a British ship at the time also, don't you hate getting pulled over? Kennedy went crying about the seizure to the acting British consul, Harry Parkes who was the consular official of 4 out of the 5 ports opened by the treaty of Nanjing. The problem of Arrow's status did not deter Parkes who immediately went on the offensive. Parkes ranted about “the gross insult and violation of national rights the Chinese had committed”. Parkes began arguing about the treaty requiring the Chinese to first ask permission before arresting a Chinese citizen serving on a British registered ship. Parkes demanded that all 12 of the crew be handed over immediately. The Qing commander explained that one of the sailors was the father of a notorious pirate and suspected other of the crew to be pirates, hence he would hold them. When Parkes persisted in his demands, one of the Qing officials slapped him, uh oh. The humiliated Parkes, returned to the British consulate and wrote a letter to Ye Mingchen who ontop of being the viceroy of Canton was the viceroy of Guangxi, Guangdong and Imperial commissioner in charge of foreign affairs. “I hasten therefore to lay the case before your excellency Ye, confident that your superior judgment will lead you at once to admit that an insult so publicly committed must be equally publicly atoned. I therefore request your excellency that the men who have been carried away from the Arrow be returned by the captain to that vessel in my presence and if accused of any crime they may then be conveyed to the British consulate, were in conjunction with proper officers deputed by your excellency for the purpose, I shall be prepared to investigate the case”. Now Ye Mingchen was not the kind of Qing bureaucrat to whom adhered to lets say, the fine points of international law. Ye Mingchen had crushed the Taiping rebels within his two provinces of control with great brutality. He had executed every captured Taiping rebel along with their wives and children, sheesh. It is said in Canton alone the butchery was around 200 Taiping per day. Parkes also sent word to his superior, Sir John Bowring, the governor of Hong Kong. Parkes told him the crewmen were flying the Union Jack and deserved the same rights and protections as British subjects. Well Mr. Bowring was super excited at the opportunity that the Arrow's seizure had provided, he sent word back to Parks “cannot we use the opportunity and carry the city question? If so, I will come up with the whole fleet”. That fleet would consist of 16 men of war and 3 steamships all docked at Hong Kong harbor. Bowring wanted to at least be given permission to move out of the factories and set up shop within Canton proper as pertaining to the treaty of Nanjing. However that part of the treaty was written out properly in English while the Chinese translation literally stated instead that the foreigners and Chinese should remain segregated. The justification for this, we shall call it translation error, was the fact the Qing officials argued there was a ton of xenophobia in Canton. If the British came to live amongst the Cantonese, some might attack or even kill the British, thus segregation was for their protection. Lord Palmerston had given orders not to push the issue of British housing in Canton because he did not think the risks were even worth the reward, but his representatives it seems ignored these orders. After two days, Ye Mingchen responded to Parkes letter stating he could free 9 out of the 12 crew, but insisted on keeping the remaining three because they were former pirates. As for the Arrow, Ye claimed the captured crew swore an oath that the ship was Chinese made and owned. Ye sent the 9 crew with the letter as a show of good faith. Now at this point it seems obvious Parkes was looking to make a diplomatic point more so than get back the crew cause he refused to accept custody of them. Instead Parkes sent another letter to Bowring in Hong Kong suggesting the British should retaliate by seizing a Chinese junk, particularly one that was involved in grabbing the arrow. On october 14th, the British gunboat Coramandel boarded a Chinese junk without a fight and towed it to Whampoa. Turns out the British did not really think things through, as the ship ended up being a private craft, not owned by the Qing government. Ye Mingchen simply ignored the matter. Bowring then took the chance to inspect the registration of the Arrow, something Parkes had failed to do. Bowring soon discovered Arrows registry as a British ship had expired on september 27th, so by that technicality, the Qing had not violated British territoriality by seizing her. Despite Bowring learning the truth of the matter, this did not change his determination to goad Ye Mingchen into action. Bowring told Parkes to write a letter to the viceroy again on october 21st. This time the letter was an ultimatum. Ye Mingchen was given 24 hours to free all 12 crewmen and to provide an official apology and promise to respect all British shipping in China. If Ye did not comply “her majesty's naval officers will have recourse to force you to compel complete satisfaction”. Ye Mingchen was in a pickle, while he knew full well the British backed up their threats he also needed to save face. So Ye returned all of the crew, but refused to apologize and offered that in the future he would only consult with foreign interlopers over criminals like the Arrow's pirates. Ye wrote to Parkes “Hereafter if any lawless characters conceal themselves on board foreign lorchas, you, the said Consul, shall of course be informed of the same by declaration in order that you may act with the Chinese authorities in the management of such affairs,”. Ye also however offered a compromise to avoid similar incidents in the future by adding “Hereafter, Chinese officers will on no account without reason seize and take into custody the people belonging to foreign lorchas, but when Chinese subjects build for themselves vessels, foreigners should not sell registers to them… for it will occasion confusion between native and foreign ships, and render it difficult to distinguish between them.”. Well Ye's response was just what Parkes and Bowring needed to commence hostilities and that is just what they did. On october 23rd, Parkes ordered Rear Admiral Michael Seymour to seize and destroy the 4 barrier forts 5 miles south of Canton on the pearl river. The Coromandal was the first to fire upon one of the forts, the first shot of the second opium war. Two of the forts fired back on the British fleet before ultimately surrendering. 5 Chinese defenders died and they would be the first casualties of the war. Rear Admiral Seymour placed blame on the Chinese for the casualties reporting to Parkes “loss of four or five killed on the part of the Chinese [was] solely arising from their ill-judged resistance to our force.”. Seymours easy victory bolstered Parkes war mongering and drove him to bring the war straight to Ye Mingchen. Parkes wrote to Seymour “should Ye still be contumacious, I think that the residence of his excellency, which is not far from the waterside, should also in that case feel the effects of bombardment”. Yes this guy was pretty much an asshole. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Well things got out of hand pretty quickly. The arrow incident while small in scale was just a match to ignite a growing powder keg. As Gandalf said “the board is set, the pieces are moving”. The second opium war had begun.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
